4homesoup: August 2014

Saturday, August 23, 2014

Good Morning

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We from 4homesoup are in different parts of the world. Three of us are in the USA, but have never actually met (yet) and one (that would be me) is in the Netherlands. We've met through a design forum on the internet and usually start the day with posting a lovely virtual breakfast for each other.

Does that sound odd?

It isn't. Really. It's just a nice way to start the day. Brings a smile to our faces. Generally we post images of where we're enjoying our virtual breakfast that day, can be anywhere in the world, and one or two images of what's on the table (often including the recipe(s)), and maybe we enclose a lovely image of a bunch of flowers or another pretty picture.
Fortunately we can choose the weather in our virtual world. Usually it's sunny and warm. Especially in summer. Never a depressing grey and drizzly day in our imaginary world.

Our virtual breakfast of course is always delicious. We think. Well, at least it always looks delicious.

Today we're enjoying our virtual breakfast in a lovely garden somewhere.

Lovely garden gate, found here

And I've virtually cooked a 'poached' egg, on mashed avocado on rye toast. Found the recipe and the gorgeous photo on a blog called Drizzle and Dip.

The egg isn't poached in very lightly boiling water as you would normally poach an egg, but it's microwaved. I know! How easy does that sound?! Why haven't I tried it yet? My husband baked a cake yesterday and used up all the eggs, but if the chickens lay eggs today I will try this microwave method and will let you know how that worked. Who knows, it may be my lunch. Fingers crossed.

go to the recipe

And of course, no day without coffee. Because that would be like something without something.

Coffee poster from Zazzle

ETA, the chickens let me down. No eggs today.

Sunday, August 10, 2014

The best homebaked croissants

Have you ever bought a tin of croissant dough, you know... one of those paper ones that pop open when you remove the label that's wrapped around it, followed the instructions on the package and then were slightly disappointed by the end product?
Were you, like me, hoping for nicely puffed up croissants with soft fluffy insides and flaky, crispy outsides? Maybe it's my limited baking skills, but my croissants never really puff up. And no soft fluffy insides either.

But, I have discovered thé method to bake the yummiest puffed up, soft, fluffy, flaky, crispy croissants. And it all begins with the same tin of croissant dough.

Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F) (unless the instructions on your croissant dough tells you differently).

Unroll your croissant dough, cut through the short dotted lines and press the diagonal dotted lines firmly together.

Cut the each sheet of dough lengthways in two halves.

Now... what kind of filling would you like? We love them with Nutella or with cheese. I've tried them with strawberry jam, but found it too sweet for my taste. The husband liked it though.

Roll them up loosely and put the rolls in a very lightly greased (that is probably not necessary, but better safe than sorry) muffin tin.

Put the tin in the preheated oven and bake the croissants for 20 minutes (or if the packaging on your croissant dough gives different instructions, it's probably wisest to follow those). And this is how they come out of the oven:

I'm never going to make 'normal' croissants again. These are so much better. I've been thinking of cutting them into thinner strips, maybe three strips from one piece of dough instead of two, and using pesto and mozzarella as a filling. They could make great appetizers. Worth a try. If you try it before I do, let me know how that works out.

Bon appétit.