Sourdough Sandwich Bread

When I made toast this morning, I realized (horrors!) that I wouldn’t have enough bread for toast tomorrow morning. I also had some melted butter that needed used up. So I went to my old friend, the internet, and looked for a new bread to make. I found this bread recipe on a very cool website called The Fresh Loaf.

I used a combination of flours - white, garbanzo bean (I'm trying to cut down on refined flours) and whole wheat. I've tried bread flour and I honestly can't tell the difference between it and all-purpose flour. The garbanzo bean flour turned the bread a lovely shade of gold.

Also, this uses a sourdough starter, so you'll need to feed up your starter or see the previous sourdough blog, to make this.

SOURDOUGH SANDWICH BREAD
Night before baking:
Combine 1 c. starter with 4 c. bread flour (or any flour you choose) and 2 c. warm water at room temp. Stir, cover with plastic wrap and leave out overnight.

Day of baking:
Pour sponge mixture into mixer bowl and add 1/4 c. melted butter, 2 tsp. yeast, 2 tbs. sugar, 2 tsp. kosher salt, and 1 c. flour.

Mix until combined. Then add enough flour until dough is fairly stiff. The dough will clear both the sides and bottom of the bowl.

Knead at for about 4 minutes or until dough is smoother and elastic. Transfer to oiled bowl, turn to grease the top,

and let rise in warm place until doubled, around 2 hours.

Shape into loaves. The way I do it - divide the dough into portions. Shape each portion into a disk. Flatten each disk with your hand or a rolling pin. Roll the dough up as you would cinnamon rolls. Tuck the ends under so the log of dough fits in the bread pan.

Place into greased pans.

Let rise for about an hour, or until light and risen nicely, then bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes. Brush with butter for a nice buttery top.

This is delicious bread! Enjoy!

Spaghetti Sauce

One of my earliest memories is going to my Aunt Nancy’s home and having spaghetti. It was great spaghetti. So when I grew up and decided I could expand my cooking repertoire from Hamburger Helper to real Spaghetti Sauce, this is the recipe I tried first. And it’s still great spaghetti sauce. It’s very basic, has fabulous flavor, and makes a lot of sauce. Serve over any kind of pasta, or you can use it as a homemade pizza topping.

SPAGHETTI SAUCE
1 lb. ground meat
1 chopped onion
1 chopped green pepper
½ lb. sliced mushrooms
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
1 (6 oz.) can tomato paste
1 can tomatoes
1 tsp. beef bouillon
1 c. water (approx.)
1 tsp. fresh rosemary
1-2 tsp. dried or fresh basil
Dash of cinnamon
Salt and pepper to taste

Brown meat till crumbly, remove from pan.

If there’s a lot of grease, pour off all but 1 tablespoon. Add onion

and green pepper

(I don't know why it's pink...)

to pan. Sauté 5-7 minutes.

Add garlic. Sauté one minute. Add all remaining ingredients except herbs, cinnamon, salt and pepper.

Bring to boil, reduce heat and simmer till thick (about 1 hour);

add herbs, cinnamon, salt and pepper.

Simmer 20-30 minutes more. Stir occasionally.

Serve with a green salad and some garlic bread. More comfort food!

Grate some parmesan on top.



Tuscan Kale Potato Soup

Sometimes, you might wonder - eat out or homemade? Don't get me wrong; I love to eat out. I love new tasty foods and that someone else does the dishes. But I've had an eye-opener lately.

Beth told me about a new app called My Fitness Pal. Well, it's not my pal. I don't even think it likes me much. But it does tell me about the nutritional value of the foods I eat. So I've been comparing homemade foods versus restaurant or store-bought foods, and homemade wins nearly every time. Whether you're comparing calories, fiber, sodium, protein, added sugars, fats, etc., homemade wins the nutrition game.

For example, this soup is close to a restaurant version that Walt loves. So I checked it out: calories about the same. But sodium! Holy cow! The restaurant version (and they don't give you the serving size. Hmmmm....) is 960 grams of sodium! Homemade - about 100 grams. If you have blood pressure issues, you don't need 960 grams of sodium in a serving.

So try this: it's a GREAT soup! And Walt loves it just as much as the restaurant version. And it's also really easy. I did find that the quality of this dish depends heavily on the quality of the Italian sausage - use a good quality sausage. You can also substitute half and half for the heavy cream. Even though the cream tastes so good. And I used 6 cups of non-fat chicken broth instead of using any water - it makes for a richer soup.

