This is a recipe from my best friend Dawn. She sent it to me in 2001 and I am finally getting it on my recipe blog. You can use whole wheat flour if you would prefer a whole wheat tortilla. Picture above is Dawn and her mom in the 90s.
Ingredients:
2 1/2 cup flour (white or whole wheat)
1/2 cup vegetable shortening
1 tsp salt
1 cup warm water
Directions:
In a bowl, place the flour, shortening, and salt. Mix together with a fork until crumbly. Add the warm water and mix until dough is smooth and knead with your hands until mixture is combined.
Cover the dough and bowl with a towel for 10 minutes.
Separate the dough into chunks, depending on what size tortilla you want, and form it into small balls. If you have a tortilla press, use that to flatten the balls of dough. If not, use a dinner plate by placing the ball of dough on the plate and flatten the tortilla down beginning in the center and flattening out in a circle motion. Make them as thick or as thin as you want.
Heat a non stick pan over medium heat and heat tortilla until cooked on both sides.
If you are looking for a delicious homemade bread roll to add to your dinner, here it is. I found this recipe in a book I bought titled The Great British Baking Show – Love to Bake, but I have altered it. The original recipe is titled Herby Garlic Rolls. I have omitted the garlic. You can add it in if you want to make the rolls true to the recipe.
Ingredients:
350 grams white bread flour
175 grams plain flour
7 grams fast-action dried yeast
275 ml whole milk, plus more for glazing
1/2 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1 egg, lightly beaten, plus 1 yolk for glazing
50 grams butter, softened
1-2 TBS fresh herbs, finely chopped (parsley and dill work well)
2 TBS extra-virgin olive oil
Directions:
Grab a baking tray and grease and line with parchment paper.
In a small bowl, gently warm the milk and add yeast, sugar, and salt. Give it a little mix and let it do its things for about 5 minutes, the yeast will be dancing around and activating.
In a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook (hopefully you have one, if not you will be doing this part by hand), add flours together with milk mixture, beaten egg and butter. Mix for 4-5 minutes, until the dough is smooth and elastic but slightly sticky.
Shape the dough into a ball and place in a lightly oiled bowl. Cover with slightly damp tea towel and let it rise for 1 hour. It should double in size.
Turn out the dough into a floured surface. Knead gently for 30 seconds then shape into disc. Cover with upturned bowl and let it rise for another 10 minutes.
Divide the dough equally into 12 portions, then shape into neat balls with seams on the undersides. Arrange the dough balls in the baking tray, they should be touching, not squashed together. Cover with tea towel again and let rise for another hour. At the end of the hour they should be light, puffy and almost doubled in size.
Heat oven to 180 C or 350 F.
Mix the egg yolk with the 1 TBS milk and carefully brush over the top of each roll. Bake on the middle shelf for 20-25 minutes, until well risen and golden brown.
While the rolls are baking, mix together the chopped herbs with olive oil.
As soon as the rolls come out, brush with herb and oil mixture. Leave to cool slightly.
Home made bread is so amazing! This focaccia bread is another one of my bf’s recipes and he is not sure where it came from so I am giving him all the credit. You are going to need a few hours for this one so that the dough can rise a few times.
Ingredients:
500 grams type “0” flour
10 grams yeast
1 tsp white sugar
400 grams water
10-15 grams salt
2 tsps olive oil, and more as needed
Directions:
Combine water and yeast, add sugar and let sit for a few minutes. Add flour and salt, mix well. Add olive oil and mix again. Form into a dough ball and let sit covered for 20 minutes while the yeast works its magic.
Stretch and fold the dough, cover again and let rise for one hour.
Stretch and fold the dough, cover again and let rise for 30-40 minutes.
Preheat oven to 480F.
Place on a baking sheet coated with olive oil. Drizzle olive oil all over dough and press out into pan with finger tips. Add more olive oil to the top of pressed out dough and sprinkle with salt. At this point you can add olives, herbs, or anything you would like to top the focaccia bread with.
This delicious pizza is made with a 2 hour pizza dough. If you have more time, and sourdough starter, you can do the sourdough pizza dough instead. They are both delicious and both recipes are included below.
Pizza Dough (2 hour)
Ingredients:
4 1/8 cup flour – type 00 works best
1 package yeast
1 1/4 tsp sugar
1 1/4 cup warm water
2 1/2 TBS lard or butter
Directions:
Mix warm water, sugar, and yeast. Let sit for 5 minutes. Mix salt and flour in a separate bowl. Add flour mixture to yeast mixture then add lard or butter.
