Ice Cream Bread/Cake?

Yea the title does not lie I have made a few different things over the years, but this one threw me for a loop when a friend back from my S1 days (Jessica) suggested it to me on facebook. Just two ingredients flour and high test ice cream. After wiping it up in my kitchen it makes for a uniquely sweet and creamy bread/cake.

Yield: 1 loaf of ice cream bread.

Ingredients:

Self-Rising Flour: 1-1/2 c [180 g] (Make sure you have or buy self-rising otherwise you will end up with a brick)
High Test Ice Cream of Choice: 2 c [260 g] (Do not buy the low fat or fat free I have not tried it but from comments it does not work)

What you'll need is a mixing bowl, a 8"x4" bread loaf pan and a pre-heated oven at 350F.

First off my poison of choice for this very unique bread is Red Velvet from Market Pantry (Targets "cheap" but good brand). [Aside: Does anyone else notice that many the Archer Farm's/Targets premium brand spices are per ounce are less than the Market Pantry and McCormick spices?] For some reason I've had a craving for Red Velvet lately so that's why this strange flavor ended up in this recipe.

Next weigh or measure out the ingredients.

Once everything is weighed out put into a mixing bowl and mix until the flour is well blended with the ice cream.

Once mixed, grease or use a non-stick spray (I personally prefer Pam non stick spray) in the bread pan then  pour/scoop the batter into sed pan.

Smooth the batter so that it covers the bread pan evenly.

Place in preheated oven for 40-45 minutes and check by inserting a wooden toothpick in the center of the loaf. If the toothpick comes out clean it is done.

 Pace on wire cooling rack for 15-20 minutes to allow the bread to cool.

Once cool serve. For the best taste serve with the remaining ice cream you used in the bread.

This is a little aside about the bread. Personally alone the bread seems to be missing something. Like most cake like breads it usually needs some frosting or ice cream to enhance the flavor/texture of it. I've made it once and I may or may not make it again. For a party or get together with friends it would seem like a very surprising desert that most people would like especially if it is paired with ice cream on the side or on top. 

Let me know what you think if you get the chance to make it. Also comment what it is like with different flavor ice creams. 

In Christ,

Dan

Herb Pizza Crust

After finding another bread book at a garage sale, I found a new formula (recipe) for making a tasty herb pizza dough. I haven't made this into a pizza instead I incorporated this into a buffalo chicken garbage bread. I'll include a link to this recipe at the end of the post.

First off this is a bread machine recipe. Meaning the easiest way to make this is just using the dough setting on your bread machine. If you don't have a bread machine they are usually a dime a dozen at thrift stores because most people never use them. Sorry I don't have weights at this time. I'll try to update the post with them at a later date.

Yields one 14" thin crust

Ingredients:
Warm water (110 - 115F): 2/3 c
Salt: 1/2 tsp
Bread Flour: 2-1/4 c
Sugar: 1 tsp
Dried rosemary leaves: 1tsp
Dried oregano leaves: 1/2 tsp
Ground black pepper: 1/4 tsp
Dried thyme leaves: 1/4 tsp
Active dry yeast: 2 tsp

Place all ingredients into bread machine pan then set bread machine to dough setting. Once finished (70-90 minutes depending on the bread machine) remove from bread pan and let rest for 2-3 minutes.

Then stretch dough into pizza pan or Peel and prepare pizza.

Questions? Comments? Let me know below in the comments section.

-Dan

Buffalo Chicken Garbage Bread Recipe
Source: Bread Machine Recipes by Publications International Ltd.

Two Day Pizza Dough

Over the years I've mixed and matched different recipes when it comes to making pizzas. Some pizza doughs have been tasty and others never again meet the scorching heat of a oven. This recipe is one I started using more recently because of the texture and taste. It takes a bit longer than most pizza dough recipes that can go raw ingredients to oven in under 2 hours but, it's worth it.

Yields: 6 10" pizzas
Total Time: 7-20 hours but ~50 minutes of active work.

Ingredients

Poolish

Bread flour: 1-2/3 c (220 g)
Water (70F): 1 c (220 g)
Instant yeast: Pinch (.25 g)

Final dough:

Bread flour: 7 c (1000 g)
Water (80F): 2-1/4 c (500 g)
Instant yeast: 1-1/4 tsp (4 g)
Salt: 4 tsp (26 g)
Cornmeal: 2 tsp (10 g)
Savory oil mix (Olive oil with your choice of spices): 2 tbsp (35 g)
Poolish: All of it.

Night Before making poolish:

Mix together the flour, water and pinch of yeast. This mixture will be very sticky. Store in a covered container with plastic wrap. I used a covered container but found within 3 hours the top popped off from the pressure inside. Let poolish sit at room temperature overnight (12-16 hours).

Next morning Making the final dough:

In the quantities above, this will take at least a 5-quart mixer to make the dough. 

Also although common sense use a dough hook when making it. For some reason when making this batch I used my mixing attachment instead of a dough hook.

Add all the ingredients into the bowl and mix.

Mix on low speed for 4 minutes then medium speed for 2-3 minutes.

When done remove the dough and place it into non-stick cooking spray coated pan. Cover and let rest in a warm pace for 45 minutes. 

After the dough has rested for 45 minutes give it one stretch and fold as indicated in the video above from weekendbakery.com.

Cover again and let rest for another 45 minutes.

Divide dough evenly into 6 pieces (roughly 220 g each)

Then place on a sheet pan and cover with plastic then set in refrigerator to rest for another 4-6 hours.

I generally place the dough into plastic wrap and then place it in the freezer so it can be used at a later date. When using frozen dough let it warm up in the refrigerator overnight. Usually I let it sit for 24 hours in the refrigerator before using it.

Questions? Comments? Let me know below.

-Dan

Source: Baking Artisan Bread by Ciril Hitz

Easy Cold Brew Coffee ***Updated***

Summer is just around the corner even if winter doesn't want to leave. Hard to believe that central MN got pounded with several inches of heavy wet snow on the 23rd of April. That said I'm posting a summer drink that is easy to make, but does take a little planning ahead of time. Also it's a lot cheaper to make than buying it a coffee shop. Like the title indicates I'm talking about cold brew coffee.

Well it's been 48 hours since my first attempt at making cold brew coffee. As was noted in a Google plus post my first attempt was more or less coffee paste over any actual cold brewed coffee. The main reason for that was the proportion in the recipe I initially used had the ratio of coffee grounds to water too high. For my second attempt I went to the internet and found a site that had a easy recipe for making cold brew coffee.
After a quick read through of the recipe I decided to give it shot.

Cold Brew Coffee:

1-3/4 Cup of ground coffee of choice (Used a medium bodied roast for this attempt)
3-1/2 Cup of water (Used cold filtered water)

(yields ~ 2 cups of coffee concentrate) 


Mixed all ingredients into a 2-quart container then cover with plastic wrap or container's cover. I used a old juice container that I had cleaned out. Let sit for minimum of 12 hours and maximum of 24 hours.

Once the brewing time is up, now comes the fun part filtering the brewed coffee from the grounds. For this I used a coffee filter and a single serve coffee maker (that black thing above the clear coffee mug).

I included a short video showing a part of the filtering process.

As an aside I ended up using 3 #2 Melitta paper filters during the filtering process. I generally use Melitta papers filters because they tend to brew better coffee than the standard cheap coffee filters. Again this is personal preference. Also I was a bit on the anxious side finishing up this batch so I ended up squeezing the filters to get out all the brewed coffee I could. That was a bit of a mistake. On the site, I noted above, they don't recommend doing that and I'll concur since it made the brew a lot more bitter than I was hoping / expecting. 

Once I had filtered the cold brew coffee I ran it through one additional filter before I put it in my storage container for refrigerating. If you were wondering that stacked mess below in the picture luckily didn't fall over when I was pouring.

Cooling should take a minimum of 2 hours in the refrigerator. In winter up in ND it will probably take 20-30 minutes outside. 

Once cooled enjoy with ice, sugar / coffee syrup and equal parts half-half, water or milk. 

I've started another batch this evening and will try to alleviate my mistakes noted from above and will report back with another post or amending this post with a update. Also I'm going to try and find a cheap french press coffee maker and try using it to see if it makes the filtering process a little easier.

Let me know how your batches turn out with a comment below and any suggestions your tips and tricks you have when making the cold brew coffee. Also let me know what kind of roast you used ie (light or dark roast).

Best Regards,

Dan

Reference Site: http://www.chow.com/recipes/30487-basic-cold-brewed-coffee

***Update***
After trying for a third time I was able to take the bitterness out of the cold brew coffee by not squeezing out the coffee filter. Sorry no pictures.

Fork in the road

The Long Winding Road has been living on life support for awhile now with semi haphazard updates. That said I have been toying with the idea of changing directions with the blogs content. A week ago I decided to start up a "Cooking Circle" on Google+ (hence the fork in the road). Instead of posting to all my followers I set it up for only those who were interested in cooking/baking recipes and techniques. For the time being some of those posts will show up on here.

Best Regards,

-Dan

Mixing up the pizza idea.

Below is a note I had wrote on my Facebook page a long time ago, ok September 2009, I had forgot about. The note included some of my ramblings about making pizzas, which at that point I was just beginning to fall into that slippery slope of baking bread in a oven instead of a bread machine. That said enjoy my old-ish ramblings about making pizzas. As an aside I still use some of these techniques and ideas in my current baking. 

-Dan 

After baking bread often last year (my roommates can attest to the many different kinds loafs of bread) I tried to take it one-step further. What came about was well rather flat in one respect, fun, and unique in the other. It's amazing what one basic dough recipe can transform into when you take it a step further. When it comes down to it, I've learned more than my fair share of mixing flavors in baking pizzas. Talking to a few friends, most people say what makes a pizza is the sauce. I'll agree with that but for me that's not the pivotal point on a pizza. For me it's the Crust. Thin, Thick, Stuffed, or dessert or whatever way you like to throw it what goes into the dough it the one thing people will remember because it's "usually" the last thing their taste buds will remember. Therefore, here are a few tips I've come to live by through trial and error when making pizzas.

• NEVER, buy a pre-made or packaged instant crust
• If you’re going to add spices to a crust, know what the toppings on top and sauce are going to be and use spices in the crust to accent them.
• Adding a hard cheese (Parmesan, Romano, or Asiago) within crust can help make it softer
• Milk can add just the right amount of creamy texture
• don’t be afraid to mix a little of the sauce into the crust to bring out a little extra flavor and it's something most people never expect
• sugar or a sweetener is great but not in excess because you risk killing the yeast
• Sea salt over convention table salt
• Use bread flour not multipurpose because throwing will be 10X easier
• Don’t be afraid of trying something new because unique isn’t boring, it either a hit or back to the drawing board.

EVOlving

Growing up I've seemed to have a unique view on technology. When I was younger I always liked to take-apart different thing old phones, small appliances that didn't work anymore and some that did. Most time with the avail of not being able to get it back to the state it was previously. Fast forward 20+ years and that curiosity still looms. Grant it I'm not tearing apart items for the fun of regularly, but it's shifted. Taking a step back I've noticed that my desire to modify or tweak has move to more complex or expensive ventures.

For those who noticed the reference in the title EVO refers to the smartphone moniker from HTC. Overtime I've became more curious about how smartphones have evolved. Funny enough my first "smartphone" I had was a Palm Treo W800 running Windows Mobile 6.1. The ability to have email, word processing along with the ability to play games on a touch screen was great to have on a phone. Considering all that phone went through it lasted great until it quit charging.

