Recipes | Jenna's Everything Blog

First of all, happy Valentine’s Day to one and all! For us here in the Windy City it’s business as usual–work for me, school for my husband, yoga in the evening, leftovers for dinner–but Friday we had a little date to see “The King’s Speech” and indulge in some burgers and fries from Five Guys, so I consider our duty to Mr. Valentine as completed. Phew. He’s a demanding guy, this Valentine fellow, and with a little instigation from him, the presence or absence of flowers, chocolates, and/or pink-and-red falderal can become a subject of much stress to many individuals. So. All that to say, I hope this Monday morning finds you all pleased with your plans, your lack of plans, your whirlwind celebrations, or your abstinence from the festivities.

But enough about lovey-dovey stuff, and onto a subject of great general interest: food. The unthinkable has happened–this Friday February 18th at 6:30pm, I will be co-teaching a cooking class with my friend and blogging foodie Cassia.

We were asked by our lovely friend Traci, who also happens to be our pastor’s wife. She works at HGTV and has the most fabulous kitchen (which she designed herself). When she first proposed the idea of having me co-teach a class in her home, I briefly choked on my own tongue. And then my left knee starting jerking back and forth uncontrollably. But when I regained control of my faculties, I squeaked out an excited ‘yes!’ See, I just can’t wait to splatter her gorgeous kitchen with olive oil and crank up both ovens at the same time! Plus it will be such fun to hang out with the lovely ladies who are coming–many of them excellent cooks themselves. Traci also has two of the cutest girls the world has ever seen, and I had the privilege of photographing them last year.

Oh man, Bronagh’s freckles and Ashling’s mop of curls get me every time.

If any of you lovely people are in Chicago and want to come, just shoot me an email and I’ll send you the details. Oh, and you do have to be a girl–because this is part of our church’s Women’s Ministry series.

While I don’t feel qualified to teach anyone anything, it should be a fun time and there will be–hopefully, barring disaster, knock on wood, say a prayer for me–good food to feast on. We’re so excited about the menu! It’s a Mediterranean theme, with citrus and herbs tying it all together. Here’s what we’re looking at:

Roasted Red Pepper Soup with Broiled Corn and Lime Cilantro Sour Cream

Butterflied Mediterranean Roasted Chicken with Olive Tapenade

Butterflied Roasted Chicken with Lemon, Garlic, and Rosemary

Polenta with Goat Cheese and Rosemary

Shredded Brussel Sprouts with Nutmeg and Bacon

Fruit Pizza

Cassia and I got together on Saturday to cook through the whole menu and work out any kinks. After 3 hot and busy and sweaty and utterly delightful hours of work, we served up our creations to the boys (our patiently enduring husbands). For anyone inclined against brussel sprouts, I’ll have you know that was my husband’s favorite dish of the evening.

Here’s a peak at the little green guys . . . I could devour them at any time of the day or night.

I also learned an important lesson about serving the polenta as soon as it’s done. Preparing it in advance and then abandoning it on a back burner for 30 minutes resulted in a clumpy, lumpy, and a very unattractive texture.

Lesson learned! (just in time)

Cassia worked at a winery in California for years, so she’ll also be sharing her wisdom regarding wine pairings, which to me is a complete mystery. My shamefully backwards attitude has been: if the bottle says ‘wine,’ it will somehow go with whatever is making an appearance on the table. So I’m excited to expand my knowledge and get some sophistication up in here, after failing to learn a thing at Cassia’s wine tasting party last fall. I love second chances.

We’ll also be talking about the importance of good knives, and going over how to butterfly a chicken. Wish me luck as I grapple with its knobby old backbone and wrestle it from the pink carcass–I wish to do this unscathed. No severed thumbs, or flying chicken pieces.

Of course, every recipe we make will also be making an appearance here with step by step pictures and printable versions and all that fun stuff.

I love you guys! And I wish you could all come, if only to laugh at me as I pretend to know how to do stuff! I mean laugh with me. Laugh with me. Right.

I’m not a baker. It’s just not what I do.

I want to be of the baking persuasion–my idealized visions of my future self involve pulling a tray of hot biscuits out of the oven, enveloping my family with the scents of freshly baked bread as soon as they walk in the door, and serving homemade pies and cakes pretty much every 10 minutes.

But once I actually get into the kitchen, I play with my usual friends–the skillet. The Dutch oven. Mushrooms and heavy whipping cream.

When my blogging friend Veronica from Recipe Rhapsody mentioned her buttery beer bread recipe though, my heart did a little flip flop in my chest. I wanted that bread.

And I wanted it bad.

The word ‘buttery’ probably played a large part.

Guys, you must make this bread. Let me outline the advantages in a strictly logical fashion:

1) It has only 2 ingredients. Okay fine! It has 6. But it feels like 2 when you’re making it.

2) This bread does not need to rise. So after 10 minutes of mixing and only an hour of baking, it’s on the table, baby. This means that you don’t have to plan in advance–you can make this bread on a whim.

3) The hands-on time could probably go below 10 minutes with practiced efficiency. The necessary actions can be summarized as follows: Sift! Stir! Spray! Plop! Bake.

Have you seen the light? Do you seeeee the liiiiiight? (name that movie)

Ingredients

3 c flour

1/4 c sugar

1 tsp salt

1 TBS baking powder

12 oz beer

1 stick butter

Preheat the oven to 375. Sift together the flour . . .

the sugar . . .

the salt . . .

and the baking powder.

Sifty sifty sift . . .

*Please sing a sifting ditty to yourself*

And if you get some granules at the bottom of the sifter like this:

Just press ’em through with the heel of your measuring cup. Like so.

Give it a little stir with a wooden spoon:

Now grab hold of that beer. I used Blue Moon, but any beer should work.

Pour it in. Into the bowl, not your mouth, silly!

Give the whole shebang another stir with the wooden spoon.

I found it easier to finish the mixing process with my big ole hand.

Now grab that dough!

FYI, if you’re like me and feel compelled to taste the raw dough, it won’t taste that delicious. But the flavor changes completely after baking, fear not. I wouldn’t lead you down the primrose path.

Oh, make sure you spray your baking pan. I used a loaf pan, and completely forgot to spray it until my hands looked like this: