Thursday, November 9, 2023

Sourdough Waffles and Cast Iron

In my last post, I told you how I have been experimenting with sourdough. A family favorite has been waffles.  I have tried different types of flour, a mixture of all purpose and cornmeal and every time, they have come out amazingly! It has taken weeks to get enough pictures to be able to even write this out because they disappear so quickly. 

Waffles at least once a week has become a staple. Prior to this, we never really had a waffle iron we liked so we really didn't make waffles. My dad would make waffles at his house and they were always perfect so why would I also make them. For our anniversary this year, we were gifted a waffle iron like my dad's in a cool teal color.

To be fair, we had received a Belgian waffle maker as a gift in the past but we just never really used it except to make buttermilk waffles occasionally. Waffles felt like a lot of prep work and takes forever! Using sourdough though, allowed  requires me to plan the night before. Sometimes we tell ourselves to do this but I am learning with sourdough it is a huge requirement and sometimes a commitment. There are definitely times when the next day I don't want to do something but I already have the dough ready to go so I am already committed (like the doctor's appointment only less hold/waiting room music). It has really forced me to have my morning a little more mapped out. Also, I know everyone tells you that if you do part of it in the evening, the next morning will be easier but those of us who don't do that, never believe them. I can admit though, since I make most of it ahead of time, just adding the egg, maple syrup, salt and baking soda when I get up, it is pretty easy.

Here's the recipe with the rest of the sage is below, in case you are in a hurry.

Sourdough Waffles

2 cups organic flour (or 1.5 cups flour and 1/2 cup cornmeal) - can be AP or Graham flour
1.5 cups water
1 cup active sourdough starter

Mix ingredients together, cover and allow to ferment overnight.

2 eggs
1/2 cup organic olive oil
2 TBSP maple syrup
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda dissolved in 1 TBSP water

Add the eggs, oil, syrup and salt to the batter. Combine thoroughly! It is ok if the batter seems to "deflate" a little.

After it is all mixed, stir in the baking soda mixture. 

Pour batter on waffle iron and enjoy.

Waffles from the teal maker
 

Okay, back to the waffle iron saga. By now I hope y'all know that I am not in love with non-stick appliances or pans. So, if I am going to make waffles for my family every week, I want a better waffle iron option. As an added incentive, Sukkot was coming up which for us means 8 days of camping. My second born has really become a little foodie and last Sukkot, I would wake up to him cooking venison tenderloin on the fire pit using a grate over a half burned out log so he could channel the flame and heat, adjusting however he wished. Long story short, him and I began dreaming about a cast iron waffle iron. 

(Cue music) 

Enter Amazon. No seriously I wouldn't even know where to look locally! So we started researching a Made in the USA cast iron waffle iron or rather a Not made in China cast iron waffle iron. After too much time, I found great reviews for one from Lehman's. I misunderstood that it was not Lehman's but an imported from China, an "other" brand. So that went back and my search for a Lodge or Griswold began. Within a few days, I found one about 3.5 hours from us that looked in good shape and was being sold by someone who wasn't looking for our first born or/and our retirement! I decided a family road trip was in order and the kids happily jumped on board and convinced my husband we all should go ASAP. When we almost cancelled/postponed, tears started to fall. 

A lovely fall foliage ride later, we arrived home with the waffle iron. According to the gentleman selling it, he used only coated the waffle iron in Buzzy Waxx. We did some research and they do have an organic option, which I ordered to try. It seemed to work nicely on our older fajita pan but not so much on my older cast iron scone pan. The directions say so it 3 times and I only did it twice. I will try it again but it didn't wow me. Please also note, I have never felt successful at seasoning cast iron. "It's so easy" they say. "Just stick it in the over" I am told. Humbug, I have yet to have a perfect non-stick coating. Needless to say, I assumed I was just missing the magic touch.

