OATMEAL AND HONEY BREAD

I bought a bread machine couple of years ago.  Never had a chance to use until today simply because I could not find the time to take it out of the box to clean and read the instructions.  Isn't it really sad that we can't find time to do the things we enjoy!  I finally used it today for this recipe.  Fluffy and mildly sweet.  Simply delicous.

I wrote the recipe both for the machine and manual versions.  Of course, this is when I realize how much time I lost making it manually all these years while the bread machine waited in a box.

Ingredients for the bread machine:

1 cup water

1 tablespoon vegetable oil (you can use butter instead or both)

1/4 cup honey

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup rolled oats

2 1/3 cup flour

1.5 teaspoon dry yeast

• Put all liquid ingredients in the bread machine first.
• Add rolled oats and flour last
• Make a small "pool" with your fingers for the yeast and put yeast in (making sure it does not touch the liquid)
• Select light setting on the machine
• Takes 3 hours

Without a machine:

2 cups boiling water

1 cup rolled oats

1/2 cup honey

2 tablespoons butter

2 teaspoons salt

1.5 teaspoon dry yeast

1/2 cup warm water

4 cups flour

• In a large mixing bowl, combine boiling water, oats, 1/2 cup honey, butter and salt. Let stand for 1 hour.
• In a small cup, dissolve yeast in warm water. Let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes.
• Mix yeast and oat mixture together.  Add 2 cups of flour; mix well. Stir in the remaining flour, 1/2 cup at a time, beating well after each addition. You may need all 4 cups or less.  Just keep an eye to make a soft dough that is not too sticky. 
• When the dough is ready, put it on a lightly floured board knead until smooth and elastic, about 20 minutes. Lightly oil a large bowl, place the dough in the bowl and turn to coat with oil. Cover with a damp cloth and let rise in a warm place until doubled in volume, about 1 hour.
• Punch down the dough.  
• Spray or grease a 2 lt pan (or use a non stick pan).  Place the dough in the pan.  If you like you can brush 1 tablespoon honey and sprinkle additional oats on top.  Cover and let it sit another 40 minutes to rise.
• Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (175 degrees C).
• Bake until top is golden brown (about 30 minutes).  
• Remove loaves from pan and serve

BUNS WITH CHEDDAR CHEESE

These buns are great for breakfast.  The dough is nice and soft.  Perfect compliment to Cheddar cheese.  You can either make them as a bun or you can roll out the dough, put cheese in the middle in the shape of crescents or circles.  This is a lot of dough for our family.  I usually make this dough and divide in half.  Make cheese buns with half (when you do this, please remember to reduce cheddar cheese to half as well), and use the other half for other things.

1/4 cup warm water

1 tablespoon sugar

1 tablespoon yeast

3/4 cup warm water

1 cup warm milk

1 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoon cooking oil

1 or 2 cups graded cheddar cheese (Depending on your preference)

5.5 cups flour

1 egg yolk for glaze

Sesame seed/blackened sesame seeds or poppy seeds for sprinkle

• Combine 1/4 cup warm water, 1 tablespoon sugar, 1 tablespoon yeast and set aside for 15 minutes
• Add yeast, remaining water, warm milk, salt, cooking oil and 5 cups of the flour and make a soft dough.  Be careful with the remaining 1/2 cup of flour.  You may not need it at all or need more.  Just add a bit at a time.  It is important to continue to knead the dough.  When it no longer sticks to your hands, it is ready.  Cover and set aside in room temperature for 1-2 hours to let the dough rise.
• If you are planning to use the shape of the buns same as mine, add shredded cheese into the dough and knead to make sure cheese spreads all through the dough.  Save a bit of the cheese for the top.  Take small pieces (about the size of a clementine) and roll out to a "stick" and tie in the shape of the bun and put on a lined cookie sheet
• My kids like the ones that are shaped like circles with cheese in the middle.  To make those, take a small piece of dough and roll it out.  Put cheese in the middle and roll into shape of sticks, making sure there is no room for cheese to come out during cooking.  Roll into a circle and put them on a lined cookie sheet.
• Glaze with egg yolk and sprinkle with sesame seeds or poppy seeds  
• Preheat oven 350 degrees
• Cook until golden brown (35-40 minutes)

TAHINI COOKIES (TAHINLI KURABIYE)

When I was a little girl, I did not like the taste of Tahini.  Things like Hummus didn't used to appeal to me until my teenage years when I discovered what I was missing.  I was missing a lot!  These cookies are easy to make.  They don't have a strong taste of Tahini so if you've never tried Tahini before and would like to try, these may be good to start with.  These cookies are easy to make and stay fresh for a long time if kept in a jar with closed lid.  They are normally done plain but I like the chocolate dipped for variety. 

1 cup cooking oil (I use Mazola)

1 su cup icing sugar

2/3 cup tahini

1 package vanilla sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 cup coarsly chopped walnuts

3.5 cup flour

Cikolata sauce (optional):

1/2 cup chocolate chips (I like dark chocolate)

3 tablespoons milk

• Mix all of the ingredients to make a hard dough.  You will find that dough crumbles a bit.  That's okay.  Just press them together
• Cover dough with Saran Wrap and leave in the fridge for 30 minutes
• Preheat oven to 350
• Cover a cookie sheet with cooking paper
• Take a full tablespoon of the dough and shape it as you like.  You can even make designs on the cookies using a fork
• Cook for 15 minutes.  Be sure not to over cook.
• Once the cookies cool down.  Make your chocolate sauce by microwaving the chocolate in milk for 1 minute.  You will find all the chips will not have melted.  Stir well to get them to melt.
• Dip part of the cookies in chocolate sauce and put them in the fridge to harden for 15 minutes
• Put on serving plate.
• Enjoy