PBS-KQED video about my friend Eduardo and his bread

Always so proud of what my friends are up to.

Here's a video about my friend Eduardo and his delicious, high-quality sourdough bread.

Another Sunday Sourdough

Another loaf using freshly-milled organic spelt, tons of sunflower, sesame, and flax seeds, and a dripping serving spoon of Kentucky-made sorghum molasses. Oh - and lots of butter.

I might have a weekly routine going; I've managed to bake sourdough for the past three Sundays in a row. With the non-existent weekly schedule in our house (I'm at home, and my husband's schedule changes monthly, and randomly switches from day- to night- to evening-shifts), this feels solid and comforting.
I'm so happy with the strides I've made with whole grain sourdough lately. The last two batches have been downright delicious - not even very sour, though I'm not sure why, considering I'm using the same starter and general recipe.
I have settled into using The Tassajara Bread Book's guidelines for making sourdough. Hilariously (because I rarely follow recipes that closely), the closer I follow the recipe, the better the bread turns out! ;) He knows his stuff.
I have been kneading in copious amounts of seeds - sprouted sunflower, sesame, and flax - inspired by a loaf we loved in Baja Sur that Woo and Miles found at the Saturday organic farmers' market in San Jose del Cabo. (I know; how awesome that there's an organic market there!) Although I doubt that those bakers added quite the amount of butter that I'm also loading into this loaf. I look forward to the opportunity to share this bread with Woo, a passionate bread-lover, to hear her response. :)
One thing that is so hard for me to relearn, after my background in packaged-yeast bread baking, is how soft the dough needs to be in order to rise; mine are still not rising much. But they certainly are damn tasty.

Sunday morning sourdough

This one didn't rise overnight quite like I would've liked, but it still tasted great fresh outta the oven with butter and sorghum. Yum!

Stoking the home fires

I was gone essentially for three weeks - family in Florida, friends (and more family) in Kentucky, then life adventure in Baja Sur, Mexico. When I got back to Sacramento, I had some work to do to get our kitchen back in production.

What have I been doing?
-Made a batch of chicken bone broth immediately. Jarred and froze for later use.
-Made another batch of broth with mixed bones that had collected in a bag in the freezer, and then in the last hours added a potful of aromatic veggie stems - carrot stubs, onion tips, leek leaves, etc. - that I had also been collecting in the freezer. I jarred this flavorful mix in tiny 1/2 pint jelly jars to use in sauces.
-I bottled the 1/2 gallon of beet kvass that had been brewing patiently in my absence, and added preserved lemon to each bottle! I think I'll like this!
-Anjali and I made a quart of sauerkraut from CSA veggies that I had set aside for this purpose weeks ago. Napa cabbage, cauliflower, red-centered "watermelon" daikon radish, and carrot. I then poured the garlicky brine I saved from a previous batch overtop of it. We ate the first forkfuls last night with dinner.
:)
-Brought the sourdough starter out of hibernation in the fridge, ground some fresh spelt flour, mixed it in with water, and set it up to bubble on the back of the stove. It'll be ready for a loaf tonight! :)
-Made, jarred, and froze quart jars of soup (from CSA veggies and bone broth) for Troy's lunches.

I love all these little projects. I love the bubbling crocks, and the pot constantly simmering on low on the back burner. I love that I have oranges set out next to a cookbook on the cutting board in preparation for marmalade, and bananas ripening for Anjali's favorite of late: "Fozen Mananas" (bananas pureed with melted butter and coconut oil, and then frozen and cut into chunks). I feel so lucky to have these as my day-to-day.
If I could finally get through the dirty dishes and see my way to the countertop, I'd be one totally content kitchen goddess! ;)

This blog post is part of Food Renegade's Fight Back Fridays!

Sourdough Success!

I am pleased. I brought out the sourdough starter from the fridge, inspired by several regular bakers, to have another go.

Years ago, I baked with a mix of white and whole-grain flours, and used packaged yeast instead of wild. I was confident that when I embarked, the process would yield satisfying results. I made tasty bread ~ pita, calzones, focaccia and pizza crusts, and rounds. These days, I don't even eat bread regularly. And in the past few years since I insist on using 100% whole-grain, freshly-milled flour, and a sourdough starter, I have had mixed results when I did feel the urge to bake. But the ritual of the stirring, the kneading, the sensuality of the flour on my hands, the push-turn folding, the pungent wheaty yeasty fragrance of the dough, and of course the gratification of pulling a loaf out of the oven, cracking it open and feeling the steam, and devouring a crusted spongy piece as melting butter drips down my fingers...Well, ok; I love it.

In my fantasy kitchen I'd bake a loaf every week.

