Peanut Butter Bread + a GIVEAWAY--->cookies and a cookbook from Tate's Bake Shop anyone!?

Who likes crisp, buttery cookies that melt once they hit your tongue?  I do!  I do! {Hand waving wildly in the air!}  So does everybody else in this household, so imagine our delight when we opened up a few boxes of freshly baked cookies from Tate's Bake Shop...and the scent of butter assaulted our senses.  I do enjoy a good butter assault.  I wasn't surprised to learn that Kathleen King and Tate's Bake Shop have earned many awards over the years...because all three of the cookies we tasted were outstanding.  We tried Chocolate Chip, White Chocolate Macadamia Nut, and Oatmeal Raisin.  I have to say what endeared them to me the most was that they taste like they came from the oven of someone close...and not from a package.  I must also admit that I liked getting a taste of the Hamptons right in my own kitchen.  I mean, if they're good enough for Ina, they're good enough for me.  Yes, the Barefoot Contessa carried Kathleen's cookies from the moment she opened her doors in 1980.

But you can read more about that when you open the Tate's Bake Shop Cookbook and read the foreword by Ina Garten.  You don't have to take just my word for it.  The cookbook is packed with goodies...and my copy is loaded with strips of paper...so many of which had my mouth watering just reading about them.  King has done all the hard work...the testing...the trials...the measuring...she's made the recipes very user friendly.  I had a hard time deciding where to begin, but since I didn't want to waste any time, I headed into the kitchen and whipped up her Peanut Butter Bread.  Uh. Maze. Ing.

Peanut Butter Bread

recipe from the Tate's Bake Shop Cookbook by Kathleen King

yield: 1 (9") loaf

2 c. all purpose flour

1 Tbs. baking powder

½ tsp. salt

¼ c. salted butter, softened to room temperature

½ c. sugar

¼ c. firmly packed dark brown sugar

1 c. creamy peanut butter

1 large egg

1 tsp. vanilla

1 c. milk

Preheat oven to 350° F.  Grease a 9 x 5 x 3-inch loaf pan and set it aside.

In a small bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt.  Set aside.

Cream the butter and sugars till they are combined.  Add the peanut butter and mix it in.  Add the egg and vanilla.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl and mix again.  Add the flour mixture.  Blend until combined.  The mixture will be dry.  Slowly pour in the milk and mix well.

Spoon the batter into the prepared loaf pan.

Bake for 50 minutes or until the center springs back when pressed with a fingertip.

Cool the loaf for 10 minutes in the pan and remove the bread from the pan to a cooling rack to cool completely.

This bread is so moist and addicting!  It has the texture of a quick bread...but it tastes like a cookie!  So. Stinkin'. Good.

And though it may seem difficult to top a loaf of warm peanut butter bread, I think a GIVEAWAY comes pretty darn close.  That's right.  The generous folks at Tate's Bake Shop have graciously offered to give one of my readers the very same gifts I received....a gorgeous Tate's Bake Shop Cookbook and a Cookie Gift Pack which houses three types of freshly baked cookies (Chocolate Chip, White Chocolate Macadamia, and Oatmeal Raisin)!  Eeeek!  I told you it got better.

***This giveaway has ended!***

GIVEAWAY DETAILS

offer good to residents of the US only (sorry non-USers)

To enter:

Simply leave a comment on this post
...for fun, tell me what you think you'll do with the cookbook and cookies if you win...keep them for yourself (because after all, we all deserve some goodies) or give them to somebody as a gift (check somebody off of your list).

for extra entries do any of the following and leave a separate comment for each:

~Become a fan of Tate's Bake Shop on Facebook

~Follow girlichef through Networked Blogs on Facebook (simply click box on sidebar)
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~share this giveaway on Facebook, please tag both girlichef and Tate's Bake Shop if you do
~Blog about this giveaway with a link back to this post
~Tweet the following message (can be done once per day; be sure to leave a comment each time) or by hitting the retweet button at the start of this post:
Enter this #giveaway http://bit.ly/eU9JkB from @girlichef now for your chance to win #cookies & a #cookbook!

GOOD LUCK!

