Showing posts with label Utah living. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Utah living. Show all posts

2/21/14

Utah Fry Sauce



For a few weeks in February of 2002, Salt Lake City was the world's stage.  It was an exiting time, so many athletes, fans, and visitors from foreign countries. The media reported on everything from athletic events to two Utah phenomenon's:  green jello and fry sauce. Fun fact- two of the hottest Olympic pins traded at the 2002 games were the green jello pin, and the fry sauce pin.








As far as green jello goes, I'll tell you this, it's not making it's way into my kitchen. Ever.
Fry sauce... that's another story. One of my kids LOVES fry sauce. If there is any leftover when he's done dipping fries, he slurps up the remaining sauce. Not kidding. Ok, he hasn't done that for a few years, but he used to do it.
If you are familiar with fry sauce, you probably know it is served in almost every restaurant inside the Utah border where fries are served. What exactly is fry sauce?  Mostly, it's a mixture of mayo and ketchup, with various other ingredients added, depending on your liking. There are many stories about the origin of fry sauce.  Arctic Circle, a local Utah fast food chain, claims to be the first to serve it, way back in 1924.




Fry sauce is simple to make and promises to take your fries to an Olympic level!  Eh eh eh.
Couldn't help myself.
Happy dipping, friends.




Utah Fry Sauce
A Bountiful Kitchen
print recipe

Basic ingredients:
1 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup ketchup (or a mixture of barbecue sauce or chili sauce)

Add in any of the following:
1-2 tablespoon dill pickle juice
or
2 tablespoons sweet pickle relish
or
onion powder about 1/2 teaspoon
additional add in may include:
a few drops of hot sauce, or a few dashes of cayenne pepper

The Arctic Circle recipe is rumored to be:
equal parts:
mayonnaise, ketchup, buttermilk


Whisk together mayo and ketchup in a small bowl. Mix in any of the optional ingredients.
Keep refrigerated up to one week.
Serve with home made fries or onion rings, or serve on hamburgers.


Baked Fries

potatoes, any type- Yukon, Red, Russet
olive oil
salt
fresh herbs, if desired

Pre heat oven to 450 degrees (convection setting, if available). Place rack on top third of oven.
Thoroughly wash potatoes. Pat dry. Cut into slices, depending on desired thickness of fries.
Place cut potatoes on jelly roll or other large baking sheet.
Spray pan lightly with cooking spray to prevent sticking to pan, or use silicone liner, or parchment paper.
Layer potatoes in single layer on pan. Drizzle with 2-3 tablespoons olive oil. Sprinkle generously with salt and top with fresh herbs, I like fresh thyme.
Bake for about 12-15 minutes depending on oven, or until fries are golden brown.

2/17/14

Great Harvest Honey Whole Wheat Bread (copycat)




I'm trying to figure out where the past 12 months went.
A year ago, this was our  life…




February 2013.
The coldest February in the history of the world to move. Not kidding when I say the snow stayed on the lawn until April.  It was that kind of winter.
Hooray for 2014. Yesterday, it was 55 and no snow in sight in the neighborhood. It's feeling like SPRING out there. It's kind of weird, really. This time of year is usually reserved for comfort food recipes. You know, "stay inside and bake up a storm while it's snowing outside" type of food. It was practically shorts weather yesterday, but I was inside, pretending it was cold, baking bread.


This recipe is the closest I've tried to the Great Harvest Honey Whole Wheat recipe. It's made with five ingredients you can pronounce, and it is absolutely delicious. If you haven't experimented with making wheat bread yet,  read the tips on this post, it will give you some helpful pointers.
Happy Baking!