And this morning I baked one. Earlier in the week I scooped some starter out of the sleeping jar in the fridge and fed it daily freshly-milled spelt and filtered water. Left this new jar out on the counter to warm, and it happily bubbled and expanded. So last evening I had probably a cup and a half of very active starter: time to make bread. I set a spoonful or two of it aside to feed the jar in the fridge, and poured the rest of the bubbling liquid into my bread mixing bowl. This is the extra-exciting part for me: I didn't use a recipe ~ even for salt; I did it by feel. About this much flour? About this much salt, and that much molasses, and some butter. I have heard that true Skill is not in avoiding missteps, but in reacting appropriately to them. Well I chose not to add water, because it didn't feel like it needed any ~ according to my package-yeast-trained hands. But when a few hours passed and my shaped loaf looked and felt exactly the same as it had when I placed it in the pan, I intuited that I needed to add liquid; sourdough loaves should feel a bit sticky and soft compared to package-yeast loaves. Kneaded again, shaped, slashed an "X" in the top, covered it with a towel...and went to bed. When I entered the kitchen this morning, what did I find, but a perfectly-raised loaf of whole-grain sourdough ready for the oven in time for breakfast! Delight!

The result: A tiny skillet full of crusty chewy-dense sour bread that we thrillingly piled with butter and ate by the chunk. With the final spoonfuls of the homemade apple butter from last season.

Um, yes. I'm quite pleased!

another try at sourdough

My sourdough culture is nice and bubbly and active these days. I haven't made any full-on sourdough in a while, as it takes more planning than I've been able to muster; I usually end up supplementing with some dry-active yeast. This loaf was in honor of our chickens ~ I used a couple cups of their seeds in the dough. They eat a wholesome mix of millet, flax, spelt, wheat, and sunflower seeds (maybe and sometimes others) ~ all whole grain and organic. I ground some into flour that I added to the starter, and I soaked some whole in water with whey for several days, and added it to the final dough, which was largely spelt and (whole) wheat. Then I covered the loaves in sesame seeds (because I love sesame seeds). Although the starter was very active, the dough didn't expand as I expected, and the loaves hardly expanded at all. Despite this (including how long I let it sit in hopes of rising), the final product tasted delicious, though ~ the sourness was distinct, but not overpowering. The whole seeds, however, which I expected to be totally soft and chewy, were as hard as if I'd never soaked them! They felt like little bits of gravel ~ so much so that Austin asked whether I'd accidentally included some of the oyster shell that the chickens also eat! As tasty as the bread was, I couldn't eat much because it felt as if I might break a tooth.
So, sourdough = good; seeds = bad, and I'm really not sure why.
But the photo is nice, don't you think?

French Toast du Jour

I woke up feeling the need to pamper myself this morning. Before I even got out of bed (true to foodie form), I was envisioning and tasting French Toast. Here's what I came up with, a Pampering Breakfast for One (well ~ two, technically. ;-) ).

• 1 1/2 slices of bread ~ I used mixed grain sourdough from Morell, b/c that's what was in the pantry; I think something with dried fruit might be nice. .
• one egg (make sure it's organic, if not raised on pasture by someone you trust)
  
• a spoonful (or so) of cream (I used divine Claravale raw cream) or crème fraîche ~ if you are avoiding dairy, or don't have access to organic, I think whole fat coconut milk would make a fine substitute.
  
• a spoonful of organic maple syrup
  
• a dash of sea salt
  
• a dash of cinnamon
  
• almonds chopped finely (see my explanation about soaking nuts here)
• organic cream, or crème fraîche, and maple syrup for drizzling
• extra cinnamon for sprinkling

Whisk the egg with the 5 ingredients that follow in a shallow mixing bowl. Cut the bread into diagonal quarters, and soak in the egg mixture, turning to soak both sides, while you're warming your skillet. Use a thick skillet (you know I love cast iron) to hold the heat, add butter (don't be afraid ~ add a few tablespoons! and ~ if dairy-free, use coconut oil) and heat until a little drop of egg mixture sizzles as it hits. But don't let the butter brown. When the bread is adequately saturated, fry those babies in the butter. Spoon the little pieces of almond that stay in the mixing bowl onto the top of the pieces of bread as they sizzle in the butter. Turn when the pieces are nicely browned. If the skillet is the right temperature, it will only take a few minutes on each side.

Serve drizzled with cream or crème fraîche (you read right. don't be afraid [as long as it's organic]; just pretend you're French.), and maple syrup. Garnish with a sprinkling of cinnamon.

One egg soaks about 1 1/2 standard slices of dense bread. If making this for more than one person, use this as a gauge. My measurements are always approximate and of-the-moment; you can do the same, giving or taking as you taste fit.