Well, I have no particular agenda today, so I thought I'd give you random updates about what I have been cooking and scheming. I don't really know where else this stuff would go, hence the "trimmings." Lame, I know. Deal with it.
Cooking
I've actually started a number of cooking projects lately. :)
Sometime in the last week or so I turned almost 6 lbs of cabbage into sauerkraut. It's "sauering" on my counter as I write this. I love love love sauerkraut now, which is crazy because I used to think it terrible. The first time I made sauerkraut, I wasn't that crazy about it, so it languished in the back of my fridge for months until December when I pulled it out again and tried it and "yum" was the only word-sounding noise I could get out in between mouthfuls. So I now I am making a big batch and I am excited. I'm also a lot less paranoid about leaving food out on the counter this time around. (Eating fermented food cures you of some paranoia, apparently).
I also bought a bottle of kombucha and started growing my own SCOBY so I can make my own. If you don't know, kombucha is basically a superfood. It's filled with good bacteria for digestion (like yogurt) along with all kind of other stuff for energy, etc. It's really good for your liver. It's slightly carbonated and my husband says it tastes like beer (what? he's weird). Read more about this good stuff, here. Or you can google it and come up with hundreds of other sites. Unfortunately it takes like 3 weeks to grow a SCOBY so it will be at least that long before I can make my own. *Sad*
Just this weekend I made a huge pot of homemade chicken noodle soup with real bone broth that I left to simmer overnight on Saturday. The soup is delicious and hopefully just what the doctor ordered to help us sickies get over the rest of this annoying cold... Hmm, I should post a recipe.
A week or two ago I made pasta which turned out better than ever before. This is ironic since 2 things happened differently: for one, I set out to follow the directions, for two, life got in the way and I left it abandoned in the "resting" stage for about 6 times as long as the directions say to. Haha, I love irony. Seriously, best pasta I've made. So much flavor and it kept its shape really well even when being cooked extensively in soup. I'll be making more soon, I bet.
This weekend I made 2 casseroles and froze them for those "menu plan, menu shman." nights. It's a recipe I adapted from my mom--who knows where she got it. It's basically an egg and bread casserole, but with yummy things like mushrooms, cheese, and onions (and for me, spinach). I love it. I had a hard time not chowing on the filling when I was layering the casserole because it tastes sooo good. It turned out really well this time. (another recipe? ... Hmm)
This weekend I also made another loaf of sourdough bread, as well as quasi-sourdough sweet potato "quick-bread." It tastes amazing. This all started because I had half a sweet potato from like, 3 months ago that I put in the freezer with the intention of "getting around to it." Ha! Success.
Finally, this weekend, I made a half-batch of yogurt--Much more manageable. I'm doing it this way from now on. I also used the whisk attachment on my blender to mix in my yogurt starter and it was convenient. Good trick for next time.
^Most of the above things fall into my "continue eating better" annual goal DH and I set a week or two ago. A "sub-goal" beneath that was to eat more fermented foods--both sauerkraut and kombucha fall into that category, yeah! We noticed a huge difference in our digestion and general well-being when I bought several bottles of it from the store and were drinking it everyday. At a little over $3 per 16oz bottle though, it's definitely not in the budget. This was also one of my January goals. So far I think breaking down goals into "baby steps" to do each month is going to be great. Sauerkraut is great for you and it's also got good bacteria for digestion. It's also stupidly high in vitamin C, yay. And yogurt, well, that's another healthy food, especially since it's just milk, bacteria, and a little sugar.
Ah well, I was going to post about other stuff, but it looks like I've got more than enough random stuff to talk about just with food so I'll save the others for another day...
(This post wound up being much more focused and much longer than I was expecting...)
What about you? What cooking have you done?
Showing posts with label Sourdough. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sourdough. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Monday, January 10, 2011
Monday Life Awareness
Well, it's a fact, I am crabby on Mondays. The weekend always goes too fast and I'm left staring at my phone asking why it is telling me to get up and go to work. Well, this prompted me to start focusing on being aware of all the good in my life. So every Monday, I'll be posting something that I am thankful for. Hopefully this will get me in the habit of being grateful even when I am cranky and hopefully will counteract the acute "case of the Mondays" I seem to contract every week.