Great Harvest Honey Whole Wheat Bread (copycat)
adapted from Eat Cake for Dinner found on Pinterest
print recipe

1 1/2 tablespoons instant yeast ( I like SAF brand)
2 cups warm water
1/3 cup honey
4 1/2 cups whole wheat flour (approx)
1 1/2 teaspoons salt

Combine yeast, water and honey in the bowl of a stand mixer; let sit for 5 minutes or until frothy and bubbly.
Place the paddle attachment on the mixer, if using a stand mixer.
Add 3 cups of flour, mix. Add salt and another cup of flour, mix until combined. 
At this point you should have added a total of four cups of flour. The recipe may take a little less, or a little more, depending on climate.
The dough should barely pull away from the sides of the bowl when it has the proper amount of flour added. Using the dough hook, knead for 4 minutes on low.  Cover dough and let rise in a warm, draft free place until doubled.
After the first rise, punch down dough with floured or greased hands, shape and place in a greased loaf pan. 
Let rise again until doubled.
Preheat oven to 350, set rack in middle of oven.
Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Remove bread from oven.
Cool in pans for 10 minutes, then remove loaf and cool completely.


Tips:
-This recipe is easily doubled, I made two batches, side by side. I didn't want to crowd the mixing bowl, so the flour would mix in properly.
-If you use freshly ground wheat flour, you might need to add 5- 5 1/2 cups of flour.
-You may omit 1/2 cup of the flour and add 1/2 cup of seeds such as sunflower, flax, oats, etc.
-When mixing the bread, add the flour a little at a time to make sure the flour is mixed well into the dough. I used about 4 1/4 to 4 1/2 cups total in my dry climate. If you live in a more humid climate, you may need to use less flour.
-It is important to let the dough mix properly in the bowl.  I set the timer to make sure it has kneaded for four full minutes after all of the flour is added. You will be surprised at how long 4 minutes is, when you are mixing and have the timer set!
-30 minutes seems like a short bake time, but it turns out perfectly.
-I used King Arthur 100% Whole Wheat Flour you can purchase at your local grocery, or purchase on Amazon, through this link.

2/10/14

Cutler's Famous Glazed Sugar Cookies (step by step)


If you live in Davis County, Utah, you know about Cutler's Cookies. We have lived in Bountiful for close to twenty years and have had the pleasure of being a Cutler's customer for as many years.




I'm honored to be the only blogger Curt and his wife Nancy have worked with in sharing recipes both in classes and online.  Every time I post one of their recipes, people from near and far away comment about craving one of their signature sugar cookies. Cutler's sugar cookies are soft, puffy, perfectly shaped and always frosted with either a generous amount of buttercream or topped with a glaze, flavored with a hint of almond.

topped with glaze


topped with buttercream frosting.


I originally posted Curt's recipe for Sugar Cookies with Butter Cream Frosting here, and later added the glaze recipe to the post after numerous requests. Since there were so many requests about the glaze, how to make it, how it is applied, etc., I thought you might like to see the method Cutler's uses to glaze the cookies a whole pan at a time. Their secret is a stainless steel pan you'll find in the hardware store. It looks like this and costs just a few dollars- some call it a trowel pan or a spackle pan, I think it looks like a mini-trough.

mini-trough for glazing
Curt came over last week to show us step by step how the glaze is applied. We baked up some cookies he made in the Cutler's kitchen and also mixed up a batch in the Bountiful Kitchen.  Melanie (quality control specialist and bff), my daughter Corrine (who took most of the photos so I could get busy with the flour) and the cutest grand baby you've ever met, Anabelle, aka: Yanners, Yani, Yippers, The Yiplet (advocate for anything pink, sparkly and sugar filled) were on hand to join in the sugar fest. Cathy, cookie making expert  from Cutler's, also joined in the fun.


Yani, testing the finished product
she approved

Frosting or glazing the cookie is a matter of preference. Some are buttercream frosting fans (me). Some are glaze fans (me again).  If I have to choose just one, I'm going with buttercream every time. But after eating these glazed cookies fresh out of the spackle pan, I must say, I'm now a glaze lover too.




