No Need to Argue - Braided Herb and Cheese Bread

If there is one thing this blog and my blog posts are known for, it's the ridiculous thoughts I have time  and again. However, you shouldn't take everything I said so serious. That would just be a disappointment. You know, I am not twenty one anymore and I am not so sure, whether I could or should be dreaming my dreams. Whatever the case, this blog will never be empty or devoid of food and I hope I will not be changing into a food writing zombie (whatever that is). Don't be so sad, though, if I can't be with you all the time. Right now, I am having a good time, it's summer, the sun is shinning and if I look outside it's not the time to watch while the icicle melts.
By now you should have found out, that there really is no need to argue. Nevertheless, I have no idea nor plan how ever I could use the terms Yeats's grave and daffodil lament in any causal sentence here during this blog post, even if I would include an ode to my family.
While I like writing song based blog posts, I would like to dedicate this one to The Cranberries studio album No Need to Argue. But why is there no need to argue? I like to be frank with you. I love carbs, gluten, wheat, yeast, bacon and all that stuff. While I have no problems with others eating gluten free or low carb, you don't need to argue with me about these things, I just love my dough.
For that I have some bread for you with all the lovely things.

Fine, go ahead, start arguing about the quality of the photos. Well, sometimes things are good and sometimes they are not

Ingredients
300 ml tepid water
7 g yeast
tsp honey
300 g flour
200 g semolina
salt
basil, sage, mint, rosemary
200 g mozzarella, grated
125 bacon, cubed
pepper

Method
We start with the tepid water in one bowl or measuring jar, as I usually do. We add the yeast and the teaspoon of honey. Let the yeast do its magic. Meanwhile get a larger bowl for the flour, semolina and a pinch of salt.
Then it's time to mix the yeasty water with the flour and get things together for a dough.

Get your share of food fitness by kneading the dough for a while to release the glutens (here we go). At the same time you fry of the bacon cubes for a while to give them some extra colour and all that you want.
Chop up the desired amount of the above mentioned herbs, chop them really finely. Then you can work them into the dough. Yes more kneading. After that you get 100 g of the mozzarella cheese and knead it into the dough as well. Follows the bacon and even more kneading until you have all the goodies evenly in your dough.
I reckon, it's time for the dough to do its thing and rise. Meanwhile you can ... no need to argue .. do whatever you like. Maybe you could watch an episode of your favourite series. While we are talking about it ... nah ... whatever.
Just get it over with. I suggest one hour. Then separate the dough into three even balls.

Get a baking tray with some baking parchment ready. You might want to heat up the oven to 200 °C.
Turn the three balls of dough into ... eh ... three sausages of dough, just a little longer then your baking tray. After that we can go for the fun part, braiding the bread. In my opinion, with hair this braiding is a bit easier and ... if you really have to ... but then again no need to argue ... if you look at the fotos the braiding didn't work that out that pro on my bread, but this in no way diminished the taste.
Once the braiding is finished ... for good or for bad ... spread over the remaining cheese and add some pepper on top and transfer the baking tray to the oven for 20 - 30 minutes. The bread is looking golden brown and ready for ...

... the time to enjoy. For sure you will find a good way to do so. You will find something lovely to eat on the side.

That whole thing might be a bit dangerous for me as I could go ahead and finish off that bread just that. No need to argue!

#Foodfitness with Beef and Cheese Empanadillas

It is about time I start putting up some more food here on our blog. It has been quite a while of inactivity, which doesn't mean I haven't been active. In fact I have been very active and I have been doing quite some exercise, enjoying it together with my beautiful wife. Life is really good!
Now, though, it is time again for some other kind of exercise again ... food fitness.
Let's have some Spanish food today, which you could also use for a picnic, if the weather so permits.

Ingredients:
450 g flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tbsp. butter
1 egg
1 tsp. honey
pinch of salt
lukewarm water
1 onion (finely chopped)
some chillies (to your liking, finely chopped)
2 cloves of garlic (finely chopped)
500 g minced beef
smoked paprika
salt, pepper
2 tbsp. tomato puree
basil, rosemary, mint
3 spring onions (chopped in rings)
150 g grated cheese (whatever kind you fancy)
30 g sultanas
oil for frying

Method:
First of all we go for the dough, setting the tone for the whole thing, putting some energy in the preparation, for there will be much energy in the consumption as well, although I am not quite sure whether you want to hear it.
Put the flour with the baking powder in a bowl, rub in the butter. Then add the salt, honey and egg. Knead the dough in a fitness-like fashion adding as much of lukewarm water as it needs to bring the whole dough together.
Then let the dough rest for at least 30 minutes. In case you also need that rest, I guess you have to give it some more time. Otherwise you can you the time wisely to already prepare the filling.
You start off with the onions in a large pan, let the chillies and the garlic join. After the onions are translucent you can put in the meat and season it with salt, pepper and the smoked paprika. Once the meat has gained sufficient colour you can add the tomato puree and go on frying as long until it is all relatively dry. We don't want the filling too wet to cause any problems.
Just when it is all ready that far, turn off the heat and add the basil, rosemary, mint, spring onions, cheese and sultanas. It might look a little bit like this ...

You have some time for it to cool off a bit. That will be the time to prepare the individual empanadillas and have some extra exercise. If you still feel you need more exercise, do some push-ups, squats or crunches later on, but here we go with good old food fitness ...