Today I am thankful for my husband. He's been pretty sick the past week or so (he is never sick for more than a day so this is crazy), but has still been trying to help around the apartment, since I've been sick, too. I love him! He humors my insanity, like supporting me in my decision to try and grow a garden on our small balcony and taking our increased grocery spending in stride while we adjust to better foods. He puts up with me when I want to leave the tree up "one more week," because I love looking at it All. The. Time. Pretty much he's the best.
The end. (See, I feel better already)
Today I am thankful for my husband. He's been pretty sick the past week or so (he is never sick for more than a day so this is crazy), but has still been trying to help around the apartment, since I've been sick, too. I love him! He humors my insanity, like supporting me in my decision to try and grow a garden on our small balcony and taking our increased grocery spending in stride while we adjust to better foods. He puts up with me when I want to leave the tree up "one more week," because I love looking at it All. The. Time. Pretty much he's the best.
The end. (See, I feel better already)
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Yay for Bread
Hmm, the promised bread update "tomorrow" from several days ago never made it from my brain to my fingers, so I'm going to d that now while I watch the beautiful snow fall outside my window and I will cleverly schedule this for tomorrow morning so that I will not have four posts within a two hour period followed by no posts for days, haha.
My sourdough bread turned out good. Not quite as dense as last time which was good, but still really dense. Also not quite as sour, but I figure my starter is still really young so it will fluctuate as it matures.
Also, I made sourdough cinnamon rolls from the recipe in Sunset >something< Bread book. If you search for "Sunset Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls" you'll find it no problem online. They were amazing. Again, whole wheat, I'm trying to reduce white flour except for treats. Both hubby and I liked the cinnamon rolls. I do feel bad about the sugar in them, but it's not that much, and I didn't put icing on them (although it would have been better with it). I'm thinking they would be really good with cream cheese which would provide a little sweetness / moisture without tons of sugar. When I made this recipe it made 11 rolls, though, not nine like it said, so I couldn't use the square pan like the recipe said to. I think I will post a more detailed recipe about the cinnamon rolls later on, for now, just know that they were very tasty.
My sourdough bread turned out good. Not quite as dense as last time which was good, but still really dense. Also not quite as sour, but I figure my starter is still really young so it will fluctuate as it matures.
Also, I made sourdough cinnamon rolls from the recipe in Sunset >something< Bread book. If you search for "Sunset Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls" you'll find it no problem online. They were amazing. Again, whole wheat, I'm trying to reduce white flour except for treats. Both hubby and I liked the cinnamon rolls. I do feel bad about the sugar in them, but it's not that much, and I didn't put icing on them (although it would have been better with it). I'm thinking they would be really good with cream cheese which would provide a little sweetness / moisture without tons of sugar. When I made this recipe it made 11 rolls, though, not nine like it said, so I couldn't use the square pan like the recipe said to. I think I will post a more detailed recipe about the cinnamon rolls later on, for now, just know that they were very tasty.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Bread Update
Well friends. I am finally getting my bread back under control. I've had a string of failures lately and I've been kind of discouraged. Notice the lack of posting about bread failures? That's because I'm kind of embarrassed. Oh well, I guess it still tastes good, right? Just not for sandwiches.
Well, I already wrote about my foray into the world of sourdough--it's going great!I'm about to I just put my second loaf in the oven--much more risen and promising-looking. However, given my track record with fallen loaves, this isn't a sure thing yet. I am excited. I also made criss-cross cuts across the top to make it pretty. :)
I also had my first success in a long time last night with whole wheat bread. I am SO relieved to finally have a usable loaf of whole wheat bread in the house! I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch today to celebrate. It was amazing. It's a bit smaller than I would have liked, but I didn't really care--it was solid! And not fallen. And really soft and chewy, while still totally durable enough to slather chunky peanut butter all over.
So, I like to make my own bread because it's cheaper (when it works, lol) of course, but also because it avoids preservatives / artificial ingredients. Please don't feel like I'm telling any of you (my 3 readers, :) I love each of you) that you need to make your own bread. I'm just sharing my adventure with you.
In my bread journey, I'm trying to transition to more sourdough because of all the information I've been reading about making grains more digestible. It's interesting stuff, really. Because sourdough has live little beasties in it, the beasties eat part some of the sugar and other stuff in the flour, and in turn produce healthy leftover liquid stuff that gives it the sour taste. It's a win-win. If you don't want sourdough, you can soak your flour overnight to give close to the same health benefits of making it easier to digest without so much sour flavor. Also, I love me some sourdough. :) Fresh from the oven, slathered in butter... Oh yes.