After my Palm died I began my "decent", as most iPhone users would say, into the world of Android. The first Android powered phone I bought was infamously know as the HTC Hero on Sprint. For those who have used that phone or still use it know it reaches it limits rather quickly. My favorite feature on the phone was easily the scroll wheel on the bottom of the phone which made navigating the small screen easy. Also the ability to display widgets on to the home screens was nifty (Sense flip clock w/ weather). During the time I had that phone, I put it through it's paces and it worked well until I decided to start dabbling with a program call "Torque". For a while the phone was able to keep up with the program, but my obsessive dabbling on pulling information from the automobile quickly revealed the HTC Hero's weakness.

About a year into the 2-year contract I bought a HTC EVO 4G (E4G) off contract. To this day this was my favorite smartphone. The E4G was fast, sleek, and had a kickstand. After 6 months of using my E4G as a stock phone I nerved up and decided to throw the warranty to the wind and root the sucker. I don't regret it one bit, once I got a custom rom and kernel on the device I had it overclocked, stable and flying. The phone didn't have any issues running Torque or even running as dash cam in the car. Looking back I should have probably invested in a case for it because little over a year into having the E4G I dropped it on some concrete and turned the screen into a very impressive spiderweb.

When I had my E4G I purchased two tablets to use when I was out and about or at home. My first tablet was none other than the Samsung Galaxy Tab (SGT) from Sprint that I bought online as a refurbished off contract device that I never activated. This device I rooted a week after I bought so I could OC and run some Super User apps. It took me a while to install a custom rom on the device because the modding community for the SGT wasn't very established for the CDMA Sprint version.

After a few months I bought a Motorola Xoom, again a refurbished one. This one took a little while for me to get around and root because it had a good warranty on the device. After I got past the fact that some of the updates were a bit slow at getting out and were occasionally buggy, I looked to the modding community for cleaner and smoother version of Honeycomb (3.2) and Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0). I tried a few different roms for the Wingray Xoom (WiFi only). After a while I settled on using one particular rom from Team Eos which has been my daily driver on my Xoom for 6 months now. After buying a car dock for my Xoom it is now my media hub / "Torque" display within my car since I did not have a touchscreen interface on my car. The other advantage is since my car is equipped with Sync I can easily play audio over Bluetooth.

As I mentioned earlier my E4G met a early demise complements of me dropping it on concrete. My first choice was going to be a Samsung Galaxy Nexus, but since it was not on Sprint at the time of the miss hap I went with my second choice the now ignored by Sprint (cough, ICS, cough*) HTC EVO 3D (E3D). This phone lasted stock for about a month, and it was rooted through HTC's unlock method. Although gimmicky I do like the 3D capabilities. I find the ability to shot 3D photos and video a nice feature. Yes I am one of the few people that does not get sick from viewing 3D images or video. Unlike my E4G I seem to rom hop quite frequently with my E3D.  When I was on Gingerbread I use to like using Eternity from Virus, but I had numerous rebooting issues with later versions. I finally switched over to MeanRom on Gingerbread then to MeanRom ICS (based of a VM leak) and have had good luck with how the rom has been running. Holding true to my modding / tweaking personality, I've been looking around for a good replacement since MeanRom is missing a few features I really miss from Eternity. Performance wise I enjoy how snappy the E3D is because of the dual core processor and 1GB of ram on-board. I'm planning on keeping this one around until the next nexus phone comes out. Yes if you were wondering I do have a case on my E3D, (it has a kick stand built in) and it's saved it at least 3 times already. 


For those keeping count I've fallen pretty far (*for the iOS crowd still reading*). So 3 Android phone and 2 Android tablets later where does this put me? Well after seeing the unavailing of the Microsoft Surface and the "new" iPad. I'm going to be sticking around with Android. I'm looking forward to installing Jelly Bean (4.1) on my Xoom in a few weeks and when a port is available for my E3D I'll be installing it on there. The Android OS fits my personality the best. I like to dabble and tweak and even if it doesn't work sometimes it gives me more chances to learn how it works. Understand I'm not slamming the iOS community; the iPhone is a very nice device. The issue is my personality does not fit into the simplistic and minimalistic world of iOS.


