Whole Wheat Flatbread Stuffed with Tomatoes, Basil and Turkey

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A.K.A bread dough baked around tomatoes and ham. I call it a baked sandwich, but "Stuffed Flatbread" sounds so much fancier!
This recipe is very flexible; just follow the instructions for the bread dough, but fill it with anything you would put in a hot sandwich. I think onions, cheese, and bell peppers would be good, or pizza style with tomato sauce and mozzarella. Use your imagination! I calculated that a half cup of whole wheat flour would be enough for one sandwich, so I decided to make dough with 1 cup and form two sandwiches. I cooked one immediately after the second rise, but I froze the other one after the rise to be cooked the next day. I left it on the counter during the night before the day I wanted to eat, and baked it in the morning. The dough pooled a bit, but it tasted the same as the first one.

Bread dough (for 2 sandwiches):

• 1 cup whole wheat
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2-3/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp yeast (about half a packet)
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1/4 cup warm milk

1. Combine the yeast, milk, and sugar; mix well.
2. Combine flour and salt
3. Add milk mixture and water to the flour; mush everything together with your hands and knead until the dough is smooth and holds together well, about five minutes. (The dough will be sticky at the beginning)
4. Let the dough rise in a warm spot for an hour (I tried letting it rise in an oven I had heated to 200F and then turned off, but the dough developed a crust on top; I also tried this for the second rise, but the oven beneath was turned on and the bread had started cooking, the second time I made the recipe I turned the oven on to 150F and turned it off when the air inside felt mildly warm to my hand.)
5. Form a ball with the dough and divide it into two.
6. Flour a flat surface and stretch out the dough to form 6" squares.
7. Place your filling of choice on one half of the dough and fold the other half on top.*
8. Don't make it rise a second time! Just bake it!
   
9. Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes (depends how stuffed it is; just don't let it burn)

*After step four you can wrap the sandwich with parchment/wax paper and put it inside a plastic bag and freeze. Leave it to defrost on the counter during the night to bake it in the morning, but don't just place it in the oven because if you do, the frozen from the water will steam the bread instead of baking it.

Confit de Canard

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Never heard of it? It's French! It was invented as a way to preserve duck meat. It is similar to canned peaches if you replace the peaches with duck thighs and the syrup with duck fat. Are disgusted already? Well, don't be, it's delicious! My parents bring cans back from France sometimes, and my mother cooks it wonderfully.
The duck is lifted out of the fat and either roasted in the oven or in a pan on the stove. My mother usually uses the oven, but tonight she used the stove. We found the problem with the stove is that the duck sticks to the bottom of the skillet. Traditionally, the duck is accompanied with potatoes pan fried in part of the duck fat! This adds a deep flavor to otherwise bland potatoes. To cook the potatoes, first boil them for 10 minutes, slice them up, and then pan fry them.
Complemented by a simple salad, this dish is perfect for cold weather or just an evening of indulgence. Read more on Wikipedia! Be a wikinerd!

Chocolate Raspberry Scones

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Sounds good eh? Well, they were ok. They tasted fine, a bit too sweet for breakfast though. If I ever make them again, I'll leave out the chocolate chips and add more raspberries. My main problem is that weren't scony. The crust was too hard and the inside that chewy. I don't know; I Wasn't crazy about them.
The recipe (from joyofbaking.com) used yogurt, which is not a traditional part of scone physiology, and this might have caused the unsconeness. Another possible cause of the crust may have been that I made the dough Friday night and left the formed scones in the oven programmed to turn on in the morning. This system usually works, but a problem is that the scones are in the oven while it is preheating. This should not have formed a crust though because it did the opposite of crust-making. A hard exterior is usually produced by a too high temperature, but I used a lower temperature than the recipe asked for because I have a convection oven. So I'm confused, but whatever.
If you do not mind crusty scones, here is the good but not amazing recipe at http://joyofbaking.com/RaspberryScones.html

Note: I used frozen raspberries from a fine brand "Wyman's" They always work when I use them in recipes, but as the website says, they did break and bleed into the dough.

Poll Results! Fudgy or Cakey Brownies?

Fudgy!!	9 (75%)
Cakey!!	3 (25%)
Don't like brownies!!	0 (0%)

Votes so far: 12

Fudgy wins! Why am I not surprised that 100% like brownies?
Personally I prefer fudgy, just like those two-bite brownies you can buy at the store. Soo tasty. They melt in your mouth, ladden with the flavor of brown-- I mean chocolate. Mmmm now I want brownies :(
Well, May fete Parade this Saturday! It's at 10am in Downtown PA. Come watch (or listen to) the Band! (yes I know, as Connie would say, "Shameless Advertising."