IT’S ALL GREEK TO ME

When I was in public school I was fascinated by ancient history.  Mainly the Greeks and Romans.  The Seven Ancient Wonders of the World held great fascination to me.  The Greek gods of mythology  were some serious folks, fascinating to read about.

In high school I had a Greek pen pal, it was interesting to exchange letters with a person overseas and get a peek into his every day life.  Remember this was long before computers were  common place.  The internet did not exist then.

As time went on I became more interested in day to day life here in the USA, US history and cooking good foods of all types. My fascination for things Greek turned more to olives, and other Greek foods such as cabbage rolls, gyros and most recently Greek yogurt and thus the reason for today’s post. 

My son and I have fallen in love with Greek yogurt as a quick breakfast or snack, it might have something to do with all those episodes of “Burn Notice” we watch.  After all they are constantly grabbing a cup of yogurt out of the fridge to eat while discussing a plan.  Strange you never see them putting any yogurt into that refrigerator.  Is it actually a self filling yogurt machine?  Hmmmm, have to check on that more in the future.

But back to the subject at hand Greek yogurt making.  Now my husband is not a fan as yogurt as a snack, unless it’s the frozen type they serve at so many stores across this nation either in waffle cones or cups.  So while learning to make and use yogurt I better include how to make the frozen yogurt as well. 

So my adventure into yogurt making begins.  I am blessed to have a very nice Stx 600 dehydrator that came with the yogurt/bread proofing door/drawer for it.  This will enable me to control the heat and let the yogurt cook at a constant temperature.  I know you can do yogurt in the crockpot, in a yogurt maker, in the oven or even on a heating pad too.  There are lots of recipes on the web for doing that, however the problem with crockpot yogurt and some of the other methods, I’ve read, is the temperatures on these often vary greatly and in order to make good yogurt you need a very controlled heat. 

Since the Styx 600 has a thermostat and is actually set-up for yogurt making, complete with a yogurt setting, I decided that was the best way to go for me. 

After much research and discussion I went with the Basic Greek Yogurt Recipe for yogurt that calls for using whole milk and live active cultures from grocery purchased yogurt for the first batch.  Once I have a successful batch I will use my own yogurt for the culture for future batches.  

You will notice when you  link over to my Patterson Pantry Recipes Blog that I have included using powdered milk in the recipe notes if you prefer to go that route. 

For current usage I use the whole milk because after doing much research we discovered it was cheaper to purchase a gallon of whole milk than to purchase powdered milk and reconstitute it for cooking.  I do, however, keep powdered milk in my food storage for when I am out of milk, or want to add a little extra protein to a dish without adding excess liquid.

Now on to the yogurt making experiment.  I spent much of the first day doing research on the web, gleaning this bit of info and that recipe idea from hither and yon.  I learned a lot, some of which I will share with you here.

1.     It is better to start with your milk at room temperature so that you spend less time heating it.  It is also better to have your fresh yogurt culture starter at room temperature so that when you add it to the heated milk you don’t bring the milk temperature down too far.  It also blends in easier to the warm milk.

2.     When using gelatin in some of the recipes it should always be softened in water first.  This aids in getting it well mixed in.

3.     If you are adding powdered milk to liquid milk for added protein in your yogurt you should add it to the top of your milk and let it set for about 10 minutes before stirring it in so that it will rehydrate to some extent.

4.     If when you add powdered milk, or powdered yogurt cultures to your yogurt ingredients lumps form don’t panic, these will dissolve as you heat the yogurt mixture.

5.     If you adding jelly, jam or frozen or canned fruit to yogurt you can add it safely in with the milk as you are originally heating it.  However, fresh, and possibly dried fruit may contain enzymes that would cause the yogurt to curdle if you do it then.  So do not add those until after the yogurt is made.

6.     You can freeze leftover plain yogurt with live cultures to make future batches of yogurt in small containers and the cultures will go dormant.  Thaw slowly and naturally before making your next batch of yogurt. So invest in one small cup and then between it and the yogurt you make in the future you will always have live cultures.  Thus a $1 investment can save you a lot of money in the long run.  Sometimes, if your yogurt starts being too tart, you will need to invest in a new fresh starter.

7.     Fruit on the bottom and sundae style yogurt are basically the same animal, the only difference is you dump the fruit on the bottom yogurt out in a bowl so that the fruit is on the top and thus a sundae.

