Book Swap: Laurel's Kitchen

Once upon a time, a beautiful joyful blogger had a wonderful idea for the First-Ever Book Swap. I signed on right away and got a chance to exchange books with the much-admired Clare from the land of Oz. One night last week, I came back home from a very long day and found a package at my door: Clare's gift had arrived!
The package was ripped open to reveal Laurel's Kitchen, a cookbook that is much more than just a cookbook. It is choc-a-bloc with nutrition advice, baking tips and innovative ways to use fresh produce. Clare tells me that she has used this book very often for its bread recipes. Personally I am a little wary of baking bread so this gave me a great opportunity to try my hand at it. I made a little Saturday Summer lunch for my friends with two recipes from Laurel's Kitchen: Fresh Corn and Tomato Soup and Herb Puffs to dunk into the soup.

The recipes are real simple, here is the one for herb puffs:

Herb Puffs
From Laurel's Kitchen by Laurel Robertson et. al
2 tbsp fresh minced onion
1 tbsp oil or butter
1 cup cottage cheese
2 tbsp honey
1 tsp salt

1 package active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water

1 egg, beaten
2 tsp minced herbs (I used basil)
2 1/4 whole wheat flour

Method: Saute onion in oil and butter. Add cottage cheese, honey, salt and heat mixture till lukewarm. In a medium bowl, dissolve the yeast in warm water. Stir in egg, herbs, 1 1/4 cups flour and the warm cheese mixture. Mix this batter well, then add the remaining flour as required to make a very soft dough. Knead lightly till elastic.
Let the dough rise in a warm place for an hour and half. Grease a muffin pan and place balls of the dough in muffin cups. Let the dough rise again for 40 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 400 deg F. Bake for 15 minutes.
This recipe made 24 mini-muffins. I loved the crusty exterior and chewy interior. It looks like I will be using this book quite often!

***Thanks Clare for being so generous and sending me this wonderful book, and thanks Amy for organizing this swap***