Jumping On the Sourdough Bread Bandwagon

I haven't written in my food blog in forever! Life's been in the way of any blog-worthy cooking or baking for quite some time, but now, life has ground to a halt. I'm stuck at home with nothing to do, and a fully stocked kitchen. What else am I going to do but eat well during this pandemic?! I've never been more grateful to have attended culinary school than I am right now.

One of the trends these days is baking with sourdough starter. Why is that? Because everybody else in this country is baking too, and yeast is nowhere to be found on grocery store shelves. True sourdough draws natural yeasts from the surrounding air to work, meaning you don't need those strips of dried yeast from the store. Flour is hard to find too, so if you see some at the store, stock up!

I love sourdough bread, but have never thought to try making it myself. It sounded difficult and time consuming and intimidating. But now that there is an abundance of time and something difficult and intimidating now sounds like a challenge to triumph over, I figured there's no better time to try it. So, I did some research online and scoured my own cookbooks and found one that had sourdough starter in it:

I shouldn't be surprised. I've always said that if I was trying to survive in the wild, all I'd need are my copies of the Little House on the Prairie books and I'd be set. Of course sourdough starter would be a necessity in times when purchased yeast was scarce, if available at all. So, I used this as the basis for my starter. I emptied out a jar, cleaned it really well, and got started.

The flour and water, mixed in the jar, with a fork.

Starter is just flour and water. It's really that simple. I mixed it right in the jar, which is why you can see it on the sides in the second picture. It's not really that full, it's just got residue on the sides. I had cheesecloth on hand so I chose to use that to top it. That way it would have a steady source of oxygen, and the yeasts in the air could get into it, yet any big things wouldn't fall in.

One of the hardest things for me was finding a warm enough spot for it to try and ferment. My apartment has been pretty cool for most of April and we don't have the heater on. I had a desk lamp I wasn't using and set it up on the kitchen ledge, but the new light bulbs they make don't heat up the way the old ones did, so it didn't really do anything, sadly. I soon discovered, though, that my bedroom gets the afternoon sun and if I open the shades and set the starter jar in the sun, it'll get hours of heat. I've been doing that nearly every afternoon! The first two nights, however, I hadn't discovered that yet, and was wrapping the jar in my winter hats and scarves and a towel to try and keep warm overnight. I was sad because it seemed like nothing was happening. But lo and behold, by Wednesday, just two days after creating the starter, I saw signs of life!

Bubbles on the top!

Liquid on the top, which I have since learned is referred to as "hooch". It also seems to be the source of the majority of the sour smell. It's apparently alcohol and can either be poured off or stirred back in. When you see this, it's a sign that your starter needs to be fed.

Top view of the bubbles.

Signs of bubbles and fermentation all throughout the starter. It's also starting to rise a little too at this point. This was such an exciting day to see that it was actually working! This is also the stage where it was ready for its first pouring and feeding. You pour off some of the starter and feed what's left, so it continues to grow stronger and can begin to ripen. This is also the stage where you start refrigerating the starter. I have ended up doing a mixture: Out on the counter or in the window during the day to keep fermenting, and then refrigerating overnight.

The little blue bowl is a flour/water slurry used to feed the starter. I tended to use 2 Tbsp. each of flour and water per day.

The bowl contains the first pouring off that I ended up giving to my parents. My mom has been tending to it and told me today hers is really thick and active and she's going to make biscuits in the next day or two!

My starter has almost always been like pancake batter in texture. That will be just fine for biscuits, pancakes, and waffles, but not for an entire loaf of bread that won't have any other yeast added to it. One day I decided to experiment and just dumped straight flour into it instead of the slurry. It really started to thicken up that way. I am keeping that in mind, moving forward.

I've continued to ripen and feed my starter and decided yesterday it was ripe enough to try making biscuits. The biscuit recipe in the Little House cookbook made too many for me to use. I don't need 30 biscuits!! It had some steps that I couldn't deal with properly if I quartered the recipe, so I deviated and found a recipe online to try instead. I found this one: King Arthur is pretty important in my life right now, so I thought this website would be a good place to try! It turns out I was right! I halved the recipe because I don't need 7 biscuits, and still managed to make an extra one than what it should have made.

