Mmmbap, ba du ba bap!!

the other night i decided to make hamburgers from the ground bison meat that we got in our csa from week #2. and what goes better with homemade hamburgers than homemade burger buns?? so confident was i (cause why wouldn't i, i have "tod," my super fantastic bread starter) that it was gonna work on the first try, i used my very very last egg in the dough. unfortunately, that dough completely and utterly failed to rise. i mean not even a smidgen. boo whoo me. i could have given up and walked to the store for the buns, but i was determined to make something, anything, tasty in that dang kitchen. with all my kitchen failures lately, i really needed a success story. hail the floury bap. i took the recipe from linda collister's bread book and adapted it a bit to accommodate my starter. thanks goodness the dough decided to rise up for me, the hamburgers turned out tasty, and the sweet potato "fries" we're not to bad (they just needed a bit more time in the oven, but, to bad, i was hungry.) now if i could just get the auto focus on my camera to be my friend, things might start to look up a bit.

yeah, it has risen!!

before....

after.

bison burger with homemade flour bap and my canned pepper ketchup. oops, out of focus.

floury baps

(makes 6 baps)

1/2 cup starter mixed with 1/2 flour, 1/2 water, and 1/4 teaspoon yeast.

let starter hang out on counter till nice a bubbly.

mix 1/2 teaspoon yeast into 2/3 cup warm milk and 1 teaspoon salt.

cut 2 tablespoons butter into 2 cups flour till looks like crumbs. 

make a well in the center and add the warm milk mixture and the starter.

mix till dough looks feels a bit sticky and starts to pull away from the bowl. 

turn out and knead on lightly floured surface for ten minutes. (i did it for 5 minutes)

rise for 1-2 hours in oil bowl covered with damp towel.

once doubled, turn out and divided into 6 pieces. 

shape into slightly thick circle, brush with milk, sprinkle with flour.

let rise for about 1/2 - 1 hour.

press down center of each bap with your thumb 

bake in pre-heated 425 degree oven for 15 minutes.

back to the basics...... bread

today is sunday. i am tired, i have a headache, and i plan on being as lazy as lazy can be. so lazy in fact that even though we were both thinking a sandwich from the deli sounded really good, neither of us wanted to get bundled up and go out in the cold, so we were forced to eat pb&j for lunch. now that is just sad. but while the hubby enjoys a day of watching football and playing with the wii at halftime, i figure it's a good time to get caught up with the blog. so for this post we're going back to the basics, making homemade bread. some of you may argue that bread is not good for you, but i say, shut your pie hole. i love bread. bread with butter, bread with butter and jam, garlic bread, french toast, toast with butter and honey, stuffing, dressing, banana bread, cornbread, rye bread, bagels, pretzels, pizza, pancakes, sourdough!!!!!!.... well you get the point. so in honor of the 3G project and my love love love of the flour, water, salt, and yeast combo, i have gone back to making my own homemade bread. to make things a little easier on myself as i delve back into bread making, i am gonna start with recipes that mainly use white flour. i hope to eventually move into more whole grain flours with the ultimate goal of getting a grain/flour mill and milling my own flour at home on an as needed basis. now there are many many ways to go about making your own bread and many many website to guide you in doing so. but what i am gonna do is make a starter. i'll feed it for a few days, give it a name, and then have it live in the frig. i tried doing this a couple of months ago around thanksgiving, but i ended up neglecting the starter and it kinda died. this go round is fairing a bit better. i've name the starter "tod" and so far he seems pretty happy. i'll give you a general run down of his creation and feedings and i'll keep you posted on what we're baking together, but if you're looking for a more detailed account on creating a starter from scratch and the whole exact science behind the madness of baking bread, let me know and i can point you to some websites that have far more detail than i could ever dream of posting. cause let's face it, i have a "gonna wing it" mentality that's been working for me for the last 38 years and i'm just to lazy to change now. that said, let's make a starter.

mix 1 cup warm filtered water, 1 cup organic white flour, 1/2 tsp. organic yeast, and 1 tbsp. sugar

cover with a clean towel and sit it on the counter overnight

after about 24 hours or so it should have nice bubbles on the surface

if, after your starter has been sitting out overnight, it separates and forms a liquid either above or below it, just stir it back together and continue as long as it doesn't smell rank. now find a bread recipe you would like to try and get baking. at this point you don't really have a sourdough starter for a couple of reasons. 1. it's not "sour" yet (that takes a few more days and a few more feedings) and 2. most "traditional" sour dough starters don't contain packaged yeast. this summer once the weather is warmer i think i'll try making a sourdough starter from scratch by "collecting" wild yeast. but until then i'll just continue on with other recipes from a little bread book that i got awhile ago but have yet to use.

f.y.i. i also found this fun "toy camera" filter in the new photo program i got that's supper fun!!!

i hadn't used this book yet, cause all the recipes call for compressed cake yeast. but then i found a website that said you could take any bread recipe, and by decreasing the amount of liquid and flour by 1/2 cup for every cup of started used, you should be good to go. so that's what i did for my first basic loaf for 2011.

"basic loaf"

4 cups flour

(i did 2 cups white and 2 cups white wheat)

1 1/2 tsp. salt

1 1/4 cup filter water

1 cup starter

combine ingredients in bowl and stir till flour starts to come away from the side of the bowl. knead on a floured surface for about 5-10 minutes still dough is smooth. form into a ball and let rise in a oiled bowl till doubled. i let this dough rise for about 3 hours. (it's really really cool in my kitchen right now, and rising bread needs a bit of warmth, so i boiled a kettle of water and placed both the kettle and bowl of dough in the oven. don't turn on the oven. i just needed a draft free place for the dough and the hot kettle of water provided both moisture and heat.) once risen, remove dough from bowl, gently knead for a second, form into another ball, and place the dough back in the bowl, but this time line the bowl with a slightly floured towel. let rise again, this time for only about 45 minutes to an hour. with the dutch oven inside the oven, preheat to 425 degrees. once ready, lift and quickly transfer the dough to the dutch oven, close the lid, and place back into the oven and bake covered for about 25 minutes. remove the lid and continue to bake for about 10-15 more minutes till done. to test the loaf, tap on the underside, and it should sound like a hollow like a drum. if not return to oven, bake for 5 minutes and test again. 

the towel makes it easier to lift and transport the bread since i'm baking it in the dutchie.

hello old friend, you smell marvelous

after using a cup of the starter for this loaf, i was left with about 1/4 cup of starter in my bowl. instead of pitching it, i added a 1/2 cup filtered water and a 1/2 cup flour, stirred till combined, and left it covered out on the counter again overnight. the next day i stirred it again, re-covered, and left out for another night. the following day i feed it another 1/2 cup water and flour and then covered it loosely with plastic wrap and put it in the frig. i think i can leave it like that for about a week before we get into the danger zone. in a few days i'll take out some starter, feed it, and see if we get some bubbles to let us know if tod is still alive. untill then take a look at some of the recipes from the bread book that i want to try.

back to bread basics

so after trying a little bit of this and a little bit of that, this weekend i went back to my bread basics. i made a simple white loaf and i have no idea exactly how much water and flour i used so please don't ask. i can tell you i started with a poolish, that i made the night before, that was 1 cup water, 1 cup flour, and 1/4 teaspoon yeast. the next afternoon i made the dough with roughly 2 teaspoons yeast, 1 1/2 teaspoons salt, about 1/2 cup water, all the poolish, and almost 3 additional cups flour (i think). i went by feel really. i actually kneaded the dough by hand for a full ten minutes so the upper arm workout for the weekend was taken care of. i let her rise for about 2-3 hours, punched her down (cause she's a bad bitch), and then reformed her and let her rise again for about 45 minutes. due to the lack of any kind of baking stone, i baked her in a preheated enamel coated cast iron dutch oven (betty - she's yellow and sassy) at 450 degrees for 20 minutes covered and then 10 minutes uncovered. as you can see from the picture i actually got some puffage, it's she a beauty?!? my coconut pie, however, was a bit lacking in the looks and presentation department. but as we snacked on her for the last couple of days, she's just got better and better. i've been wanting to try this recipe ever since i found it and thought something coconut would be perfect for my sweetie for valentines day. the only real problem i had was that the center didn't set up as much as i would have liked, but after a night in the frig it was almost perfect. so next time, and there will be a next time, i think i will bake her for about 5-10 more minutes.

