* Image from Trinigourmet.com
It's recipe time again. First a little background. Bake is something I learned to make in Trinidad. Down there it is made with coconut milk and has bits of coconut meat in it. It gives it an interesting little twist and seems appropriate to the climate. Up here in the relatively frozen north coconut doesn't seem quite right at certain times of the year. Plus I learned the old fashioned way to milk a coconut, which is labor intensive. Let me tell ya those coconuts don't always take kindly to milking. You think I jest but just you try milking a coconut sometime and tell me if you don't wind up blessing the inventors of canned coconut milk at least for the sake of ease if not fresh taste. So ok, it boils down to this...I like food made from scratch but I have a basically lazy streak in me so I only make it with coconut milk for special occasions. The rest of the time I use water so it winds up being sort of like Irish Soda bread in a lot of ways.
It's way easy and my kids inhale the stuff. I have one child who loves soup as much as I do and two kids who think soup is a special brand of torture. Whenever I make one of the soups they find especially loathsome I make bake to go with it so they are at least willing to come to the table. Ok, onto the non-coconut milk Lime-twisted version of the recipe...
BAKE
4 cups of flour
Lots of baking powder (How much? I don't know..I think I put a couple of tablespoons in there anyway)
Big glob of shortening (How big? You know better than that by now don't you? Ok, Ok, I reckon about a palmful...half a cup-ish maybe)
1 1/4 -1 1/2 cups water
-Mix the flour and baking powder together then cut in the shortening. Now I know lots of you cut shortening in with those fancy little doohickeys that look like instruments of torture. I don't even have one of them. I just dig in there with my hand and rub all the shortening in that way.
-Add the water and knead until the dough is no longer sticky. That's the only reason I measure the flour and the water is so I am not constantly adding little bits of one or the other alternately to get the dough right. But it's forgiving so if the dough is too wet or too dry add more flour or water accordingly.
-Form the dough into a ball and cover in the bowl to let the dough relax for 20-30 minutes.
-Preheat oven to 425F.
-Grease a cookie sheet and gently pat out dough ball to a circle about 3/4 of an inch thick.
-Bake until it's golden brown. I never time these things. Sorry. Experiment with it.
-When the bake is fresh from the oven slice it in half and slather both sides with butter then sprinkle the bottom with cheese.-Replace the top and slice into wedges like a cake.
Now before you all run off to make this way easy recipe do me a favor and leave an opinion. For the first year and a half I did Trini Tuesday posts talking about Trinidadian culture and the time I lived on the island. Then I moved on to the cross country bike trip, Pennsylvania German culture, and lately it's been recipes. Basically, I want Tuesday to be about culture, food, or stuff I love, maybe storytelling. Of those sorts of ideas what are you folks interested in? I know I have some new people coming around. Should I rerun some of the best of the Trini Tuesday stuff (after maybe reworking or cleaning some of it up) or are the longtime readers sick to death of that? Are there questions, suggestions? I have some ideas percolating but I'm curious to know what the interest is out there. Thanks folks.
It's recipe time again. First a little background. Bake is something I learned to make in Trinidad. Down there it is made with coconut milk and has bits of coconut meat in it. It gives it an interesting little twist and seems appropriate to the climate. Up here in the relatively frozen north coconut doesn't seem quite right at certain times of the year. Plus I learned the old fashioned way to milk a coconut, which is labor intensive. Let me tell ya those coconuts don't always take kindly to milking. You think I jest but just you try milking a coconut sometime and tell me if you don't wind up blessing the inventors of canned coconut milk at least for the sake of ease if not fresh taste. So ok, it boils down to this...I like food made from scratch but I have a basically lazy streak in me so I only make it with coconut milk for special occasions. The rest of the time I use water so it winds up being sort of like Irish Soda bread in a lot of ways.
It's way easy and my kids inhale the stuff. I have one child who loves soup as much as I do and two kids who think soup is a special brand of torture. Whenever I make one of the soups they find especially loathsome I make bake to go with it so they are at least willing to come to the table. Ok, onto the non-coconut milk Lime-twisted version of the recipe...