8.     Frozen yogurt is not just yogurt that has been frozen, there are a few extra steps in there, but not many.   Some recipes for this call using plain gelatin in the mixure while others merely add flavoring, sweeteners and the use of a freezing method.

9.     99% of the “how to’s” are for just plain yogurt, which can be a bit tart if your starting cultures are not very fresh.  Most of those will say you can add sweetener and flavorings at serving time.  Which you can do, but often this will cause the yogurt to thin out, which is less than desirable.  But with some research and combining my own cooking knowledge I have included recipes for flavored, fruit and yes even chocolate yogurt, and of course, chocolate frozen yogurt in my recipe blog.

10. For years I've heard mention of yogurt cheese, but never saw any in the stores.  Or so I thought.  Guess what Greek yogurt and yogurt cheese are basically the same thing.  They are made the exact same way.  The only difference in the two is you might strain the cheese longer.  I plan on experimenting with mixing herbs and such with the yogurt before straining it so the dried materials will rehydrate as it strains and flavor the cheese thoroughly.  I can't wait to have crackers and homemade yogurt cheese!

11.  I found a very good website/blog on yogurt and kefier making and using and now receive their newsletter.  If such a newsletter is of interest to you go to:  yogurtfromhome.com/   I am in no way affiliated with them.

12.  The drained whey from making Greek yogurt or yogurt cheese is good to feed to your barnyard critters.

So the next step was the "where did I put it? " step. You know the one where you put something up for safe keeping, and then can't remember where you put it?  Well that hit big time on Mother's Day when I had the goal in mind to make the first batch of yogurt on that day- -news flash it didn't happen that day.  I got too busy writing this blog on my "day off" from house work and such. 

As anyone who reads my Patterson's Princess Plan blog will tell you I am fed up with having trouble finding things so I'm slowly, oh so slowly marching through this house organizing, inventorying and other wise getting my "stuff" together.  Unfortunately the yogurt door for my dehydrator was not one of the items organized yet.  I looked on and off all day for it.  The bad thing is I actually found it where I thought I'd put it, but something had been placed on top of it and silly me didn't think to move those mylar bags to look in under them until the third trip to that storage cabinet.  Yes, that unit is now on the get organized and inventoried soon list. 

The following step was to dust off the dehydrator, sterilize the jars I'd be using and other get it together items before I started.  That is a habit I developed years ago.  When I'm preparing to cook, or preserve food,  I gather all the ingredients and tools needed to make it together first, just in case I don't have something on hand.  Luckily that was not the case this time. I had everything and got it all together on Mother's Day to start the process the next morning.

Monday morning I was moving slow, so it was nearly noon before I set the milk and yogurt starter out on the stove to come to room temperature as I went about my daily chores.  I finally got around to starting the making of the yogurt around 1:00 pm.

Just as my milk was about to get to the 185 degree mark I heard a strange knocking in the utility room.  Since I had the washer and dishwasher both running I thought it best to check it out. It took me about a split second to know what had happened.

The water company had said they would be replacing our new meter with an even newer one around the end of the month.  I guess they consider the 13th to be the end of the month.  With no warning, on a busy Monday they had shut my water off and yanked my meter.  It was nearly two hours before I had water back.  Thank goodness I'd done all my sterilizing of jars and such the day before.  I will admit I was still a bit miffed, and I let it be known, that they didn't even have the courtesy to knock on the door or honk from the safety of their truck if they are afraid of our geese and dogs (smart people are) to let me know their plans.  They just went straight to meter that is down behind our barn in the woods where I couldn't even see them and do it.

As soon as the milk was to the cool down stage I marched theough the woods to tell them they were inconsiderate louts.  They were, of course, defensive.  Claimed they didn't know which house the meter went to.  That didn't work since there is only the one house in this area, but enough on that.

Back at the house I started pre-heating the dehydrator.  This is when I actually realized that only 1/2 pint jars were going to work for yogurt in it using the supplied door.  Luckily that was what I had sterilized.  I was also thrilled to see it would hold exactly 20 of those 1/2 pint jars.  Turned out I had 19 1/2 pints worth of yogurt mixture made up.   Boy did I luck out on that!  Note to self, in the future check this information out BEFORE starting.

A dehydrator, like the Excalibur, that has a solid door on it would work for any size jar.