Best Regards,


-Dan


Check me out on Google+. 

Mother Angelica Live Classics - Excuses

I seem to post many "Mother Angelica Live" shows on my Google+ account, but this one really seemed to stand out on YouTube. In this day and age with all the technology and push to be productive as humanly possible we find all to many ways to come with 'excuses' to cover up items or things that we find inconvenient. Whether it be inconvenient with how we want to live or if it is just away for us to cover up our laziness. Mother talks a bit on why there's no room for excuses.

Regards,

Dan

Finally figuring things out on Blogger

I finally figured out how this blogging tool is now working after it all changed up from the last time I blogged frequently. For those who only saw partial posts earlier they are now showing in their entirety including photos.
Best Regards,
Dan

Turning the power back on.

Two years ago I put this blog to rest rather abruptly based on loss of interest and lack of time. The topics I brought up were alright, but going through the old posts, a few/most of them they seemed to lack spirit. That said the old posts will remain online through this blog like they have for the past 3 years. Moving forward the direction is still somewhat in the air. The title, "The Long Winding Road" will stay the same since it moreover covers such a broad range of material. For now I'll stick with the tag that was used 2 years ago, "Mix of Life, Automobiles, Weather, and Faith. Welcome to The Long Winding Road."


Finally, since I have linked this to my Google+ account you're welcome to add me to any circles and I'll add you to one of mine. With that in mind I do post a fair amount of Catholic focused content from EWTN over on my Google +.

I look forward to having you join me on the Long Winding Road.

Regards,

Dan

A Few Storms That Bring Back Memories

What's your vehicle of choice during a storm chase? I'm guessing most by car, other by plane, maybe other by boat. For a few years during High School and my first few years in College my vehicle of choice was a bike. I'm not talking motorcycle, I'm talking human powered bicycle. Since I got my Mercury Grand Marquis I converted to a faster and safe method of storm chasing. This past evening I threw safety to the wind and took off with one of my bikes.  Mobile technology has advance enough so that I can track the storm w/ my cellphone and stay relative safe, but that's not why I chase. Watching the storm form over the horizon as it runs through it's many life cycles. A golden sunset casting it's rays over a darkened rain shaft from the base of a storm. Energetic bolts of lightning skirting across the base even once and a while striking the ground below. It's in those moments where I'm glad I chose this path in life. Keeping the desire to understand storms, understand their interaction w/ the roadways, cars, and such. That holds true even in the so call less glamorous winter time blizzards, white-outs, and deep freezes. I'm glad I'm a meteorologist I wouldn't trade it for the world.

May 29, 2010 From Bismarck to Grand Forks

Below are a few pictures that were taken when I was coming back from a wedding in Bismarck, ND. In a nutshell I was chasing storms back going down Interstate 94 and 29 while trying to pay attention to traffic and road construction.


-Dan

A few cloud pictures w/ my cellphone.

A few pictures from when I've been out and about on my bike. I'll try to get some photos up when I went out to Bismarck, ND.

-Dan K

Sad Day Ford Finally Kills off Mercury.

The title says enough so long to any hope of the rebirth of the Cougar, Capri, Tracer, Marauder, or Messenger. RIP Mercury!!!

-Dan

On The Open Road

Updates have been sparse for a few reasons. One its summer, two I'm working two jobs, and three I've been traveling a lot.

That said I've got a few minutes to post something before I call it quits for the evening. It’s actually summer finally!!! Last year living in Grand Forks was blah... it was perpetually below normal and cloudy. This year it's been a complete one 180. Temperatures have been mid 70's to 80's on a regular basis; it's been sunny, and really windy. Even though its blows up here. The weather has been perfect for cycling. My LeMond bike and my Iron Horse Mountain have seen more miles this summer than the past two summers combined. So far I've clocked in about 400-500 miles in April and May. That's including the one hundred and six I clocked in the last four days.