-All entries must be received by Sunday, December 5th at 6:00 pm Eastern time.
The winner, to be chosen by random draw, will be announced on Monday, December 6th!-

If you absolutely cannot wait, or if you just want to get a jump on things, head on over to Tate's Bake Shop website...I'm sure you'll find plenty of tempting things you can order right online.  As a bonus, Tate's is going sharing a 15% discount to my awesome readers...good on any purchase now through December 31, 2010.  Simply use the discount code "cookie" when placing your order!

*Both my cookies and review copy of the book were provided to me by the wonderful people at Tate's Bake Shop, as are the giveaway items.  The opinions expressed in this post are all mine.
*This post is linked to:

Hearth and Soul Hop

Tasty Tuesdays (w/ Dr. Laura)

Tuesday Night Supper Club
BYOB 
 

Cinnamon Swirl Raisin Bread

Drama Queen was in the mood for some raisin bread the other day...so what was I to do?  Why, make some of course!  Since the yeasties and I have only been tight for less than a year, I didn't yet have a good raisin bread recipe under my belt.  So I went on the hunt...and found one that claimed of course to be "the greatest raisin bread recipe in the whole wide world" basically.  I'll admit, it did sound good...and all of the reviews that I read were pretty positive.  The only downside was that it used a whole lot of white flour and white sugar.  I do try to be healthyish whenever possible, without sacrificing flavor, so I made a few modifications...using half whole wheat flour and subbing honey for the white sugar in the dough and brown sugar for the white sugar in the swirl (which I know from experience works way better).  I used both purple and yellow raisins this time, but you could use all of one of a mix of others, if that's what you have.  I think it's important to soak the raisins, as well.  DQ actually commented on how juicy the raisins in each bite were!  This is definitely a favorite and we'll make it often...it does make 3 loaves...but you can freeze them or give them away.  Need I say it's fabulous when toasted?  Didn't think so...

Cinnamon Swirl Raisin Bread

from the kitchen of girlichef

inspired by/adapted from this recipe

yield: 3 loaves

dough

1½ c. milk, scalded & cooled to lukewarm

1 c. lukewarm water

½ c. honey

1 Tbs. + 1 tsp. yeast

3 eggs, at room temperature

4 oz. unsalted butter, at room temperature

4 c. whole wheat flour + extra for bench

4 c. unbleached ap flour

1 tsp. sea salt

1 c. raisins, plumped in hot water & drained

cinnamon swirl

1 Tbs. milk, lukewarm

1 c. brown sugar, not packed

2 Tbs. ground cinnamon

~2 Tbs. melted butter (optional)

Begin by putting the scalded milk, water, and honey in a very large bowl.  Sprinkle yeast over the surface. Let it bloom and become creamy, ~10 minutes.  In the meantime, whisk together the butter and eggs.  Once the 10 minutes is up, whisk in the egg/butter mixture.  Stir in the flours and salt with a wooden spoon.  Fold in raisins.    Turn out onto a well-floured surface and knead until the dough becomes silky and workable.  Dough may seem a bit sticky at first...simply add more flour to the bench as needed, using a bench scraper to lift dough in between if it starts to stick.  This should take ~10-15 minutes.  Form into a ball and place into an oiled bowl, turning once to coat.  Cover with plastic wrap or a clean kitchen towel and let raise until doubled in size, ~1½ hrs.  This dough is superman...just look!!!

Punch dough down.  Lightly flour your work surface again and turn dough out.  Gently roll the dough into a very large rectangle-ish, approximately 24"x12".  Combine the sugar and cinnamon.  Gently rub the milk across the whole surface of the dough, then sprinkle the cinnamon and sugar mixture evenly over the moistened dough.

Roll the dough (jellyroll style), keeping it as tight as possible.

Cut the dough into three even sections, ~8" each.

Pinch the open edges together and tuck underneath the dough.  Place in well-greased loaf pans.  I tried two different sizes, both of which worked just fine...but I prefer the smaller, skinner one which measures about 4¼" W x 8½" H x 2¾" Deep.  That said, it was just the aesthetics, so use the loaf pan you already have if it's a different size.  Cover with plastic or towel and let rise until doubled in size, ~45 minutes.

