Funky grain biscuits

This is a variation of my "experimental" multigrain yeast biscuits.

Yeast mix ingredients:
1.5 cups warm water
1 heaping teaspoon yeast
1 teaspoon local raw honey

For the dough:
2 cups organic unbleached wheat flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
About 1/2 cup organic sorghum flour
About 1/2 cup white corn meal
About 1/2 cup organic whole grain dark rye flour
About 1/2 cup ground flax meal
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 stick butter

Combine dry ingredients (and butter). Stir. Add yeast mix. Stir. Kneed with hands.

Sprinkle corn meal in the bottom of a large cast iron skillet.

Roll out dough and use glass or biscuit cutter to cut biscuits.

Preheat oven to 400. Let biscuits rise about 15 minutes. Cook about 15 minutes.

This is my first time buying organic wheat flour (at Target. Had coupon. Normally $5/bag). Ordered coconut flour.

The sorghum flour is gluten free but not low carb. Has a little more protein than wheat.

The rye has slightly more protein and iron than the other two and it has calcium. And flax is full of good stuff and is low carb.

Honey Oat and Rye Herb Bread

It's a bread day! I started a basic French bread starter and have decided on a honey oat and a herb rye loaf. I divided the starter in two for the first rise and prepped two batches of add-in flour, one that's unbleached white flour and oats, another that is stoneground rye and a touch of brown sugar. I'll add blackstrap molasses to that loaf during the first knead.

I never make a loaf the same way twice, rather always adding a lil of this or that. Like this day:
http://angelfoodcooking.blogspot.com/2009/07/great-day-for-bread.html

Today's loaves came out fantastic! I rolled them thin and long (very French). The white bread came out boring, really, but the spinach-herb-rye bread was super enjoyable.

I've been trying for two days to find the basic recipe so I can try and chronicle my deviations (as if I remember now) and finally here it is (with an adorable photo of my daughter in her seersucker train engineer/baker hat): http://angelfoodcooking.blogspot.com/2009/01/more-bread.html

So, facing a 90 degree day after a heat wave of 100 degree days, I got out my bread bowls. In the first very large bowl, I mixed:

• 4 cups unbleached white flour
• about 2.5 teaspoons fresh ground salt.

In a smaller bowl I put:

• 2 cups stoneground rye flour

and set beside it:

• blackstrap molasses
• about one cup fresh spinach
• 1 heaping tablespoon parsley
• 1 tablespoon dill 
• 1/4 cup sorrel
• about 1 cup basil

In another smaller bowl, I mixed:

• 2 cups unbleached white flour
• 1 cup whole oats

In the final large bowl, I mixed:

• 3 cups warm water
• 2 tablespoons yeast
• 2 tablespoons honey

From the flour/salt bowl, I added about 3 cups of the white flour to the liquid yeast mix. I worked it into a dough and let it sit until it tripled in size. Cover with a towel or plastic wrap. It's supposed to take three hours. Mine took about two.

This is what I'll refer to as my starter dough. After it rose, I took the dry ingredients from the rye bowl and poured them onto my lightly floured work surface. I added half the starter dough and mixed. I added the herbs and the molasses as I kneaded. Then I divided the kneaded lump into two pieces, oiled lightly and returned it to the rye flour bowl and another bowl. Covered with a towel to rise.

I repeated this with the rest of the starter and the white/oat flour. Knead. Divide. Oil. Cover. Leave to rise.

Let sit until doubled in size. About an hour.

Preheat oven to 450. Divide into loaves. Let rise 20 more minutes. Place a bowl of water in the oven. Bake baguettes for 15 minutes, remove bowl of water. Cook baguettes for ten minutes more, maybe less. *I often turn mine when I remove the water, helps the consistency of the crust.

Or I leave the water. Because it's hot and dangerous. Sometimes they cook quickly.

Salad

We're having salad for lunch since we plan on filling our bellies with rhubarb cobbler. :-)

Daughter wanted chicken soup, but we didn't have any but I found canned spaghetti and meatballs from when I could not chew. Gave her a side of romaine with cowgirl ranch dressing and my rye croutons, but she didn't like the dressing.