BAKE
4 cups of flour
Lots of baking powder (How much? I don't know..I think I put a couple of tablespoons in there anyway)
Big glob of shortening (How big? You know better than that by now don't you? Ok, Ok, I reckon about a palmful...half a cup-ish maybe)
1 1/4 -1 1/2 cups water
-Mix the flour and baking powder together then cut in the shortening. Now I know lots of you cut shortening in with those fancy little doohickeys that look like instruments of torture. I don't even have one of them. I just dig in there with my hand and rub all the shortening in that way.
-Add the water and knead until the dough is no longer sticky. That's the only reason I measure the flour and the water is so I am not constantly adding little bits of one or the other alternately to get the dough right. But it's forgiving so if the dough is too wet or too dry add more flour or water accordingly.
-Form the dough into a ball and cover in the bowl to let the dough relax for 20-30 minutes.
-Preheat oven to 425F.
-Grease a cookie sheet and gently pat out dough ball to a circle about 3/4 of an inch thick.
-Bake until it's golden brown. I never time these things. Sorry. Experiment with it.
-When the bake is fresh from the oven slice it in half and slather both sides with butter then sprinkle the bottom with cheese.-Replace the top and slice into wedges like a cake.
Now before you all run off to make this way easy recipe do me a favor and leave an opinion. For the first year and a half I did Trini Tuesday posts talking about Trinidadian culture and the time I lived on the island. Then I moved on to the cross country bike trip, Pennsylvania German culture, and lately it's been recipes. Basically, I want Tuesday to be about culture, food, or stuff I love, maybe storytelling. Of those sorts of ideas what are you folks interested in? I know I have some new people coming around. Should I rerun some of the best of the Trini Tuesday stuff (after maybe reworking or cleaning some of it up) or are the longtime readers sick to death of that? Are there questions, suggestions? I have some ideas percolating but I'm curious to know what the interest is out there. Thanks folks.
30 comments:
Whatever...as long as it includes recipe's..
That looks delish Meesh!
xoxox
Yahtzee!!
I think the bread sounds awesome!! I have two kids who hate soup too and I make squash bread so they will come to the table.
Damnit, G!
Arg, how is one suppose to bake something with ingredients and instructions like that? It sounds easy enough. I guess I shall have to give it a try but I just might give the canned coconut milk a try. I would try a real coconut but other than picking something big, round and hairy... I have no idea how to select a proper coconut. Besides, big, round, and hairy... I just don't know if I can go there. :)
I loved the bike trip. I was not around for the Trini Tuesday but I suppose I could go back into archives. I agree, ethnic and food and the likes sounds wonderful. I am afraid I am not much help but I love recipes and what is behind them culture wise or even traditional wise even if it is only your tradition.
I know it does not help you fill your Tuesdays but I have been thinking it might be fun to coordinate one day were as many people as we can get post a recipe in an effort to plan a meal or a days worth of meals. Not that it would go together as I know we have lots of interesting people out there with lots of rich heritage to draw from but... of course posting a story around the recipe would be wonderful too.
Oh I forgot, I LOVE soup. My Sister really is not interested. I am not sure about my Brother and I have no kids to torture ... I mean experiment on. Do you suppose your children were switched at birth at the hospital?
I really enjoyed the Trini Tuesdays and of course the bike trips were very cool, and Pennsylvania German culture was quite fascinating and i'm always up for a good recipe...so, post whatever you like. I'm sure I'll still come around to read it. :D
I like recipes, I like reading about different cultures, I don't mind re-reading anything (I've read most of my books at least twice) so what ever you choose to write about, I'll be here :)
lime - whatever you post on Tuesdays, I'll read. I loved the trini, the bike ride, and all the other stories.
Culture -anything! Food, traditions, expressions -you name it, I love learning about other cultures and you really do make some terrific presentations, ya know!
I think that you ought to do what pleases you, but I always enjoy a tale to go with the food I am eating. Both my mom and dad used to share little stories about the family while showing me how to cook. I naturally do the same when preparing food for my wife. She says it adds to the meals.
that's a really big mushroom... oh see, i really should read first before i start commenting.
Youre so funny.
Now. That cutter thing is called a pastry blender, they are awesome but a fork works just as well if you dont wanna get your hands in crisoc...ew.
But, the last time I made a pie, the bolt that holds the wire to the handle popped off, flew across the room, the metal thing straightened out and sliced my hand, flour and crisco went everywhere.
