Kaiser Rolls

Mister and I have a friend who's coming to stay for nearly two weeks. In an endeavor to have food at home, we actually bought cold-cuts. This means that we needed either bread or rolls. Being much more a fan of rolls for sandwiches, I figured I'd make some rolls with my sourdough starter.

I had had a sponge in the fridge getting sadder and sadder for almost a week, so I tried to wake it up first. I added another cup of flour, a half cup of water, and put it in a warm oven. As it rose quite beautifully, I searched for roll recipes. I based my rolls upon this recipe. I poured one cup of bread flour on the counter, added 4 tsp of salt, about 3 or 4 Tbs of sugar, 3 Tbs of powdered milk, and another cup of bread flour on top of that. I whisked it all together and into a flat circle. I poured my healthy sponge onto this dry mix and proceeded to combine the two. While kneading this all, I also added about 4 Tbs of oil, in 4 increments and a single egg. After working it all together, I let it rest for about 5 minutes while I washed out and oiled the bowl. Re-kneaded the bread for a few minutes, then put it in the oiled bowl to rise in a warm oven.

After it had doubled in size, I dumped it on the counter (the oil helped prevent sticking), and divided it into 16. I shaped each piece into a little ball, and placed it on an oiled pan while working with the others. After balling each of the 16 balls, I then covered the balls with a damp towel while shaping the rolls.

To shape the rolls, I based it off of these directions. I sprinkled rye flour over the counter, and flattened a ball on the flour. Picking up little bits of the edge, I brought the edge into the center much like folding flower petals inward and with the final one, gave the center a good smoosh. I inverted the rolls onto a dish of poppy seeds, and put it poppy-seed-down on a pan lined with parchment paper. After all of the rolls had been shaped, I covered them with plastic and let them rise overnight in the now-cool oven.

This morning, I preheated the oven to 425F and, after turning each roll poppy-side-up, baked the rolls for ~25 mins, rotating the trays halfway through the bake.< br />
The only thing that I would do differently for the next batch is to twist the "petals" of the kaiser knot as I brought them to the center, as most of my rolls recombined and didn't have distinct markings on the top. But they're delicious! Mister and I have already made a breakfast sandwich with them with great success.

Recipes to Make

Omg blogger changed their new post format. This is scary looking. (But on the plus side, when I add a pic, it puts it in the correct spot instead of at the top... hmm) But yeah! I have a few tabs up and even more saved that I need to catelogue. Black Bottom Cupcakes

Banana Bread Crepe Cake with Butterscotch

Ice Cream Sandwiches

Pastitsio

Cream Cheese Filled Banana Muffins

Crispy Potato Roast

Black Magic Cake

Ukrainian Honey Cake
Ukrainian Walnut-Almond Torte
Romanian Cabbage Soup with Bacon
Walnut Filling

And now a massive block of Rye Breads and other sourdough treats.
Polish Cottage Rye
Méteils Au Bleu
Greenstein's Corn Rye Bread
Tom Jaine's German Sourdough Rye Bread
Russian Rye
German Sourdough Rye
Sourdough Rye with Seeds
Hansjoakim's Favorite 70% Sourdough Rye
Russian and German 100% Ryes - 4 Recipes
Making Russian Rye
Swedish Limpa Rye
Karin's German Feinbrot
Sourdough Pretzels#1
Sourdough Pretzels#2
Sourdough English Muffins
Marcel's Grandmother's Potato Bread
Sourdough Pretzels#3

New Beginnings!

I recently nursed started back to health. Last Saturday, in fact. I probably had ignored her for almost a month -- if not more! She had a solid inch of alcohol on top when I finally pulled her jar out and was all huddled in the bottom of the jar. But with warm air, warm clean jars, and fresh food, she soon perked right back up.

I pulled her out to feed today, although I probably could have done this yesterday or maybe even Tuesday. I had PLANS for her today. But when I washed out my Official Starter Mixing Bowl and tried to pour some starter in, she refused to budge. I shook the jar a bit. She made a huffing noise as air whooshed in and out. Left with no recourse, I pulled out a big spoon and ruthlessly divided her in half.

And onto the project! Y'see, Mister and I have been sneakily, behind starter's back, looking into recipes for rye bread. Apparently, most traditional german rye breads were sourdough based and cooked over a looooooooooong time to get that dark color (it's now common to use caramel coloring and cook it faster). With that in mind, we even bought rye flour. We bought this... oh probably close to two months ago now. And today I implemented it.

