WINTER SUPPER

I thought I'd share with you what we had for supper last night. I just love bakin' on cold winter days. Not much else you can do. I certainly don't want to go outside and I'm tired of cleanin' house. I was so busy at the holidays and the last couple of weeks that I've taken off this week. I decided this week I would read and watch a couple of movies I've been wantin' to see, and bake some bread.

Didjya ever get the hankerin' for some home made bread but didn't want to go to a lot of trouble? Well, I've got the perfect recipe, doesn't take long and is so easy AND you don't have to knead it!

Now I know a lot of people don't make bread because they don't think they can. But bread is probably one of the easiest things to make. Don't let kneadin' bread intimidate ya, just get smackdab inda middle of it and you'll be surprised how much you'll like workin' that dough over. I've never met a homemade bread I didn't like. Even if it comes out sunk in the middle or dry from too much flour it still has that great yeasty bread flavor. So I don't think you can really make uneatable bread. Just ask your man.

But today I'm gonna show you how to make French Bread that you don't need to knead.

You will need:

1/2 cup milk
1 cup boiling water
1 package yeast
1/4 cup lukewarm water
1 - 1/2 tablespoons olive or canola oil
1 tablespoon sugar
4 cups flour
2 teaspoons sugar
2 teaspoons salt

First we're gonna mix up the bread dough.

Scald milk in saucepan. My pan is clean, it's just stainless steel and has water marks on it. I promise I do not cook in dirty pans! Add 1 cup boiling water. Cool to lukewarm.

Combine flour, 2 teaspoons sugar and salt in large bowl, make well in center.

Dissolve yeast in 1/4 cup of lukewarm water. Let stand for 10 minutes.

Add yeast mixture, oil and 1 tablespoon sugar to milk.

Pour in milk mixture.

Mix to form a soft dough. Do not knead.

Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place for 1-1/2 to 2 hours or until doubled in bulk. I set my bowl on my stove where it is nice and warm while I prepare the rest of my supper.

Now while that is risin' lets make up some oyster stew. You can keep this simmerin' on the stove or dish it up and put in the ice box and you can reheat when it is time to serve.

You will need:

1 - 8 ounce can of oysters. If you are lucky to live in an area where you can use fresh oysters, go for it. But if you're like me, landlocked, just use the canned ones on the shelf, it will still be good.

1/3 cup thin sliced celery

3 tablespoons butter

1 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

1/4 cup sherry

3 cups milk

2 cups cream

salt and pepper to taste

Saute your celery in the butter in a large deep pan. Cook the celery about 5 minutes stirrin' frequently. Drain your oysters, savin' the broth. Add oysters to the celery and butter mixture and heat 'til oysters start to curl.

This is the type of sherry I use when cookin'. The drinkin' kind gives a much better flavor than cookin' sherry. But either will work.

Add the broth to the pan of oysters, celery and butter. Add the Worcestershire sauce and add the sherry. Slowly stir in the milk and then add the cream. Salt and pepper to taste and then heat over low heat.

Tarnation this is good stuff!

Now we'll get the Cornish hens ready. Have you ever had these little chickens? Well they are dem near about the best tastin' and this is one of the best ways to fix 'em. Now if I had these cute little chickens runnin' around my farm, there's no way I could chop off their little heads and eat 'em. They's be my pets and part of my family. And I haven't 'et any family member, yet. Since I can buy 'em frozen and all ready to cook, I've got no problem enjoying 'em. They are mighty tasty.

You will need:

2 rock Cornish hens for this recipe

salt

1/2 cup chicken broth

1/2 cup honey

2 tablespoons soy sauce

1 tablespoon sherry

1 large clove mince garlic

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

They come packaged like this, all 20 ounces of 'em, in the freezer section of grocery store. Thaw in ice box and take out of plastic and rinse inside and out in cold runnin' water. Let drain and pat dry with paper towel.

Place breast down in foil lined pan. This is about a 10"x 6" dish.

Sprinkle chicken with salt.

Add the chicken broth and cover tightly with foil and bake 45 minutes.

Now mix up the glaze. Combine honey, soy sauce, my kind of cookin' sherry and minced garlic in small bowl. Set aside.

After 40 minutes bakin' time, remove chickens from oven and carefully remove foil, watch out for the steam.

Baste the chickens with the honey/ soy sauce/ sherry glaze ingredients. Turn chicken's over and baste breast side and bake breast up. Bake uncovered, basting every 5 minutes, 30 minutes longer.

Don't these look good? Just increase your glaze ingredients for cookin' more than two chickens.

You can put off the second bakin' of the Cornish hens until your french bread dough has risen. It will all be ready about the same time.

With my oven bein' on it made it warm enough for the dough to be ready in 1 1/2 hours.

Punch dough down.

Divide dough in half. On heavily floured surface, I put wax paper down and flour on it, pat our your bread dough into two rectangles, one at a time I roll divided dough up into two long french loaves.

Place on greased or parchment lined bakin' sheet. Let rise until almost doubled in bulk, about 30 to 40 minutes. You can finish bakin' your Cornish hens now.

Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes. Reduce temp. to 350 degrees and bake 15 minutes longer. If you want to make one large loaf of french bread, only roll out one and bake same temps. just increase the second time to 30 minutes instead of 15.

This bread is so good with butter smeared on it or just dip it in olive oil with herbs added to oil.

Add a baked potato and a salad and you have a complete, great meal. It only takes about 3 hours from start to finish. It's a good meal.

Let me know how you liked my supper on this cold winter day.

Youn's come back dreckly, ya hear?

R.