Next I prepped the jars while waiting for the milk to cool to the point where I could add the yogurt culture.

While I do cook with  yogurt I didn't want 19 half pints of plain yogurt with this first batch--maybe in the future.  So in nine of the jars I put about 2 teaspoons of either cherry preserves, strawberry jam, or orange marmalade (3 jars each) in the bottom.  Then I topped it off with the plain yogurt liquid.  If all goes well this should make fruit on the bottom regular yogurt.

Of the remaining ten I plan on making Greek Yogurt or yogurt cheese out of nine of them and keep the remaining half pint as plain, since I have nearly a quart of plain yogurt in the fridge already.  This last 1/2 pint will be used as starter for future batches.  Dh will have to wait for frozen yogurt later in the week, because I need six cups of plain yogurt strained to be three cups of Greek yogurt to make the frozen yogurt.

In the future if I should want to make a larger container, say a quart to make strictly plain Greek Yogurt out of I will simply use my flexible cutting board taped to the front of the dehydrator to seal the front when I take more than two trays out. 

I used my canning funnerl to fill the sterilized jars.  There was exactly 19 half pints.  How great is that? 

Once the jars were all filled I filled the shelf in the dehydrator, which had been pre-heating for an hour then set the timer.  One of the great things about this dehydrator is it will automatically shut off at the exact time you tell it to.  So I can go to bed tonight with it running and removed the "hopefully" completed cooled down yogurt first thing in the morning.  I'm thinking orange marmalade yogurt for breakfast!

It's the next morning now and I am proud to say this experiment was a HUGE success!  It set up perfectly, it's not too tart or too sweet and the orange marmalade is perfect in it for a light and wonderful fruit flavor.

Later today I'll start draining some of the plain to make it into yogurt cheese.  I'm thinking I'll flavor it with dill for a cracker spread. 

Jan who can't believe how simple the whole process was in OK

                                                                                     

FABULOUS FRUIT

It’s funny the way a thought will travel through the universe and be shared by so many. 

Recently I’ve became more and more interested in including more fruits and vegetables into my family’s diet. Where fruit is concerned I’ve been slowly adding a little more pineapple to sweet and sour recipes.  Fruits to desserts or as dessert, yogurt, simple fruit syrups for breakfast foods or dessert toppings,  and side dishes  like fried apples and red hots apples were joined with a lot of encouragement on my part to replace one sugary drink a day with a glass of fruit juice.

I’ve also been including fruit salads with at least two dinners a week.  This is where the universal thought comes in….are you ready? 

Just this last few days the topic of the discussion that was brought up by someone who lives across the country from me, and I swear we had no prior communication prior to this on the subject, was fruit salads.  Maestro play a little “Twilight Zone” music please.

Over the days since then there have been discussions of various fruit and vegetable combos, adding the fruit to yogurt and a few recipes.  Some of which will be making an appearance in my menu shortly.

That got me to thinking, if the ladies and gentlemen  on budgethomemaking@yahoogroups.com were interested in incorporating more fruit in their diets, then so might be others in the nation. Thus this blog post was born. 

Adding fruits and vegetables to your every day diet above your normal current intake has many positive aspects to it. 

1.     Fiber: We all know we need more fiber in our diet for a variety of reasons ranging from regularity to cholesterol control.  Fruits and vegetables are an excellent source of fiber.

2.     Specialty diets: if you need to avoid glutens, dairy, and other allergens for various health reasons they just might be the answer.  Check your own diet restrictions for any restrictions on fruits or vegetables.

3.     Weight loss: Who doesn’t worry about their weight? Filling up on fruits and vegetables sans sugars, carbohydrates and other fillers is a great way to lose weight.

4.     Availability: In this modern age you can get just about any fruit or vegetable year round.  They are canned, frozen, juiced, dried and freeze dried.  Some may not be in your store, but a web search will turn them up.

5.     Variety:  The variety of fruits and vegetables, as well as the ways to serve them either cooked or raw is endless. Don’t believe me?  Check out any good seed catalog like Baker’s Seeds (their catalog is a feast for the eyes, you can order both a 2013 and 2014 catalog now online) or sellers like amazon.com and you’ll see what I mean immediately.  

6.     Uses: The world wide web is loaded with recipes for various uses for these wonderful menu additions.  Pick a fruit or vegetable and simply put it in your web search link of choice along with the word recipes and you will be amazed. 