please excuse the the holes in the pie. the one in the middle was me checking to see how the center was setting up, and the one in the upper right was me taking a quick taste.

ok, she kinda of fell apart coming out of the pan, but really, who cares?!?

burr, it's cold.... but i got bread!!!

farmhouse white bread

i really should be jogging this morning, but it's below freezing out there and my hands nearly froze off yesterday morning when i was in the arctic tundra that is the backyard. (i was on poop patrol.) i also could be folding laundry instead of letting it pile up in the laundry room, forcing a naked ray to go looking for his skives, but i rather sit here and tell you about my bread. i could say that it was just a loaf of white bread and no big deal. but for me, it was the best loaf of white bread i have made so far. although i was not a fan of trying to knead in my salt like the recipe call for and i cheated a bit by adding some wheat gluten i found at the store that said it would give more rise and a better texture to my bread, it was a grand success. especially when we used it to make the best natural peanut butter and organic strawberry jam sandwiches. also twice this week we have used it to make chicken panini sandwiches. this weekend i am going to try a whole wheat version so keep your fingers crossed.

chicken panini sandwiches.
i chopped up some roasted chicken and mixed that with the left over oil from the jar of feta cheese from split creek farm, some dried italian seasoning, salt, pepper, and a bit of balsamic vinegar. layered that with some sliced roma tomatoes and raw milk cheese, and into the george forman grill it went. i give it one good initial press and then pressed down on the grill top every now and then until the cheese starts to melt and the bread gets nice and toasty.

now there are a few good things about this cold weather we are having. one is that i am becoming the QUEEN of soup, and the other is i get to wear my super cool and oh so cute chococat hat!!!!!!!!!

you know you love it!!!!!!!!!

oh you pesky rabbit

rabbit in the raw.

so when dr. wessinger said he'd bring me some rabbit, i was super excited to be getting wild, living your life free and flocking, going happily about your day rabbit, until.... well, you know. however, i was sadly unprepared for the look of it. all frozen and blood red in a zip lock bag looking very RUSTIC. not quite like the nice, pink, pleasantly shrink wrapped version i got at the farmers market. but after i got it defrosted and let it sit in a water bath in the frig for some hours while changing out the water ever so often, it emerged looking really nice with only a few tuffs of hair still stuck to it. so off i went to the computer to find me a rabbit recipe. i knew i wanted to braise it, and really how hard is that, but still i went looking for a little guidance. i found this recipe by mr. top chef himself and, of course being me, followed it loosely.

i veered off the recipe a bit in the sense that i only had 1 rabbit, omitted the olives, and didn't have any parsley. also since i used canned tomatoes, there was enough juice from that to almost cover the rabbit, so i only used about 1/2 cup chicken stock. plus since i like my veggies, the ratio of veggies to rabbit was higher.

in the end, even though i just might have over cooked it a bit, it was YUMMY!!!!!
thank you dr. wessinger.
oh, and you to, tom.

i also made some non-traditional buttermilk and thyme irish soda bread.

and dinner was served.
braised wild rabbit and irish soda bread.