I had kept the second pouring-off of the starter in the ripening process and decided to use it in this. I measured it in a 1/2 cup measure and used my other starter for the rest. The rest of the starter I used to build up for making bread next week. I will need more than I currently have, which means I need to feed it bigger amounts than I've been feeding it so far. I used a whole soup bowl full of flour and water to try and get it going.

But back to the biscuits. As you can see, I used the recipe to make the crumbly base of the biscuits, yet the starter provided the liquid. This makes the softest, smoothest dough you will ever work with. They feel like pillows, I swear! You don't need a rolling pin for this, just your hands patting it out works fine. I cut the biscuits and put them on a parchment-lined baking sheet.

I was curious how the sour level would be. The dough smelled pretty sour, but it seems that the baking process dulls it a bit. That's one of the interesting things about making your own starter. You never know how sour it will actually be.

You can see that they split in the middle on their own. I only needed 20 minutes to bake mine, but it might take up to 23 minutes to bake.

This is split in half. They are light and soft and the sourness was pretty mild. My sister, who hates sourdough, tried one and was so impressed she asked me to make more sometime! I'd say that's quite the endorsement! I still have a couple leftover to eat tonight with my dinner. Looking forward to it!

The rest of the week and weekend I'll be working on building up the starter in both size and strength. I might let it sit outside on my porch for a bit in hopes of it absorbing some more yeasts from the air. I will continue to document this process through pictures as I try the bread next week. And when I do a pour-off, instead of just tossing it, now I know I can make things with it! Biscuits, pancakes, waffles! My sister and I will continue to be well-fed during this pandemic!

Calling All Tea Drinkers!

Today, this article came out talking about a study showing how microplastics are leaching into our tea, due to plastic-based tea bags or the plastic used to seal tea bags. This applies even to paper-based teabags. Now, according to this article, there is little or no known risks to ingesting microplastics, as most of it just washes out of our bodies. However, it also states that there needs to be more studies done on it to make certain that's the case. Now, I don't know about you, but even if there is not a lot of known risk to drinking plastics, I'd rather not, if I don't have to.

There are plastic-free tea bags available, but they tend to be hard to find and very expensive. I can't really justify that expense. I'm also trying to find more environmentally-friendly options for tea and was already looking into this when this news story came my way. The obvious best choice for less packaging and no plastics, is of course, loose tea leaves. Many grocery stores sell loose teas in bulk in a multitude of flavors that you can buy in as large or small a quantity as you like. I highly recommend switching to loose tea. It's not only the most environmentally-friendly option, but it's the most affordable one too. It's a win-win for tea drinkers.

Well, if you're going to switch to loose tea leaves, you're going to need at least one accessory you may or may not own yet: a tea steeper. They come in every shape, size, and in many different materials, but I only use one kind:

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I have a silver one that has a mesh-style bulb. It's all metal, which is important to me. There are plastic tea steepers, but that just puts you right back in to the plastic issue. There are silicon ones, and I don't know much about silicon, it might be perfectly harmless, but I do know it doesn't come from a garden. I prefer metal because it holds up better, lasts longer, and has less of a chance of leaching stuff into my tea that isn't tea. You want something with small holes, or mesh, to keep even the smallest pieces from getting into the water. This is the perfect style. There is another metal one I have tried that you might think is a good option, but I do not recommend it. That is this one:

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It's metal and mesh, so it should be perfect, right? Wrong! See how the sides come together and there is a little clip that holds them? That clip comes undone and will spill tea leaves into your water. I have ruined a few cups of tea with these before. I do not recommend!

There is one more accessory you will need, that you may not already have: a tea bag holder. This might seem like an unnecessary item, but your steeper will continue to drain liquid when you've finished and you will damage surfaces without putting it on something that will contain it. These are super cheap and most are machine washable, so you can just throw it in your dishwasher with the rest of your dishes.

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So, now you're all set for loose tea leaves, you're ready to go! But what to do I do with all my boxes of tea bags? You are probably asking yourself this right now. I contemplated this for a bit today and came up with what I think is an ingenious idea. Take the tea steeper, cut the teabag open, and pour the tea into the steeper! Use up your old tea, so you don't waste it, and then switch to loose leaf tea. You can compost the tea leaves when you finish with it.