Try to make it thin. This way you will enjoy the filling much later when all is finished. Give it your all. You want to feel those muscles in yours so you can actually say you have done some real exercise. Get some round shapes out of the dough for the final empanadillas. We got a special tool for it here so it will work out perfectly with the shape and sticking in the filling.
Give every circle of dough, we had 15 in the end, a teaspoon of filling or a little bit more, as your conscience permits and as you will be able to seal them properly afterwards. We don't want any filling to exit while frying. We only want to let the filling exit in your mouth while eating.

If it looks like this you might be doing it right. To ensure they are securely shut, you can use a fork to seal them well.
Then enjoy the time for frying the empanadillas in sufficient oil and hopefully they are securely shut. I didn't do it so well, when I tried it the other week, but this batch went perfectly well without incidents ... for my wife was helping to make it happen just fine.

Now the only thing that remains is enjoy your empanadillas with some salad and a beer ... any kind of beer. It doesn't need to be Spanish, although I wouldn't mind a bottle of Estrella de Galicia.
We hope you had enough exercise preparing the empanadillas. As for my part I feel like I still have to do some more exercise. These days I am kind of crazy about doing some exercise. That's not bad, after all the body feels a lot better when it is filled with muscles and not with ... anyway, I don't want to suggest anything here, but just that I am always going to enjoy some good food exercise, when it also leads to some tasty results. It would really make me feel bad, if I would put in all the effort in preparing  and eating if it wouldn't be worth it. 
In this very case here of the empanadillas we can assure you that it was absolutely worth it and we are going to enjoy it any time.
We hope you are having a good time and are keeping healthy!

To Taste with Tofu - Fried Tofu in Spicy Tomato Sauce

Everyone loves tofu. Right?

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... eh ... eh ... au contraire? Rather the opposite? Oh! Well, there is a rumour tofu is bland and tasteless and you can live very much without it. At least that is what some feel.
I say, you can eat everything with the right sauce ... eh ... almost everything. Before we go on now, I don't have a problem with or without tofu. In fact I like to have it from time to time, but ... now to the right sauce ...

Still Summer - Zingy Chilli and Chocolate Gazpacho

I can't remember having a real summer last year, although the two weeks I was out hiking had been fine apart from the first day, where I got soaked completely. Fine, we had some rain, storm and sort of things this year, too, but mainly it was a real summer thing ... just a moment ... still is a real summer thing.
However, some people manage to complain all the time. "It's too hot", "I can't stand the heat" ... fine ... if you must. Should you belong into this category of people, you maybe also think, I would be too hot to stand in the kitchen at the stove and cook.
I'd say, it's no problem to have some more heat in the kitchen, but ... hey ... I can so also without and ... have some gazpacho ...

TMC - Tipsy Mint Cookies

It's time to get some ideas again and get busy in the kitchen. Although things don't feel quite easy these days, I do my best to ... eh ... do things.
Hm, maybe we can do something that is not too complicated. Do you know TMC? 
For some it is 'Traffic Message Channel' for getting some information for your navigation system, for me today it is 'Tipsy Mint Cookies'.

Some time ago I did those cookies with Ouzo. Well, things can be quite easy in life ... just substitute the Ouzo with mint liqueur and here you go. Maybe a few more little adjustments, but basically, things don't have to be so, well ... eh ... complicated.
While doing this, it reminded me of holiday in France. There we had mint water and also some ice cream with mint. Once we even made mint tea with mint water ... so we had the double power.
For our cookies, though, we are not going full power. We try to go easy on it. I still remember the rum incident ... still, however, I have a feeling those cookies are once more, not for kids, either.
Let's do it then!

Ingredients:
250 g butter
250 g icing sugar
500 g flour
100 ml mint liqueur
80 g dark chocolate

Preparation:
Get yourself a bowl for working the dough in. Add the sugar and the butter and give it a good mix through-beating-kind-of-thing.

Whilst you could use an electric device, you could do it perfectly well manually.
I don't want to go in any way political here, but ... if you do it without electricity you got some advantages. You burn some extra calories and in time you can save some money and don't go to the gym anymore (of course you need to do more then just a few cookies) and you save electricity (your hand mixer may not have such a great wattage, but still you save a bit). No wonder, we have to build so many power plants and so on. We don't have to worry so much about nuclear power, but rather about the fact that everyone wants to have so much electricity for so many things.
However, as I said, I don't want to get political, neither do I want to endorse any form of power generating or to speak against it. Just some food for thought. Do we really make things easy for us by always taking the easy way. You know it from food: fast food and convenience food seem to be easier and more convenient, but ... well, you know!
Where were we? Right, making cookies.
Once the sugar and butter got kind of creamy, we can go on and add some of the flour and some of the liqueur and start incorporating it. Bit by bit we go on until all is in and we have a nice dough.

The dough is a bit on the greenish side. That is good. We can work with that.
Hm, we might get about 16 cookies. So you can divide the dough into 16 bits, form them to small balls and then flatten them to place them on a baking tray.

Then they go into the oven at 220°C for about 15 minutes. Keep an eye on them (my oven is a bit less powerful than it pretends to be)!
After that you can take them out and leave them to cool down. Meanwhile melt the chocolate over boiling water. Then have a small spoon ready and try to get some kind of chocolaty pattern on your cookies.

I hope you enjoy them. They do not taste too strong of mint, but still they are quite nice.
Still there is a bit of greenish look on them. Those might be Tipsy Mint Cookies, but they are not that tipsy. If you have a few, you still can use your car (if you didn't have something else).