The LeMond is in the middle of its transition from racing bike to touring bike. When I'm done will probably come to the tune of 300-400 dollars. Things that are changing include the addition of fenders, new tires w/ slime filled inter-tubes, new chain, rear mounted rack, more bike bags and most likely a break pad upgrade.

I was hoping to participate in the RRIBT (Red River International Bike Tour) this year, but point two put that dream to rest. I had been cleared to go by both of my managers, but during a meeting an Intellidrive online workshop/webinar occurred on June 22-23 right in the middle of the bike tour. Oh well I'll still have a chance to put some serious miles during Memorial Day. Right now I'm shooting for either a half century which would be really easy or a Century, which will push me to my max endurance.

Traveling wise I'm going to a wedding in Bismarck, ND tomorrow for a day trip out and back after the reception. The week earlier I was back home visiting friends and cousins.

That's all I know right now I'll try to post some storm pics from Monday of a shelf cloud along old 81 in a few days.

Best Regards,

-Dan

Classes done, new cell phone and update

The semester has finally wrapped up and things are starting to wind-down in some regards and spin-up in others. I took my only final this morning which went ok I answered everything, but if was right or not is up to Tony. The thing I need to finish up before the end of the semester is my topic proposal which is coming along slowly. Regarding the internship I'm helping with the HD Flip cameras the interns will use are coming in later this week and I have a meeting w/ Fred to hammer out the rest of the media section and start working on the observed surface trends section. I start at Meridian on May 17th to go over basic employee items :-).
Finally my old cellphone (Palm Treo 800w) finally died last Tuesday and I had to was given the opportunity to upgrade to a new cellphone. Good old windows mobile 6.1 was really starting to wear on me with the numerous issues that plagued my Treo so I abandoned Palm and went to a company that I've heard overall good reviews about and had a phone that was running android. I ended up with the HTC Hero w/ android 1.5 and I'm overall impressed with the phones capability and I just love the built-in GPS. The 2.1 update from HTC and Sprint can't come soon enough so Google maps has audible turn by turn directions :-D and a few of the weather apps I use can be used to their full capability.

Best Regards,

-Dan

P.S. The blog went through a minor revision a few days ago graphically.

400 Visitors

Wow! The long winding road just hit 400 visitors. Thanks again for stopping by. As the summer months begin to spin up and classes begin to spin down I should be able to have a more time for blogging once again. Focus will still focus on road weather but it will also focus on automobiles, bicycles, and maybe some cooking.

-DK

Update

A quick update on what I've been up to.
My departments banquet was last Friday and I was in charge of the slide show, which turned out alright. Other news the Newman Centers bike race UND Vs NDSU was on last Saturday. UND won by raising $78,000 over NDSU's $72,000 and UND had 14 of the fastest 20 times. NDSU had more riders 280ish Vs 230ish UND so it wasn't a complete landslide victory. Finally I had a interview for a part time position as a road weather specialist for a company in Grand Forks, ND.

That's the latest

-DK

A Step Back Looking Foreword

This blog might be taking a few more detours before it actually gets back to the original track it was on.

-DK

Little Update

Over the past 3 year's I've owned a couple different cameras most have been mega-zoom (Canon S2 IS) or DSLR (Canon Rebel XT) cameras which in general are rather big and at times a pain to carry around. A while back I had a awesome point and shoot Sony DSC-W5 and I use to take that thing everywhere. Overtime though, junk got on the CCD and it became inoperable for the type of photography I would take. Well I finally broke down after some frustration at not being able to carry around a decent camera (cellphone doesn't count as decent camera) I picked up a Canon SD980IS. Its a 12.1 MP plus has a few other features that are nice. Reading some of the reviews people are split on the quality and complexity of the menus but in general the menus are far easier to navigate than my XT and S2 IS and quality... it's a point and shoot so I'm not expecting DSLR quality but it's good enough for taking shots on the go and w/ friends.

-DK