tabouli

tabouli i tried it and i love it. its a side dish i would say. a little goes a long way.

1 tbls olive oil
3 tbls fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup bulgur wheat
1 cup boiling water.
tomatoes
kalamata olives
cilantro
feta cheese
salt and pepper

put bulgur in a heat resistant bowl. boil water. pour water over bulgur. let stand 10 to 15 min. chop remaining ingredients. set aside. drain water off of bulgur. add chopped ingredients and oil and lemon juice. serve warm or cold.

talk about bang for your buck

i made a batch of this the other day a baked it today.. what a time saver when you only have 10 minutes, because that seems to be the longest that ty will sleep these days. what a blessing to have the little guy in our lives. everyday i try to eat better, be a more patient person and all because of him.


5 minute bread recipe

makes 4 small loaves

1 1/2 tbls yeast
1 1/2 tbls salt
6 1/2 cups flour
3 cups water

combine all dry ingredients in a bowl. add water mix until not dry spots remain in the flour. let rise 2 to 5 hours. at this point you can bake or refrigerate the mixture for up to 2 weeks.

baking day cut a grapefruit size dough ball off the main batch. shape into a round. put on a cornmeal coated cookie sheet. let rise for 40 minutes. or longer depending on you kitchen temp. my tends to be cool this time of year.

bake 30 minutes on 450 degrees. with a hot water pan on the bottom shelf.

sorry about my writing slump. i guess i have just been doing more living that writing. i went to visit my grandmother. for a week and then we bought our house. and moved in. and all that jazz.

tomatoes in a jar

for the first time since i left my mothers house i've started canning. tomatoes. i think it went well. but really only time will tell. until then i'm still buying tomatoe sauce from the store. i only buy it in reusable jars. just another way to recycle. i did wait a little too long to start the process. and the tomatoes where hard to find. but not next year. next year i will have all the tomatoes i can handle, just out the back door. if everything goes right.

apple sauce

i never knew how good real apple sauce tasted, until i attempted to make it at home. i just got a recipe off the internet and made some adjustments to it, because i seem to like a tarter apple sauce. this is what i did,

jen"s apple sauce

3-4lbs apples

1 cinnamon stick

1 cup water

1/4 cup sugar

peal and slice apples in to medium sauce pan. add other ingredients. boil for 15 to 20 minutes or until desired doneness. i also like a chunky sauce. use a potato masher and mash. serve warm or cold its great either way. pictures to follow.

sour dough recipe

sour dough.. now that you caught those little wild beastlys, what do you do with them? well make bread. remember the older the starter the better sour taste you will get so save a little.

keeping the wild things alive is easy, put them in the fridge, and once a week take out the wild things and feed them a tablespoon of flour and a tablespoon of water and stir. leave out for about 10 to 12 hours. and then put them back in the fridge.

when you use some. replace it with the same amount of flour and water. leave out 10 to 12 hours and then stick them back in the fridge.

sour dough

1 1/2 cup starter
4 to 5 1/2 cups bread flour, all purpose will work
1pkg or 2 1/4 teaspoon yeast
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup very warm water 120 to 130 degrees
2 tablespoons cornmeal optional

Instructions

measure out 1 1/2 cup cold starter. set aside and let warm to room temp.

start with 2 cups of flour, yeast, salt in a bowl, stir.

add room temp. starter and the warm water, mix.

add remaining flour as needed to form a soft dough.

sprinkle remaining flour on counter, and kneed dough for 8 to 10 minutes.

coat with oil, or shortening. let rise in a warm place for 30 to 45 minutes or until doubled.

grease two bread pans with shortening and sprinkle in a tablespoon of cornmeal.

divide into two, shape in to loaf. place one in each pan and let rise again 30 to 45 min.

bake at 400 degrees for 35 to 40 minutes.

bread is done when golden brown and sounds hollow.

a wild yeast trap

I've made sour dough before, everyone knows how you have to make the starter a week before you want bread. if your really lucky you have a starter that was made 100 years ago by your great grandmother. but for those of us that aren't that lucky. we make ours the week before and hope for the best.

so i made the traditional starter and a week later i made the bread. with out any satisfaction it tasted like white bread. so to the web i went looking for a different recipe; sure as the day is long that the recipe was the problem. Low and behold, San Francisco sour dough with the native wild yeast. so i thought to my self how do i get a hold of some of that wild yeast from my neck of the woods?

so back to the web i go looking for some way to collect, harvest, or trap some wild yeast that i was sure now was the problem to my tasteless dilemma.

So here is my trap, all you need is equal parts flour and water, i used a table spoon. and an open window. the really great part is that the wild beasts are all around and all you have to do is provide some food and they come running. Wait 8 hours add another table spoon of each and stir. wait another 8 hours add an 1/4 cup of each wait 8 more hours. Keep up this way until you have enough starter for your recipe. and the starter starts to smell sour. You don't have to worry about anything bad getting into your starter because the wild yeast make it uninhabitable for any thing else to live.


So after my 3 additions and 24 hours i had starter. I mixed it with the first so i had enough for my recipe and I'm pleasantly surprised there is a difference, a slightly more sour result. Not maybe it's because of the wild yeast or the age of the first starter. But I'm willing to keep experimenting to find out. I love sour dough. I've only had good sour dough once before but I'll never forget it and I've been trying to hunt down a good loaf for years. with out any success, so now I'm just going to make it myself.

my corn bread recipe

This is also known as Yankee corn bread

1 cup milk
1/2 cup butter
1 large egg
1 1/4 cups yellow cornmeal
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 tblsp. baking power
1- 8 oz. can whole kernel corn

preheat oven to 400 degrees.grease bottom and side of round pan 9"x 1 1/2 " with shortening

beat milk, 1/4 cup butter, and egg in a large bowl. stir in remaining ingredients except the remaining butter. stir until flour is moist. there will be lumps. pour into pan.

bake 20 to 25 min. until golden brown and toothpick comes out clean.

remove from oven and use remaining butter on the top of the bread.

i made this last night. it was delicious. some times i forget what i can make from scratch and how good it can be. just another step in becoming self sufficient.