That was such a mess and also quite painful. I am sticking to forks from now on.
Ok Trini
I would like to hear more about your personal stories in Trini, because when you tell them from a personal side, it is more interesting to me. You don't have to retell the bad parts.
Like tell us about marketing, about eating, about being so different, about stuff that happened to you and the family while you were there.
Like for ex
the time the old man on the train read Gary and my palms. I am still upset about that. He told me when I was going to die. I didn't like that one bit, but still it was cool.
Trying to get my son to eat anything is a nightmare, so im all for trying new things!
Food, Recipe, Trinidad...keep it coming. I would suggest you link back to posts you want to recycle rather than rework and repost them. That wasy we keep up with new recipes and such. Have people submit their own maybe?
Ignoring and deleting the troll hasn't discouraged them seemingly so I turned off anonymous comments for a while and see if that works.
What fools some bloggers be.
If culture in a general sense is how we live.... then food totally counts! Cheers!
I will certainly have to try the Bake. I am not sick of your Trini Tuesdays. I have never been to Trinidad and I love hearing about it, it doesn't matter if I have been there or not I love hearing about how other folks live and the things they do. I also love recipes! On top of that I like to hear about stuff you like too!
I'm not being much help here am I ? I am fine with whatever you decide to go with Lime, I thoroughly enjoy reading you so it matters not to me.
Happy April Fools Day!
I especially enjoy the posts about my PA German background and recipes. My father's Polish parents were around all the time while I was growing up, but we hardly ever saw my mom's parents. I like to compare those recipes with Lori's, because she's German and learned to cook many things from her grandmother who came from Germany.
I also enjoy any post that has your personal experiences from years past. Hope this helps.
I love it when TV bakers get all sanctimonious about measuring ingredients to the enth degree. I bake as you do...just throw some in there and see what happens.
Maybe I'll put my coconut/peach cake recipe up as well.
and as someone (who shall remain nameless) said to me once..."it's your blog..it's there for you...do whatever makes you happy."
or something like that...
I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who considers "glob" an actual measurement.
That's a sexy bun!
I love travel tales--not just big, international adventures, either. Even a weekend away works!
Food stuff makes me happycrazy, so that would be great, but cultural misunderstandings are endlessly interesting, too. Guess you can't go wrong.
Thanks again, on a sidenote, for your wonderful comments. I really do want you to be a children's librarian--you so clearly love kids (especially those 7-9 year olds, right?)...
Sounds great, looks great.
I'd be happy, sitting on the dock of the bake!
I vote for Trini recipes :)
Yep it does sound like irish soda bread. I have a recipie for that, but haven't made it in ages. Fresh bread with soup is always a big hit, so I know why the kids like it. Would like to try it with the coconut milk and lime though ;-) I think i can accept coconut milk from the can!
Hm...first of all, cool recipe. It sounds deceptively simple. I bet it is one of those recipes which can go wrong if you overuse or underuse one of the ingredients.
Now, to your question. Darn, it is difficult to put a label on what is interesting in any blog.
I agree with whoever commented about personal stories. Those are definitely interesting. But I also like the culture stuff. I like to read about things that are different from my life or expierence. Trini stories and Pennsylvania German stories about any aspect of life falls into the category of different from my life, so they interest me.
Reruns are fine by me. Maybe you could do a poll with three choices and let the readers decide which story to rerun.
I like most of what you post, Lime. I think its as much about how you feel about it as it is about the subject itself. I agree with coop, if it makes you happy...
But... I do like the usefulness of recipes, even if I don't use them immediately, I know where to find them. :) Keep throwing a few in every once in a while, and it makes for an interesting mix (pun intended.)
Go ahead and rerun. I'm new enough to not have read it, and I'm sure it's interesting. Have you tried playing music for the coconuts before milking? They say that works for cows. ;)
Trini Tuesdays! Awe I miss those! And I wouldn't mind reading them over again! Heh... I feellike a new blogger anyway!
The Bake looks amazing! :)
Lime - thanks for the detailed instructions. ;)
How much coconut milk should I use? A heap?
PS - I used a free program that came with a PC mag. Zoner 3D Photo Maker.
Don't you put just a pinch of salt in it?
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