Mix and knead dough.
Let rise for 2 hours.
Divide into desired size and shape for pizza
Sourdough Pizza Dough
Ingredients:
1 3/4 cup water
1/2 cup sourdough starter
10 grams or 1 3/4 tsp salt
2 1/2 cup flour – type 00 works best
Directions:
Mix all ingredients.
Cover for 30 minutes.
Stretch and fold.
Repeat steps 1 and 2 – four times
Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let sit for 8 hours at room temp.
Stretch and fold.
Divide into baseball size balls.
Store for up to 3 days in fridge.
Remove from fridge and let come to room temp before use.
Margherita Pizza
Ingredients:
Pizza dough (one of the above recipes)
Tomato sauce; mix tomato passata with fresh basil and extra virgin olive oil.
Mozzarella cheese; I prefer fresh mozzarella—either di bufala or the cow’s-milk version, fior de latte—because it’s what was used on the original Pizza Margherita in Naples, Italy. Do not use pre-shredded type or you will be disappointed.
Fresh Basil
Extra virgin olive oil
Directions:
Once you have your dough shaped and ready to go, heat oven to 500 F. Make sure the rack is in the upper third of the oven.
Place your tomato sauce, cheese and basil on the uncooked pizza dough.
Cook in the preheated oven for 10-12 minutes, until the rust is golden and the cheese is partially golden and melted.
This recipe can be made into large soft traditional pretzels, pretzel bites, or even pretzel buns to have as a delicious hamburger. In order to make this recipe you will need to have sourdough starter. In particular, you will need the discard of the starter when you are making room to feed your starter.
Ingredients:
Dough:
1 cup and 1 TBS water
1 TBS brown sugar
2 tsp kosher salt
2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
3/4 cup (200 grams) sourdough starter discard
2 1/2 cups (20 ounces) flour
4 TBS butter (softened)
Oil to coat bowl
Parchment paper
Boiling:
10 cups water
2/3 cup baking soda
Topping:
Egg wash ( 1 egg yolk in 1 TBS water) beaten
Flaky sea salt
Directions:
Start the dough by combining tepid water, salt, brown sugar, and yeast and let sit for 5 minutes until foamy.
If you have an electrical stand mixer, use that for the next steps.
Add starter, flour, and butter to water/yeast mix on low until combined. Then increase to medium for 4-5 minutes. Add additional 1 TBS flour until the dough forms into a ball. Knead just to ball formation and set aside in large bowl that has been lightly oiled.
Let the dough rise until double the size, about 1 hour.
Preheat oven to 425 Fahrenheit, line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Turn the dough onto floured surface and divide into pieces of desired size and shape.
Place on parchment paper and let rise again for about 20 minutes.
In the meantime, get the 10 cups of water boiling with the baking soda.
Boil each dough piece for 45 seconds and return to baking sheet.
This recipe is my BF’s mom’s recipe and is so good! You might think it tastes like vegetables, but you would be wrong. It is a sweet bread, similar to banana bread. You can barely even taste the zucchini.
Picture of Joy and Scott at her 70th birthday party; he surprised her!
Ingredients:
2 cups uncooked, unpeeled, grated zucchini
2 cups sugar
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
3 tsp ground cinnamon
1 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350 F and prepare two bread pans with parchment paper to avoid sticking.
Mix the sugar, flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt, together in a bowl until combined. Add the oil, eggs, vanilla, and shredded zucchini together and pour the mixture into your prepared pans.
Bake for 50 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Corn bread is a great side to serve with BBQ. Make some honey butter to spread on them and it’s even better. This is another recipe from America’s Best BBQ cookbook and the restaurant these delicious muffins come from is Branks BBQ & Catering in Sumner, Washington. They fall apart easily if you don’t let them cool as directed.
You can add chopped jalapeño and whole corn kernels (cooked) to make them even tastier.
Ingredients:
1 cup yellow cornmeal
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 to 1 1/4 cup buttermilk
1 large egg at room temperature
11 TBS butter, melted and cooled
Jalapeño (seeded and minced) – optional
Corn kernels (cooked, I used canned and sweet)
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Butter 12 muffin cups. Combine all dry ingredients then sift into another bowl. In a separate bowl mix the buttermilk and egg together with a whisk. Whisk in the melted butter. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and stir just until incorporated, do not over mix. Pour into muffin cups and bake in middle rack for 15 minutes. Cool on a rack for 10 minutes.
