Father's Day Dinner

Sunday was Father's Day and I was treated to great company and great food. It was a wonderful evening. I wanted to share the recipe's from the dinner because it was so exceptionally good. The main dish was rosemary pineapple chicken. We got this recipe from a good friend and neighbor Lorie Fleischer. Their was a side of freshly baked focaccia bread and fresh snapped green beans. The focaccia bread we dipped in olive oil and balsamic vineger. I can't stress enough the importance of buying good oil and vineger. We finished the night up with a wonderful Godiva chocolate cake with a cheese cake layer. An all around all star meal!

Rosemary Pineapple Chicken
12 chicken tenderloins
1 T. butter
1 t. salt
1/2 t. minced fresh rosemary
1/2 t. ground fresh ginger
1/2 t. paprika
1/4 t. pepper
1 medium onion, thinly sliced and separated into rings
12 oz. pineapple juice

In a large skillet, brown chicken in butter on both sides. Transfer to a greased 9x13 baking dish. Sprinkle with salt, rosemary, ginger, paprika and pepper. Place onion rings over chicken; pour pineapple juice over chicken. Bake uncovered, at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until juices run clear. Optionally add fresh pineapple chunks.

Focaccia Bread
Bread:
1 1/2 cups warm water
1 T. sugar
1 package active dry yeast (2 1/2 t.)
3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 t. salt
1 T. extra virgin olive oil

Topping:
Olive oil
Rosemary
Kosher salt
Fresh ground pepper

In a small bowl, dissolve sugar in warm water. Sprinkle yeast over mixture and let stand for 10 minutes. In a large bowl, combine flour, salt and yeast mixture. Mix well. Knead dough on floured surface for 10 minutes, adding what is needed of the remaining flour until dough is not sticky. Place dough in a well greased bowl, turn once to coat, then cover and set aside in warm place for 1 - 1 1/2 hours. Sprinkle corn meal on a cookie sheet. Punch the dough down, then stretch out and place on cookie sheet. Drizzle olive oil over dough and spread evenly. Sprinkle on toppings. Make dimples in dough with fingers gently. Let rest for 10 minutes. Bake at 375 for 30 - 35 minutes.

Godiva chocolate cake with a cheese cake layer
Cheesecake Layer:
2 packages (8 ounces each) cream cheese, at room temperature
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 large egg, at room temperature
1 bar (1.5 ounces) Godiva Dark Chocolate, coarsely chopped

Chocolate Cake:
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs, at room temperature
5 tablespoons butter, melted
1 cup sour cream

Make the cheesecake layer:
Beat together cream cheese and sugar in bowl until smooth, using electric mixer at medium speed. Beat in vanilla extract and egg. Set aside.

Place chocolate in microwave-safe cup. Microwave on medium (50% power) for 1 minute. Stir. Microwave 30 seconds more or until chocolate is softened. Stir until smooth and let cool.

Make the chocolate cake:
Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter 8x2-inch square baking pan. Line bottom of the pan with parchment paper and butter paper.

Mix flour, cocoa powder, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large mixing bowl.

Combine eggs, melted butter and sour cream and whisk until blended. Add to dry ingredients and mix just until combined. Spread batter into prepared pan.

Spread cream cheese mixture over the chocolate batter. Drizzle with melted chocolate. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes or until top is set and golden and a cake tester inserted in the center of the cake comes out with only a few moist crumbs clinging to it.

Cool in pan on wire rack. When the cake is completely cooled, cut into squares to serve.

Rolls

Thanksgiving was wonderful. So much good food. We didn't have any family around but we did have some good friends come and enjoy all of the food. Turkey is wonderful! Potatoes and gravy are great! Pumpkin and apple pies with fresh apples from the apple tree are excellent! But what I think makes thanksgiving the best is rolls. Yes, wonderfully tasty bread rolls. Rolls with butter, rolls with jam, rolls with cranberry, rolls with gravy, rolls with turkey, rolls with...well just about anything. The following is my mother's roll recipe. I think they are the best rolls ever. I have tried quite a few different recipes, but I always come back to this one. It has taken a while to figure out the tricks to make them right, so I will try to share what I have learned to make the just right.

Ingredient List
4 1/2 tsp yeast (2 packages)
1/2 cup warm water
1 Tbsp sugar
2 cups of milk
1/2 cup butter (margarine will work, but butter is better)
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
8 cups of flour

Directions
Stir yeast and 1 Tbsp of sugar into 1/2 cup warm water. The water needs to be quite warm to make the yeast react, but not to hot to kill the yeast. This is a little hard to measure, but you should be able to get the water out of the tap. It should be hot to the touch, but not burning. They key is, about 10-15 minutes after you mix it, the mixture should become very foamy. I usually mix this in a 2 cup liquid measuring cup and the foam will almost fill the cup. Set this mixture aside.

I use a kitchen aid mixer for the rest of the ingredients. Heat milk to hot, but not quite boiling. I usually do this in the microwave. Pour the milk into the mixing bowl. Soften the butter and add it to the milk. Add sugar, salt, and eggs to the milk mixture. The yeast should be very foamy by now. Add the yeast mixture to the milk mixture. Mix in 7 cups of flour. The dough will be very sticky.

Spread about a cup of flour on the counter. Dump the dough onto the flour. Put some more flour on top of the dough and some on your hands. Knead the flour into the dough. Adding the last cup of flour this way allows the dough to pick up as much flour as it needs. The dough should be smooth and elastic. Don't knead the dough to long, just long enough so it no longer sticks to your hands. Spread some flour in the mixing bowl. Place the dough back in the bowl, cover it, place it in a warm place and allow it to rise for about a 1/2 hour to an hour or until it doubles in size.

Punch the dough down. Put some flour on your hands, do this as necessary so the dough does not stick to you. Make balls of dough, table tennis to golf ball sized. I do this by squeezing a ball of dough in between my first finger and thumb until the ball of dough pops loose. Place the balls of dough on a cookie sheet. It makes about to cookie sheets worth of rolls. Cover the rolls and let them rise for about half an hour. Bake them for about 15 minutes at 350 degrees.

As soon as you pull the rolls out of the oven, rub a cube of butter or margarine over the top of the rolls. The makes the top of the roll very sweet. Pull them off the cookie sheet and enjoy!

Winger’s Original Buffalo Wings Sauce

I deep fried some wings tonight for dinner. I found a recipe on the web for Winger’s Original Buffalo Wings Sauce. The recipe I used was not correct though. It called for 2 1/2 cups of brown sugar. It was more like carameled wings then buffalo wings. Pretty bad really. I have put a corrected version below so I will not make that mistake again.

1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
3 tablespoons light corn syrup
1/3 cup Frank’s Red Hot pepper sauce
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup hot water

Place brown sugar and corn syrup in medium saucepan and melt over medium heat until boiling. Cook for 3 minutes, stirring constantly or it will burn. Add hot water, pepper sauce and vinegar. Stir all ingredients together well and continue cooking at a low boil, stirring often until mixture has reduced to a syrupy consistency (about 15 minutes). The sauce will thicken considerably as it cools. You can adjust the amounts of Frank’s Red Hot and water to get the right amount of spice for your taste. Some people like only Hot sauce and no water.