I, of course, am not telling you what to do, but I would imagine that you, like me, have some concerns about the idea of drinking microplastics in your tea. I think it's very important to be informed, so if tea is an important part of your life, you might want to look into this and decide if this is something that bothers you, or not. The good news is, there are easy fixes to this issue!

What's in Grandma's Recipe Tin?-Ham-Kraut Bake

Today's recipe comes courtesy of the April, 1966 issue of Family Circle magazine. It's a clip-out recipe card so rather than write out the recipe here, I took a picture of it instead!

As you can see, the recipe isn't terribly involved and has a minimal amount of ingredients. I already had an opened jar of sauerkraut in the fridge that needed to get used up, so this was the perfect recipe for it. And sadly, it's been so cloudy and cool here that the thought of an oven-baked casserole doesn't seem inappropriate, even though we're in post-July 4th Seattle, and it's supposed to be hot and sunny now.

This recipe was super easy, and can be made ahead of time. I actually made it in the morning and left it in the fridge to bake for lunch. It doesn't say exactly what kind of pan to use, but I used an 8"x8" pan and it fit just perfectly.

Here's the obligatory ingredient line-up shot. As you can see, there's not a lot involved! To make 2 cups of diced ham, you'll need 1.5 (8oz) ham steaks, so make plans to use the other half in something else, or buy the already diced kind from the store. I don't like that kind as much though, cuz the texture always seems off.

Here is the drained sauerkraut. I tried pressing it with a fork in a colander but it doesn't do much. You will need to actually squeeze it with your hands to drain it. You'll be surprised at how much you get to drain out. Fluff it with a fork afterwards and it'll make it easier to stir everything else into it.

Here's the ham, first apple, and half the brown sugar all mixed together.

And here it is in the greased pan.

Core and slice the second apple and mix in the last 2 Tablespoons of brown sugar and cinnamon.

Arrange them on the top in a slightly overlapping pattern. It calls for you to cover it before placing it in the oven, so at this point you can refrigerate it  for as long as you want before baking it. This would be something you could make the ing morning or night before you bake it.

Here it is, out of the oven, ready for lunch! I cooked basic egg noodles to serve with it, but you could use spaetzle, boiled potatoes, roasted potatoes, or whatever you feel like as a side.

Here's the finished product on the plate. I mixed the noodles in with it and ate it altogether. The sour, salty, and sweet all blended well together but I found it ultimately too sweet. I would probably cut the brown sugar in half next time. I used "Envy" apples with are red, have a great texture, but are really sweet. I would say Granny Smiths would be a good option, but it won't have that lovely touch of red from the peel. Look for a red apple that isn't too sweet. Not sure what kind that might be, but based on this being a recipe from 1966, "red apple" probably meant Red Delicious, as gross as those can be. Maybe it would work? I also wanted to add some caraway seeds to this, which isn't called for in the recipe, but I think it would be a great flavor in this mix.

This was a really simple recipe that sauerkraut lovers will enjoy a lot. Alter the sugar content and type of apples if you want it less sweet. This dish reminded me of Easter dinner in our family and my sister commented that it smelled like Easter. It would be a good alternate dish if we ever wanted to try something different but similar at the same time. Maybe I'll make this for next year's Easter so my grandmother can try one of her own recipes she saved over the years!

Happy Cooking!
-Foodie

What's in Grandma's Recipe Tin?-Corn Gems

This week's recipe was a simple, yet very tasty, cornbread muffin. Wednesday, June 19th was Juneteenth, and I wanted to celebrate the holiday. Traditional foods for this holiday are picnic-style foods, as well as something red to drink. In addition to the muffins, I also whipped up a batch of my potato salad recipe. I was going to make a boxed variety of cornbread muffin but I was lucky enough to find the perfect recipe to try in my grandmother's recipe tin, so I made that instead. Everything turned out great!

This recipe is a clip-out recipe card from the Family Circle magazine, from June of 1966. It's a quick recipe, I whipped it up after work in the evening and I don't think it took much longer to make than a boxed variety would have taken to make.

Here's all the ingredients, minus the shortening that was melting on the stove. I always like these line-up shots!

First things first, all the dry ingredients are mixed in a bowl. I sifted the flour before measuring it, and then sifted it again with all the other dry ingredients before adding the cornmeal and whisking well.

