Crock pot bread pudding

 

Ingredients

For the bread pudding:

• 8 cups day-old French bread, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
• ¾ cup raisins (optional)
• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 4 large eggs, well beaten
• ½ cup granulated sugar
• ¼ cup light brown sugar, packed
• ¼ cup (1/2 stick) salted butter, melted
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg

For the vanilla sauce:

• 1 cup granulated sugar
• ½ cup salted butter
• ⅓ cup heavy cream
• ¼ cup milk
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Instructions

• Spray an oval 6-quart slow cooker with cooking spray.
• Add the bread cubes and raisins to the crock pot.
• In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together the milk, heavy cream, eggs, granulated sugar, brown sugar, butter, vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg until well combined.
• Pour the liquid mixture into the crock pot. Stir until the bread is coated. Let sit for 20 minutes.
• Stir the mixture again. Cover then put the slow cooker on low and cook for 2 ½ - 3 hours, until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean.
• When the bread pudding is almost ready, make the sauce. Place the sugar, butter, heavy cream, and milk into a small saucepan, and whisk together until combined.
• Place the pot over medium-low heat, constantly whisking until the sugar is dissolved, about 5 minutes. Take off the heat and stir in the vanilla extract.
• Slice the bread pudding and serve with the warm vanilla sauce on top.

Artisan bread (no knead)

 

Ingredients

• 4 cups all-purpose or bread flour, plus more as needed
• Scant 1/2 teaspoon instant yeast
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 2 tablespoons olive oil (optional)
• Cornmeal, semolina, or wheat bran for dusting

Instructions

1. Combine the flour, yeast, and salt in a large bowl. Add 2 cups water (it should be about 70°F) and stir until blended. You’ll have a shaggy, sticky dough; add a little more water if it seems dry. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rest for about 18 hours at room temperature (a couple of hours less if your kitchen is warmer; a couple more if it’s cool). The dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles.
2. Lightly flour a work surface, transfer the dough to it, and fold it once or twice; it will be soft but not terribly sticky once dusted with flour. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest for about 15 minutes.
3. Using just enough additional flour to keep the dough from sticking, gently and quickly shape the dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton (not terry cloth) kitchen towel with cornmeal, semolina, or wheat bran (or use a silicone baking mat); put the dough seam side down on the towel and dust with more flour or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel (or plastic wrap) and let rise for about 2 hours. When it’s ready, the dough will be more than doubled in size and won’t spring back readily when poked with your finger.
4. At least a half hour before the dough is ready, heat the oven to 450°F. Put a 3- to 4-quart covered pot (with the cover)— it may be cast iron, enamel, Pyrex, or ceramic — in the oven as it heats. When the dough is ready, carefully remove the pot from the oven and turn the dough over into the pot, seam side up. (Slide your hand under the towel and just turn the dough over into the pot; it’s messy, and it probably won’t fall in artfully, but it will straighten out as it bakes.) Cover with the lid and bake for 30 minutes, then remove the lid and bake for another 20 to 30 minutes, until the loaf is beautifully browned; the bread’s internal temperature should be 200°F or more. (If at any point the dough starts to smell scorched, lower the heat a bit.) Remove the bread with a spatula or tongs and cool on a rack for at least 30 minutes before slicing.

Dutch baby

 

• For 10 inch cast iron skillet:
• 3large eggs, at room temperature
• ½ cup bread flour
• ½cup whole milk, at room temperature
• 1tablespoon sugar
• 4tablespoons butter
• 
  
• batter for 12 inch cast iron skillet:
  4 eggs
  3/4 cup bread flour
  3/4 cup milk
  1 1/2 tbsp sugar
• 
  
• Heat oven to 425 degrees.

1. 
   

   Combine eggs, flour, milk, and sugar in a blender jar and blend until very smooth. Batter may also be mixed by hand.

2. 
   

   Place butter in skillet and place in the oven. As soon as the butter has melted (watch it so it does not burn) add the batter to the pan, return pan to the oven and bake for 20 minutes, until the pancake is puffed and golden. Lower oven temperature to 300 degrees and bake 5 minutes longer.

3. 
   

   Remove pancake from oven, cut into wedges and serve at once topped with syrup, preserves, confectioners' sugar or cinnamon sugar.

Popovers with Strawberry Butter

 

Makes 6 standard popovers 

1 cup all purpose flour, spooned and leveled
1/2 tsp kosher salt
2 eggs, room temp
1 cup whole milk, room temp
1 tbsp melted butter (cooled)

Preheat oven to 400˚F and place the popover pan in the oven while it preheats. Add all ingredients to a blender and blend until completely smooth.

