King's Cake- New Orleans Style... Happy Mardi Gras!

Hello, everybody! The Fresh Pioneer is here and I've got a fun recipe for Mardi Gras (which was yesterday).

(Gratuitous brownie photo. This is what some of us WON'T be having during Lent!)

Really, this post should have been last week, but Lent sort of snuck up on me. I mean, really, didn't we just HAVE Lent like two months ago? I guess Christmas was in there somewhere, so it stands to reason that Lent has come again. Funny how the fun holidays can't come fast enough, but nobody says, "Gee, I can't wait for Lent this year!"

(If you're not familiar with Lent, it's a liturgical season before Easter. Just as Jesus spent 40 days in the desert fasting and praying, it's a time to spend 40 days getting rid of bad habits and growing closer to God. No hair shirts required, unless you've got one lying around.)

 (A little Lenten inspiration for those of us who think we don't have time, or the means, to make a difference.)

Don't ask what I'm doing yet. As I said, it all sort of snuck up on me. In my family, we usually dedicate ourselves to one new good thing (extra prayers, extra chores for someone else) and working on breaking a bad habit/ giving up something as a sacrifice. At my age, I should had lots of bad habits, but as a non-drinker, non-smoker, non-party type, I don't have much to work with. 

I was thinking of giving up sugar, but I'm not sure that's enough of a sacrifice. We've got to really FEEL the Lenten burn, baby! 

Maybe coffee? Oooh, scary thought!

Anyway, this little cake will be just perfect for NEXT fat Tuesday, as a pre-Lent celebration, and you'll be all ready for Ash Wednesday... and the forty days of tightening your spiritual belt. 

Let's start with the brioche (the sweet bread)

     Add 1/2 cup warm water to 2 envelopes active dry yeast (this is 5 tsp if you use a larger container)

        Let it sit for five minutes

Mix together:

4 1/2 to 5 1/2 cups sifted flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest

Mix  and beat lightly 

1/2 cup lukewarm milk
3 eggs
4 egg yolks

 Make a well in the flour mixture and add to the center.

 Mix, adding a little flour if needed.

 Start kneading on the board.
Mix 1/2 cup butter, softened into the dough. Knead until it's elastic.

 Put it in a buttered bowl, turning to make sure all sides are buttered.

 Cover and let rise for about an hour, somewhere a little warm, until doubled in size.

 Punch it down once.

 Form into a ring, pinching the ends. Now, this is where most people would add a small figurine (the baby) or a coin or a bean.

 I hid a little bean in there. Preheat the oven to 375F and while the oven is warming, cover the cake and let it rise a little more, about 15 minutes.

 Put it in the oven for 30 minutes and while it's cooking, set out three small bowls of plain sugar.

 Use a few drops of food dye and make yellow, green, and purple.

Ta-dah.

 OK, at this point, I realized I missed a small step in the recipe. The dough should have been divided and it makes two cakes. Ah well. One GIANT brioche emerged from the oven.

 Layer on the sugar, patting it down as needed. (Don't worry about how thick to lay it on. The bread isn't that sweet, and when you cut a slice, there will be a layer of sugar at the top. If anyone objects, they can brush it off.)

And there it is, a sweet bread that rises nicely (and should probably rest a few minutes before cutting, but hey, the blog post must go up!).

 Happy Ash Wednesday everybody and I hope this Lent brings you closer to Jesus in every way!

Taco Soup and Cornbread Wars

Well, apparently winter has no desire to leave any time soon. Sunday, north Texas was hit with another round of ice and even thunder sleet. You've heard of thunder snow. Well, we had thunder sleet. Considering temps had been 80+ the two days before the storm hit, it's no wonder. Just another phenomena of nature.

This is a video my son made. You can't see the sleet, but you sure can hear it. Along with some weird breathing. That is not me.

This storm was merely a drop in the bucket compared to the ice storm we had back in December. But boy did the temps plummet. We saw a 50+ degree drop in less than 24 hours and bottomed out somewhere in the mid-teens Monday morning. 

I know this is nothing compared to what much of the nation has endured, but weather like this calls for a steaming hot bowl of something. So I'm going to revisit a recipe I shared on Simple Saturdays, long before I was an official member of the cafe. 

Taco Soup is so easy I could make it with my eyes closed. Although, that might make dicing the onion a bit dangerous. Still...even if you can't cook, you can make taco soup.

