If life gives you lemons? Bake delicious lemon bread… Yes, life can be a bit chaotic sometimes, and right now I’m a bit overwhelmed with all the moving across the country thing. Tuesday I’m going to L.A to look for apartments and I’m very anxious to see what I can find. One thing I know…the kitchen have to be decent, and I need a lot of closet space for all my gazillion pair of shoes and bags. Well… I’m a lady…we all need our options right?…… Right? Anyway, looking for apartments can be a pain in the neck, but I learned few things already, when you read an add were it says, “Character” it actually means falling apart. “Cozy” means you can extend your arms and touch both sides of a room.  “Mid Century” is plain old with mold, who are you kidding? It’s not like we are in Europe?  And if an add say, “Name your price” OMG… run as fast as you can. So that’s what I’ll be up to next week. Wish me luck.

Lemon Bread

• 1¼ cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• ½ tsp. salt
• 8 Tbs. (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1-cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• ½ cup milk
• 1 Tbs. finely grated lemon zest

For the lemon syrup:

• ¼ cup sugar
• 3 Tbs. fresh lemon juice

Preheat an oven to 350°F. Grease and flour a 1-lb. loaf pan. In a bowl, stir and toss together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the flat beater, beat the butter and sugar on medium speed until blended, 2 to 3 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Reduce the speed to low and add the flour mixture along with the milk and lemon zest. Beat until blended and smooth, stopping the mixer occasionally to scrape down the sides of the bowl. Spoon the batter into the prepared pan and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean, 50 to 60 minutes.

Meanwhile, make the lemon syrup: In a small bowl, combine the sugar and lemon juice. Set aside, stirring occasionally; don’t worry if the sugar does not dissolve completely.

Remove the bread from the oven and transfer the pan to a wire rack. Using a fork, gently poke the top in several places. Stir the syrup, and then slowly drizzle it over the hot bread. Let the bread cool in the pan for 15 minutes, and then turn the loaf out onto the rack, topside up, and let cool completely.

Life is a bit hectic lately around here and the reason for that is we decided to move to the West Coast. I’m extremely exited with this, but man…. it’s a mess. I started to organize my stuff and realized I have way too much stuff. Half of my boxes will be with recipe books.  I consider myself an organized person (with a touch of OCD) so I don’t have a lot of ‘nonsense’ floating around. But because of my blog, I have loads of “props”; cute plates, bowls, glasses… It will be a bit daunting to see it click clacking inside boxes. But when I start to worry about all that I immediately think about my new environment to be…the beach, the beautiful weather, and the way-more spacious kitchen. Then all the worries seem to disappear. So right now I’m not cooking a lot since there’s a lot of traveling going on. But today I found some time to try this vegetable cake and it turned out very yummy. Loaded with veggies.

Roasted Vegetables Cake

• 1 yellow zucchini
• 1 green zucchini
• 1 red bell pepper
• Handful of fresh thyme
• 3 eggs
• 6 tbsp (100 ml) milk
• 6 tbsp (100 ml) olive oil, plus extra for roasting the vegetables
• 1-½ cups of flour
• 1¼ cups grated mild cheddar cheese
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• Salt and pepper

Pre-heat the oven to 350F. Butter and flour the cake pan. Slice all the vegetables into thin sticks. Strip the thyme leaves from the stalks. Put the vegetables in a baking dish lined with baking paper to prevent them from sticking. Drizzle with olive oil and the thyme, season with salt and pepper. Use your hands to mix well then, roast for 20- 30 minutes. Let it cool down. Combine the eggs, milk, and olive oil in a large bowl and beat together. Add the roasted vegetables reserving a few for garnish. Add the flour and grated cheese. Season with salt and pepper stir to combine. Gently fold the baking powder. Transfer to the prepared pan, arrange the reserved vegetables on top and bake for 50 minutes (350F) let cool before removing from backing tray.

We both love movies, my husband grew up in front of a TV, that’s how he learned English. For years he was imitating Clint Eastwood, because that’s how he thought a man should be. He studied Law in London (England) but soon realized that it wasn’t his passion. Than he went to Australia to study Film, and thank God for that, because if he was happy being a lawyer I would never have met him. We loved the Oscar’s ceremony yesterday; it was a bit different than usual. And Hugh Jackman was awesome! what a talent he is! I baked this cheese bread with bacon bits, and since I was doing the bacon I decided to put some in our popcorn. It was delicious. Lots of calories, but this week we will be partying with carrots and lettuce. 