Again...this loaf is so superman...rises up all big and beautiful...and fast!  Preheat the oven to 350° F. during last 20 minutes or so of rise time.

Bake in your preheated oven for ~45 minutes, or until golden (should register ~185° F., if you're temping it).

Let bread cool in the pans on a rack for ~10 minutes.

If you want, now is the time to brush the top of the loaves with a bit of melted butter.  The butter gives it a pretty sheen, but it doesn't add or take away from the loaf in the end.  I think if you're going to store it, I'd leave the butter off.

Turn the loaves out of the pans to finish cooling.

Once it's cool, you can wrap it well and freeze it, if you wish.  Or give some away...your neighbors will appreciate.  I know this from personal experience.  Or slice in and take a bite of cinnamon raisin bliss!

Our next raisin bread loaf will be an oatmeal loaf- no swirl.  We'll compare and let you know the results!!

I am sharing this post with:

Yeastspotting!

Murgh Korma (chicken cooked in a yogurt-almond sauce) & Kaddu (Indian-spiced pumpkin)

In a word?  Seductive.  This exotic chicken nestled in a yogurt-almond sauce is laden with heady spices that weave their way lazily from the pot and into your very being.  It's like a love spell...putting a slow easy smile on your lips...a dreamy glaze films your eyes...and a something stirs from deep in your loins...  It lured us all in with its sexy ways...seamlessly welcoming us to our table set with Indian classics.

Yes, this is the second installment of recipes to accompany dinner party for PFB challenge #3... A Taste of India!  If you decide to invite this Murgh Korma into your home and share it with your guests...keep in mind the spell it will cast upon them.  They will surely be under your its spell and feel right at home.

Murgh Korma

Chicken cooked in a Yogurt-Almond Sauce

from Climbing the Mango Trees by Madhur Jaffrey

serves 6-8

One 2½" piece fresh ginger, peeled & chopped

5 fat garlic cloves, peel & chop

3 Tbs. blanched, slivered almonds

1½ c. plain yogurt

1½ tsp. garam masala

1 Tbs. ground coriander

1 tsp. cayenne pepper

1½ tsp. sea salt

5 Tbs. olive oil

2 medium onions, peeled, cut in half lengthwise, then sliced into fine half-rings

Two 2-inch cinnamon sticks

8 whole cardamom pods*

2 bay leaves

3¼ lb. chicken, cut into 8-10 pieces & skinned

2 Tbs. sultanas (golden raisins)

3 Tbs. chopped fresh cilantro

Put ginger, garlic & ¼ c. of water into a blender.  Blend until you have a smooth paste.  Add the almonds and another 2 Tbs. water.  Blend again until you have a smooth paste.  

Put the yogurt in a bowl.  Whisk it lightly until smooth.  Add the garam masala, ground coriander, cayenned, and salt.  Stir well to mix.

Put oil into a large, nonstick pan and set over medium heat.  When hot, put in sliced onions.  Stir and fry for 10-12 minutes, turning heat down, if needed, until onions are reddish brown.  Remove the onion slices with a slotted spoon, squeezing out as much of the oil as you can with the back of a second spoon, and leaving that oil behind in the pan.  Spread the onion slices over a paper towel-lined plate.

Put the cinnamon, cardamom, and bay leaves into the same pan over medium.  Stir, once or twice.  A minute later, put in the chicken pieces, only as many as the pan can hold easily in a single layer.  Brown the chicken lightly on both sides, removing to a bowl when done.  Do all the chicken pieces this way.  Add the golden raisins.  Stir a few times and then add the paste from the blender.  Stir and fry for 2 minutes.  Now put in the contents of the bowl with the chicken, including all accumulated juices, the contents of the yogurt bowl, and the fried onions.  Stir to mix and bring to a simmer, still on medium.  Cover, turn the heat to low, and cook gently for 25-30 minutes, stirring gently now and then, until the chicken pieces are tender.  Sprinkle with chopped cilantro and serve.

*that I'm fortunate enough to have since Christo was awesome enough to send me some a while back!!

