Amish Friendship Bread

Believe it or not, you can make your own starter for Amish Friendship Bread. You don't need to wait until a baking chain comes through your friends or family to get a cup of starter.

This is the Amish Friendship Bread that gets passed around from friend to friend. It
includes the recipe for the Amish Friendship Bread starter, and gives complete directions for how to make it once your starter is ready. When you pass the starter on to a friend, make sure they understand that they will need to follow the instructions beginning at day one then will use the Amish Friendship Bread Recipe (with the oil, eggs, vanilla, etc.) on Day 10.

Amish Friendship Bread Recipe

Day 1 - receive the starter (the recipe for the starter is below)

Day 2 - stir

Day 3 - stir

Day 4 - stir

Day 5 - Add 1 cup each flour, sugar and milk.

Day 6 - stir

Day 7 - stir

Day 8 - stir

Day 9 - stir

Day 10 - Add 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar and 1 cup milk. Divide into 4 containers, with 1 cup each for three of your friends and 1 cup for your own loaves. Give friends the instructions for Day 1 through Day 10 and the following recipe for baking the bread.

After removing the 3 cups of batter, combine the remaining cup of Amish Friendship Bread starter with the following ingredients in a large bowl:

2/3 cup oil
3 eggs
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla
1 to 1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 cup sugar
2 cups flour
1 1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda

Using a fork beat by hand until well blended. You can add 1 cup raisins and 1 cup nuts (optional).

Grease two loaf pans with butter, sprinkle with sugar instead of flour.

Bake at 325 degrees F for 45 minutes to 1 hour (individual oven temperatures vary). Cool 10 minutes, remove from pans. Makes two loaves of Amish Friendship Bread.
Amish Friendship Bread Starter

This is the Amish Friendship Bread Starter Recipe that you’ll need to make the Amish Friendship Bread (above). It is very important to use plastic or wooden utensils and plastic or glass containers when making this. Do not use metal at all!

Ingredients:

1 pkg. active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water (110°F)
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup white sugar
1 cup warm milk (110°F)

Directions:

1. In a small bowl, dissolve the yeast in warm water for about 10 minutes. Stir well.

2. In a 2 quart glass or plastic container, combine 1 cup sifted flour and 1 cup sugar. Mix thoroughly or the flour will get lumpy when you add the milk.

3. Slowly stir in warm milk and dissolved yeast mixture. Loosely cover the mixture with a lid or plastic wrap. The mixture will get bubbly. Consider this Day 1 of the cycle, or the day you receive the starter.

For the next 10 days handle starter according to the instructions above for Amish Friendship Bread.

From: http://www.momswhothink.com/bread-recipes/amish-friendship-bread.html

Special Mint Brownies...

I made mint brownies --

- made up a box of brownie mix plus a teaspoon of peppermint extract
- baked it per normal
- while it was baking, I destroyed two York Peppermint Patties in my mini food processor
- when the brownies came out, I sprinkled the patty crumbles over the brownies
- then I dusted powdered sugar over the top

Dinner: Glazed Carrots, Braised Lentils & Olive Oil Dumplings

For tonight's dinner I selected:

Balsamic-Garlic Glazed Carrots
Braised Lentils with Parsnips
Griddled Olive Oil Salt Rolls (which I turned into dumplings)

Ingredients

Balsamic-Garlic Carrots - balsamic vinegar, carrots, minced garlic

Braised Lentils - my dish included red lentils, olive oil, chopped sweet onion, chopped fresh mushrooms, diced celery, diced parsnips, sherry, water, bay leaf, salt & pepper

Griddled Olive Oil Salt Rolls - flour, olive oil, baking powder, salt + water


Good stuff. I didn't see the "cup of water" in the olive oil rolls recipe and I thought it was dry so I added more olive oil. Turns out I was missing the water part of the recipe, which was not in the ingredient list but instead in the instructions. I totally missed it. I shaped the dough as best I could into patties and put them to grill in a pan of hot olive oil, but I could quickly see that wasn't ever going to happen. So, I gingerly picked them up and put them into the lentil mixture as dumplings. Quite good - the olive oil flavor. Love it.

Beginning Bittman

Decided that 2010 is the Year o' Bittman. I am going to cook as many recipes as I can in Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. Yes, I just saw the movie Julie/Julia for the first time.

Why vegetarian? Well, it's cheaper. And generally, healthier. And I need both...

Angelhair...and breadcrumbs!

Once I saw Giada de Laurentiis made a dish with spaghetti, roasted peppers and breadcrumbs. I had made it myself with penne and really liked it.

I was starving tonight, so I decided to make a variation. I put some angelhair pasta on to boil and then took out a frying pan. I chopped a sweet onion and set that to sauté in some olive oil. Then I opened up an 8oz can of Hunts tomato sauce (a backup!) and poured that in. I then covered the lot with what was probably a 1/2 cup of seasoned bread crumbs and two handfuls of grated parmagiano reggiano.

When the angelhair was finished, I scooped that into the frying pan mixture and gently stirred it all together.

At some point, I will take this same recipe, mix it together with my homemade sauce, put it into a pie dish, top it with mozzarella and bake it in the oven. This is fantastic...