Husband and I are having big salads with croutons, sunflower seeds, broccoli and hot bacon dressing from his mom that I had in the freezer.

Broiled shrimp and salad with homemade croutons

We were given a bag of shrimp which I broiled, five minutes each side, and sprinkled with it's a dilly seasoning.

I had a chunk of homemade rye bread beyond its prime but not reduced to breadcrumbs or compost yet... So I had daughter slice it, oil it lightly and sprinkle it with herbs and heated at about six minutes at 475, flipped them, five minutes more and then turned them one more time.

Took a packaged salad I got at Target ($2.49)and added lettuce from my garden, sorrel, golden raisins, raisins and mandarin oranges. Topped with Newman's Own Raspberry Walnut dressing.

Summer café

We have officially opened our summer breakfast café-- our little table by the front door.

Daughter had eaten breakfast with husband, zucchini bread from the freezer that I purchased at the library bake sale and canned tropical fruit salad she shared with the tortoise.

For "second breakfast," I made my rose tea and four slices of last week's hearty rye bread, toasted, two with margarine, one with cheddar and one with peanut butter and local raw honey. Cheddar for me. Peanut butter for child.

Rosemary rye bread

Bread dough and tropical tortoises love heat and humidity. So, today, as temperatures soar toward 100 degrees farenheit, I will make rosemary rye bread.

Here is the link for the first time I tried to make French country bread:
http://angelfoodcooking.blogspot.com/2010/04/french-country-bread.html

Today, I did a typical me. Started the recipe without reading all the directions and double-checking my ingredients. I ran out of white flour.

My sponge:
- 2 cups warm water
- about 1 teaspoon local raw honey
- 1 teaspoon yeast
- 2 cups unbleached white flour
- about 1.75 cups stoneground rye flour

Stir. Cover. Let rise at least two hours. Preferably six. Possibly overnight.

Now, I measured out my flour and had
- two cups unbleached white
To which I added
- four cups rye
- about three teaspoons chopped rosemary from my garden


From here I pretty much followed the original recipe although I added extra herbs leftover from my chicken salad. This recipe combines the sponge with a dough (more yeast, salt, sugar, etc) and then rises again. [See the link listed above.] Shape and let rise again.

Because I ran out of white flour, my final rise didn't have as much ooomph as I would have liked, despite leaving the dough on the steamy sunporch. It was dense but yummy.

Zaatar foccaccia

Ever since my bout with anemia last summer, making bread has become a chore. Because of this, gradually I have made less and less bread. But, today, with zaatar spices in hand, I wanted to make bread again.

Among my first summer entries, you can find a garden herb pesto/fresh tomato foccaccia that is a family favorite. I adapted this from a recipe from VegList, a veg*n email loop I belonged to in the dark ages before Yahoo groups.

Today, I have transformed that basic foccaccia into a zaatar and sunflower seed variation.

The DOUGH
About 1 teaspoon yeast
1.5 cups warm water
Mix and let rest 15 minutes.

Add:
1 pinch fresh ground salt
2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
1 cup unbleached white flour
2/3 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup rye flour

Stir with a wooden spoon.

Add another cup white flour and a little wheat flour.
Add a handful of flax seeds
Add a handful of roasted sesame seeds

Kneed.

Coat with olive oil and let rise abot 1.5 hours until doubled.
Lightly oil and flour a big cookie sheet.
Press out the bread.
Brush with oil. Coat with liberal zaatar and sunfloer seeds.

Let rise another 45 minutes. Bake at 425 for 25 minutes.

Cucumber Sandwiches

After I pulled my back today, my husband made one of my favorite summer snacks for me:
Cucumber sandwiches!

- Cream cheese
- cucumber
- It's a dilly

on crackers or bread.

In this case, on multigrain/rye crackers.