In the midst of the chicken's seductions...I raised a bite of the spiced pumpkin to my my mouth.  Nice.  Very nice. But... Truth?  If I'm putting something orange and smooshy into my mouth...it better be sweet potato...or my mouth gets pissed!  No joke.  The mouth wants what the mouth wants, after all.  That aside, this understated dish of squash...cooked until tender with those pronounced spices...and then coaxed gently into a mash...was another gorgeous veg accompaniment to our Indian feast.!

Kaddu

Indian-Spiced Pumpkin

also from Madhur Jaffrey's Climbing the Mango Trees

serves 6-8

¼ c. olive oil

½ tsp. whole cumin seeds

½ tsp. brown mustard seeds

¼ tsp. nigella seeds

¼ tsp. whole fennel seeds

1/8 tsp. whole fenugreek seeds

2-3 dried hot red chilies

~2 lbs. pumpkin w/out skin or seeds (from an ~3 lb. pumpkin), cut into 1" cubes

1 tsp. sea salt

1½ Tbs. light brown sugar

Pour oil into a large, nonstick pan, and set over medium-high heat.  When hot, put in cumin and mustard seeds.  As soon as mustard seeds begin to pop, a matter of seconds, add the nigella, fennel, fenugreek, and red chilies.  Stir once quickly, and put in all the pumpkin.  Stir for a minute or two.   Cover, turn down heat to low, and cook for ~40 mins, or until just tender, stirring now and again and replacing cover.  Uncover, add salt and brown sugar.  Stir gently, mashing the pumpkin lightly.

*This post is linked to:

Pozolé Rojo inspired by The School of Essential Ingredients

Heather

Heather was probably just under a year old when she fell in love with the flavors traditionally referred to as “Mexican”. It was nothing complex…just pinto beans, refried…but that first solid food, fed to her by her parents on a regular jaunt south-of-the-border would stay with her for the rest of her life.

She doesn’t really remember when or how she came to leave San Diego to live in the Midwest…Michigan to be exact. What she does remember is that connection to an earlier time, a time when strolling over the border was not an offense punishable by shooting or imprisonment. It’s held strong inside her for all these years. She remembers a time in elementary school when she discovered that the old couple who lived next door to one of her friends were Mexican…or Latino of some descent (Tejano maybe??)…this beautiful, brown-skinned little lady would place a tortilla, warm and comforting into her small hands…feet ready to take off running around the cool, blue pool in their courtyard. These tortillas were made from wheat flour instead of the corn flour that she was accustomed to. Although, she contemplates quietly, many of the Northern Mexican states do make “flour” tortillas quite often. Either way, those tortillas are never far back in her mind as her now-adult sized hands knead that familiar mixture of flour, fat, and water.

As she rolls out the dough and toasts it up on her own well-loved comal…and places a tortilla in the small, waiting hands of her own children.

Surely it was inevitable that she would marry a man from Mexico. Destiny, perhaps? A seed planted that day some 34 years ago. The universe works in mysterious ways. However it came to be, she always knew that a kitchen filled with the deep, earthy scent of dried chiles, toasted, ground corn and the steam from a pot of beans simmering on the back of the stove was In the cards for her. She reveled in the scent of garlic, fresh and sticky on her fingers from smashing a half a head and rubbing it together with salt to form a pungent paste that would be stirred in with the creamy avocados that her husband stopped to pick up from the Mexican market on his way home from work…and the brightly colored ingredients laid out on the counter in front of her…juicy, dripping chunks of summer-fresh tomatoes, small-diced jalapeño squares…bright and green, slivers of white onions that had inevitably made tears fall down her face only moments ago, and fresh, tangy lime juice just waiting to bring everything together.

