Blech. And Yum.

Posted on Friday 11 May 2007 at 06:34

Blech. It is a yucky, cold, rainy, cloudy day. I planted strawberries and garlic and trees, my hands got stiff, and my rubber boots nearly got sucked down into the mud. But that's okay.

Yum - it's a perfect day for baking bread. Here's my tried-and-tested original hodgepodge Wholegrain Bread Recipe. I snagged the best elements of two separate recipes and out came this. If it works, credit my mother and the Roger's Dark Rye Flour people. If it fails, you can leave me a sad comment and I'll commiserate.

Cat's Wholegrain Hodgepodge Bread

mix well:

2 cups warm water
1 TBSP honey
1 & 1/2 TBSP yeast

beat in:

A total of 4 cups of wholegrain flours - rye, homeground wheat, etc.; you can include 1/2 cup of bran and 1/2 cup of oats for variety.

2 TBSP lemon juice

Beat for 2 min. to soften gluten. This allows the bread to rise better.

add in:

1/3 cup of oil
2 cups milk, warmed to body temperature
2 tsp salt
2 eggs
unbleached flour to make a soft dough

Knead lightly, leaving dough soft. (Bread will go through stages of tough and relaxed as you knead. If you stop while it's "tough," it won't rise properly.)
Let rise for 30 minutes. Knead for about 10 minutes.
Let dough rest for 20 minutes.

Put in pans and rise till doubled in size. For rye bread, I like to make long loaves and bake them on a cookie sheet.

Bake at 350F for about 90 minutes - keep an eye on it and figure out your time based on your own oven and bread-making methods.

Use this recipe to bribe disgruntled family members whenever necessary. The taste of wholegrain bread is irresistible.

Hmph, Forget the Tractor. I Want Granola.

Posted on Friday 19 January 2007 at 11:54

So I went out to try mucking about with the coal some more, only to discover one of the tractor's front tires dead flat, and the battery too. It seems the amazing Spazzerific was not having a bright moment when he "plugged the tractor in," because he really didn't. Not that it helps the tire.

So, today, I made granola. Here are the two versions, one smaller and one larger.

The original recipe my mother used:

6 cups rolled oats
6 cups any or all of:
almond slices
chopped walnuts
wheat bran
oat bran
coconut
wholegrain flour (wheat, rye, etc.)
coarse buckwheat flour
milk powder
...whatever else you can think of that goes well in granola. but not raisins. They go in after it's done baking and cooled off.

Measure into a bowl, mix together, and set aside.

In your large roaster, gently heat:

1/2 to 1 cup of cooking oil or butter
1/2 to 1 cup of water
1/2 to 1 cup of honey, molasses, maple syrup, or whatever turns your crank
1 teaspoon of vanilla
a good shake of cinnamon

Get this stuff all nice and liquefied, but not overheated. Then sift in the dry ingredients, stirring into the liquid. (Sidebar: This recipe is taking forever. Cat cannot type tonight.)

Stick the roaster in a 250F oven for a couple of hours, stirring whenever the stuff on top browns. Make sure you don't get a burnt crust on the bottom of the pan as well.

This would feed my ravenous family for about three or four days, so I do it this way:

15 cups of oats
9 cups of mix-and-match bonus ingredients, as above

Double all the liquids, follow the mixing instructions, and bake at 275F for two hours or so. This will last us more like a week, and saves a bit on some of the more expensive ingredients by using a higher ratio of oats.

As an additional note, you might want to set the roaster to cool and stir the granola occasionally for awhile, just so it doesn't steam itself together in a nice, rock-solid lump in the container. Don't put it away hot.

Cat's Italian Zoo Sauce

Posted on Wednesday 16 August 2006 at 07:44

The recipe of the week - and last couple of weeks, I guess - is coming early, because I'm sitting here eating it right now and I might as well do something useful at the same time. After that, I'm running back outside to tidy the yard some more, because the local news wants to pop by sometime in the next couple of days and interview us about TYDOS. If something more interesting hadn't happened, they would've shown up today on about 2 hours' notice. EGADS, WATSON!!!

So here is my incredibly simple supper. Unlike most of my recipes, this is for one or two people, because the Frightening Four are gone camping with the grandparents and Breakneck's on a night shift.

2 or 3 medium Roma tomatoes
1 bell pepper
2 basil florets (that's the little bunches of leaves at the top of the stem)
oregano to taste
pinch of salt

Cook veggies lightly till the tomatoes start leaking. Not too much, we don't want them to turn into watery mush. Serve over pasta. Done. Yum.

Manitoba Garden Stir-Fry

Posted on Friday 28 July 2006 at 03:38

We had this a couple of nights ago, with rice. It was neat to eat straight from the garden!

cooking onion, diced
1 or 2 cloves garlic, sliced
almonds, sliced
baby turnip thinnings, sliced

Swiss chard stems, chopped like celery

snap peas
bell pepper, sliced
mushrooms, sliced

soya sauce
1 or 2 tsp honey
ginger, powdered or fresh

Sautee first 4 ingredients together till onion turns clear. Add Swiss chard stems, soya sauce to taste, honey, and ginger to taste. Add last three vegetables, cooking only slightly. Serve with rice.

Ah, The Juice of the Raspberry

Posted on Tuesday 25 July 2006 at 01:27

Well, as a point of inquiry, we juiced our raspberry pickings today. These came courtesy of a kind friend down the road. It turned out simple and fairly tasty, to my relief.

Equipment:
blender
big ol' cooking pot
wooden spoon
pails to pour into
goggles

Ingredients:
more raspberries than you know what to do with
sugar or honey
water

We blended 15 cups of raspberries, added 2 cups of sweetener (some might find that still a little tart), and cooked it with 3 quarts of water, just till it was warm and the sugar dissolved. Then we strained into pails, cooled it and froze it. Some went in the fridge for immediate use, since the kids found it quite the novelty. We'll see how long that lasts. ;~)

N.B. The explosion-in-a-jam-factory effect took about half an hour to scrub down. If I'd thought of goggles the first time around.... Hm. Maybe it's just my cooking style.