Switching gears, I decided that the gentleman was more an expert than me so the waffle iron was probably fine and headed to YouTube to find me a "how to use a cast iron waffle iron without ruining it" video. I watched a few but one said she used coconut oil. I figured I couldn't mess that up so I seasoned the waffle iron by warming the iron a little and slathering it in organic coconut oil. I wiped off the excess and then baked it at 400 degrees for 1 hour. After the hour was complete, I left the cast iron in the oven to cool overnight. SUCCESS! I realize most people can do this but it actually worked! The results were absolutely amazing. I promptly did the scone pan and feel such a sense of accomplishment. Seriously, my friends would probably pretend not to know me

Anyway, a triple batch of waffles batter awaited me in the morning (a single batch weighs about 800 grams) and only a double batch fits in my KitchenAid Mixer. So I mixed up one batch and cooked it, testing the waffle iron. I burned the first 3 waffles but then got it down.

The best advice I found was to make sure I heat both sides of the iron for 5 minutes before trying to cook. This thing must be hot before you add the batter so don't rush it.

What I learned was that whatever side you start on, you want to open it on that side too. Those first 2 waffles I opened before it was fully cooked and that caused some scraping out. Thankfully it didn't stick but got stuck because it pulled apart in the doughy part of the middle. On my large gas stove burner, after the waffle iron was hot, each side takes about 2 minutes. Here's how I did it:

Pour the batter. Set timer for 2 minutes.
Flip waffle maker, Set timer for 2 minutes.
Flip waffle maker. Open and remove waffle.
Repeat.


I made so many waffles and they came out so perfectly! I will admit, it takes a while. The waffle appliance takes about 1 cup of batter while this waffle iron takes about 1/2 cup of batter. Do the math - yep, twice as many waffles to make. Although the time per waffle was about the same. The conclusion is? I might need a second cast iron waffle maker. 

Happy Fall.

Sunday, September 24, 2023

Experimenting with Sourdough

 Ah, good intentions. I had so many good intentions to write more this year but alas, it is already September (almost October if I don't finish this soon!). 

September's project has been learning to cook with sourdough. I have always wanted to but have had many counter pets given to me by well-meaning friends. For some reason they had confidence in me and my ability to like their pet, enjoy their pet and keep it alive. Thankfully I am much better with real pets.

Last year, for my birthday, my awesome husband got me a grain mill! I had been wanting one for years. Alas it is still in the box! This summer I tried to grow some corn to grind but some animal stripped them from my garden before I even knew they were ready! Let me tell you, it has been a ridiculous experience and not especially fruitful.

Then my son decided he wanted to do a Chemistry class this year. We choose Chemistry in the Kitchen by Guest Hollow and I of course looked ahead and realized he would be learning to make a sourdough starter. As a person who cannot keep one alive, I will admit this terrified me a bit. Those who know me, know exactly where this is going... without a starter, I decided to take out about 20 books from the library on sourdough. Yes it really was at least 20 but I believe at the time I had less than 100 books checked out so it's all good.

Anyway, I quickly returned quite a few and kept four. One of the 20 had a recipe for making a starter from grapes. Guess what? My grapes actually grew this year! Thank you YHWH! The next day, I asked the kids to pick some for me as I recalled the recipe called for a quarter cup. They forgot and I got sidetracked. Two days later, I had my quarter cup of homegrown grapes... but I couldn't find which book had the recipe. 

The grapes sat on the counter for 24 hours.

Finally, I found a different recipe in a different cookbook but it called for more grapes than a quarter cup. Actually, it called for grapes or raisins. Ahh! I thought, I have raisins. I bought a 20 lbs. box of organic raisins that I have barely touched in months.

Hooray! So I whipped up the yeast water late at night. (You know, after the kids are in bed and you should also be in bed but you aren't ready and then bam it is midnight and you still are sitting on the couch because you are too tired to do anything... no, that's just me? Okay then.)

Much to my amazement, it worked!!!


I was so encouraged, I actually kept going! I used the yeast water to start the sourdough starter.


It worked! I now had my own counter pet made from the yeast in my field! I am still totally blown away that I did this.

Now what to do with it? My first recipe was crackers with the discard, which I will share another time as they weren't impressive but edible. Next was waffles. Those were absolutely delicious and to be share another time but as you can see from the photo, I started the yeast water almost a month ago and my sourdough starter is still alive. In fact, I promised the kids waffles in the morning.