Here's a step by step from the Cookie King himself, Curt Cutler.
Step one. Get all of the ingredients together.

cookie making, Cutler style

when measuring flour, scrape after adding to measuring cup to insure an accurate measurement

line baking pans with parchment paper

roll the dough to about 1/4 inch thick
make sure there is plenty of flour on the surface, or the dough will stick

cut out shapes with cookie cutter

remember that part about generously flouring surface?
if you don't flour the surface enough,
you may need to use a spatula to get the cookie shapes into the baking pan
cookies from the bakery, cut by machine

dough ready to set on pan and bake


After baking, remove from oven and let cool completely.
Ready for the glaze?
Make the glaze according to recipe and fill the mini trough with glaze. Double the glaze recipe if you are using the trough, so you will have enough glaze to cover all of the cookies.

line a baking pan with a clean sheet of parchment paper
set the cookies on top of a cooling rack that will fit into a baking pan

This is the method Curt uses to cover all of the cookies at one time.
Thanks Corrine, for making this Gif file, so we can watch it over and over and over.



isn't this a thing of beauty? 
say yes










If you don't want to purchase a spackle pan, you can simply mix up the glaze in a bowl, then dip the cookie and gently scrape the excess icing off before setting it on a pan to set up. The next few photos show us dipping the cookies in the glaze by hand.

dip the cookie into the glaze, let the excess glaze drip back into the container

using  a butter knife, scrape off any excess icing back into container

one beautiful glazed cookie

essential ingredients
hurry and throw on some sprinkles before the glaze dries!



That's it! Very simple, really. With or without the mini trough.
Of course, the easiest way to enjoy a Cutler's Cookie is to hop in the car and drive over to Cutler's and get your cookie fresh from their Bakery. Call them to place your order early (801) 298-2253. Valentine's Day is one of their busiest days of the year. Curt and crew sell about 300 dozen (3,600!)  heart shaped cookies the week of Valentine's, not counting the pink frosted or other cookies sold there. Baking frenzy on 500 South.
Hope your Valentines Day is filled with all things sweet!


Cutler's Famous Glazed Sugar Cookies
Cutler's Cookies, Bountiful Utah

1 1/2 cups butter (3 sticks)

2 cups sugar

3 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

5 cups cake flour
glaze ingredients (below)
sprinkles for topping cookies
parchment paper (optional)


Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs and vanilla and mix until blended well. Add dry ingredients and mix. To make dough easier to work with, chill before rolling.
Generously flour surface.
Roll dough on floured surface to about 1/4 inch thick. Cut cookies and bake at 350 for 10 minutes. 

Cookies are done when top is slightly cracked and no longer looks wet. Edges may be slightly browned.

Top the cookies with glaze. 

Makes about 2 1/2 to 3 dozen, depending on the size of your cookie cutter.


Cutler's Glaze
Single recipe is fine if you are dipping the cookies. If you are pouring out of the trough, double this to insure you will have enough to pour out of pan and cover all cookies


4 cups powdered sugar

1/2 teaspoon almond emulsion* or almond extract

1/2 teaspoon meringue powder**

milk or water to thin (Curt prefers milk) about 1/2 cup
milk will make a thicker glaze, water a thinner glaze

Place powdered sugar in a large bowl. Add almond emulsion or almond extract to the powdered sugar, along with milk or water, a little at a time whisking to combine. Continue whisking until smooth. Add just enough water to make a smooth glaze that stays on a knife when the knife is dipped in the glaze.
Glaze the cookies by dipping the cookie into the glaze in a bowl and removing quickly when coated.
Place cookies on rack or cookie sheet until glaze sets.

Tips:
-*almond emulsion is sold at specialty cooking stores (Orson Gygi's in Salt Lake City) or stores where cake decorating supplies are sold. You may also use almond extract. 
-** Meringue powder is also sold at specialty cooking stores. Cutler's uses meringue powder to create a shiny effect on their glaze. It is optional when making the glaze. Or you may use the same amount of cream of tartar in place of the meringue powder to create the shiny effect. I have noticed the shiniest effect seems to come when using the combo of water and meringue powder in the glaze.
-If the glaze starts to get too stiff, add a small amount of water and whisk in until desired consistency. I mixed up the glaze, then poured it into a pie plate so we could easily dip the cookies that are covered in white glaze in the photos above. 
-The hot pink color is achieved through using a food coloring purchased through Michaels or (in Utah) at Orson Gygi.
-Make sure to use a clean sheet of parchment paper in the bottom of the pan used to glaze the cookies. if you are using the trough method. After you are finished pouring the glaze over the cookies, you may scrape the excess glaze back into a container and use the icing for a future batch of cookies. Refrigerate any leftover glaze. 