Life is a funny thing, Heather thought. Funny that her favorite restaurant throughout high school had been a Mexican restaurant. Funny that her favorite celebrity chef specialized in Mexican cuisine. Funny that she learned so much of what she knows and incorporates into her own cooking from that chef…who happens to be an American with a deep connection to Mexican food, culture, and tradition…just like her. Funny that even these many years after she finished culinary school, where she studied the cuisines of many different countries and cultures, she still cherishes those same flavors that she has for as long as she can remember…

Smiling as she watches her husband and kids soaping, scrubbing, and hosing down their car on this clear sunny day…a basket of fresh radishes, lettuce, avocados, and limes at her feet from her recent return from the market, her mind wanders effortlessly to the jar of hominy that she cooked and put in the refrigerator the day before yesterday. And to the mulato chiles in her pantry…the ones that are still pliable with tacky insides that will surely stick to her fingers as she pries out the seeds and ribs on the inside. As sure as she’s sitting there, her soul is already in the kitchen…gathering, prepping, simmering the ingredients that will turn into an earthy, comforting bowl of Pozolé…she can almost feel the heat creeping up her face after she scoops up a big bite with a broken piece of tostada…the cooling garnishes giving the ultimate in contrast of flavors and textures.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Heather thought she could still smell the scent of garlic on her fingertips and Pozolé lingering lazily in the air tonight as she pushed through the gate to Lillian’s restaurant for the cooking class that she was starting tonight…a gift form her husband. She loved how he always thought of her and supported her insatiable search for knowledge and love of food.

This is how I imagine my chapter would begin if I was a character in the Erica Bauermeister's novel The School of Essential Ingredients.  This is our current Cook the Books selection...one that I easily became lost in...a part of.  The School of Essential Ingredients is a cooking class held in Lillian's restaurant...a class where people of all different backgrounds and life experience come together and learn not only the "essential" ingredients in the kitchen, but unexpectedly in their lives outside of the kitchen, as well.  Each "chapter" is titled with a different character's name and proceeds to tell the story of each person as it relates to their character.  Each person's story drew me in further; I felt as if I actually was an active member of Lillian's class...as if I was gaining insight on those new people I shared one night per week with.  For me...and many of you, I suspect...life and food are connected in almost every aspect.  This is how Bauermeister writes...with passion, hunger and respect for the nuances of life.  I didn't want the journey into any characters past or present to end...I didn't want to break my connection with them.  Bauermeister speaks to how our experiences shape who we are in every aspect of our lives in the present.  What memories certain foods conjure up...which foods make us joyful, which foods make us weep, which foods make us remember and which foods make us lovers, friends, neighbors, bosses, employees...which foods make us utterly contemplate our humanity.  I wanted to place myself smack dab in the middle of Lillian's class...so, that's exactly what I did.

Pozolé Rojo

from the kitchen of girlichef

yield: ~1qt.

3 mulato chiles, seeded & stemmed

1 medium onion, chopped

1 medium tomato, chopped

3 garlic cloves, smashed

~1 Tbs. olive oil

6 c. homemade chicken stock

~3 c. cooked, shredded chicken

~3 c. cooked hominy

1/2 tsp. ground cumin

sea salt

garnish (NOT optional):

tostadas

radish slices

shredded Romaine lettuce

avocado, diced

lime wedges

dried Mexican Oregano

piquin chile powder

Pour boiling water over mulato chiles in small bowl and let sit ~20 minutes to soften.  Place chiles in blender with onion, tomato, and garlic.  Add ~1/2 c. of the chile soaking liquid and blend until smooth, adding more liquid if needed to make blender run smoothly.

Heat olive oil in large pot, add pureé and cook, stirring for ~10 minutes, until thickened a bit.  Whisk in cumin and then stock and bring to a boil.  Add hominy and chicken, bring back to a boil.  Cook for another 10 minutes or so on a lazy bubble.  Add 1/2 tsp. of salt and taste.  Add more if needed.  Otherwise, ladle the Pozolé into serving bowls.

Add garnishes...first the lettuce, avocado, and radish.  Next, crumble the oregano in your hands to release the oils and sprinkle it over the bowl.  Add a pinch of chile powder.  Squeeze some lime juice over it.  Scoop it all up with some broken up tostadas.  Taste the deep, earthy, comforting flavors...

If you haven't read this book yet, please do so and join us over at Cook the Books...food, books, books, food...you know, the finer things in life.

I am sharing this post with:

*Update 8/3/10: A winning entry...woo hoo!