Gourmet Egg Sandwiches

I have chickens, its not news to a lot of the people who know me considering I tell just about everyone around me. They produce an average of 3 eggs per day. For a family of four who used to have a member that could eat 6 eggs per day, you would think that the average my chickens produce wouldn't be enough. But, instead of propelling my brother to eat eggs everyday and consume all the eggs my chickens produced, it changed his perspective on eggs by valueing them. Plus, I showed him a video of where store bought eggs come from and that really steered him from eating eggs.

This whole delimma doesn't mean we don't eat eggs at all. Instead, my brother eats eggs when there's nothing else to cook or if we want to make something quick and small. Did I mention my chickens produced eggs about half the size of eggs that you would normally find in the store. Now, you might ask what makes this thing so "gourmet" well its the mayonnaise. The mayonnaise is mixed with a very small amount of fresh chives. Yup, I said fresh chives. I don't know how it would taste with dried chives but the fresh ones seem to do the trick.

Egg Sandwich

2 small eggs per person or 1 store bought eggs.
1 pan de sal sliced in half or 2 slices of regular sliced loaf bread
1 slice of cheese per sandwich
1/2 tbsp. mayonnaise
1/2 tbsp. sour cream
1/8 tsp fresh chives
1/8 tsp lemon
salt and pepper to taste

Take the mayonnaise, sour cream, lemon and fresh chives, some salt and pepper and mix together. Beat the eggs with salt and pepper. Cook the egg mixture in a greased pan over the stove. By the way, do not over salt the egg mixture or the mayonnaise mixture, you need salt to taste but becareful when adding as to not kill the recipe. To the cooking egg mixture, you can sprinkle in some grated cheese on it or when cook set aside. Toast the bread in the toaster or on the pan and slather some of the mayonnaise mixture. Put the cheese and top with the cooked egg. Voila, gourmet egg sandwich.

Pinisi - Twisted Donuts

This is a Filipino dessert and it is one of the best. My mom used to make this when I was a kid and here I am making it myself. It's the awesomest cycle ever. Another thing to mention, making this beats buying them from the store. One, they have better ingredients because you won't skimp out on anything and you can customize it if you feel that its lacking sugar or salt.

However, for the sake of this dessert, the sugar and salt proportions are good. This bread is sprinkled with some form of sugar therefore it does not need any other modifications. It's fried too so adding more butter is not necessary. Oh, if you haven't noticed, the bread recipe is very similar to other bread recipes I posted. That is because, this recipe is super easy and super versatile so look forward to other bread recipes that have this as the main ingredients or even the same recipe just with a twist.

Pinisi

1 package of active yeast
1 cup lukewarm water
7 1/2 tsp sugar
1/4 cup milk
4 tbsp butter (the way I did it was, I used my two fingers and measure it that way)
1/8 tsp salt
3 cups flour and some for kneading (about 1/2 cup)

Take the warm water and add into it the active dry yeast and sugar. Set aside to activate. This'll take about ten to 15 minutes. For me, the doubling in mass is the indication is good. The important thing is that it starts forming foam because
that's how you know that the yeast is viable.

Add the milk, salt and melted butter to the yeast mixture and lightly mix. Add your liquid mixture to a large bowl with exactly 3 cups of flour and mix for five minutes with a wooden spoon. Now, keep in mind that the dough is going to be very sticky but that's ok. In fact, it's good because the bread won't be so tough. Instead, it will be soft and great. Another thing to note is that you have to work with this dough very fast. Sprinkle some flour on your work surface and place a portion of the dough (about a palmful) to which will have to roll between your hands and long stretched dough. Once long enough, hold the center and grab one of the end piece and spin around the other. Place this on a greased pan, cover with a wet towel or wet paper towel and let it rise in a warm area.



This should take about an hour. If you're wondering who those two are, they're my brothers. The one wearing green is Mark while the smaller one is Matthew.


Once doubled in size, deep fry until golden brown and sprinkle some white sugar, a mixture of white sugar and cinnamon or parmesan cheese.

Buttery Bread

This is the first time I made really really good bread. The first time I made bread my mom said, "this bread is so hard that if I throw it against the wall, the wall would have a dent." Now my mom didn't say this in English but she said something to that effect. But that bread was really hard. The several times I made bread afterwards wasn't that great either. It doesn't help when you get this feeling that making bread is so complicated.

Ok, I made bread today and it was really good. The only thing I want to fix is that the bread has a very strong yeast odor. I know you need yeast to make bread but I can do without the smell. The issue with this bread has nothing against the issues that I had with the breads I made previously. It seemed like lacking the understanding of making bread was the issue. At first, I realized that activated yeast is very important for a fluffy bread. Next, I realized that letting the dough rise was very important as well. Letting the dough rise a second time finally hit me today. It wasn't until today that I finished perfecting bread. It only took a couple of years. But anyways, without further ado, I present bread... buttery bread to be exact.

What makes this bread so buttery? A lot of butter or olive oil brushed on the dough while it's rising the second time and more brushed while it's cooking.

Buttery Bread

1 cup warm water
1 packet of active dry yeast
1/4 cup milk
6 tsp sugar
5 tsp butter
1 tsp salt
3 1/2 cup all-purpose flour

Mix the water, sugar and the yeast. Set the mixture aside and let the yeast activate.



Once the yeast starts frothing up, it should take ten minutes, place it in a bowl. Add the salt, butter and milk. Add the flour one cup at a time. On the third cup, sprinkle more flour and use some of that flour to dust a working area where you can knead the dough. The dough will be very sticky and soft so use the leftover flour knead the dough. Use either the same bowl you used or use another but grease the bowl and place the dough. Cover with either a wet towel or wet paper towel. Set aside until it doubles.



Once the dough doubles in size, beat the dough for ten minutes or so. When I did this part, the dough was very airy but when I beat all the air out of the dough, it was pretty tough. Not as tough as the bread I've done before but the elasticity was pretty strong. I have a feeling it has something to do with all the glutin but I have a feeling this is the reason why you have to beat the dough for ten minutes.

You can do two things with the dough, you can roughly roll the dough flat, roll it and tuck the edges. Place the dough in a loaf bread pan and let it rise again. Or, you can divide the bread into smaller pieces and let rise for another hour.



Brush the dough with olive oil or butter. Regardless, preheat the oven 350 degrees F 10 minutes or however many minutes to preheat the oven before you make the bread. As you can see, the bread did grow but now you can see why most people would put this dough in a loaf pan. The dough does grow but it spread out when it has nothing to cling on. But, seeing how it works now, I think next time, I'll just use the individual large cupcake tins that I have to make these rolls. Or, not butter the bread the second time it's doubling so that it doesn't spread on the pan.



Bake the bread in the oven until the outer side of the bread is brown or the inside is cooked. Don't forget to brush the bread with butter at least twice during the cooking process. Wait until the surface of the bread can withstand the brush. I brushed the dough while it was still soft and it was a little difficult. I was a little scared of deflating the dough but it was good. It was good though.

Have fun!