clean up crew


1/21/14

Favorite Bakeries Downtown SLC



If you've been with me for any length of time, you know I have a love-love relationship with food.
I love to cook, I love to eat. I love to eat out. Love to find new places to eat, my favorite finds are bakeries and sweet shops. I have a thing for local eateries. Not a fan of chains. Lucky for me,  I have a couple of partners in crime who love a good restaurant find as much as I do. You know that saying "The fruit doesn't fall far from the tree?"...
Let me introduce you to my girls.
Corrine is my oldest daughter, and current favorite child because she gave birth to Anibelle, most darling grand baby.
Ever.

Corrine has an awesome blog - MINT ARROW .  If you are looking for the BEST prices on really nice things, like the perfect stroller for your new baby, or the best deal on Petunia Pickle Bottom diaper bags, or want to know when Target or Nordstrom has a killer sale, Corrine knows where the deals are. She also recently compiled a piggy-back post to this one with our Favorite Cheap Eats in SLC! Go take a look at the places we frequent when we're in a hurry, or just need good food that won’t break the bank.



Brookie, our world traveler, current grad student and restaurant server is our second oldest. She started her own food blog a couple of years ago called "My Eats, My Thoughts". She frequents restaurants in SLC and in her travels abroad and posts about them on her blog and her Insta "Female Foodie". Brookie took the food photos for our Favorite Bakeries and Sweet Shops and Favorite Cheap Eats in (downtown) SLC and has posted reviews for several of these places on Female Foodie.
Hope you get a chance to stop by one of these fun sweet shops while in SLC. We'd love to hear what you love, as well. Take a pic & tag us on INSTA (@abountifulkitchen, @mintarrow and @femalefoodie), or leave a comment here on the blog.
Happy Sweet hop.




Les Madeleines
216 E 500 S

The Food Network featured Kouing Aman is the specialty pastry of Les Madeliene. The caramelized, perfect amount of crunch on the outside, surrounds the tender inside of the pastry.  For $5.50 you can experience Heaven, in SLC. Or they'll overnight ship anywhere in the USA. 
The Kouing Aman is made at a few places in SLC. Brookie conducted a little taste test, comparing the same pastry from three different bakeries. Take a look to see who she picks as best in SLC. 
Oh, and if you are looking for savory, we love the Sesame Chicken wrapped in Butter Lettuce, topped with Miso Dressing (9.95).





Tulie Bakery
863 E 700 S

My favorite bakery in SLC. Has won several Readers and Critic Choice awards for Best Bakery in SLC. I love their sandwiches (the Caprese is pictured above, I like it pressed) or the veggie quiche is also one of our favorites.  The tarts, bouchons, pastries, cookies are all incredible.  One last thing. The Beignets. Go early Friday or Saturday for one. Would it be blasphemous to say they are better than the beignets at Cafe Du Monde? Brookie used to live a few blocks from Tulie. Can you say self control?? Here's her review.



Carluccis 
314 W Broadway

They bake a huge variety of bread, pastries, cookies, tarts, cakes, quiche and are right next door to Tony Caputos, the best place to buy everything imported from Italy. 
I have yet to meet a baked good I don't like at Carlucci's. 
One of our favorites are the tarts.  They come in three different sizes: baby, 4 inch, or 10 inch.
Love the baby size. For those days you can't decide, or want to have it all. 
Go here  to read Brookie's thoughts on Carlucci's.



