Sourdough starter

I haven't gotten rid of anything from my cleanse list since Monday. I've had a hard time being creative as some of my creations simply weren't as good as some of our old favourites, I think that is part of the learning process of new recipes anyway, but it has been a while since I've gone outside of my regulars.

I'm mentally prepared to try again:) last week I created a Sourdough starter. Sourdough typically does not get it's start from commercial yeast, sourdough gathers natural airborne yeasts, and natural yeasts from the flour you use in it. This is how you start:

1. Mix 1/4 cup of flour with 1/4 cup of warm water together in a non-metalic container, with a non-metalic stirring instrument. Metal can react with the sourdough starter. Leave in a warm place in your kitchen, covered lightly with plenty of air flow.
2. 8-12 hours later, mix another 1/4 cup of flour and 1/4 cup warm water in your mixture, at this point you will probably see bubbling, and smell some of that yummy sourdough smell.
3. feed your sourdough again in 8-12 hours.
4. If it worked you should be done now, it will be light and bubbly, with possible "hootch" on top. Hootch is liquid that is sort of separate from the flour mixture.
5. keep your mixture in a jar with a non-metalic lid in the fridge until you are ready to use it in bread, buns, pancakes etc.

This week I will give this a try with some rice flour made from rice crackers on the cleanse list. Stay tuned for more instructions and my hopefully successful product!

Brrrr it is cold enough for Corn chowder

Calgary Weather is crap...again! The only way to beat the cold is to cook something to warm you from the inside out.

Last night at supper, I mentioned that I wanted to cook corn chowder tonight, Kelly sent me this recipe and it was great! I didn't put bacon in it, as I find bacon in soup ends up with a really weird texture, too bad I didn't have ham :0( Now I no longer have any corn in my freezer, one more item off the cleanse list!

Since the soup doesn't contain much protein I made a spinach salad with bacon and egg, that was yummy, I will definitely make this salad again.

http://www.recipesfromhome-online.com/best-corn-chowder-recipe.html

Comer bien!

Savoury Potato Muffins (with left over Lasagne)

Today I ground down crackers to use as flour.

I figured that I must use this flour for something savoury as the crackers were Wheat thins and Parmesan Trisciuts. I used my trusty old food processor to grind up the crackers really fine. While I had the kitchen crumby and the food processor dirty for this, I also ground down my old bread bums (crusts) to add to my bread crumb collection :)

The muffins turned out great, maybe could have used a little more salt, but I didn't add any as I thought the crackers would add enough salt already. I will make these again, they are actually very biscuit like.

This is the recipe if you want to try this, I substituted 1 cup of cracker crumbs and also garlic for the onion as I love garlic!

http://www.food.com/recipe/st-patricks-day-muffins-savoury-potato-muffins-360000

LASAGNE, no recipe, I just threw it together

I would say that the favourite meal of my family is lasagne, kind of like a rolling average really. I don't have a recipe, I just put together my regular spaghetti sauce and layer it with noodles, cottage cheese, and mozzarella.

Today to help with the kitchen cleanse, used up the frozen spinach and frozen leftover tomato sauce. I don't usually use spinach and after I made the lasagne I remembered why, even if you squeeze it and drain it for 2 - 3 hours, it still makes the lasagne wet :(

So after one week the ingredients are as stands:

Dry goods:
10 5 pounds of potatoes (we hardly ever eat potatoes)
dried bread
pitted dates left over from Xmas cheese plate (1 cup)
crackers
rice crackers
rice wrappers
dried stir fry noodles
wheat germ
wheat bran (used 1 cup for muffins) 
muesli cereal
all bran buds
minute rice (I only use long grain, Adrian bought by accident)

Frozen Foods:
cooked salmon fillet (6oz)
tomato sauce (2 cups)
strawberry cherry jam (2 cups) from Grandma Sylvia this summer
Grated fresh ginger (2 Tbsps)
Mexican hot chocolate by conchita (1/2 package)
1 package spinach
bananas (3 cups)
corn niblets (2.5 pkgs) someone made a mistake.....
hot red peppers from Mexico (2-3 cups)
Hashbrowns (2 cups shredded)
Pitas (3)
Burrito wraps (2)
freezer burnt buns (8 hotdog, 8 hamburger)
2 1 Litres of frozen half and half cream


Bueno Appetito!

