Potato-Onion Tartlets

These were a recipe from Martha’s book. They are basically exactly what they sound like: little potato onion tarts. The recipe called for puff pastry for the top crust part, but I’m not a huge fan of puff pastry and it calls for much too much butter than my poor self can afford, so I ended up using just a simple savoury tart crust.

I also didn’t have any mini tart pans, so I used my muffin tin instead. I buttered the tin and then put a few onion rings on the bottom, followed by the sliced potatoes. I sprinkle salt and pepper atop the potatoes before putting the tart circle cut out on top.

I put them in the oven for about 30 minutes at 425˚.

Then I proceeded to make the balsamic vinegar syrup, which consisted of ¼ cup balsamic vinegar with a pinch of sugar. You bring this to a simmer and reduce to a syrup.

The tartlets smelled really good when they were done, but tasting them wasn’t as good. They didn’t taste bad, they were just really bland. The best part was the vinegar, because it added something other than starch. There needed some other spices or something, but I’m not very good at picking out savoury spices. I’m good at the sweet stuff. J

I also don’t have a picture of these, because didn’t look that great.

Whole Wheat Bread

My first loaf of yeasted bread that hasn’t turned out like a brick! Woot! This is the original recipe that I referenced, but I changed quite a lot. It’s still not quite what I want though. I’m going to try again and tweak it some more until I get it right.

So here is what I actually did:

1 1/8 cups warm water

2 1/2 cups whole wheat bread flour

½ cup white bread flour

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1/3 cup honey

1 tablespoon vital wheat gluten

1 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 tablespoons ground flax seed

¼ oz active dry yeast (approx. 2 ¼ tsp.)

I put the warm water, yeast, and honey in the bread machine and let bubble for 10 minutes. Then I added the rest of the ingredients before hitting start on my bread machine.

I didn’t cook the bread in the bread machine, because last time I did that it didn’t work out so well. So after the bread had gone through both risings I put the dough in a grease loaf pan and baked it in the oven at 350˚ for about 30 minutes. Voila! I had bread! It was nice using the bread machine for the work, but it didn’t seem to work well for making the bread rise. I think next time I will do the rising myself and just knead in the bread machine.

Also, I added the flax seed instead of oil, which tasted fine right out of the oven, but the day after it was a little dry. Next time I think I will add another tablespoon of oil. If you’re having trouble finding bread flour, go to Winco! It’s an amazing store with barrels and barrels of bulk flour for cheap! You can find bread flour, pastry flour, cake flour, ground flax seed, nuts, oats, pasta, and more. It’s amazing. Go there.

Granola

I was not thrilled with this, which is why there are no pictures. I got this from this “Make-a-Mix” book I have. The mixes are good. The recipes are not, so far, are not. It’s from like ‘80s though, so really, what can I expect?

If anyone has a good granola recipe, please tell me. I have a tried a few, and none have really jumped out at me as good.