When I was little, being the same as nearly every other kid on the face of the earth, I was a picky eater. I mean, I haven’t always liked veggies and gyros, and . . . well, all the good stuff.

I used to only drink sweetened tea and eat pizza, macaroni and cheese, french fries and mashed potatoes. To be fair, as I got older I branched out and started eating more daring things like chicken fingers, mushrooms and cheeseburgers. In fact, I ate so many cheeseburgers that as a teen my Dad literally bought me a license plate for the front of my medium blue Chevette that said “Fast Food Angie.” Sad, but true. I’m just bein’ honest here, folks.

But, when I was a just wee one I discovered one of my favorite foods was the most unexpected tuna casserole, of all things. My super smart and ingenious Dad (the same Dad who bought the above mentioned license plates which I will decline comment on) knew there was no way I was ever going to willingly eat something called “casserole” or “fish” so when I said “What’s for dinner, Dad?” he replied:

“Lamb Stew.”

And I said something along the lines of “Hmm. I don’t think I like that.”

To which he said something about how it was FANTASTIC. A local FAVE. Something that shouldn’t be missed out on!! And, being the wonderfully behaved only child that I was,  I said “Ohh! A local fave?! I can’t wait to try it!  Bring on the lamb stew!!”

Actually, I don’t really remember what exactly he said, but I think it was probably something more along the lines of “You’ll eat if I damn well say you will.” or “You’re about to find out if you like it or not.” It’s really hard to know exactly what it was he said, but I think you get the general idea.  And, likewise, my response was more likely “You’re so MEAN!  That’s yucky!!  I don’t waaaaant it!”  Like I said, I was pretty little.

You know, I was thinking the other day about something else that my Dad told me once when I was little. It was something like “Every time you take a bite it is considered good manners to wipe your mouth with a napkin afterward.” And, you know, I worked HARD at doing that. It wasn’t easy either! At the young age of five I was taxing my brain thinking bite, chew, wipe. Bite, chew, wipe. Bite, chew, bit . . . oh, I mean wipe! Well, anyhow, I did that for years, people! Not until I was in high school and one of my friends asked me “Why do you wipe your mouth so much?” did I realize I’d been bamboozled by my very own Dad. Misled, even, if you will. WHY would he tell me that? I used to lay in bed at night (not really) and wonder what the deal was.

Then, I had children. Oh, Oh-MY-Goodness, please would you WIPE your mouth before I scream and-no-I-don’t-mean-on-your-sleeve!!  Yeah.  Good one, Dad.  Nice form.

I really do lay in bed at night now trying to come up with ways to be even half as cunning as my Dad was with me.  My kids tell me that I have managed to perfect the twitching eye-vein popping out of my forehead “I’m not screwing around here!” look that my Dad was so good at.  That took a lot of work, readers.

But, back to my story. Dad told me we were having lamb stew and I tried it and I LOVED it. Lamb Stew (aka Tuna Casserole) was my favorite for many, many years. I don’t really love it now, but I do still like tuna fish.

But, today’s recipe really is lamb stew. It is!  Really.  No tuna, I swear!!  And it really is FANTASTIC. A local FAVE. Something that shouldn’t be missed out on!! Sweet raisins combine with the rich curried gravy and tender delicious meatballs to make an out of this world dish.  And, this one’s for you Dad. You’re still the smartest most ingenious guy I know.

Love ya, Fast Food Angie (Pangie)

Curried Lamb Meatball Stew
Adapted from All You Magazine

Meatballs
2 pounds of ground lamb
2 egg
1/3 cup milk
3/4 cup italian or plain breadcrumbs
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons dried oregano
3 teaspoons dried parsley
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese (optional)

Combine all ingredients and shape into 1 1/2 inch balls. Bake on rack in oven for 20 minutes at 350F, or until browned. Use paper towels to drain meatballs before adding to stew. Don’t skip the draining part unless you like greasy stew. Eww. I do NOT like greasy stew, Sam I Am.

Stew
3 Cups chicken broth
1 onion, chopped
3 teaspoons curry powder
1/4 cup flour
4 large carrots, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1/2 cup raisins (don’t skip, these MAKE the dish!)

In the bottom of the crockpot whisk chicken broth, curry and flour. Mix in onions.

Gently add meatballs, so as not to break the meatballs into smaller pieces.