Multigrain Biscuits (experiment)

• almost one cup unbleached Wegmans all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup corn meal
• 2/3 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/4 cup rye flour
• 1/4 cup flax seed

(for a total of about three cups "flour")

• 1 generous tablespoon baking powder

mix thoroughly. Add:

• a tad more than 1/2 teaspoon iodized sea salt

fold in:

• 6 tablespoons butter

Add:

• one cup soy milk

Knead. Cut with bottom of glass once pressed thin. Mine made 19 biscuits. Bake at 400 degrees for 12-15 minutes.
based on:
http://angelfoodcooking.blogspot.com/2009/06/brown-biscuits.html

Multigrain Dill Bread

I'm experimenting again. I've been debating whether or not to make bread and what pushed me over the edge was the realization that the fancy French butter I bought for the holidays isn't getting any younger.

When I went to Wegmans the other day, they had this huge bunch of fresh dill for $1.99. I bought it, used some for my crab egg rolls, and now used some for this bread. The rest I put in the freezer. Dill is one of my favorite herbs.

Okay, so the bread... Thus far mixed in one bowl:
(For a real recipe, click on bread and you'll see my previous efforts.)

• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 cup rye flour
• 1/2 cup cornmeal
• 1/2 cup flax seed
• 2 cups unbleached white flour
• 1 teaspoon iodized sea salt
• 1 heaping tablespoon fresh dill
  

In the other bowl:

• 2 cups warm water
• 1 teaspoon honey
• 1 tablespoon yeast

Mix about 3 cups of the flour mix into the yeast, stir with a wooden spoon and place in a warm draft free spot for about 3 hours until doubled in size...

More later...

It came out lovely, though I should have used more dill. Served with Italian Wedding Soup and French butter.

Bread, bread, bread

We need bread. Bread to eat (we have cream cheese and brie in the fridge), bread to freeze (Thanksgiving approaches) and bread to let get stale (homemade stuffing... Yeah, I make the bread and let it get stale for stuffing, which is more like make large loaves instead of small and let the family munch until it starts to get stale, then freeze until the day before Thanksgiving).

If you follow my link to my bread baking, it will take you to various shapes, sizes, experiments and successes. I base my bread on a recipe found on the internet, in the French style for its relative simplicity.

The ingredients as stated are simple:

• 4 cups flour
• 1 Tablespoon dry active yeast
• 1-2 tsp salt (I use iodized sea salt)
• 2 cups warm water
• Oil for the bowl

Now this morning, I have already attempted a HUGE batch. Step one is to mix the salt and the flour in a bowl. In one bowl I have:

• 4 cups unbleached white flour from Wegmans
• 1 tsp iodized sea salt

In bowl two, I have a multigrain sort of experiment going. This is a fun way to experiment because failures simply become Thanksgiving stuffing. This bowl contains:

• 2 cups unbleached white flour from Wegmans
• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 2 cups rye flour
• 1.5 teaspoons sea salt
• about 1/2 cup sesame seeds, toasted
• about 1/2 cup flax seeds

Step two is to mix two cups warm water with the yeast and half the flour. I started a big bowl with 2 cups warm water, 1 tablespoon yeast, and 1 tablespoon honey. In a second bowl, I added 3 cups water, two tablespoons yeast, and 1.5 tablespoon honey and I'm letting it sit while I type this...

Now to add the flour. The recipe calls for mixing half the flour into the liquid and incorporating with your hands into a dough. Then, cover with a dish towel and set at room temperature for three hours. I always add more than half the flour mixture. Half the flour mixture seems to make soup. I add and stir with a wooden spoon until it starts to transform into more of a sponge, then a runny dough, and I stop there. This usually takes about 3/4 of the flour.

More in three hours...

Three hours later... I have four large bowls rising now. I had an incident with my multigrain batch. I had divided it in half because it was too big for the bowl and I forgot to incorporate the rest of the flour... Traditionally, you take the very wet dough and incorporate the rest of the flour and then some and need for ten minutes, aiming for not sticky, supple and elastic. But my last loaf, I got it perfect and then realized I had forgotten the last multigrain batch of flour. Adding some warm water allowed me to get this flour in, but now I worry that I handled it too much and it won't rise nicely.