Sunday, January 15, 2023

A Time

"For everything there is a season 
and a time for every activity under heaven:  
a time to give birth and a time to die, 
a time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted; 
a time to kill and a time to heal, 
a time to tear down and a time to build up; 
a time to weep and a time to laugh, 
a time to mourn and a time to dance; 
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones, 
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing; 
a time to seek and a time to lose, 
a time to keep and a time to discard; 
a time to tear apart and a time to mend, 
a time to be silent and a time to speak; 
a time to love and a time to hate, 
a time for war and a time for peace.  
Ecclesiastes3:1-8
 
Many have started the new year with resolutions and goals. In the past, as I hang the new calendar on the wall, I also try to look ahead to what I can change. As I grow older and hopefully wiser, I am beginning to realize that a new calendar year is not really the new start that is always advertised. Here it is cold and dark and while the idea of seed catalogs can cheer up a few moments, those are fleeting. This time of year is, perhaps the worst time for me to try something new. Instead it is a time to snuggle in, a time for soups, a time for reading, dreaming and serious contemplation. 
 
I have gotten away from writing, although I visit my own blog often for some of my favorite recipes. Writing was not part of the last few seasons. I am hoping it will be part of the upcoming seasons but only God knows what it truly part of the wild journey I am on. It is strange what brings us back, full circle but not the same. 
 
Initially, this blog was a place for our organic travels but slowly that lifestyle, while essential to our lives, no longer rules every waking moment. Organic is how we roll. The homestead is more consuming, no longer just a small garden, it is a lifestyle. The cow must get milked, cheese must be made, the eggs must be collected, something always must be processed. It is no longer me who is running this homestead; it is a family homestead with our oldest currently feeding and tending the cows, our second cooking and eating and spoiling the rest of us with his creations, our third and fourth caring for the chickens. They all have their pet chickens, their farm chores, their own delights, often even their own gardens. Sometimes they are working alongside us and each other, sometimes they are toiling on their own, working hard on a personal project or doing something for the family. But oh! these cold dark days. Morale runs low and tempers get short, water bins and hoses freeze, and eggs are in short supply. And yet, each trial leaves us learning and growing. 
 
There have been many changes which I hope to share over the coming days, weeks and months. We have gone from a small family on a homestead with a few chickens to a bigger family with livestock. We are learning about natural medicine to compliment my formal training. I am experimenting in cheese, gardening, herbs, and animal husbandry. And yet, some things stay the same: more books that I can ever read, dishes to wash, laundry to do, lessons to learn and a meal to be made. 
 
If someone had told me years ago, this is where I would be, I might have laughed. And now, as we start this new year, I pray that it will be a year of laughter.

Happy New Year.

Sunday, March 14, 2021

Taste of Travel - Spain: The appetizer

Our amazing local librarian received a grant to run Taste of Travel, a little group free to anyone who signed up. Everyone was to receive a special spice or spice blend for each country and a cookbook, Taste The World. You all know how I feel about cooking and books, right? Despite currently taking a six week intensive Charlotte Mason Bootcamp that has 6 days of homework and participating in two different Bible Studies, I couldn't not do participate. Who said life was slower when you can't go anywhere? At least I don't have to milk until Cocoa gives birth in April!

The group meets via Zoom every two weeks and talk about the books, movies and recipes prepared. Two weeks isn't very long to read a book or try lots of recipes but it does keep me stay on task! Researcher that I am, I promptly requested at least three different cookbooks from the library, along with numerous memoirs (primarily about the Camino de Santiago), and The Way DVD.

I started four books and am hoping to finish at least one by this Wednesday when the group meets: It's Not About the TapasHomage to CataloniaOrdinary Magic (audio via Scribd) and The Pilgrimage. I am most of the way through It's Not About the Tapas, although not necessarily because it is the best. I am looking forward to finishing all of them because on Thursday I will need to move on to Japan.