Cover and cook on high for 2 hours. Add carrots and raisins and cook for an additional 2 hours. If necessary, use a spoon to remove excess fat from the top of gravy before stirring and serving(Like I said earlier, I skipped the paper towel part, not a good idea!)

Serve over rice.

Every year around . . . probably April Hubby and I start in.  “North Carolina sounds good, don’t you think?”  or “Yeah, Atlanta is supposed to be really nice, too.”  sometimes we even talk about “Arizona!  We could move to Arizona!  I love the desert, it’s so good for allergies.” And so on.  The thing is, in Michigan, by April the last thing you want to do is be cold.  You’re just sure you’re going to peek out the back door one frigid morning and see a polar bear, even though you KNOW it’s supposed to be almost spring . . . it’s not.  It’s. Still.  TOO.  Cold.

But we don’t move.  And every October I’m glad that I still live in the Midwest.  Because, if there is one reason why I wouldn’t leave it’s because of the autumn.  Amazing stuff, folks.  It is 100% without a doubt my favorite season.  The trees are stunning.  The weather is cooler, not cold, but crisp and refreshing.  Pumpkin farms are open and super popular here.  Every corner boasts a “corn-maze” where you can go and just get lost wandering through some farmer’s old corn stalks.  And as you walk through the corn maze you are reminded by the crunch-crunch under your feet that soon there won’t be any leaves left on the trees.

Apples and pumpkins are in season and that means fresh cider at the road side stands, fresh warm spiced applesauce at Grandma’s on Sunday, and pumpkin pie for dessert.  Quite frankly, it doesn’t get much better than that.

And so we stay.  I’m going to ask you guys to remind me I said all these wonderful things about the Midwest in January when I’m digging out of the driveway on the kid’s fifth snow day of the year, o.k.?

Since it’s cooler outside (and in the kitchen) and I’ve got fresh applebutter up in the pantry I decided I better get back to bread making.  I personally have no problem smearing applebutter all over my fingers to eat it, but not everyone around here feels the same.  After a couple of days of that the kids even start to complain.  You know, I just want to know when kids became so darned demanding - thinking they need bread for applebutter.  The nerve.  Well, anyhow.

At the end of last winter I had started perfecting the baking method I use.  In typical Angie fashion, I had taken lots of notes so that I wouldn’t forget what to do.  And, also in typical Angie fashion, I have no idea where the heck I’ve put the notes.  Nor do I remember anything about the highly technical process that I had honed and was prepared to share with you as soon as I had one extra free minute.

So.  I started over.  Thankfully, most of it came back to me once I started baking.  It’s a lot like riding a bike . . . although I did get on a bike this past summer and let me tell you - Yes, I did remember how to do it, but OUCH - I don’t remember my rear-end feeling that way the next day.  Yeah, so where was I?  Ah yes . . . bread.

Today I want to do two things.  First I want to share with you the method for cooking a fantastic rustic loaf of bread - a method you can use with great results with just about ANY loaf of bread you make. I personally do love great recipes and I think it’s really important that you all have a good source for getting those recipes (here is fine, or somewhere else if you must), but even more important you need to know HOW to make things and how to get great results.  That’s why I’m going to spend some time on this topic today.

Second, I want to give you a recipe for bread that I just can’t get enough of.  You’ll feel the same.  I just got a hunch you will, ya know?

Baking an amazing loaf of bread takes a few tools.  I use my bread machine to mix up bread dough.  That’s up to you - you can make it by hand if you’d rather, or use your mixer or food processor, whatever works for you.  This process really begins AFTER the bread dough is mixed.  So.  You’ll need a batch of bread dough.

You’ll also need:

A baker’s stone if you have one.  Use a heavy sheet pan if you do not.

Parchment paper.

On older pan with sides at least 1 inch tall, one that you don’t mind if it looks icky when you’re done.

A disposable pie plate or bread pan.  Really any smaller disposable baking dish is fine.

Start out by making the bread.  You can use this recipe (It’s reaaaaally yummy.  Hey, I’m just sayin’) or any other.

Give Me Five Bread

3/4 cup warm water (110-115F)
1 cup warm milk (100-115F)
1 egg yolk, reserve the egg white
1/4 cup butter, soft
4 1/2 cups all purpose flour, plus extra for the pastry board
2 1/4 teaspoons dry yeast
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Topping:
1 egg white
1 Tablespoon water

Plus
1 teaspoon poppy seeds
1 teaspoon sesame seeds
1 teaspoon caraway seeds
1 teaspoon dried minced onion
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

I use my bread machine for the mixing part of this recipe.  I add the liquid ingredients and softened butter in the bottom of the pan, put the flour over the liquid and add the salt, sugar and yeast in opposite corners.  Use the dough cycle.