So on to fruit salads, as the afore mentioned budgethomemaking@yahoogroups.com was discussing.  Just exactly what do you classify as a fruit salad?  When I was growing up a fruit salad was one of four things. 

The first was of course a Jello based salad be it either in the Jello like the Classic Jello Fruit Salad, or with the Jello unmixed and used as flavor and binder as in Vickie’s Pink Stuff .   These were all the rage at church socials and other pot lucks, because they traveled well and held up well while being held until after the meeting.

The second, my mom’s favorite,  was a simple fruit salad of chopped up bananas and apples combined with a sectioned orange and drizzled with corn syrup. This you made ahead of time and let it "meld" for a bit before serving.

The third was my grandmother’s simple holiday favorite.  She would place on a small china dessert plate a leaf of bright green lettuce.  In the middle of this she’d place a single canned pineapple ring. In the center of the pineapple ring a dollop of Miracle Whip or mayonnaise was added to the middle of the pineapple ring. This was topped with a maraschino cherry, complete with stem.  Simple and fast to make, attractive to the eye.

Then of course there was the fourth, the classic cottage cheese and canned peaches favored by many dieters.

Fruit salads have come a long ways since then.  My personal favorite is a variety of versions of the Broccoli and Red Grape Salad that you often see on salad bars in many restaurants.  Of course I do a homemade version, but it is definitely worth eating.

Grapes and raisins are a great add in to chicken and tuna salad for either eating as a salad, on a sandwich, or in a wrap.

Spinach salad with fresh strawberries is delicious to say the least.

But the simplest of all is frozen fruit salad.  This is where you open your freezer door and pour yourself a mixture of all the different frozen fruits in there.  Sprinkle with sugar or honey if desired and eat this as it thaws.  Particularly refreshing when you have been working outside in the summer heat.  

Don’t forget fruit salads for breakfast, like Citrus Fruit Salad, or Fruit Salad Parfaits.

Appetizers can be a Fruit Salad Platter rather than the normal Veggie Platter you so often see at potlucks. Instead of the ranch dressing dip that is served with the veggies consider serving a variety of fruits such as melons, strawberries, kiwis, bananas, mango, apples, fresh figs, papaya, and other firm fruits cut into appropriate size with one of these fruit dips.  Yogurt Fruit Dip,  Caramel Fruit Dip, or  Cream Cheese Fruit Dip from Mini Fruit Pizzas.

Then how about fruit salad sundaes like a Banana Split, a  Fruit Bowl Sundae , Mini Fruit Pizzas ,or Chocolate Covered Bananas  for dessert?

The ideas for using fruits for salads are endless, use your imagination to add taste and elegance to any meal.

Jan who loves the versatility of fruit in OK

WEEK #3—GROUND BEEF #2

February 28, 2013

While doing clean-up on my blogs I discovered I'd never got this post up and running.  It was originally written for the week of July 4, 2012 and for some reason never left the draft mode. I did some adjustments to it and so here it is.  Finally!  Hopefully I'll get the rest of the 52 weeks up soon.

July 4, 2012

It’s ground beef time again.  As I said in the beginning we eat a lot of ground beef, so technically every other week my menus will be ground beef based for a while.  After all what can’t you make with ground beef?

Please note that most, if not all, of the recipes I do with ground beef could be done with other ground meats.  You might have to make a few allowances for fat content or such to keep things from drying out, but pretty much you can interchange the ground meat ingredient without much change.  Unless, perhaps with wild meats, such as venison, but if you are cooking with wild meats you most likely KNOW what you need to do to make the recipe work. 

As usual I’m running a little behind on my menu posts, so this is being done during the July 4^th week and therefore you will be seeing our holiday cook out menu for that day during the week. It will look like a huge menu for just the three of us, but we LOVE leftover grilled meats, so when I am cooking I am doing so with planned leftovers in mind.

Today is Tuesday and I have the Donvier in the freezer preparing for our homemade ice cream for tomorrow’s dessert.  And the chicken leg quarters to grill, along with tomorrow’s ground beef and bologna are already thawing in the refrigerator.  I’ll boil the eggs for the deviled eggs later on today. 

My son has already made a delicious huge batch of chocolate chip cookies both for sharing at work today and to go with our ice cream tomorrow.  We are in full holiday mode here.