Here it is after you mix in the egg and buttermilk.

And here is the final product after you stir in the melted shortening. The difference is subtle, but you can see that it is a bit smoother than without it.

Here we go into the muffin tin! The bottom and sides did want to stick to the paper liners a bit, so you might consider spraying the liners with cooking spray just to help combat that.

And out of the oven, exactly the 20 minutes it calls for seemed to do the trick.

Here was my final dinner plate. I made the potato salad the night before, and bought the chicken from the deli that night. The red drink next to it is a store-bought frozen juice concentrate I got to help with my plantar fasciitis. What?-You're probably asking me right now. Yep. It turns out that rolling a frozen can of juice concentrate helps stretch and ice the muscles in your foot. And then you get to drink the juice afterwards. (My feet were clean and I had a towel over the can, don't worry!)

I ate the muffins with butter, and a glug of sorghum syrup to dip them in. The sorghum syrup was really tasty with it! I highly recommend this. The only thing to keep in mind with this recipe is that it doesn't not hold out over time. I tried them the next night and they were too dry to be edible. If you make this recipe, I recommend sharing it with others and eating it all the same day you make them.

So, there you have it! A really basic, simple cornbread muffin recipe that is a great starting place if you're not familiar with making them from scratch. It has just enough sugar to be slightly sweet, but not overly sweet like a lot of boxed varieties can be. This is a fast recipe, so don't worry about waiting till after work to make it. And for the most part, it's all ingredients people tend to have on-hand. All I had to buy was the buttermilk, which I never keep on-hand.

I encourage everybody to study up on Juneteenth, and try out this recipe next year to join in with the celebration! Happy eating and celebrating!

-Foodie

What's in Grandma's Recipe Tin?-Piña Colada Cheesecake

All right, so this week's recipe was a fun one! It presented quite a challenge to me, one I really enjoyed conquering! I chose this cheesecake recipe for a specific reason. One of my friends has some health issues that makes eating difficult, and this weekend is the Jewish holiday of Shavuot/Shavuos, the "dairy" holiday, as she explained it to me. She encouraged me to eat as much dairy as I possibly can this weekend in her stead, and I happily stepped up to the challenge! And as her grandmother passed away just a couple days ago, I thought if I could find a good recipe that fit the dairy bill, I could use my grandmother's recipe, to honor her grandmother's memory. So, I looked through the box and found one cheesecake recipe that has cream cheese, butter, and sour cream all in the ingredient list. That's quite a bit of dairy in one recipe, so I knew it was the perfect one to try out.

The recipe's original title is "O Grancho Cheese Cake" or at least that's what it looks like written on the card. There is no known source of this recipe written on the card, so I don't know if that's the name of the person who created the recipe or a company from long ago that created it, or what, but to me, it means nothing. And it tells me nothing about the cheesecake. I looked at the list of ingredients to see if anything stood out. Crushed pineapple in the batter, and coconut flakes in the crust. Bingo! Piña Colada Cheesecake, a much better and accurate name for this recipe.

As I said, this recipe presented me a few challenges. There were very little instructions on what to do to make the crust other than "mix and press in buttered spring-form pan," and that basically tells me nothing. I had to guess and hope for the best. Fortunately for me, it all worked out rather well! And as it turns out, you don't need to butter the pan. So, without further ado, let me share the recipe with you:

Piña Colada Cheesecake

16 oz. cream cheese
2 tsp. vanilla
1 1/4 cups sugar
3 eggs, beaten
3 cups sour cream*
1 can crushed pineapple** (reserve the pineapple juice)

Crust:
1 cup Graham cracker crumbs
1/2 cup slivered blanched almonds, toasted
1/2 cup coconut flakes
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. almond extract

Mix the cream cheese, vanilla, and sugar well, until fluffy.

Add the beaten eggs, and blend well.

Add the sour cream and mix until completely blended.

Fold in the well-drained pineapple, and set aside to pour into the crust.

To make the crust:
If you have whole graham crackers, use a gallon-size bag and a rolling pin or a food processor to grind them. I used a food processor for mine. When well-ground, place them in a bowl large enough to fit all the crust ingredients. Place the coconut flakes and toasted almonds in a food processor and process until they're the same size as the crushed graham crackers. Place them and the sugar in the bowl with the cracker crumbs and blend well.