Once you have some nice dough balls, you place them in a clean oiled bowl, cover them and return them to a nice warm spot to rise for an hour. I stick everything inside the oven to protect them from drafts.

In an hour, we'll do the final knead, shape, preheat the oven and do the final rise.

Time to shape... The knead at this point takes about five minutes, then you shape and put on cookie sheet, cover and let rest about 20 minutes while the oven preheats to 450 degrees. You also need to place a bowl of water in the oven to try and get the crust 'right.'

Now today I made all that dough and got not quite the yield I expected: 3 small loaves of multigrain, 1 not quite medium loaf of multigrain and 2 fairly nice sized medium white loaves. I even did a very diluted egg wash on them, more wash than egg (and cooked the remaining egg and water for the tortoise. So, we'll see how it all turns out.

You bake the bread for about 25 minutes, and you're supposed to remove the bowl of water after the first 15.

**This multigrain bread is as good as the bread I like from the bakery that I call 'magic bread.'

Vegetable soup

I made canned vegetarian vegetable soup, added some extra water, some extra frozen vegetables, and some spices, and some Morningstar vegetarian breakfast patties. I served with my homemade rye rolls.

Then we went to Target, I love their Archer Brand stuff. We needed a birthday present, so I used a $5 off a $25 purchase coupon. So I got three big cans of hunts sauce, eggs, soy milk, chocolate soy milk, and shredded cheddar cheese. The prices were okay. But I like some of their funky organic stuff.

Dinner Party

I am completely exhausted and I have one hour until it's time to set the table and two hours until time to start cooking dinner.

We started our day at Wegmans. I was thrilled to find a one-gallon glass sun tea pitcher for $5.99 but distraught to find pineapples were $3.99 and that cored pineapples were $5.99. That's nuts.

I spent $48.76, which I'm counting toward the August budget even though it's July 31. I was bummed about that until I remembered I bought the sun tea pitcher.

I bought:

• 2 pounds Wegman's butter, one salted, one unsalted, $1.50 each
• one pineapple, $3.99 (grrr)
• the large bottle of coffemate vanilla chai spice creamer, $2.99
• 2 pints heavy whipping cream, $1.49 each
• 3 packages of celestial seasoning tea (blueberry, almond, and berry), $2.29 each
• 1 liter of Orangina, $2.49
• 3/4 pound sliced ham from the deli, $4.31
• shredded gruyère (domestic?), $3.60
• smoked gouda, $3.47
• the sun tea jar, $5.99
• 3 lbs bananas, $1.09
• 6 ounces raspberries, $2.50
• strawberries, $2
• ground nutmeg, $2.99

Before we left, I made the pear soup and I had set the brioche out and shaped it. When we got home, I baked it and brewed iced tea (green with berry). Then we went to the liquor store for wine. My husband came home early for lunch, so we had leftover crêpes and then I prepped the pineapple crumble and the zucchini cakes.

At 3 p.m., I'll set the table.

At 4 p.m., I'll start the crôque monsieur.

When the crôque is in the oven, I'll fry the zucchini cakes. While we eat the first courses, the pineapple crumble will bake.

Recipes:
Follow these links:

• Brioche-- from The Paris Cookbook by Patricia Wells, also should be accessible via 'French,' 'bread,' and/or 'brioche.'
• Chilled Pear Soup-- Vegan, eileen bresslin
  
• Zucchini crabbiless cakes-- The Imus Ranch Cookbook, 'vegan' (Deirdre Imus calls it vegan even though she used eggs because she has her own chickens) and zucchini
• Perfumed Pineapple Crumble-- Venez Diner, C'est Prêt by Dominique Malet, follow pineapple or French or the name of the book
• Crôque Monsieur-- obviously French, it's from The Barefoot in Paris Cookbook by Ina garten
• Rye bread-- clicking on rye will show you all my experiments with rye flour

My daughter made me a lovely four-course meal:
Tomato salad (pictured)
Piled-High Sandwiches
A cheese and egg platter
Chocolate-Carrot Crumble

Honeyed Grilled Cheese on Rye with Broccoli

I had originally hoped to make beef burgundy sometime soon... but stew is not an apropos choice when it's 90 degrees and humid.