We’ll have zero fireworks because we don’t want to burn the place down, not to mention the fact that the cost of those does not comply with the budget we have going right now.  We’d rather save money we would have spent on fireworks to travel to Walt Disney World in the future on a shoestring budget to have a wealth of fun and enjoy their fireworks while there.  If you are interested in how you can travel to WDW cheaply, and still get the most fun see my blog posts on the subject. How to Plan a Frugal Trip to Walt DisneyWorld,  Payingfor your Magical Trip, Saving Money While onthe Trip—Getting There,  Saving Money While on the Trip—Food! GloriousFood!,  and Saving Money While on the Trip—Souvenirs and Other Things.

So instead we  will have a great day of watching the latest Harry Potter movie and other movies we have recorded scheduled, complete with popcorn and a little Pepsi (an uncommon treat around here any more), along with a cookout and some down time as a family. During the evening hours we’ll watch fireworks on tv in the cool of the house.  Both men are off work for the holiday and that makes for an even better time. 

In this week’s menu you will also see the appearance of using my muffin tins for things other than just muffins.  For a whole list of ideas on other uses of the muffin tin and other common household items view “Muffin Tins, Not Just for Muffins and Cupcakes Any More. “

Anyway, here is the menu for Week #3—Ground Beef #2.  Hope you have a Happy and Safe July 4^th!

BREAKFAST OPPORTUNITIES:

Basic Cake Donuts/Muffins

Raisin Bran

Grapenuts

Oatmeal

Farina

Fruit salad

Dried Fruit

COMMENTS:

My husband loves cake donuts, but we don’t love the calories from frying donuts.  So for Christmas  I purchased him two donut pans and we’ve been experimenting with different recipes.  We’ve found that muffin recipes work well, especially if you add a little glaze.  As time goes on there will be various other donut recipes posted as we find ones we like.  This was the first, other than the one that came on the pan—which we can’t find right now, that he really likes.  He eats his unglazed.  Me I want the glazing—gotta have my calories you know!

LUNCH OPPORTUNITIES

MuffinTin Corn Dogs—once we’ve had them for dinner

Spaghetti and Meatballs—once we’ve had them for dinner

Home canned beef soup

Jarred salad with cucumbers from the garden

PB&J

Potted Meat Salad sandwiches.

COMMENTS:

In an effort to stick with keeping things cool in the house I’ve taken to cooking various muffin tin meals.  These make great individual servings, that leftover well and re-heat quickly.  They also cook in record time.  After all the shorter time the oven is on, the better it is when it’s 100+ degrees outside.

WEEK 3—DAY 1, GROUND BEEF 2

Red Topped Meat Loaf

Mashed Potatoes—make a big batch for uses later in the week

Peas

Jarred salad

Toasted French Bread

Applesauce Spice Cake

Tea

COMMENTS:

Red Topped Meatloaf is the basic ground beef meatloaf with the ketchup topping we all grew up with.  You can either cook it in your Summer Kitchen in either your turkey roaster or crockpot.  Or if you prefer in muffin tins to speed up cooking in your oven.

We like potato salad made with mashed potatoes, so later this week you will see the leftover mashed potatoes appear with the holiday big meal. If you prefer a different type then go ahead and prepare your potatoes while boiling the potatoes for the meatloaf then cool and refrigerate for being one step ahead in that meal preparation.

WEEK 3-Day 2

MuffinTin Corn Dogs

Frozen French Fries

Pork ‘n Beans

Refrigerator Pickles

Tea

Applesauce Spice Cake

COMMENTS:

As I mentioned earlier we are trying to cut down fried foods in our household—except on the fourth—sorry doc, so I’ve been experimenting with how to have our favorites without frying them. 

On one list a woman recently posted she made these using a pre-packaged cornbread mix.  Since I make all my own mixes I first tried them with my Cornbread Master Mix cornbread and it came out a bit too dry and crumbly for our liking. 

So then I decided to use my Corn Dog recipe that uses that master mix and found we liked the texture and firmness better.  An additional tweak I did was on the second batch I used my mini loaf pans instead of muffin tins and found they accommodated the shape of the hot dog link better. 

WEEK 3-DAY 3

Moo Gurgle Tacos

Mexican Rice

Guacamole

Flan

Tea

COMMENTS:

Moo Gurgle is our quick and easy homemade taco filler recipe that we use in numerous ways.  My husband made it as a teenager and then introduced it to me while we were dating nearly 40 years ago. 