TUSCAN KALE SOUP
1 lb. Italian sausage
1 large onion, chopped
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes
2 medium Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2" chunks
1 bunch kale, leaves stripped from stalk and chopped
4 c. chicken broth
2 c. water
1 c. heavy cream
Salt and pepper

Heat large stockpot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Crumble sausage into pan and cook until well browned.

Remove cooked sausage from the pot; set aside.

Add onion to the pan

and sauté until tender, 5-7 minutes. Add garlic and red pepper flakes, cook 1 minute.

Add potatoes,

kale, broth, and water.

Return the sausage to the pot, bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat and simmer about 20 minutes until potatoes are cooked.

Gradually stir in cream, add salt and pepper to taste.

So this is good, and good for you. Serve with some nice crusty bread and enjoy!

Beef with Peppers and Noodles

I wanted a stir-fry that would wake up the ol' taste buds and this was it! This is from Pioneer Woman's website, and I heated up her original recipe with cayenne, a poblano and a jalapeno. I also used elk steak and it was fabulous. Have all the vegetables, sliced and diced before you begin cooking, because it goes fast.

I used some organic spinach fettucine for the noodles. You can omit the cayenne or one of the peppers if you want to cool it down a bit. It made a lot and I'm so excited for the leftovers tonight.

BEEF WITH PEPPERS AND NOODLES
1-½ pound flank steak, sliced very thin against the grain
½ c. low sodium soy sauce
3 tbs. water
2 tbs. packed brown sugar
2 tbs. cornstarch
1 tbs. minced fresh ginger
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon red chile paste (or a few dashes red chile oil, or 1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper)
2 tbs. canola or olive oil
1 whole medium yellow onion sliced
2 whole red bell peppers, cored and sliced into rings
1 diced fresh poblano pepper
1 diced fresh jalapeno
Red pepper flakes, for sprinkling
Cilantro leaves

Mix together soy sauce, water, brown sugar, cornstarch, ginger,

Ginger - use a potato peeler to take off the skin, then mince what you need.

garlic, and chili paste (or chili oil or cayenne).

Place sliced beef in the mixture and toss to coat. Set aside.

Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a large skillet over medium-high to high heat. When it is very hot, throw in the onions

and cook for less than a minute. Remove to a separate plate. Return skillet to flame, allow to reheat, and add bell peppers (and hot pepper/jalapeno if using.)

Cook for a minute, tossing, until peppers have brown/black bits but are still firm.

Remove to a plate.

Return skillet to heat and allow to get hot. Add the remaining tablespoon of oil to the skillet. Add 1/3 of the meat mixture, evenly distributing over the surface of the skillet.

Allow to sit for 20 to 30 seconds, then turn with tongs. Cook for another 30 seconds, then remove to a separate plate. Repeat with remaining meat until all brown.

Reduce heat to low. Add all meat, onions, and peppers to the skillet and toss to combine.

Pour in remaining sauce (the sauce the meat marinated in*) and stir. Allow to simmer on low for a few minutes. Sauce will slowly thicken. Turn off heat.
*Update/Note: you can also whip up an extra batch of liquid if you do not want to use the same liquid you use for the meat.

Cook the noodles according to package directions. Drain, then add 1/2 the noodles to stir fry. Toss together, then add more noodles to taste. Add very hot water if needed to thin.
Top with cilantro leaves. Serve immediately.

This is one way to beat the winter blahs! Enjoy!

Sometimes, and I'm sure it's not the case with you, I don't feel like making a big dinner. "Big" means something with more than one dish. So I think of soup and this is such a quick, tummy-warming dinner.
FRENCH ONION SOUP
2 tbs. butter
1 tbs. olive oil
2 c. thinly sliced onions
4 c. beef broth
1 tsp. Worcestershire
Dash pepper
6 slices French bread toasted
3/4 c. shredded Swiss or Gruyere

Sauté onions in butter and oil 10-15 minutes.

Starting to cook

Getting there

Add broth, Worcestershire, and pepper. Simmer 10 minutes. Place in oven proof soup bowls.

Place toasted bread on top, sprinkle with cheese.

Broil on oven till cheese melts (see top photo). 3-4 servings.

Plus, I feel very European when I eat this.