what's cooking wednesday - jalapeno cheese bread

Yes it's What's Cooking Wednesday, but bear with me for a moment because I HAVE to get this off my chest. I've been holding it in for a little while now and it's been killing me. Really. You have no idea. Killing me. Are you ready? Because it's big! Here it goes.....

I am going to be an AUNTIE!!!!

Pheww! I am so glad to get that out. I really couldn't be any more excited about this. Dave and Mel are going to make awesome parents and very likely make one adorable baby because they are awesome and adorable people. So excited.

Ahem. Okay, now let's get on with it shall we?

When it comes to cooking I tend to get hooked on one idea and that will be it for a while. You all remember the soup addiction of oh-seven. Aw who am I kidding the soup addiction continues unabated in oh-eight. There is nothing like warm homemade soup on a cold winter's night, but I'm getting off topic. Not long ago I was contemplating getting rid of my breadmaker. I hadn't used it in so long and there are requests for breadmakers on freecycle all the time. Ultimately I decided against it, but I figured if I was going to keep it I better use it. So I've been making a loaf a week. Except this week I made three and I am trying to ignore the calls of the loaf of cinnamon swirl bread on the counter right now. The only thing that's keeping me from eating the whole thing is that I made it for our neighbour. The cinnamon swirl will keep for another week because this week we're talking jalapeños baby.



Jalapeno Cheese Bread

1 cup warm water
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp sugar
1/2 cup shredded monterey jack cheese
6 tbsp chopped fresh jalapeño peppers
3 cups bread flour
1/2 tbsp dry active yeast

Add ingredients according to your manufacturers directions. For my breadmaker that's liquids first, flour and other dry ingredients layered on top and the yeast in a small well in the center.

Set your bread machine to the regular bread and 1 1/2 pound loaf cycles.

Recipe Notes: Okay I made some changes with this to reflect my tastes and what I had available in my house. So the jack cheese was out. In it's place I used a cup of cubed cheddar. Instead of the fresh peppers I used pickled sliced jalapeño rings, twenty-four of them to be exact. Now the cheese and the peppers I didn't add at the beginning of the cycle, but waited for the "addition" signal. Do all breadmakers have that? I have no idea. Mine does, so I waited until then. Oh and I mixed the cheese and peppers with a couple of tablespoons of flour before I added them. Otherwise it makes the loaf a bit too wet. These little changes made this bread out of this world. Since the cheese was cubed it didn't just disappear into the loaf like shredded cheese does. Using the jarred jalapeños was just easier than chopping your own and it definitely gave us just enough heat. It wasn't super hot, so you may want to adjust to your own tastes. This was a home run and I'll definitely be making it again.

What is What's Cooking Wednesday and how can I play?

What's cooking Wednesday was born out of a desire to get out of that what's for dinner rut. Playing is easy, on Wednesday post a recipe that has been tried and tested by you and then pop over here and add your name to the Mr. Linky. When entering your name also add the name of the recipe in brackets and make sure you link to your What's Cooking Wednesday post and not just your blog's front page. And don't forget to link back here, the home of What's Cooking Wednesday.

So for example I would write Shan (Speedy Chicken Stir Fry) in the name section. For the URL section I would post this: http://shanrev.blogspot.com/2007/10/whats-cooking-wednesday-speedy-chicken.html

I'll let you in on a little secret. Much to Kaffy's chagrin, my WCW recipes are almost never made on a Wednesday. So feel free to cook and photograph whenever you have time and join us posting on Wednesday.