Here's what you'll need:

• 2 lbs. ground beef (I sometimes use ground venison. You could also use ground turkey or bison
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 – 4 oz. cans diced green chilies (I cheat and use 1 – 7 oz. can)
• 3 – 15 oz. cans pinto beans (my personal preference is Ranch Style Beans, but if you can’t find them where you live, plain pintos are fine. If you like variety, add two cans of pintos and one of kidney beans)
• 2 – 14 ½  oz. cans golden hominy
• 3 – 14 ½ oz. cans stewed tomatoes (Since my boys don’t like big chunks of tomato I use the petite-cut diced tomatoes, usually one 29 oz. can plus one 14 ½ oz.)
• 1 packet of taco seasoning
• 1 packet Ranch dressing powder mix (If you buy this in the bulk containers like I do, add three tablespoons)
• 1 ½ cups water
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper

Brown ground meat and onion in a large Dutch oven or stock pot and drain off fat.

Add remaining ingredients. No draining, just open, dump and stir.

Can it get much easier?

Bring to boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer for one hour.

There are two things that go very well with taco soup. Tortilla chips is one, the other is cornbread. My favorite. And since Jan shared her cornbread recipe yesterday, I thought I'd post my no-sugar-added cornbread recipe. The way cornbread ought to be, IMHO. :)

My daughters' great-grandmother taught me how to make this when I was a young bride, and I will be eternally grateful.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Place pan in oven while preheating. You can use a cast iron skillet, but I'm making a small batch this time, so I used my ancient blackened metal oblong pan.

In a bowl, mix 1 cup of yellow corn meal (no, I did not grind my own :), ¾ cup of flour, ½ teaspoon salt, ¼ teaspoon baking soda, and 2 teaspoons of baking powder. 

Add 1 egg and 2 cups buttermilk. Stir well. 

If you don't have any buttermilk on hand, don't worry. You can use regular milk and the bread will be just as tasty and fluffy, thanks to the baking powder. Simply start with 1½ cups and add more, if needed, until mixture is just a little thinner than cake batter.

Remove hot pan from preheated oven and IMMEDIATELY pour in batter. This will “fry” the bottom, giving it a nice crispy texture. (the corner pieces are my favorite!) Return pan to oven and bake at 450 for 12-15 minutes, or until golden brown. 

I like to flip mine over in the pan as soon as it comes out so the bottom will retain that crispiness I worked so hard to achieve.

On a cold day, this meal is hard to beat. Even if it's a cold day and you're short on time. It's that easy. 

You could even brown your ground beef, mix everything together in the CrockPot and let it go on low all day. Boy would your house smell good.

Now for a couple gratuitous puppy pix.

Maddie wasn't quite sure what to think about the sleet.

She'd paw at it. Dig a little bit, then jump back before pouncing on it again.

Yet for as much as she liked the sleet, she was just as happy to come inside where it was nice and warm.

(especially when there was a bowl of food waiting)

Okay, now that the Polar Vortex is paying us another visit, how cold is it at your house?

Another Salvo in the Great Cornbread Wars

Admit it, the War Between the States will never be over as long as there is cornbread...

...and tea, and vegetables - especially sweet potatoes. To see what I mean, watch this short video from Mark Lowry:

Did you catch what he said about the cornbread?

I'm from the north. I make my cornbread with sugar. According to Mark Lowry, that makes it cake.

Maybe so, but I enjoy my cornbread!

I also make it from scratch.

Yes, that's corn. Popcorn, actually. I said I start from scratch!

And the next picture is wheat.

The bowl on the left has winter wheat - Prairie Gold. When you go to the store and the bread or flour bag says "100% white wheat," this is the wheat they're talking about. It's a much lighter color than the Red Chief or another hard winter wheat.

The bowl on the right is soft summer wheat. If you've ever seen "whole wheat pastry flour" at the store - usually in one of those bulk bins - this is the wheat you're buying.

I use the Prairie Gold or the Red Chief for yeast breads, but I use the soft wheat for any baking that doesn't use yeast - and that includes cornbread.

This is the bad boy that turns all my grains into flour (or cornmeal). He's so powerful, it's scary! But look what he does to a cup of that soft wheat.

Fresh ground wheat, all ready for baking. I use it within 10 minutes of grinding - no vitamins lost in this process! (If there's any leftover, I freeze it for future use.)

So now we're ready to make cornbread - northern style!

I got this recipe from a bag of cornmeal back in the dark ages. (The dark ages was BC - Before Children.) Over the years I've changed it to suit us.

This is me, thirty-some years ago,
when this recipe was new.
Oh, how the years fly!

Jan's Corn Bread

Ingredients:

1/4 cup butter

1 cup yellow cornmeal

1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour (or any whole wheat flour)

1/2 cup unbleached flour

4 Tablespoons sugar

4 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup milk

1 egg

I use a 10-inch cast iron skillet for my bread, but it also bakes well in a 8" square pan.