After starting the books, the movie came in and (if you know me at all), you know I couldn't wait. Hoping it would have beautiful panoramic scenes, watching it on the laptop made me cringe. Thankfully, I am blessed to have friends who don't mind me inviting myself over. And oh, am I so glad that large flat screens exist even if we don't own one. The only drawback is I realized that I might be getting old and sentimental. Feel free to reassure me that I am not the only who laughed and cried many times during The Way. The end left me feeling grateful, contemplative and deep wanderlust. It is not a movie I will probably watch again and yet I know that it is the kind of movie that will stay with me for a long time.

After watching one of the characters try many different foods and countless glasses of wine, I was ready to start cooking. I decided to use Sunday as our feast day so the night before, Little E and I made made our steak marinade and Spanish Toasted Almonds from The Latin Road Home by Jose Garces


He melted the 4 TB of butter in a our skillet until it stopped bubbling (this apparently removes any water from the butter. Who knew?) before tossing his 2 cups of raw, unpasteurized Spanish almonds in. 

Little E stirred the almonds until they made the kitchen smell amazing and the butter turned brown. Then together we dumped the almonds onto a lined baking sheet (paper towels or a cloth) and sprinkled with salt. 

It was hard but we let them mostly cool before demolishing them. Thankfully, I have been spending extra time when our Misfit Market produce box and cutting up the veggies all at once allowing me to be able to throw together a quick meal of toasted almonds, fruit and veggies with homemade soft cheese. The only thing missing was fresh crusty bread with balsamic vinegar to dip in, although that might be too French.

Next time, I think we will try them sprinkled with everything bagel seasoning. Supposedly the almonds will last for a while at room temperature. I doubt we will try it as they taste awfully good fresh. Or the following morning with my morning coffee. The rising sun, a cup in my hands, Spanish almonds and a few minutes dreaming of the Camino was a pretty good way to start the day.

Friday, March 22, 2019

Chinese New Year and Cookies

Yes, I realize Chinese New Year has passed a while ago this year. Every year I want to celebrate with the kids because it comes at a perfect time for our family. Our family holiday begins in November with a birthday and then Thanksgiving and continues on with more birthdays, Christmas and the twelve days of Christmas, New Year and another birthday at the end of January. And then like a sneaky child, Chinese New Year arrives and I am left wishing I had more time and energy to make it the fun celebration it could be. The making of a tradition for our family. Except we aren't Chinese. And I never celebrated in school or growing up so I am always left wishing and wondering if I missed an opportunity.

This year I realized something though, Chinese New Year really is the perfect start of our new year as a family. Before that, we are still in holiday mode. Extra plans and fun before Chinese New Year are futile. So I decided to stop making myself crazy trying to start our new year on January 1st. No longer will I try to have my goals planned out by January 1st. No longer will I feel like if we don't have the house clean and ready for the new year on January 1st we are some how not doing it "right." Starting this year, I didn't start thinking about my new year goals until Chinese New Year. Because January 1st is just as arbitrary as Feb 5 or July 19th. We start our school year on August 15th because the local district has us end our school year on June 30th. Are these not just dates picked? At one time the school year ended at planting time but no longer. So this year, I have given myself permission to start our year on another day and another time. It is a little freeing. Try it. Decide to start something today, just because. Maybe a week without sugar or a weekend of saying yes to making time for yourself.

In January, as I talked myself into accepting a new year starting on a different day, I knew that it was also my excuse to celebrate Chinese New Year with the kids. So this year we decided to study China for the month of February. I didn't require us to do everything at specific times and days and we probably did it all wrong but we had a great time doing it. We listened to stories, read books, made crafts and of course decided to cook! We also got some great postcards from China and enjoyed a monthly letter from Isabelle from China. (Letters from Afar)


Now even before our study of China began we have been enjoying exchanging postcards with other people all over the world through Postcrossing. In the month of January, we got an interesting recipe postcard from Singapore.  We made sure to check out different Chinese sweets as well but we kept coming back to this recipe. It hung in the kitchen taunting us. No, it wasn't from China but they sounded tasty and I am usually pretty easily talked into making cookies.