It didn’t earn its unique name until we had teenagers of our own, however.  A group of them went to our lake house together and wanted to make tacos while there. 

They called and asked me for the recipe and I rattled it off—forgetting to tell them to drain the meat after they browned it.  Being teenagers they purchased the cheapest, fattest ground beef they could.

All the kids called me “Mom” so when I was asking them how the tacos turned out one young man said “Mom, those moos really gurgled!”, referring to the thick grease in the taco filler.  Thus the name was born “Moo Gurgle”.

WEEK 3-DAY 4—July 4, 2012

Charcoaled Hamburgers, plain

Charcoaled Hamburgers, bbq sauce

Grilled Bologna

Char-grilled Chicken Leg quarters

Deviled eggs

Potato salad

Butterfly potatoes

Onion strings

Zesty Onion Ring Dipping Sauce

Cole Slaw

PEPSI

Homemade Ice cream

Chocolate chip cookies

COMMENTS:

We thoroughly believe in this house when you fire up the charcoal grill or a wood fire you use every bit of the fuel you put in the grill.  We also love grilled leftovers, so while we’ll cook all the above on the fourth not all of it will be eaten for certain.  It will be a pick and choose meal.  “This is what we cooked, choose what you want and the rest will reappear in other meals.”

All the hamburgers with bbq sauce consist of is a beaten egg mixed with bbq sauce and then mixed into the ground beef patties and grilled.  One word to the wise, they do tend to fall apart easily—despite the egg for a binder, so cook them on foil on the grill.   I use Kay’s BBQSauce as the sauce in them.

We make up for all of the non-fried foods this week in this one meal.  Butterfly potatoes is our name for the potatoes that you see at fairs of all sorts that are potato chip thin and cut in a spiral.  I was lucky enough to acquire one of those potato cutters at a craft fair years ago and we have enjoyed it ever since.

I’ll try to get one of the guys to create a pattern for it and I’ll put up photos of it as well asap.

We are Pepsi addicts in this household, but once we decided to become super gazelle intense on paying off our debt Pepsi is one of the things we removed from our life.  Now we each drink one sweetened beverage a day (juice, tea, lemonade or kool-ade) and the rest of the time we drink water or unsweetened tea.  I will admit it’s hard going from lugging around a Pepsi all day to going to a single sweetened beverage (I generally do a juice), but it has saved us so much money it is unbelievable. (Do the math on how much you pay for soft drinks in a week and multiply that by the month/year—you will be astounded!) Plus all three of us are losing weight and are feeling better. 

So the Pepsi for this one day—two 2-liters, is a special treat.  The bottles will be washed out and saved for future events—stay tuned for those.

WEEK 3-DAY 5

Smoked Chicken Salad in Tortilla bowls

Lime Cilantro Rice

Refried Beans or home canned pinto or kidney beans

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Tea

COMMENTS:

What grilled chicken isn’t eaten on the fourth will be deboned, cubed and tossed in with picante, refried beans, corn, lettuce, rice and whatever else we happen to think of for a cool salad on a hot summer night.  We may even forgo cooking the tortilla into a tortilla bowl and simply roll it all up in a burrito style tortilla much like Qdoba burritos.

WEEK 3-DAY 6

Spaghetti and Meatballs

Garlic Toast

Jarred Salad with Italian dressing

Leftover desserts from the week

Tea

COMMENTS:

I generally make a double or triple batch of the spaghetti meatballs—which are different than my Master Mix Meatballs and either can or freeze them with or without the sauce for future grab and run meals.  

Both men also like for me to cook extra pasta for the meatballs and will take the leftovers to work for lunches. 

WEEK 3-DAY 7

Biscuit Cup Tacos

Either leftover Mexican or Lime Cilantro Rice

Tea

Leftover Flan

COMMENTS:

Truly the tail end of the week and a meal of all leftovers, simply reproduced in a slightly different manner.  Quick to bake in the toaster oven in the Summer Kitchen.  Look for any leftover Biscuit Cup Tacos to make an appearance at lunchtime next week.

Jan who wishes you a Happy and Safe Independence Day in OK

ALL THINGS FERMENTED

February 24, 2013

After reading the book “Friendship Bread” and writing a review on it.  I started doing research on Amish Friendship Bread, its history, its uses and similar products.  This is already causing ripples in my kitchen that may be either a boon to my scratch cooking materials or the all out host to a fruit fly congregation.