If you make your bread by hand dissolve the yeast in the warm water.  Add the milk, sugar, butter, egg yolk, salt and half the flour and beat until smooth.  Stir in enough flour to make a very soft dough.  Place the dough in a large bowl sprayed with cooking spray and turn it over once to coat the dough.  Let rise one hour.

At this point the directions are the same.

Turn the dough out onto a well floured pastry board or counter.  This is a very soft and sticky dough.  Knead the bread, adding flour in only as necessary to make it possible to work with the dough.

Divide the dough in half and shape it into rounds.  Tuck the edges of the dough underneath to give it a smooth, nice appearance on top.  Flour left on top is o.k. on a rustic loaf, it makes it look cool.  We’re all about the cool at Angie’s Pangies.  Place each round on a piece of 15X15 parchment paper.

Beat the egg white and the water together and brush over the top of the rounds.  If you don’t have a pastry brush, you can just use your fingers to slather it over the top.

Mix the seeds, onions and salt in a small bowl and sprinkle half over each round.

Let the rounds rise for about 30 minutes.

While the rounds are rising you can get ready to bake.

I want you to crank your oven up to 500 degrees or so.  Just set it really hot.

Place the baking stone in the dead center of the oven.

On the bottom of the oven, place the old cake pan.  It should be way larger than the disposable pan and centered on the bottom.

Use a sharp knife and carefully poke a few small holes into the bottom of the disposable pan.

I think it’s funny that is says “Durable”

Not so durable now, are ya?

Fill a narrow container, such as a vase with about 1 1/2 cups of room temperature water.

When 30 minutes have passed, or when the bread has doubled in size, turn the oven down to 375 degrees, and open the oven door.  (BLAST OF HEAT!  WOO!)

Underneath the baking stone, on a seperate rack, place the disposable pan.

Carefully pick up one piece of parchment paper with the risen dough round and set it down on top of the baking stone.

Quickly pour the water into the disposable pan (with the holes.)  As soon as you are done pouring the water shut the oven door!  There should be sizzling and steam everywhere - that’s the point - you’re creating steam in the oven to produce a thick, brown, shiny crust.

After 20 minutes, check the bread.  If the top is golden brown, it is likely done.  If it is not quite evenly brown, you can give it up to another 5 minutes.  Carefully remove the bread from the oven by grabbing the corner of the paper and pulling the loaf onto a hot pad in the other hand (or if you have a paddle you can use that - a giant pancake turner can work well, too).  Leave the stone in the oven.

Turn the oven back up for 5 or 10 minutes, then repeat the process for the second round.

Now, if you’ve made it to the end of all of this, you may be asking.  Angie Pangie, why am I doing all of this?  Why would anyone go through all this rigamarole?

The simple answer is because it makes awesome bread.

The middle of the road answer is because bread does most of it’s rising in the first 10 minutes of baking - so by placing it on a very hot stone in a very hot oven you get a great big spring from the yeast - sort of like it’s last dying act it goes “POOF”.  The steam is, like I mentioned earlier, there to help make the crust amazing.  You can read more about yeast spring and such here (this would be the other end of the road answer).

I add the dripping disposable pan to my method because I like for some steam to be made after I close the door.  When I added all the water to the hot cake pan on the bottom the steam had been created - and was mostly gone - before I ever got the door shut.  This just slows down the process a bit more.  But, you can skip that step if you want and just add water to the hot pan on the bottom.

Now, go out, be fruitful . . . and bake bread!

I want you all to meet someone.

This is Georgia, or George, for short. Georgia is our little old Japanese Chin that we got suckered into that we adopted from the rescue.

It went down a little like this.  I wanted a dog.  Hubby did not.  I really wanted a dog.  Being that I’m an only child, I refused to take no for an answer and I brought home Mesha.

This is Mesha.  I wanted her badly, but she didn’t really want me, she wanted Hubby.  And her big brown eyes won him over instantly.  So, Hubby got a dog, and I still wanted one.

