Pantry Revisited

This week in Baking with Julia we made Irish Soda Bread.  It came at a great time for St. Patty's week.  I watched an old video of Julia Child making this and it gave me what I thought were helpful insights on the preparation. The dough was very easy to mix up and it was a nice soft dough to work with.  It said not to "overknead" or the bread would be chewy.  I did not mix in any add-ins as I wanted the traditional irish bread. I cut the traditional crosses in the top of the bread before baking.  The cuts were supposed to be about 1 1/2 inches deep. Apparently, my cuts went haywire in the oven because my dough spread so much when it was done it almost looked like it was in four sections.  This was one 'section' of it. We enjoyed the bread.  It seemed to me to be like a giant biscuit. For the recipe, buy the book Baking with Julia, or check out our hostesses' webpage Carla and Cathleen . Also check out the other bakers in the club Tuesdayswith...

This month was my month to choose a chef for twitter avatar fun!  We have one chef each month and use a photo of the recipe from that chef as our avatar on twitter.  I chose Sunny Anderson. I really like watching her show and she has some fun recipes to share. I chose her "Meatloaf is the way to my heart as long as it has kick and potatoes around it."  We love meatloaf at our house and this one was really good.  It has a mixture of ground turkey and ground beef so it is a little more healthy than just a ground beef one.  Loved the sauce.  Mine took a little more than an hour to cook.  I'm beginning to think my oven may not be as hot as it should be since this happens a lot. Try it!!  You can get the recipe here. http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/sunny-anderson/meatloaf-is-the-way-to-my-heart-as-long-as-it-has-kick-and-potatoes-are-around-recipe/index.html