Grease the popover pan if it’s not nonstick. Fill each tin halfway with batter and immediately place in the oven. Bake for 35-38 minutes, until tall, set and golden brown. Do NOT open the oven door while they are baking!

Strawberry Butter:

1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, softened to room temp
3 tbsp strawberry jam

Beat the softened butter until creamy, then mix in the jam until well incorporated. Serve with warm popovers.

NOTE: If you don’t have a popover pan, you can use a muffin tin, but they won’t be as tall and puffy. Make sure not to overfill the tins.

Neiman Marcus cake

 1 (15.25 ounce) package yellow cake mix

4 eggs, divided

1/2 cup butter, melted

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar

8 ounces cream cheese, softened

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 13x9 inch baking pan. (You can put a layer of parchment on the bottom of the pan to make it easier to remove the final product.)

Combine yellow cake mix, 2 eggs, butter, and vanilla in a large bowl; mix well. The batter should be stiff. Spread batter into the prepared pan. (Grease the spreading tool to make it easier to spread, batter is very thick.)

Combine confectioners' sugar, cream cheese, and the remaining 2 eggs in a separate bowl; mix well and pour over the top of the cake batter. Do not mix in, this is a separate layer. 

Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 35 minutes. Cool completely before cutting. 

Grandma’s gravy recipe

 First of all, fry your meat. For the sausage gravy, I usually use a pound of sausage, but when I was making it for everyone while I was there, I used 2 pounds.  

Make sure that you give the meat enough time to brown fairly nicely, it will improve the flavor of the gravy. If you’re making sausage gravy, you don’t remove the meat while you make the gravy. Go ahead and get about a fourth of a cup of flour for each pound of sausage that you use and sprinkle it over the cooked meat that is still in the frying pan. 

Stirring well, make sure you incorporate everything from the bottom of the pan. The heat should still be on at this point, you are going to cook it long enough that you lose that flour taste from the uncooked flour. (3 to five minutes or so.) So stir well, scraping the bottom of the pan almost constantly. Once the flour/meat mixture is decently brown, put in about a half a cup of water. Although you can skip this step, I like to use a half a cup of water at the very beginning so that I don’t scorch whatever dairy product I’m using.  

You will notice that the water will be absorbed by the meat mixture very quickly and the whole thing will get a little bit pasty. That’s what you’re looking for. At this point, go ahead and add whatever dairy product you intend to use. When I’m making sausage gravy to use on biscuits, I normally use half-and-half. If you don’t have any half-and-half, you can also use milk. It won’t be as rich, but it will still be delicious.  You can also use cream plus milk (which is exactly what half and half is.)

For 1 pound of sausage, you will use anywhere between 2 cups and 3 cups of dairy. Keep cooking this mixture until it thickens up, depending on how cold the milk is it could take up to five minutes, but probably not that long. 

Make sure you stir it the whole time and continue to scrape up anything from the bottom and sides of the pan so it doesn’t get scorched. Once it’s the thickness you want, turn off the stove and keep stirring it for a few moments.  Get a spoon to taste. This mixture will absolutely need seasoning. I use salt, pepper, onion powder, and garlic powder. Don’t go too crazy with the garlic because it will take over the whole dish and it won’t be what you’re looking for.

I use the same technique when I’m making pork chop gravy. I dredge the pork chops and flour and set them in a pan that already has hot oil in it. I season each side of the pork chop as it’s cooking, and when it’s brown on both sides, I will set the pork chops in a separate baking dish. Once all the pork chops are brown, add about half to 3/4 cup water (to prevent the pork chops from drying out), cover the baking dish with a lid or foil and put it in the oven.  Bake the meat until it finishes cooking, somewhere between a half hour and an hour, depending on how many pork chops you’ve cooked. 

Once the pork chops are done, remove the baking dish from the oven and peel the foil back. Any juices that were released from the pork chops while they were in the oven should be added to the pan that you used to brown the pork chops. Once the oven is off and you’ve added the cooking juices to your frying oan, you can put the pork chops back in the oven to stay warm. 

Turn on the stove under the frying pan and heat up the drippings. Once they’re sizzling, add flour and make the gravy the same way you do for sausage gravy. 

By the way, when I was a kid, sometimes we would make hamburger gravy instead of sausage gravy. I don’t think it’s as good, but it’s easy, it’s a cheap meal, and it’s nice to serve over rice, noodles, or mashed potatoes. Just an FYI.