Bruges Waffles and Frites
336 W 300 S (Broadway)
SLC, UT 84101

Not a bakery, but if you like sweet and savory together this is the perfect spot for you (and me). 
The Liege waffles are my favorite. Sweet little bits of caramelized sugar in dough made with yeast. My favorite way to eat a Bruges waffle is topped with a scoop of creme fraiche and fresh raspberries. The frites are fried twice. All of the sauces for dipping are house made. The Andalaise and the dill are my favorites. Brookie shares about more about their menu items and her experience with the Man vs Food machine Gun Sandwich here!



Ruby Snap 
770 S 300 W
Within a mile from the heart of downtown SLC.  Adorable cookie and gift shop with creative twists on traditional combinations. My favorite is the Ricki, a coconut, almond and chocolate cookie. It's Brookie's favorite too. 
In the fall, they sell a marscapone cheese topped cookie made with pumpkin and spice. Still dreaming about that cookie! Ruby Snap sells baked cookies and frozen cookie dough to take home in fun gift boxes. 



1/8/14

The Best Chicken Fried Steak You'll Ever Eat




While growing up, at least once a month, we had chicken fried steak for dinner. I loved it with white gravy, on either biscuits or toast. I looked forward to peeling the coating off the meat, eating it plain, then cutting up the meat like it was a  separate dish.
I was that kid.
This recipe is the best I've found for Chicken Fried Steak. The buttermilk and hot sauce give it that extra bit of deliciousness to put it into the "Comfort Foods That Rock" category. Actually don't have that category on ABK, but if I did, this recipe would be there. 
It is a perfect recipe for this weather- one of those stayinsideandhibernate days. January in northern Utah seems to be filled with those days…
I figure you can either complain or embrace it.
Or go to Mexico.
Comfort food=embrace.
Have a great day.









The Best Chicken Fried Steak You'll Ever Eat
adapted from Allrecipes.com
print recipe

for steaks:
4 (1/2 pound) beef cube steaks*
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1 egg
1 tablespoon Tabasco
1/4 cup vegetable shortening for frying

for gravy:
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
3-4 cups milk, approximately
salt and pepper to taste

rice, biscuits or toast for serving

Pound the steaks to about 1/3-inch thick with mallet if needed.
Get out two shallow bowls.
Place 2 cups of flour in a bowl.
In another bowl, stir together the baking powder, baking soda, pepper, and salt.  Stir in the buttermilk, egg and Tabasco Sauce.
Dredge each steak first in the flour, then in the batter, and again in the flour.
Heat the shortening in a  cast-iron skillet to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Fry the steaks until evenly golden brown, about 5 minutes per side. Place fried steaks on a plate lined with paper towels.  Drain any leftover oil from the skillet, reserving any of the solid remnants from the meat and coating on the meat. Do not clean skillet or wipe out.
To make gravy:
Return the skillet to medium heat. Melt butter in skillet. Whisk 1/2 cup flour into the melted butter. Scrape the bottom of the pan with a spatula to release solids into the gravy. Stir in the milk,  a little at a time using a whisk (I use between 3-4 cups, start with 1, then slowly add milk), raise the heat to medium. Bring the gravy to a simmer, cook until thick, 6 to 7 minutes.  Season generously with salt and pepper.
Place the meat on top of  biscuits , toast or rice and top with gravy.

Tips:
-* Cube steaks are found in the meat section of your grocery store. They are usually tougher cuts of beef that have been forced through a tenderizer that leaves square marks on the meat (that's why the name "cube steak").  The meat is usually processed to 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick.
-The steaks may be fried in any type of heavy pan. If you fry two at a time, and need a bit more oil for the second batch, simply add a little more oil to the pan and let it heat up before frying. The original recipe calls for THREE cups of oil, which I found to be a ridiculously huge amount, so I cut way back. Feel free to add more oil if needed.
-My mom used to make this with milk and eggs instead of buttermilk. If you don't have buttermilk, substitute 2 eggs and 1 cup of milk. I'd omit the baking soda and powder as well. I believe those react with the buttermilk to cause a bit of a rise in the batter/coating on the meat, but may not have a the same effect if using milk. The buttermilk really makes this dish, I recommend using it instead of milk if possible.