Here's a source that helped get me started reading about wheat and different kinds of bread.
Also, I got to share my sourdough starter with someone at work and it made me feel good! Ok, that's probably lame, but I really liked getting to share something with a friend who will (and already has several times) use it and benefit from it. She's already completely showed me up on sourdough bread texture and rise wise, but mine had more of a sour flavor which I liked better.
Oh, ttfn. I will tell you all tomorrow how my second loaf of sourdough turned out!
Well, I already wrote about my foray into the world of sourdough--it's going great!
I also had my first success in a long time last night with whole wheat bread. I am SO relieved to finally have a usable loaf of whole wheat bread in the house! I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch today to celebrate. It was amazing. It's a bit smaller than I would have liked, but I didn't really care--it was solid! And not fallen. And really soft and chewy, while still totally durable enough to slather chunky peanut butter all over.
So, I like to make my own bread because it's cheaper (when it works, lol) of course, but also because it avoids preservatives / artificial ingredients. Please don't feel like I'm telling any of you (my 3 readers, :) I love each of you) that you need to make your own bread. I'm just sharing my adventure with you.
In my bread journey, I'm trying to transition to more sourdough because of all the information I've been reading about making grains more digestible. It's interesting stuff, really. Because sourdough has live little beasties in it, the beasties eat part some of the sugar and other stuff in the flour, and in turn produce healthy leftover liquid stuff that gives it the sour taste. It's a win-win. If you don't want sourdough, you can soak your flour overnight to give close to the same health benefits of making it easier to digest without so much sour flavor. Also, I love me some sourdough. :) Fresh from the oven, slathered in butter... Oh yes.
Here's a source that helped get me started reading about wheat and different kinds of bread.
Also, I got to share my sourdough starter with someone at work and it made me feel good! Ok, that's probably lame, but I really liked getting to share something with a friend who will (and already has several times) use it and benefit from it. She's already completely showed me up on sourdough bread texture and rise wise, but mine had more of a sour flavor which I liked better.
Oh, ttfn. I will tell you all tomorrow how my second loaf of sourdough turned out!
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Sourdough!
Well,
In my absence, I've started making sourdough. So far, I've made a whole wheat sourdough loaf right now I have sourdough cinnamon rolls rising. I can't wait. Part of my food waste these past two weeks has been from my failed sourdough attempt, but all in all I think I wasted only 2-3 cups on my first attempt. I switched to using whole wheat flour (which supposedly has a higher wild yeast content) and I haven't had any problems since.
So far my starter is only about 10-11 days old, but it already makes such good flavor. The bread I made tasted soo good, if a little dense. I've already shared my sourdough starter and a piece of the bread I made with a person from work and she is now making sourdough today. Score, helping spread healthy eats.
It was actually really fun for me to make my own sourdough starter--I felt like a scientist with this goopy, bubbly, alive mess in this jar. It's also a little bit like a pet right now. Because it's such a new starter, I have to feed it every day while it develops flavor, etc. It's really intriguing.
I might post later about how to make a sourdough starter and the health benefits of sourdough, but for now, I've got to go put my cinnamon rolls in the oven!
In my absence, I've started making sourdough. So far, I've made a whole wheat sourdough loaf right now I have sourdough cinnamon rolls rising. I can't wait. Part of my food waste these past two weeks has been from my failed sourdough attempt, but all in all I think I wasted only 2-3 cups on my first attempt. I switched to using whole wheat flour (which supposedly has a higher wild yeast content) and I haven't had any problems since.
So far my starter is only about 10-11 days old, but it already makes such good flavor. The bread I made tasted soo good, if a little dense. I've already shared my sourdough starter and a piece of the bread I made with a person from work and she is now making sourdough today. Score, helping spread healthy eats.
It was actually really fun for me to make my own sourdough starter--I felt like a scientist with this goopy, bubbly, alive mess in this jar. It's also a little bit like a pet right now. Because it's such a new starter, I have to feed it every day while it develops flavor, etc. It's really intriguing.
I might post later about how to make a sourdough starter and the health benefits of sourdough, but for now, I've got to go put my cinnamon rolls in the oven!
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