Half of starter got fed with rye flour and water. The other half got fed with all purpose and water, like normal. It did mean that this feeding I would not be able to bake, as when dividing in half, normally with the second half one would make two loaves of bread.

But so now I have two little jars of starter in the fridge. We'll see how the rye comes out! I probably won't be able to bake with it for at least 3 feedings or so, as I want the rye to be the dominant flavor.

Food of Late

So Mister and I haven't really been eating much at home (as per usual...) but what we have made has been fun!

For Superbowl Sunday, during the halftime show, we made onion strings and fried kasseri cheese using the same breading. As my one Calphalon pan started smelling and spluttering while we were heating the oil, I pulled out my wok for this one. Man it's been awhile since the wok and I were friends!

I learned today that my new favorite quesadilla is: cheddar, spinach and sour cream on the side. OMG delicious. It reminded me quite a bit of fried pierogi.

We've had thawing since last Thursday stewing venison that we got from my dad this Christmas (I love that my dad now hunts!), so venison stew needed to be made. We based it off of a sausage soup that we'd made recently, which Mister apparently based off of goulash? Any way, it involved frying onions in olive oil and bacon fat (venison is very lean, so needs fat added), browning the meat (which was prechopped to a decent size! I didn't expect that), deglazing the pan with a splash of brandy, adding beef stock, carrots, potatoes and spices: bay, salt, pepper, oregano, paprika, cumin, coriander (for those not in the US, this is the seeds, not the leaves), tarragon and cayenne. I let it cook down for about 4 hours, adding in two other batches of potatoes, so that the finished dish was quite thick from disintegrated potato but still had potato pieces. Oh it was delicious. I served it with crescent rolls from my freezer.

I also made veggie stock today! I pulled out two bags of frozen veg bits from the freezer, one was all potato peels (from Thanksgiving) and one was celery, onion, carrot, parsnips, and a handful of other things. I'm too lazy to go see what I wrote down on the bag. :-P I added that plus a quartered onion and the remains of four heads of lettuce to water and pretty much the same spices as the stew. Oh, and red pepper flakes. I let that cook for about 3 or 4 hours, strained it, and bottled it. It made about 120 oz, split between three 44 oz jars, with enough headroom to let me freeze them. This is super exciting!

Today I also cuddled starter, as she was looking sad in the fridge, and quite deflated. I fed her, and she perked right up sitting next to the simmering soups! She doubled in 4 hours like a healthy starter should, so I started up a proof with a new recipe: I used 1 c. all purpose and 2 c. white whole wheat, a bit of powdered milk, a heaping tablespoon of honey, and about 2 c. filtered water. When I work with it tomorrow morning, I'll just use all purpose flour and probably mix in some dried cranberries. Perhaps I'll also try to add in a cinnamon-sugar swirl when shaping it? I'm so excited to do something beyond a plain sourdough!

Also, for my own benefit, here are some sourdough recipes from sourdoughhome.com

Pizza Crusts
Bagels
Blueberry Muffins <-- I would have made this tonight if I had eggs
Rolls
English Muffins
Kaiser Rolls

Sourdough

I am restarting my sourdough starter. It has languished in the freezer for some time now, and frankly, I've been craving bread. Yet, now that I know how tasty and easy it is (and cheap!), I've been loath to buy it, even at the day-old price of $3.

One thing that's nice about the starter currently is it's much more liquid. I had troubles before with it being a little stiff, and I like the consistency that it is. But I've just fed it tonight and we'll see how it takes to that. A warm jar and a warm bowl to be mixed in can do wonders I feel.

Random Sustainability

So I'm working on several projects towards sustainability. (Mister keeps grumbling that I keep trying to run before I can walk, but really, I'm already AT baby steps!) The first was a project which I completed today (aside from taste testing).



Here is my lovely PB jar filled with grain alcohol in which Lemon Balm has been steeping for almost two weeks. It has already been strained.



Here is the same jar with simple syrup and water added. Looks tasty! I just hope that it is. If so, Project: Lemon Balm Cordial will be a success!

The other project is just starting out today.



Here's my lovely quart jar of sourdough starter -- only just started today. I am using this method to form my sourdough, and I shall post its progress!