Bran buds bye bye...

This morning first thing I started the recipe for Bran Muffins. The muffins called for raisins, which I don't have, but I had dates on my cleanse list that fit that bill. The muffins are okay, not the best I've ever made, but butter and or jam will correct that:) ingredients that I got rid of are: Bran buds (the whole box), pitted dates, and some dried up mango that someone left the bag open on...

Supper consisted of chicken strips, potatoes and salad. I used 1 cup of the dried breadcrumbs, some farm eggs from Opa this weekend and of course potatos, all from the cleanse list.

Maybe some banana bread tomorrow...

Heritage recipes for Heritage Classic day

Yesterday we visited Adrian's dad in Fort Macleod. With my thoughts towards recipes, I asked him if he had any of Oma's old recipes, and he did! Opa gave them to me. Lots of old recipes written on scraps of paper, recipe cards, even one on a serviette :)

I didn't find the cake recipe I was looking for, but lots of great recipes I remember from more than 14 years ago before Oma passed away.

Today for the Heritage Classic hockey game, I have made Oma's special Tomato soup, which didn't use any of my key ingredients up in the soup, however, I have defrosted the hamburger and hotdog bums to eat beside the soup! 2 more ingredients off the list!

This soup is not in any cook book, it was first made by Oma more than 40 years ago. The recipe goes like this:

1 large pot
8 cups or so water
1 large can of tomato juice
1 pound burger
1 egg
bread crumbs
spices
a few splashes of Worchestershire sauce
1 onion
2 cups chopped celery
2 cups chopped carrot
1-2 leeks (optional)
1 package lipton chicken noodle soup
1-2 handfuls of long grain rice
3-4 tbsps fresh or 2 tbsp dried parsley

1. Fill your dutch oven or large soup pot with 8 cups water, I don't measure, but fill the pot about 1/3 up. Bring to boil, while it is heating proceed to step 2.
2. Mix burger (can be all beef, or 1/2 ground pork and 1/2 beef) with egg, breadcrumbs, spices of your choosing (I use salt, pepper and onion powder, or sometimes just montreal steak spice) Worchestershire sauce, together. form into small 1 inch sized balls and drop into boiling water as you roll.
3. When all balls are in the water and it comes up to a rolling boil, add the can of tomato juice and bring to a boil again.
4. Add the vegetables and bring to a boil for 15 minutes.
5. Add the soup mix, parsley, and the rice and boil for 7 minutes on a bit lower heat or the rice burns to the bottom of the pot, remove from heat, put on the lid and let it sit for 10 minutes.

You can either eat right away, or as I usually do, make in the morning on a cold weekend, cool and serve for supper. Soup usually tastes better on the second heating anyway!

Bon Appetit!

Soup and granola bars

In my first post I told you about my goal, well on day one I had quite a bit of success in getting some ingredients off my list.

1. Butternut squash soup. It was really great, it used ginger in the recipe as optional, but I think it is the key to the soup. The recipe took 3 things out of my list. Squash, ginger, and boullion. I had made the boullion before xmas, put it in ice cube trays for later use, then promptly forgot about it. The recipe is from Food.ca:

http://www.food.com/recipe/butternut-squash-soup-294785

2. Granola. We are going out show shoeing either this weekend or next in preparation for a winter camping adventure at the Elk Lake ACC hut. We will need some energy to make it the 9 km in and out! I used 3 ingredients off the list, Muesli Cereal (finished it!), pitted dates (what a bugger to pit) and wheat germ. Plus I used some ingredients that weren't really on the list, but should have been :0) Like honey, dried fruits, nuts and coconut. 

http://www.food.com/recipe/granola-bars-12303

Good day in the kitchen!