Baked Beans

Baked Beans

Ingredients:

2 cups navy beans
Salt
½ pound slab bacon, cut into cubes
1 medium onion, peeled and chopped
⅓ cup molasses
2 teaspoons dry mustard
1 teaspoon ground black pepper

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Directions:
Soak beans in a large bowl of water for 6 hours or overnight. Drain beans and put them in a large oven-safe pot with a heavy bottom and a tightfitting lid. Add 1 teaspoon salt and enough cool water to cover 2 inches above the beans. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer gently, stirring occasionally, until the beans are just tender, approximately 30 to 40 minutes. Drain and remove beans.

Heat the oven to 250 degrees. Bring a kettle full of water to a boil on the stove. Return the heavy-bottomed pot to the stove and turn the heat to medium high. Cook the bacon in the bottom of the pot until it begins to brown, then turn off the heat and add the chopped onion and, on top of it, the beans. Mix together molasses, mustard and black pepper, and add the mixture to the pot. Pour in enough boiling water to cover beans, put the lid on and bake, occasionally adding more water to keep beans covered, until they are tender but not falling apart, 4 to 5 hours.

Remove beans from oven, uncover, stir and season with salt. With the lid off, return pot to oven and let beans finish cooking, uncovered and without additional water, until the sauce has thickened and the top is deeply crusty, about 45 minutes more.

Amish Dinner Rolls

Amish Dinner Rolls

These rolls have the characteristic golden brown, rounded, smooth top of a classic dinner roll; we like to bake them rather tightly spaced, in a 9 x 13-inch pan, so that they crowd each other and become pull-apart rolls, with unbrowned sides, as they're baking. For round rolls that are browned all over, place them in a larger pan, farther apart, so that they won't touch one another while they're baking.
Ingredients:
2 eggs
1/3 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
6 tablespoons butter
1 cup unseasoned mashed potatoes, lightly packed*
2 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast
3/4 cup water (potato water, if possible)
4 1/4 cups Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
*1 medium-to-large baking potato will yield 8 ounces of mashed potato.

Directions:
Manual/Mixer Method: In a medium-sized mixing bowl, combine all of the ingredients, and mix until the dough starts to leave the sides of the bowl. Transfer the dough to a lightly greased or floured surface, and knead it for 6 to 8 minutes, or until it's smooth and shiny. Or knead it in a mixer, using the dough hook. Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl or rising bucket, turn to coat, cover the container with plastic wrap, and let the dough rise till it's doubled in bulk, about 90 minutes.

Bread Machine Method: Place all the ingredients into the pan of your bread machine in the order recommended by the manufacturer (usually, liquids first, yeast last). Program the machine for dough or manual, and press Start. Check the dough about 10 minutes before the end of the final kneading cycle and adjust its consistency as necessary by adding additional water or flour to form a soft, smooth ball. Allow the machine to complete its cycle, then allow the dough to remain in the machine till it's doubled in bulk, perhaps an additional 30 minutes or so.

Shaping: To make stand-alone rolls, divide the dough into 16 equal pieces. If you want to make soft-sided, pull-apart rolls, divide the dough into 15 pieces. This isn't as challenging as it sounds: first, divide the dough into three equal pieces (about 14 ounces, each). Pinch off one piece, about the size of a racquetball or handball (2 3/4 ounces), off each of the three pieces, setting the pinched-off pieces aside; then simply divide what's left of the three pieces into four pieces each. Presto! Fifteen balls of dough. Gently roll the dough balls under your cupped fingers till they're nice and round.

Place the 16 dough balls onto a parchment-lined or lightly greased baking sheet or sheets, leaving about 2 inches between them. Or place the 15 dough balls into a lightly greased 9 x 13-inch pan, spacing them evenly in five rolls of three balls each. Cover the pan(s) with a proof cover or lightly greased plastic wrap, and allow the rolls to rise for about 2 hours, till they're quite puffy; the rolls in the 9 x 13-inch pan should be touching (or almost touching) one another.

Baking: Bake the rolls in a preheated 350°F oven for 20 to 25 minutes, till they're golden brown. Remove them from the oven, carefully turn them out of the pan -- the pull-apart rolls will come out all in one piece -- and brush them with melted butter, if desired. Serve warm or at room temperature. Yield: 15 or 16 rolls.

Chicken in Mustard Sauce

Chicken In Mustard Sauce

INGREDIENTS
8 5-ounce chicken breasts, skinless and boneless
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 cup onion, finely chopped
2 tablespoons flour
2 cups water
1 ½ teaspoons dry mustard
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

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PREPARATION:
Sprinkle the meat with the salt and pepper.
Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. When it is hot, brown the chicken for one-and-a-half minutes on each side.
Mix in the onion and continue cooking for one minute.
Sprinkle the flour on the chicken pieces, turning them so that all the pieces are coated. Cook one minute to lightly brown the flour.
Add the water and stir to dissolve the flour until the mixture comes to a boil. Lower the heat, cover the skillet and boil gently for five minutes.
Remove the meat to a serving platter and keep warm.
Cook the sauce to reduce it to about one-and-a-half cups. Mix the dry mustard with the Dijon mustard and stir until smooth. Stir the mustard mixture into the sauce and heat, but do not allow the sauce to boil after the mustard has been added.
Place the chicken pieces in the sauce and warm over low heat for 10 to 15 minutes to develop the flavor.
Serve the chicken with the sauce, steamed rice and green beans.