Preheat your oven to 400°. If you're using an 8" square pan, put the butter in it to melt in the oven while it's heating up. If you're using a cast iron skillet, put it on the stove on medium-low with the butter in it.

In a large bowl (I use my 2-quart bowl from Pampered Chef), stir together the corn meal, flours, sugar, baking powder and salt.

In a small bowl or a 2-cup measuring cup, beat the egg, and then add 1 cup milk and mix them together.

Check on your butter. Is it melted yet? If not, wait until it is. You want it melted, but not sizzling (although it smells wonderful just before it starts burning).

Once the butter is melted, add the milk/egg mixture into the dry ingredients, mixing it all together. Next, carefully pour the melted butter into the bowl. Stir until it's all mixed in.

Now pour your batter back into your skillet or pan. See how the edges start cooking as soon as the batter hits the hot surface?

Put your pan or baking dish into the hot oven and bake for 20-25 minutes. I actually bake it for 18 minutes here in our higher altitude.

Once the edges look crispy and the top is beginning to brown, take it out of the oven. Let it cool about 10 minutes, and then serve.

This is great with butter and honey, served with some chili or bean soup!

And if you call it cake, I'll forgive you. But I love this cornbread!

By the way, for the record, I like my tea unsweetened (preferable hot), my vegetables steamed and buttered, and my sweet potatoes roasted and seasoned with salt, pepper and cumin :)

How do you like your cornbread?

Mary Connealy's Potato Soup!!!!

POTATO SOUP

Perfect for a cold winter day

First the recipe...............I don't have one..........let me wing it here.

1 lb hamburger

2 cups water

1 onion

1 Bag 'O Spices (look at the picture)

Cumin

Fennel

Paprika

Garlic Power

Rosemary

Tumeric

Thyme

Lawry Season Salt

Any amount of these, I love them all and they're yummy let's say 1/2 teaspoon or to taste

3 potatoes (more of less to suit yourself peeled chopped

1 lg container beef broth

3 C Milk

NOW PICTURES

Pour water over raw hamburger and mix the hamburger and water together. (I use my hands)

Turn the heat on medium high. I actually turn it on high but I burn almost everything, so take that for what it's worth.

 One onion diced--at this point I usually use fresh garlic too, but I'm out

I keep Garlic Powder on hand.

Add diced onion to hamburger/water mixture and stir (I'm not using my hands anymore, it's hot. I switch over to a SPOON.

Here's what I call my Bag 'O Spices. I do this because My Cowboy cooks a LOT around here, God bless him. And he isn't too into spices, he just doesn't know what they all mean. So I bagged up the spices I use in soups and he can just drag the bag out and start dumping.

Here's what I used in the potato soup. I am particularly fond of Fennel Seed and Turmeric. They just have an unusual and luscious flavor.

I sprinkle, I don't measure. Unless you're dumping high powered pepper in or go nuts with too much salt, you really can't do this wrong. (I may be underestimating some of you!)

3 potatoes, note the size, this does NOT MATTER. If you've got a crowd or a bunch of kids add six or eight potatoes, this is how you stretch the soup, extra  milk makes it plentiful, too.

I quartered the potatoes the long way. This also does NOT MATTER,

 but Ruthy wanted pictures so here you go.

I think last time I made this I left the potato skins on

but I went on auto-pilot and started peeling.

Then aftet you've quartered them, turn the cutting board sideways and rough chop them.

Dump the potatoes into the steaming meat/water/spice/onion concoction.

This is going to smell so great!

Mix the potatoes in and add a lg container of beef broth. This might not be necessary. The broth on the hamburger might be enough if you added MORE water to it at the beginning but we like lots of broth. Let this simmer. The trick here is  the ROSEMARY. I have a plant but I used dried today because my plant is getting too cut back and it needs to grow a while and I had the little container of Rosemary...but these little spikes of lusciousness are HARD. They need time to tenderize. Get them in early and let the soup simmer until the rosemary and potatoes are tender and the flavors blend.

I let mine simmer for about an hour,

but if you don't have time, at least long enough for the potatoes to cook.

Just before the meal, pour in milk. I used three or four cups. How nutritious is this, huh?

Let the soup warm through.

Ladle into bowls. I added Lawry's Season Salt but no other salt and you may need to salt and pepper to taste but I let everyone do that on their own.

And by EVERYONE I mean My Cowboy, he likes TOO MUCH PEPPER!!!

Embrace the savory joy!

GRATUITOUS FINN PICTURE!!!!!

How stinkin' cute is he???? I bet he'd love Mary's soup!!!