So, instead, I used my homemade rye bread to make little grilled cheese sandwiches with white sharp cheddar and a touch of honey on one side of the bread, added right before you take the sandwiches out of the pan.

I sautéed the fresh broccoli in some seasoning I wasn't real keen on.

The recipe for honeyed grilled cheese is actual a ham-and-cheese sandwich and should be available by clicking on sandwiches.

Great Day for bread!

It's humid. Humid as in take one step outside and the humidity coats your body.

So I started bread. Lord knows the yeast likes this weather. I experimented with a wheat-white-rye loaf.

In my big glass bowl, I mixed:
2 cups warm water
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon yeast

(The honey really gets the yeast really moving. It's not necessary.)

In another bowl, I mixed:
2 cups (and a little more) unbleached white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup rye flour
3/4 teaspoon salt

Then I put three cups of that mixture into the water/yeast froth and stirred with my wooden spoon until dough-like. I covered with a damp towel and now it needs to sit for three hours. Then I'll add the rest of the flour and need.

Foccaccia

To use the ripe tomatoes my mother brought us from her garden, I opted to make a homemade herb foccaccia. As usual, there's the 'real' recipe and my modified version.

We're serving this for dinner with farm-fresh corn-on-the-cob and hopefully the last of the greenbeans from my garden.

I've had the original recipe for more than a decade. My notes say it originated with the VegList, a veg*n email recipe exchange list I belonged to when I first decided to learn to cook. I seem to remember a similar recipe from Vegetarian Times, but I guess I'll have to trust my memory.

Rosemary Foccaccia
from VegList
For the dough

• 1/4 ounce active dry yeast
• 1 1/2 cups water, lukewarm
• 3 1/2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 1/2 to 4 cups flour
• 1/4 cup fresh rosemary leaves, minced

Topping

• 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 2 pounds onions, sliced thin
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• fresh rosemary sprigs
  

Garden Foccaccia
Angel's version

For the dough:

• 1 teaspoon yeast
• 1 1/2 cups warm water (maybe a little less)
• 2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
• 3 cups unbleached white flour
• 1 cup rye flour
• 1 pinch salt
• 2 teaspoons fresh ground pasta and pizza seasoning

For the topping:
combine in food processor:

• close to 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1/4 cup pine nuts
• 1/4 cup fresh basil
• 2 tablespoons fresh oregano
• 2 tablespoons fresh parsley
• 2 teaspoons fresh chives

1 to 2 tomatoes, sliced
parmesan cheese

INSTRUCTIONS:
1. Combine water and yeast in bowl. Stir with non-metal spoon and set aside for 15 minutes.

2. If you're making Angel's version, prepare the pesto topping and refrigerate to give flavors time to meld.

3. Once the yeast is activated, add the salt and 2 teaspoons olive oil to the yeast and stir with the non-metal spoon. Add 2 cups of flour (if using wheat or rye, use one cup of wheat/rye and one cup white) and the herbs-- fresh rosemary for the rosemary foccaccia and the pasta seasoning for the garden foccaccia. Stir with a heavy wooden spoon.

4. Add another cup flour and stir as dough begins to form a ball. Turn onto floured surface and knead until soft and elastic. Add more flour as dough becomes sticky and difficult to work with. Knead for about ten minutes.

5. Oil a large bowl (with olive oil, cooking spray or butter). Place dough in bowl and flip to coat. Cover bowl with clean, damp cloth and place somewhere warm and free of drafts to allow to rise. It needs to double in volume. Should take about 90 minutes.

6. When it's done, punch down. Oil a 12 x 18 baking pan, including the edges. Place dough in center of pan and spread across the surface evenly. Cover with damp cloth again and let rise for 45 minutes.

7. While dough is rising, if making the rosemary version, heat two tablespoons olive oil in a large skillet and sauté the onions in the oil, turning to coat as they begin cooking. Cook about 15 minutes until soft but not burned. The oil should be absorbed. (I hate onions so I have never done this.)

8. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. When dough is done rising, make indentations with your fingers in the surface of the dough. Lightly brush olive oil (for the rosemary version) or pesto (for Angel's version) across the bread. Sprinkle with salt if desired. (I don't)

9. If using the onions, spread them evenly across the dough now. I use fresh tomato instead, sliced thin. Raw. I brush the remaining oil/sauce over them as I place them. I also sprinkle parmesan cheese.

10. Bake for 30 minutes until dough is lightly browned. If using fresh rosemary as part of the topping, add in the last five minutes of cooking.

Coffeecake and Egg sandwiches

So, we had coffeecake from Friday for breakfast yesterday and today. Yesterday we finished the blueberry and today we started on the nut and the plain. For lunch yesterday, we had the rest of the salad my friend Kim made me for lunch Friday (it was huge) and peanut butter toast. The picnic we attended for July 4 started at 2 p.m., so I didn't want a heavy lunch.

For dinner Friday night, we had leftover pizza from my daughter's birthday I had frozen.

Today. while my husband took our daughter to the park, I brewed some green and pomegranite teas to make iced tea. For lunch we had egg sandwiches with eggs from Klein Farm on my homemade rye-sesame rolls. I fried the eggs with parsley from the garden. Some cheddar cheese on the eggs. We all had different condiments. I had French dijon mustard. My husband had vegan mayo. My daughter had ketchup. I served with some salt and vinegar potato chips and blueberries and cherries.

Rye rolls take two

My dad and his wife are hosting a picnic today, so, I knew I should bring something but I had no idea what. I'm not a cold salad person, and I don't have the ingredients for any of the cold salads I like. As usual, I'm plotting at the last minute.

My stepmom usually has burgers and corn and watermelon. I opted to make rolls. No one else will make bread, that's for sure, and it's nice and humid. Perfect for bread. My stepmom was surprised to get my call this morning with that news. Hopefully they turn out yummy.

I've taken to storing all my flour in the freezer. My luck lately has been far from good regarding the longevity of my flour. Also, this was my first batch of bread with the brick of yeast from Gayle. There's 32 ounces of yeast there. The date on the bag suggests "best by 2/2011" so it should be interesting to see how long it takes me to use it.

Verdict on batch two of the rye rolls: (recipe available via rye link)
Delicious when you follow the recipe.

Rye dinner rolls

As I type this, my tomorrow-will-be-five-year-old and I are in the midst of our initial batch of rye bread. I'm using the recipe from the back of the Hodgson Mill rye flour bag, without the carraway seeds, wheat germ and the onion. And I used a slightly expired batch of Hodgson Mill multigrain yeast. And I forgot the water in the recipe and had to add it later.

And now that I reread the recipe, I realize I added three cups rye flour. Oops. No wonder it was super dry until I added that extra water.

It might be a miracle if these rolls turn out.

My first experience with rye bread...

Hodgson Mill Onion-Rye dinner rolls
1 cup milk
2 tablespoons honey
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons butter
2 packages (5/16 ounce) yeast
1/2 cup lukewarm water (110 degrees)
3 cups white flour
2 tablespoons caraway seeds
6 tablespoons minced onion
1/2 cup wheat germ
1 to 1 1/4 cups rye flour

For an egg wash
1 egg
2 teaspoons water

Scald milk and combine in mixing bowl with honey, salt and butter. Stir well, cool to lukewarm. Dissolve yeast in water and combine with milk. Add white flour and beat vigorously one minute until batter is very smooth. Add caraway seeds, onion, wheat germ and enough rye flour so dough is firm enough to knead. Turn dough onto floured surface. Knead 8 minutes.

Put in greased bowl, turning once so dough is evenly coated. Cover and let rise in warm place until doubled (one hour). Punch down dough and roll by hand into long rope about 1.5 inches thick. Cut into 1.5 inch pieces and shape into buns. Place two inches apart on oiled baking sheet. Cover with towel and let rise until doubled.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Prepare egg wash (beat egg with water) and brush top of buns. Bake 12-15 minutes or until nicely browned. Yield: 18-24 rolls.