Anadama bread

I'm finally getting back to my goal of making every bread in The Bread Bakers Apprentice Book!  The latest bread was Anadama Bread. 

It started out with soaking a cup of corn meal in a cup of water overnight, and this was a new concept to me for baking bread, but I went with it.  The next day, per the directions, I added the flour, etc and let it ferment for an hour until bubbles appeared, then added the remaining ingredients (which included molasses, which was also a new addition to bread baking for me).

Unfortunately, I miscalculated my time so instead of letting the dough rise for an hour or two, I had to put it in the fridge after a couple of hours since I didn't have time to shape it.  Luckily this didn't impact the rising stage at all.

I actually didn't get around to baking the bread until the next day, so my 2 day bread turned into a 3 day bread, but it ended up making 3 loaves, which was nice.  The bread itself?  Well I'll admit, I wasn't as crazy about it as I have been other breads I've made, perhaps it was the cornmeal.  But I toasted it and put some orange marmalade on it and it tasted fine :)

Cinnamon roasted sweet potatoes

Compliments of Allrecipes.com

• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 2 pounds sweet potatoes, peeled and sliced
• 2 T brown sugar
• 1 t cinnamon
• 3/4 t salt
• 1 pinch freshly ground black pepper
• 1 T fresh lime juice (optional-I didn't use it)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and pour the oil to a 9x13 baking dish and place in the oven for about 5 minutes.

Add the potatoes to the oiled dish and bake for 20 minutes, turning after 10 minutes.  In a small bowl mix together the cinnamon, brown sugar, salt and pepper.

After the 20 minutes is up, remove potatoes and sprinkle with the brown sugar mixture and mix to coat.  Return to oven and roast for another 10 minutes or until the potatoes are tender, stirring as necessary to allow them to brown evenly.

Remove from oven and transfer potatoes to a paper towel to drain the oil.  Serve immediately.

The end result?  Pretty tasty!  It made a large serving and I had some for leftover the next day and they tasted just as good reheated.

Lemon Baked Chicken

When chicken is on sale, you stock up and try to be creative.  I found a recipe on the Weight Watchers website that sounded good (and easy).  I made a couple of substitutions and it came out great!

• 16 ounces boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• Juice of 1/2 lemon
• 1/4 cup chicken broth
• Dried parsley flakes
• Salt
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Citrus and basil spice rub (or any kind of dry rub you have on hand)

Place the chicken breasts in a shallow baking pan and drizzle olive oil over them, add salt, parsley and the spice rub (I just eyeball these amounts, a dash of salt, few shakes of the parsley and spice rub).  Add the chicken broth and lemon, flip the chicken and add the parsley, salt and spice to the other side.

Bake uncovered at 400 degrees for 30-35 minutes or until chicken is cooked thoroughly.

Serves 4
(WW points-3 each)