Cheese Bread

• 1cup water
• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter, cut into pieces 

• 1/4-teaspoon salt 
1 cup all-purpose flour 

• 4 large eggs 

• 1/2 pound slab bacon, rind removed, and finely diced 

• 1 cup shredded Gruyere cheese

 Procedure

• In a heavy saucepan, combine the water, butter, and salt and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low, add the flour, and beat with a wooden spoon till a ball of dough forms. Transfer the dough to a mixing bowl and add the eggs one at a time, beating with an electric mixer on high speed till the batter is just thick enough to hold soft peaks. Transfer the batter to a bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and chill briefly. 
• In a large skillet, fry the bacon dice over moderate heat till crisp and drain on paper towels.
• Preheat the oven to 375°F. Butter a large baking sheet.
•  Fold the cheese and bacon into the prepared batter till well blended, then drop by tablespoons onto the prepared baking sheet. Bake the puffs 30 minutes, turn off the heat, and let stand till they are golden and crisp, about 10 minutes. Serve the puffs warm.  

Kazakh Family Loaf 

 That’s the second time I make this loaf, this time I let the stand mixer bit the hell out of the dough and the results was yuruuuulll.. I was so excited I called my husband and sent him a picture. He laughed at me and said he wished I was that excited every time I see him…. 

My hubby and me are trying to find the best, easy, and yummy of course, recipe for bread.  Last week he bought a book “ Artisan bread in five minutes a day” That you didn’t have to do all the steps from traditional Artisan baking. You don’t need to mix a new batch every time you want to make a bread, no “proof” needed, knead the dough, rest and rise, punch down and re-rise, it was actually very easy. You mix everything and store it in the fridge for a week or two, and with that you can make Pizza, focaccia, bread, grissini (bread sticks), I thought it was too good to be true, but we tried anyway. Mixing the dough is a breeze; the not so easy part is the actually baking. First you have to use a Baking stone, broiler tray to hold boiling water for steam and a pizza peel. You must dust the baking stone with corn flour (so the dough doesn’t stick to the stone). I didn’t like that at all because the whole time the bread is baking the only smell in the house is of burned corn flour. 

That’s not nice… without saying it was a bit of a mess. But the bread was good, not amazing but good, with that batch we had 2 breads, 1 pizza, and some bread sticks. The good thing is you have this container in the fridge and if you feel like baking something it’s there ready for you. But yesterday I was armchair traveling, reading this beautiful book about China, “In Beyond The Grate Wall” by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid, who met and fell in love as young travelers in Tibet. The book is really beautiful with amazing pictures. So I found this bread that is baked in a Dutch oven pan (‘Le Creuset’ or ‘Mario Batali’ pan will do). The name of the loaf was “Kazakh Family Loaf”. It was a bit more work than the five minutes baking, but I loved the fact that it was baked in the pan (40 minutes with the lid and 20 without), and when I tried the bread it was so good that I heard kind of celestial music like OHHHHHH!!! This recipe is definetly a keeper. Next I’m going to try a recipe from  “La Brea Bakery” (Nancy Silverston). She owned possibly the best bakery on the west cost (L.A, California). She recently sold her bakery for a rumored 80 million dollars. For my hubby she is God. She moved on to open the incredibly successful ‘pizzeria Mozza’ in L.A (together with Mario Batali), revolutionizing the gourmet pizza industry. So with her book in hand, I’ll cross my fingers to not disappoint my tough costumer (hubby). I’ll let you know.

Kazakh Family Loaf

• 1 ½ cups lukewarm water
• 1teaspoon active dry yeast
• 4 to 5 cups of all-purpose flour (plus extra for surface)
• ½ cup plain full fat yogurt
• 2 teaspoon salt 
• Oil or butter for greasing the pan.

Place the water in a medium bowl and sprinkle the yeast. Add 1 cup of the flour and stir to make a batter. Add the yogurt and stir it in. Then add another cup of flour and stir to incorporate Sprinkle the salt and another cup of flour stir and turn the dough to incorporate the flour. Flour a work surface with about 1 cup of flour then turn the dough out and knead. Incorporating the flour as you fold and turn, fold and turn for about 5 minutes or until the dough is smooth and still a little soft but no longer sticky, add more flour to your work surface if necessary.

Wash and dry the bowl. Place the dough in the bowl, cover with a kitchen towel and let it rise for 3 hours or until more than doubled in volume. (When the dough is fully risen, you can poke with one finger and the indentation will stay, if it is not yet ready the dough will rebound when dented). Rinse an 8 or 9inch cast iron or other heavy straight-sided pot that is 6 inches or more deep and has a heavy ovenproof lid with hot water to warm it, and then wipe it dry. Place a circle of parchment paper in the bottom of the pot; lightly grease the sides of the pot. Turn the dough to a floured surface and shape it into a round. Gently place it into the pan, put on the lid and set aside for 1 hour in a warm spot. The loaf may not quite double. Meanwhile, place a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 385F. Bake with the lid on for 40 minutes. Remove the lid and bake for another 20 minutes. The sides should be golden brown. Let stand for 30 minutes to firm up before slice. Enjoy.