Sunday, March 21, 2010

A Slow Dinner

Today was a day for a slow food dinner. I made Oatmeal Bread, Pork Roast with Tuscan Salt Rub and Baked Beans. For greens, I had the left over spinach salad from last night.





Cinnamon buns were made later for another day.  Photos above are of the buns before they went into the oven.  First photo has the butter and brown sugar sprinkled on the dough after it is rolled out to size. The middle photo is after the cinnamon spice and raisins have been added and the pieces cut for the pan. The third photo is after the dough has risen a bit and the last of course is the buns right out of the oven.

RECIPES

Oatmeal Bread
This was made in the bread machine and so is simple because all you do is throw all the ingredients into the machine, set it and away it goes until the bread is nice and done.

In case you do not have the recipe here is the one I used.

Ingredients:

9-11 ounces of water
1 3/4 teaspoons salt
3 tablespoons sugar or honey 

2 tablespoons butter or margarine
1/2 cup quick-cooking oats
  3 3/4 cups bread flour

2 tablespoons powdered milk
  2 teaspoons active dry yeast

Place ingredients in the pan of the bread machine in the order listed. Select White Bread setting, and Start.

This recipe yields a 2 pound loaf.

Roast Pork with Tuscan Salt Rub

This again was easy. I put the roast pork into a small roaster, sprinkled some tuscan seasoning rub on it and cooked it for about 4 hours, first on low heat of 250 F. oven for an hour and then on 350 F. for the balance of time. I have a pre-mixed rub from Suzanne Somers company. If you don't have such a rub readily available or you like to make your own, you can try this recipe from the blog Eating Well.

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon fennel seeds

6 tablespoons dried basil

3 tablespoons garlic powder

3 tablespoons coarse salt

2 tablespoons dried rosemary

2 tablespoons dried oregano

    Boston Baked Beans
    I soaked the beans last night and boiled them for about one hour today. When I was ready to make dinner I put them in a glass baking dish along with a recipe I adapted from www.allrecipes.com


    Ingredients

    2 cups navy beans

    1/2 pound bacon

    1 onion, finely diced

    3 tablespoons molasses

    2 teaspoons salt

    1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

    1/4 teaspoon dry mustard

    1/2 cup ketchup

    1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

    1/4 cup brown sugar


    In my version, I omitted the bacon and Worcestershire sauce which I did not have on hand. I added some Louisiana hot sauce in place of Worcestershire. If you would like to use hot sauce, any hot sauce will do. I added the diced onion to the sauce mixture.

    Basically you place the beans in a baking dish and pour the sauce over top. You can add a bit of liquid (from the boiled beans or water) and cover. The recipe says to cook the beans for 3-4 hours on 325 F. oven. I cooked mine for 4 hours and the first hour was at 250F along with the pork roast after which I turned the heat on to 375F for the remaining time. I  had about 3 times the beans so I tripled the other ingredients to taste.

    Cinnamon Buns

    For easy cinnamon buns I made the dough in the bread machine. I then rolled it out to size, placed margarine, brown sugar, cinnamon spice and raisins and then rolled the dough into a log, pinching it together where needed so it didn't fall apart. Once I had a log, I cut the roll into evenly spaced pieces about 1 inch each in width. I set the cut pieces on a baking sheet, covered with a tea towel and let it rise before baking at 350F oven for approximately 30 minutes. You can make a cream cheese frosting, a confectioner's sugar glaze or leave them plain.

     

    Enjoy!


    17 comments:

    Anonymous said...

    All look yummy! Thanks for the recipe. Glad I came across your blog. I wanna try doing that roast pork and baked beans. Thanks for stopping by.

    Unknown said...

    Dinner looks great. I hope you saved some for me. :)

    Unknown said...

    Wow! Scrumptious!

    Bless you, xx

    Eden said...

    Those are yummy. My mouth drools looking at your pictures. Great shots.

    Betsy Banks Adams said...

    Hi There, Your post made me JOYFUL for sure!!!!! Your dinner must have been delicious. I can almost taste it. I love baked beans ---and use a bean pot to cook mine in.

    The cinnamon buns looked FABULOUS.... I have never made them --but I do love to eat them!!!

    Thanks for sharing.
    Hugs,
    Betsy

    Susan said...

    We had a similar dinner at my folk's house on Friday, YUM!

    You cinnamon rolls look yummy! I just posted my sticky cinnamon rolls on my blog, Cooking in Nana's Kitchen, http://susan-grandmaskitchen.blogspot.com/.

    Love your blog! I just became of follower!

    Susan
    http://susan-potpouri.blogspot.com/

    My Castle in Spain said...

    oh i love this phrase, Tuscan salt ! and it sounds and looks very tasty too...YUMMY !!
    xoxo

    affectioknit said...

    Your bread and cinnamon rolls look so good!

    simple in France said...

    wow! that all sounds so good. I haven't made baked beans in forever. In fact, I don't even know if my husband has ever tried them.

    Joyful said...

    Thank you everyone for your comments and vote of encouragement for my culinary adventures. I am not an avid cook per se but am learning to cook and trying new dishes all the time. As I go I am trying to learn to eat healthier. Sometimes though I do like to indulge.

    For those of you who are new followers of mine. Thank you! I will follow you back. for my faithful followers, thank you so much for visiting. I'll be peeking in at your blogs soon :-)

    Diary From Africa said...

    My - you've been busy cooking up a storm ... everything looks delicious !

    Joyful said...

    @Lynda, yes indeed, I have been so very busy cooking, lol. Now that I am retired I have time to cook and once in awhile, to experiment :-)

    Joyful said...

    My - you've been busy cooking up a storm ... everything looks delicious !

    Joyful said...

    Hi There, Your post made me JOYFUL for sure!!!!! Your dinner must have been delicious. I can almost taste it. I love baked beans ---and use a bean pot to cook mine in.

    The cinnamon buns looked FABULOUS.... I have never made them --but I do love to eat them!!!

    Thanks for sharing.
    Hugs,
    Betsy

    Joyful said...

    Wow! Scrumptious!

    Bless you, xx

    vicki said...

    Your photos of your kitchen makings are wonderful. Those cionnamon bouns look fab! I am borrowing your oatmeal bread recipe - I love using my bread machine and this recipe looks wonderful - thanks so much!

    Vicki

    Joyful said...

    Thank you Vicky. I just love cinnamon buns,. The oatmeal bread is pretty good too, lol. I hope it turns out for you.

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