Not too long after we adopted Mesha, a lady that works with the rescue called me and told me about Georgia.  She was shipped here from England as puppy, worked as a show dog for a while, then was “petted” out to the woman from the rescue.  According to the woman from the rescue, Georgia was getting older now and needed a family that was home more than she was.  I instantly agreed.  She sounded cool.  After all, she had history, had came here from England, was a show dog.  A real lapdog.  My lapdog.

If you’ve ever read my blog before you won’t be surprised to find out.  I. Was. Wrong.

Georgia waltzed into this house, walked over to Lilly and looked at her as if to say “Hey toots.  How about you and me hang out for a while?”  Now, Lilly had never really had much in the way of a friend before Georgia moved in.  Having Asperger’s Syndrome really makes it hard to make and keep friends.  But Georgia didn’t care about Asperger’s Syndrome.  She just knew that Lilly held her, and petted her, and was little just like she is (Georgia weighs about 4 1/2 pounds and Lilly weighs about 60) - before you knew it they were like Forrest and Jenny.  Peas and carrots.

Dang it!  I still had no dog.  *sigh*  Oh well.  Who am I to tell a dog who they belong to, right?

But, shortly after Georgia waltzed into our house I realized that I might have made a mistake.

First off, Georgia was ancient - as far as Japanese Chins go, that is.  Like old humans, old dogs don’t always make it where they’re headed when they have to go to the bathroom.  And, as Lilly likes to say “She’s deaf, and she can’t hear either.”  Apparently, she was born that way - and she really can not hear anything.  You can literally run over her tail with the vacuum cleaner and she won’t notice until her tail is stuck inside the thing.  Oh, and, she has a wry bite, which means - that cute little tongue always hangs out of her mouth.  Yeah, and it isn’t so cute when it’s all dried out and got fuzz balls stuck to it.

But, Lilly loved her and she loved Lilly.  So we kept her. What else could I do, really?

One of the things that I think is most hilarious about little deaf Georgia is that she loves, and I mean loves, cheese crackers.  It doesn’t matter where you are in the house, if you open a box of Cheese-Its that little deaf dog comes running.  I don’t know if Mesha gives her the heads up in Doggy sign-language or what, but that dog just knows when you open the box.  And, maybe because she’s deaf, she’ll often come running when you open other things too; like cereal, graham crackers, potato chips and pretzels.

We’ve had Georgia for four years now, and I’m happy to say she’s really had a wonderful, loving family here.  Sometimes, she drives me bonkers with all her idiosyncrasies, but she is a sweet and loving dog.  Her days here are certainly numbered, as she’s taken to having seizures every so often and sleeps more and more each day.  It will be hard on everyone when she passes, but our lives have been richly blessed by this little pint sized dog.

Yesterday, when I opened the bag of pretzels to make today’s snackies, she woke up and came trotting into the kitchen hoping for a cheese cracker.  I tossed her a pretzel, gave her a smile and said “George - I don’t know if dogs go to heaven, but if they do, I sure hope there’s a big Cheese-It there with your name on it.”

So, obviously, today I am going to tell you how to make my locally famous Ranch Pretzels.  No one really calls them that, but that’s what they are.  If you ask anyone around these parts about my pretzels they’ll say “Oh!  You mean the crack?!”  So, yes, we call them “Crack Pretzels” and just like those pesky potato chips - no one can eat just one.

This method works a little like the old party mix recipe.  You bake them at a very low temperature and stir every few minutes so that they don’t get stuck together or burn.  I like to make batches of these and my spicy pretzels to give away at Christmas time.  They are great to throw in bowls for parties with peanuts.  Setting a big bowl in the office break room or the teacher’s lounge will make you the number one recipe go-to person.  (Remember to send them to my site, please!!)

Ranch Pretzels (or Crack Pretzels)

1 Packet of ranch dressing mix, or use this recipe if you are sensitive to MSG
20 ounces of mini-twist pretzels
3/4 Cup of vegetable/canola oil
1 tablespoon of dill weed
1/2 teaspoon of garlic salt
1/2 teaspoon of onion powder
1/4 teaspoon of ground cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt

Preheat oven to 250.

Line a sheet pan with parchment paper for easy clean up.

Gently pour pretzels into a large bowl and add remaining ingredients.  Stir very gently to mix well, being careful not to break pretzels into little pieces.

Pour pretzels onto the sheet pan and spread into an even layer.

Place pretzels into the oven and stir every five to six minutes, baking for a total of 25 minutes.

Remove from oven and cool.  Store in an air tight container (like they’ll last that long!  HA!)