April's Bread and suggestions

Our family moved into the full speed ahead garden/work/fencing/concrete mode over the past few weeks.  Additionally, our daughter and son in law moved back to help us with our farm and business.  These are some wonderful, exciting changes in our lives.  

Every year at this time, my hubby and I go through a lot of shifting gears as the weather warms up and the demands on our time grow exponentially.  Sorry I haven't been on visiting with all of you, my blog community, very much, but in the interim..... my friend April has been cooking up a storm.  She is a wonderful baker and cook and has been applying the principals of nutrient dense cooking to some of her favorite recipes.  What a joy it is to see so many families come up with their "own" recipe from the springboard of someone else's recipe! 

(here is a non-nutrient dense cake she did for their son's birthday.... it is way too cool to not share it with all of you :)

Thanks April for sharing these tips and ideas with us.  

Recipe for that awesome sourdough

(or.... April's sourdough recipe!)

1 cup sourdough starter
2 cups water
1 Tbsp. sea salt or kosher salt
3 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
1 Tbsp raw honey
1 cup organic white flour
3 cups whole wheat flour

Mix all of the above on the lowest speed of your mixer for at least 6 minutes, to help develop the gluten. If you just bring them together quickly and leave it to rise, the dough has no elasticity. After mixing, place into your bowl, cover and let rise a minimum of 24 hours. Any less than that, and the yeast flavor takes over, and it doesn't taste like sourdough.

After the 24 hour rise, dissolve one teaspoon rapid rise yeast in about 2T water, and add a pinch of honey or sugar to the yeast. Pour this over the sponge, and work it in with a wooden spoon. Then work in one cup of whole wheat flour and turn the dough out onto the counter. Knead in another cup of WW flour. Place dough ball into a 5 quart cast iron dutch oven, and allow to rise for one hour. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cut two slits in the top of the loaf, cover with the dutch oven lid, and bake at 400 for one hour. Remove lid, and bake an additional 10 minutes. Yum!

Meat Pies

Use some of the sourdough from the above recipe and roll it out.

Add taco meat and sour cream....

Fold over....

Seal it up all pretty!

Ready to go in 350 oven for about 30 minutes. One sourdough recipe and one pound of ground beef makes 12 meat pies!

Cinnamon Rolls

(hey... how come I didn't get one of these?)

Butter the pan generously. This is a 10x15 inch pan.

First, lots of cinnamon.

Then brown sugar and drizzle melted butter.

Roll it up!

Cut in slices about 1 1/2 inches wide.

After a 45 minute rise.

Bake at about 30 minutes in a 350 oven.