catching up in the kitchen

to understand what has been going on in the kitchen, i must first tell you about a few of the goodies i acquired over the holidays. twice we stopped at a lodge cast iron outlet and bought a few pieces of cookware. three pieces to be exact. a small skillet, a 10 inch round griddle, and a two quart serving pot which i have nicknamed "mini dutch." (i so wish i had pictures to share with you, but the battery in my digital camera was dead.) also, ever since i started making bread, i've been on the look out for a bread box. i wanted a vintage one, but i still needed it to go along with the current kitchen decor. not an easy task i must say. but at christmas, i remembered that my grandmother had a pretty darn cool silver one in the garage that she offered to me a long time ago when she gave me the matching canisters. but the bread box seemed pretty dirty, and since i really didn't have need for one at the time, i declined. but now it is mine. i was going to get navel jelly to help with the rust, but once i got it home, it clean up pretty nicely considering where it had been living over the last decade or two.

grandma's old chrome bread box and my new cast iron cookware. ray and i have decided that we are going to, piece by piece, replace all the current cookware with the lodge cast iron. also i am very much hoping to go to the cornbread festival over in tennessee this year.

since returning home i've been putting the new cast iron to work.

here we have morning oatmeal with pecans from my nannie's yard.

the griddle gave us some of my best pancakes thus far.

buttermilk pecan pancakes.

although i could get four pancakes on the griddle, it worked best with just two or three at a time. these babies needed room to grow.

all that, plus the good fortune soup, a loaf of traditional irish soda bread, and two batches of cookies that were ravenously eaten before i could photograph them, bring us up to today. a lazy sunday. so i started the day off by making a new batch of local raw milk yogurt. again i must give props to the yogurt maker.

isn't she pretty.

then i decided that today was the day to make the chicken and rice soup that i had been thinking about for the last few days. for some mysterious reason i have been obsessed with soup lately. i know the weather has turned cool again, and i am a lover of the soup, but lately the soup urge has been overwhelming. i couldn't figure out what was going on. but then, yesterday, in the bathroom at earthfare, it all became clear. there on the calendar of events taped to the back of the stall door.......january, national soup month. well there you have it folks. that explains the good fortune soup from the post a few post ago, the wonderful batch of mushroom and wild rice soup from last week, and today's lunch.....homemade chicken soup with left over collard greens and sweet brown rice. not only is soup a good way to use up left over veggies in the frig, but it gives me something to take for lunch all week long.

mushroom soup with wild rice.
this soup lasted forever and got better and better as the days went by.


time to get this soup party started.
garlic, carrots, onion, celery, sweet brown rice, and although the container says seven stars yogurt, it is really homemade chicken stock. i saved a bunch of the yogurt containers back in the day when we would buy our yogurt at the store. they work great for filling up with stock and putting in the freezer. which reminds me, with only one container left, the carcass of the chicken i used in the soup today will become homemade stock next week.

also, this week at work i got some of the coolest garden advice. i've been sad, since the disappearance of nicki's pig, at putting all my perfectly good veggie scraps in the garbage can. since i can't put a compost heap in the yard (damn those neighborhood convents) and i have yet to buy one of those stupid plastic bins you can turn and turn and in 14 days have compost, the garbage can was the only other option. that was until the genius that is our client who works at a gardening store, and i hear one heck of a home gardener herself, gave me this most awesome of awesomeness's tip. she told me to save my veggie scraps and then little by little bury them about 4 inches deep all around my garden in little veggie graves. by the time you make it all around the garden, the first area is ready for more. sounds simple i know, but i would have NEVER thought of this. GENIUS!!! so today was the first day of saving my scraps. i also found a spare coffee tin that i am now filling with my used coffee grounds. i know, i know, i should have done that long before now.

making soup and saving the veggie trimmings in my super cool vintage bowl.


crap..... i almost forget the left over collards.
they were the whole reason i was making this soup to begin with.


all done!!!!
and what goes better with soup than a nice loaf of crusty bread?


what the F#*@&^K!!!!
no bread!!!!!!
no worries i will just whip up some of my new favorite bread.....
IRISH SODA BREAD


what's cool about this bread is it is SO EASY. and since yeast is not involved, you don't have to wait all day for the bread to rise and then rise again. just mix the ingredients in a bowl, kneed ever so slightly, pop it in the oven and about 30 minutes later.....bread!
here i'm making a white flour loaf with rosemary and pepper.
not a true traditional irish soda bread according to this website, but the brown loaf i made earlier this week was.


and not only is it easy, but when i baked it in mini dutch, the outside was wonderfully crusty and the inside was so tender and moist.


a wonderful lazy sunday lunch.