Amish Friendship Bread is basically a sweeter than normal sourdough starter that is used to create hundreds of breads, cakes, donuts, muffins, coffee cakes and foods of all types.

Currently I have no starters of any type going in my kitchen, which is actually pretty unusual for me.  Generally I will have Sourdough Bread Starter, RefrigeratorPotato Bread Starter, Artisan Bread Starters, sour cream, buttermilk and yogurt starters of various types stashed here there and everywhere, but for some reason I have found myself not doing so this last year or so.  Why I don’t know, I simply got away from it.  I’m thinking as spring is coming on soon that having these starters on hand again might be a good thing.

Despite what you may have heard just about any fermented starter can be refrigerated or frozen if you have to travel for a bit or simply bore of it.  So if life gets too busy to do my baking I can always freeze them.  Then once thawed you start over with day one of the process.

I lost most of my starters when my big freezer died the last time and I’ve simply not got them going again.  So yesterday I started out with the new to me Amish Friendship Bread Starter, and then I’ll slowly work my way through the various other “ferment” items I have used over the years to give variety to our basic menus.  First I need to get both fridges cleaned out for the refrigerated bread doughs, yogurt, sour cream and buttermilk batches but that is a post for the PrincessPlan blog so please wander over there and read it.

Since I needed to do some research anyway on the Amish Friendship Bread Starter and recipes for its use anyway I soon found myself cruising the web watching utube videos on the subject and reading of its history on various websites.  This of course segued into finding other fermented products to possibly try like Biga, andHerman Cake.

Biga is a much thicker starter used in Italian cooking for things like Ciabatta bread and is often called La Madre or Mother to bread.  

Herman is a German Friendship Bread quite similar to the Amish Friendship Bread http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_Cake  .  I found the name of this one interesting because I call my regular Sourdough Starter Herman and he actually resides in my Herman Pot that the master Potter Swan made for me years ago while I was attending rendezvous.  It is basically a lidded crock with an air hole in the lid to allow the gases to escape.   When using my Herman pot I do put a piece of folded cheese cloth under the lid because fruit flies are very determined little fellows and where you have starter and bananas in the same kitchen you are likely to get fruit flies.  Then I will have to drag out my homemade fruit fly traps instructions to get rid of those guys too.

While reading the book and doing the research I found myself thinking about the brandied fruit that I use to make in the late 70’s and early 80’s.  It was excellent as a topping for ice cream, cheese cakes, pound cakes and numerous other items or to bake with so of course I decided to check for recipes for that as well.  A trip to the grocery will be required for me to get that starter going, so I’ll post about it on a later date.  I have already uploaded the recipe for the starter for it if you are interested, just hit the hyperlink above and another window will open directly to the recipe.

Now on to creating the starter for the Amish Friendship Bread.  It is a very basic recipe and the only thing you have to remember is to not use anything metal while making the recipe for this or any other fermented starters.  Because if you do the starter will turn green and develop a metallic taste that is most unpleasant.   I personally use glass or ceramic bowls, or my pottery Herman pot and wooden spoons for all my mixing. 

It took me roughly 15 minutes to gather and make the starter and day one was soon behind me.  Following the instructions of the recipe I should be baking my first Friendship Bread in ten days.  Stay tuned.

Jan who likes having the basics put together for fast basic baking during the busy spring season as she sets out the garden and helps her men clean up the yard in OK

Epilogue: Day #2 moved the Friendship Bread starter from the bowl I mixed it in to the standard gallon Ziploc bag today.  Squished and mixed and it is now waiting for a repeat of the squishing for the next few days.

Day #3 I found out yesterday that you do need to expel the air from your ziploc more than once a day.  After about six hours my ziploc was very ballooned.  Luckily I checked it just in case and avoided a possible explosion.  What a mess that could be.

Day #6 As per the instructions I just added the 1 cup each of flour, milk and sugar to the starter.  Oh boy did it smell good!  Nicely soured. By the way, when I add milk to this batch I am using whole milk, future batches I may used powdered milk or milk of less fat content, but I always start out with a new to me recipe per the instructions and then adjust them to the way they work best for my family in future versions.

Jan who ran out between rain showers to feed and release in OK