Melt the butter and add the almond extract to it. Pour into the bowl and stir well to fully incorporate it with the crust ingredients.

Dump the crust ingredients into a springform pan and press into the bottom and up the sides. This makes enough to cover the sides nearly to the top. Try to make sure it's uniform, especially on the bottom.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Bake the crust for two minutes to help it set. When that's done, remove it from the oven and pour the batter into the crust. It will nearly cover the sides of the crust.

Bake for 1 hour in the oven, before checking to see how set it is. You will definitely want a sheet pan under this on a lower rack, because butter will melt out of the bottom of the pan and you will regret the mess to clean up, if you don't.

After 1 hour, it may need a little more time to bake. Cheesecake baking is difficult in that it's really hard to tell if it's done, unless you have done this a lot. As I haven't baked a cheesecake in probably 15+ years, I was definitely rusty, and erred on the side of baking longer than it probably needed.

This was after an hour and 15 minutes, and just out of the oven.

This is after it fell. Cheesecakes fall, it's just what they do, don't worry when it happens to yours! It's browner on top than I would like, and cracked around the edge, but I would rather have a browner top than a raw center. Figuring out just the right time to bake comes with practice, and I need more of it, I think! I will admit, it's not the prettiest cheesecake I've ever made or seen, but it's the taste and texture that matters most. I was happy with the results, ultimately. When this is done, let it sit for a while to cool down a bit before placing it in the fridge to cool overnight.

The next day I took it out of the fridge and removed the side of the springform pan. It was time for a taste test.

I found it actually tasted better when it wasn't super cold, so I recommend letting it sit for a while and come closer to room temperature. The texture isn't perfect, and I can't tell if it's because of the pineapple, or over-baking, or a combo of both, but the flavor is pretty good. But it wasn't pineappley enough for my tastes. So, I thought and thought about it and the answer came to me: the leftover pineapple juice that I had saved from the crushed pineapple. I poured it into a pan and and slowly reduced it over medium heat until it was thick and syrupy. Can I just tell you how amazing it tastes poured over the cheesecake?! I poured the rest of it over the rest of the cheesecake and then for a bit of texture, I sprinkled the extra graham cracker crumbs on the top.

I left a little bit without graham crackers on top so that when I take it to work tomorrow, my coworkers can try it with or without if they like.

So, what did I learn from this baking experiment? I learned that I miss making cheesecake and I should probably do it more often to perfect the timing. I learned that even when a recipe doesn't have all the steps written out, if you have enough of a cooking/baking foundation, you can pretty much figure it out, even without them. I learned that pineapple in the cheesecake might make the texture taste a bit funny, but it still tastes great. And honestly, it's the pineapple syrup that takes it over the top. Do not miss this step. Don't be afraid to experiment. It didn't call for that at all, but it just "made" the dish!

This cheesecake is really rich, and the original recipe says it makes 12 servings. I didn't cut mine into 12 pieces, but feel like those are probably big slices and can probably be cut smaller to make more servings. There's a lot of sugar in this, so smaller pieces are probably the way to go!

Cheesecakes feel really fancy, but they aren't that hard to make. They are hard to gauge the doneness, however. That just takes time and practice. What better time to start practicing, than right now!

I don't know if this recipe is kosher or if my friend's grandmother would have enjoyed it. Some people really hate coconut! But I did take some time while making the cheesecake to think about the elders in our lives, and how it's good to listen to them and learn from them while we have them in our lives. This project is helping me to remember that. I would encourage all of us to listen to our elders, learn from them, learn their stories, while they're still here with us. Make sure to hug your grandparents while you still can!

Happy Baking!
-Foodie

*I actually measured the sour cream into cups, rather than used a pint and an 8oz. container of sour cream. This ended up using a few tablespoons more than those, so make sure you have plenty of sour cream on hand!
**The original recipe does't say what size of a can to use and I had every intention of buying an 8oz. can, but the store brand was all out of that size and there was no way I was paying the price of the name brand, so I ended up with a 19oz. can of the store brand, which was probably still cheaper than the smaller size of the name brand. I didn't use all of it, but as you'll see later, I did use all the juice from it, so I recommend the larger size can.