"gotta use up the left over collards"
chicken and sweet brown rice soup

3 cups homemade chicken stock
about the same amount water
1 cup apple cider
1 cup white wine
fresh thyme from the garden
copious amount of chopped collard greens
6 carrots
1 onion
6 stalks of celery
3 cloves of garlic
1 cup sweet brown rice
some chopped chicken

(notes: i didn't have that much thawed chicken stock, and afraid the rice would soak up a lot of it, i added some water to give myself enough liquid. but then i was afraid of losing flavor, even though the veggies would give off a good bit during cooking, so i also added some apple cider. also my chopped chicken came from the dismembered locally raised lemon pepper roasted chicken that i bought at earthfare.)

saute onion, garlic, carrots, celery, and thyme in some butter and olive oil. add cup of wine and cook till most of the wine has cooked off. add chicken stock, water, and apple cider. bring to boil and throw in collards. about 10-15 minutes later add rice. cook until collards and rice are tender. add chopped chicken and continue until chicken is heated through. then enjoy.

don't forget!!!! while the soup is simmering, make your easy as pie irish soda bread. i followed the recipe found here for the white soda loaf, but strayed from tradition a bit by adding in fresh rosemary from my garden and cracked black pepper. yummy!!!!

kicking in the new year southern stlye

happy new year folks!!!!

with that said, let's discuss my cooking skills. i would say i am a pretty good home cook. not "kick your grandmother down the stairs" good, but perhaps "shoot your momma a dirty look" good. but i do try to satisfy my man. well, actually, i cook for myself with the idea that ray can have some as well. i generally like the food i make, but let's face it folks, sometimes my ideas just don't work. case in point.... deer meat stroganoff served over, instead of egg noodles, wait for it...... pearl barley. what!?! not good. not good at all.
and ray, god bless him, he generally likes what i make as well and will eat it with out complaint and a will toss out the occasional compliment. but nothing makes me feel as good and warm inside as when i get the response that i got tonight at dinner. being new years day an being southern, of course, collard greens and black eyed peas were on the menu. but this year i was looking for a new way to do it up. after i read this post about good fortune soup on homesick texan, i knew that soup was the way to go. but you know me kids, i didn't follow the recipe exactly, but use it more as inspiration. we also cooked up a deer tenderloin and i made some whole wheat bread from a recipe i saw in this months issue of mother earth news.
so let's check out how i kicked off a new year of cooking it up southern style.
oh yeah.... here is the response i got tonight when ray tasted my soup, "damn, that's good!!!!" (he's so eloquent. it just warms my heart. and i'm not kidding.)

gettin things goin.

on the back burner cookin the black eyed peas
and heating up the frozen homemade chickin stock.

local collard greens.

here it is folks. good fortune soup.
may this year be a good one for all.

can you believe it we are still eatin on that deer.
i don't think we have even made a visible dent in the ass load of deer meat in the freezer.
here we have some tenderloin, good fortune soup, and my homemade whole wheat bread that is so soft and tasty.

my "damn, that's good!!!" version of good fortune soup

(just remember folks, i really don't measure when i cook so the following are approximates)

2 cups of homemade chickin stock
2 cups apple cider
a bunch of collard greens
2 cups dried black eyed peas
6 slices of applewood smoked bacon
1 onion - chopped
2 cloves of garlic - chopped
1 big can of whole peeled tomatoes
2-3 tablespoons tomato paste
2-3 tablespoons tamarina sauce
salt and pepper to taste

soak black eyed peas for awhile and then cook until almost tender.
in dutch oven, saute cut up bacon till crisp. set cooked bacon aside and in 2 tablespoons of the grease saute onion till translucent. add in chopped garlic and cook for a bit more. then add 2 cups apple cider and 2 cups chickin broth to the dutch oven, bring to boil. add in the collards and simmer for about 30 minutes. chop tomatoes and add them plus the juice in the can to the pot. also throw in the bacon, tomato paste, tamarina sauce, and the almost done black eyed peas. simmer for another 30-45 minutes. as far as the salt and pepper, i season everything a little at a time as i go.