Singapore Christmas Surprise Cookies

80 g. organic old-fashioned oats
1 large organic egg
50 g. organic cranberries (we use Eden Brand)
50 g. organic pistachios
2/3 c. maple syrup
90 g. organic butter, melted
150 g. organic all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp. baking soda

1. Preheat oven to 325.
2. Grease a baking sheet with butter.
3. Whisk butter and maple syrup.
4. Whisk in egg.
5. Stir in the flour, baking soda and oats.
6. Mix in cranberries and nuts.
7. Drop tablespoons of batter onto baking sheet. Decorate with more cranberries and nuts if desired.
8. Bake for 12-16 minutes until puffy and lightly golden.


These cookies were pretty good. I think I liked them more than the kids. They are more of a tea cookie than a sweet dessert cookie. It may sounds odd but it reminded me of the kind of cookie grandmothers would have and serve with an afternoon tea, a little English and a little proper. While they are on the drier side, they weren't so dry you couldn't just eat and enjoy them. Give them a try and let me know what you think and Happy New Year!

Note: I use a food scale for a lot of my recipes. Since this was offered to me using grams, I just changed my scale to accommodate using grams instead of ounces.I didn't convert it but I will next time.

Tuesday, January 1, 2019

Happy 2019

Happy New Year!

These past many months have been very full for me but I have been missing everyone terribly. So mu first goal for the year is to start writing again. So many wonderful changes have happened on the homestead and I look forward to sharing the, in the upcoming weeks.

I am also excited to get back to cooking new recipes. These last almost 20 months I have been shying away from new recipes and concentrating on eating fresh and not wasting. That has been great but sometimes new recipes need to be added or we get into a rut. I tried a new recipe tonight and the push back I got from the kids reminded me that staying with our favorites can also limit us. Granted the recipe wasn't blow your socks off great, it certainly was edible! It was mashed butternut squash with garlic, onions, bacon, brie and spinach. I know it sounds weird but it was ok. The bacon wrapped venison was much better, as was the homemade bread. I digress.


As we begin the fresh new year, I hope to get back into the writing and reading. Happy 2019!

Monday, March 6, 2017

Chocolate & Toasted Coconut Maple Muffins

I know February is short but goodness it flew by. We had a nice stretch of warm weather and the sap was flowing. The days were beautiful. I planted some small garlic bulbs from the scapes that I didn't get around to planting last fall. It even got so warm that we were able to get back into the three remaining bee colonies and make sure they were alive and give them some food in case they need it. Needless to say, the days all ran together. The one consistent thing? Muffins.

Tuesday, February 21, 2017

Chocolate Maple Pudding and Goals

Oh February, how you  tease me with your warm weather. The days are getting lighter and warmer but that cold dampness is still in the air. Sap season has started so spring is on it's way and just like every winter, I have big dreams for being outdoors and the garden.

For the holiday of love, we decided to indulge in some dark, delicious chocolate pudding. Yum!

Sunday, February 12, 2017

Hello February 2017

So let's just let a snowy wind blow away my missing week or two. Have you seen the snow outside? My goodness it is almost 2 feet deep! The chickens are not impressed. The children on the other hand are thrilled.

I am thrilled to say that I did in fact keep our grocery budget as well as every other budget we set. So this post is going to be a purely a goal update but I promise to get back to delicious recipes very soon.

Monday, January 23, 2017

Sausage, Beans and Goals

Sorry I missed you last week. I got knocked down by a terrible head cold. When I finally started to feel human around Thursday, it was just in time to cook and clean for L2's birthday. So now that I am feeling better, I am playing a bit of catch up. Thankfully the weather has been lovely so the kids haven't been under foot while I do laundry and dishes. The quiet house has given me some unexpected and welcome time to enjoy The Dave Ramsey show with minimal interruptions.

If you have never listened to his show, or read any of his books (I am currently reading The Total Money Makeover), his show is definitely inspirational. It has been inspiring me to continue working our budget without coming up with creative ways to cheat or talk myself out of it. For now though, I have been sticking to all our goals.