P.S. so i started this post last night, but i couldn't finish it before my bedtime. therefore, at this time, i have eatin a whole nother bowl of my soup ya'll. and let me tell you it was even better tonight than it was last night. specially since, in my quest not to use the microwave at home, i reheated the soup in my new little cast iron dutch oven, AND, instead of dirtyin a whole nother pan, i cut up the left over tenderloin and threw that in the soup as well. speakin of my new little cast iron dutch oven, don't let me forget that i still need to tell ya'll bout my super cool toys i bought myself for christmas. but for now i must go and surf the net and play on facebook.

i could so live there

yesterday we braved the cold and spent sometime outdoors exploring the historic johnson farm outside hendersonville, nc. generally the grounds are only open during the week, but luckily they were having their christmas festival this weekend so we decided to check it out. i am all about historic farms and living history museums. one of my favorite places is the shaker village of pleasant hill in kentucky. ray's parents, ray, and i ate at the restaurant one thanksgiving and it was fabulous. we also at one time had reservations to spend a few days at the village during another thanksgiving holiday. i was SO excited to be sleeping there at the village and spending time taking pictures and walking around the grounds. unfortunately we had to cancel at the last minute due to some personal biz. anyway, here are some pictures from the johnson farm and the farm house constructed in 1880.

SANTA!!!!

these chicks were rockin the recorders.

waiting to go in the farm house circa 1880.

back side view.

side view.

sweet light fixture.

another lady rockin it out.

nothin like a deer head.

dinning room.

ray heading into the kitchen.

the upstairs, and only, bathroom.
love it!!!!!!!

that's what we need here. two full size beds in the same room.
one for me and moo. the other for ray and mr. keebs.

check out the cool house shoes.
not to mention the fabulous wide plank wood floors.
so rustic and charming.

kissies under the mistletoe.

view from the boarding house front porch.
get me a hammock and a good cup of coffee and i would be in heaven.

donkey wants another carrot.

which one is the ass??

ray checking out the decorated trees.
the farm is part of the school system and each tree had a different theme done by the students.

now i know your thinking, where's the kitchen. well the kitchen was so awesome that i think it deserves it's own post that i will put up very soon. maybe we can revisit a super cool kitchen from my past and check out kitchens that i envy as well. maybe i should do a photo series on kitchens. my kitchen tastes generally go in one of two directions. super funky fun 50's retro or little house on the prairie style. but we'll come back to that later.

for lunch we stopped in at hannah flanagan's pub in downtown hendersonville. this place never seems to disappoint us. i had the guinness irish stew served with brown bread and butter. the stew was super tasty and very warming which was a good way to beat the cold outside. it also gave me and idea for for a good way to use the deer meat in the freezer. so on tuesday i will be making my own deer stew. it also inspired my to try to make my own brown bread today. ray's mom sent me a recipe for an irish soda bread at one time, but i couldn't find it today so i looked on the internet for a bit and decided to give the recipe from the chez beeper bebe blog a try, with minimal changes. first off, i didn't have all the whole wheat flour needed so i substituted in some organic whole wheat pastry flour, and instead of 2 tsp. of brown sugar, i went for 2 tbsp of the good dark brown variety.

here goes.

as you can see, i didn't even get a picture taken before slicing off the end to try it with butter.
yummy!!!!!
ok this picture is making me laugh. the brown bread has gone matix!!!