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Raised Waffles
What is a Sunday morning without waffles? I’m not talking about eggos. The waffles I am talking about are the kind of waffles you make up the night before using yeast. You let them rise overnight and then add the eggs in the morning, just before you cook them. They are crispy on the exterior, soft inside and malty with the remnants of the yeast party that happened while you were peacefully sleeping and dreaming of a plate of this goodness!
Sorry that all you get is a photo of the mix. I was too busy diving in to actually photograph the waffle. I’ll get one up here someday.
| Yeast Raised Waffles |
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- 1/2 cup warm water
- 1 package dry yeast
- 2 cups warm milk
- 1/2 cup melted butter
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 eggs
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- Use a large mixing bowl (at least 6 quarts) as the batter will rise to double its original volume. Put the water in the mixing bowl and sprinkle in the yeast. Let stand to dissolve for 5 minutes. Add the milk, butter, salt, sugar, and flour to the yeast mixture and beat until smooth and blended. A whisk or fork will work just fine.
- Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, go to bed, and let stand overnight at room temperature.
- Just before cooking the waffles, separate your eggs, lightly beat the yolks and fold them into your mix. Then whip your eggs whites until stiff peaks form(this is the true trick to the best wafles ever) and fold them into the mix. Add the baking soda, and stir until well mixed. The batter will be very thin.
- Pour about 1/2 to 3/4 cup batter into a very hot waffle iron. Bake the waffles until they are golden and crisp. This batter will keep well for several days in the refrigerator.
- This should make about 8 waffles.
Zucchini pickles.
I love pickles. All kinds of pickles. So for that reason I am not sure why I never tried zucchini pickles, but that wasn’t going to last long.
A couple of weeks ago I read a post over at Lottie and Doof about zucchini pickles and I knew that was what I had to put up next. So I did.
And this is what I ended up with.
The lighting is terrible and I need a real camera if I am going to keep doing this, but you get the idea. They turned out great! The taste is amazing. Sweet, but tangy and they have a nice crunch. So click over to Lottie and Doof and check it out. They have better picures too.
The Lettuce is Coming! The Lettuce is Coming!
See those little green shoots? That is our lettuce crop for the fall.
Tomatoes everywhere. Time to can some tomato sauce.
So, last weekend I got the bug to go pick tomatoes at one of our local U-Pick Farms. It was Day Farms up in Layton. It is a great place and just a short drive from SLC.
It really was a beautiful Day. Not too hot and not too cool. Just right for the back breaking job of tomato and pepper gathering.
So I sent the laborer off into the fields…
And we came home with this!
And a case of peaches and a case of peppers and a bag of zucchini and a bunch of corn. Day Farms is a great place!
Two days later I was canning tomato sauce and tomato paste.
It took all day but I did end up with 10 quarts and 9 pints of sauce and 11 4oz jars of Tomato paste. Today I am working on more sauce. Should get another 10 pints or so.
The process is pretty easy so check out the photos below and have fun.
First you roughly chop up about 12 pounds of tomatoes and put skins, seeds and all into a large pot to simmer. (I leave the skins and seeds on to add depth and flavor) You will also notice chopped garlic in that photo. I added one clove per 12 lb batch for added depth as well. No salt. I’ll do that when I cook.
You should have a pot like this.
Notice the super cool Portable Induction Cooktop
Once you get it warmed up and simmering you can mash it a bit with a masher.
Simmer some more (1/2 hour I guess) and then dump it into your food processor to puree the whole lot of it. Better yet, if you have an Immersion Blender
Then you simmer some more (1/2 hour I guess).
And then ladle it into a Food Mill
Then return it to the pot to simmer some more. You want to go from about 7 quarts to about 5 quarts of sauce. Then bottle your sauce in quart or pint jars and process it in your pressure canner per the directions as they are laid out for your region and altitude. In my case it was 13 lbs of pressure for 25 minutes.
When you are done ( in my case I did it four times), you will end up with this…
Want to make tomato paste? Then roast your tomatoes in a 450 degree oven for about 1/2 an hour – 45 minutes. Then follow the steps above and simmer to a lovely thick paste.
Making Sunbutter – Sunflower butter the easy and cheap way.
We recently found that one in our household had a peanut butter allergy and being lovers of the famous PB&J this hit us hard. We knew we had to find a substitute that we could all live with. Enter SunButter, the peanut butter substitute to brighten your day!
Well, at about $5.00 a jar, it hurt, but we needed to do it. It tastes very similar to peanut butter and made those bleary eyed morning lunch packing chores much easier. I just couldn’t stomach the price though and last week I started googling recipes. What I am posting here today is a conglomeration of a couple that I found and seems to be the road to a sunflower butter that closely rivals that of the store bought product.
Ingredients to assemble:
3 cups roasted sunflower seeds. (Use raw sunflower seeds and roast your own. DO NOT buy pre-roasted or salted seeds as they are too dry and too salty)
1 teaspoon sea salt. (I prefer Maldon)
1 teaspoon sugar
Sunflower (or any oil of choice) to drizzle.
I started with roasting 3 cups of sunflower seeds that were under $2 a pound at our local Whole Foods. It takes just about 5 minutes on the stove in a heavy pan, I prefer the All-Clad French Skillet
When most of your sunflower seeds are golden brown you are ready for the next step. Now pour all of your seeds into your food processor along with a teaspoon of sea salt and the teaspoon of sugar (you can add more to taste later if you wish) . It is going to be running for a long time and will probably get hot. Don’t panic. If you have a sturdy, quality, food processor, you shouldn’t have any problems. I use a Cuisinart Elite 12-Cup Food Processor
Once you have your seeds loaded up you are ready to go! So turn it on. In just about 30 seconds you should have a pretty grainy batch of ground up sunflower seeds. Most recipes tell you stop here and add the oil. Don’t. Let it keep going so that the seeds can release the oil within them, naturally.
Here is the grainy stage.
Keep going and you will see it starting to clump.
At this point you want to start using a rubber spatula to scrape down the sides. Do this every so often, but don’t be afraid to walk away and open up your chicken coop for the day. I did. Found an egg.
It’s getting shinier.
Then you will soon be here.
Now you can start drizzling in the oil a little at a time until you reach a nice spreadable consistency.
And here it is, looking good.
Scoop it into a pint jar and you are ready to go!!! Sunbutter for less than half the cost of store bought and in less time than it takes to load up the kids and head to the store!!!
Dilly Beans My Way – Or, how I can’t follow instructions.
Last weekend we made a trip up to Day Farms. We had never been and I wanted to check out what they had before we head up for the U-pick opening of watermelon and tomatoes next weekend. Well, I picked up a couple pounds of green beans and after asking for ideas on Facebook I ended up with the overwhelming urge to make Dilly Beans.
So I pulled out my canning book(The Art of Preserving (Williams-Sonoma)
I look at my garden this way, when pickling season comes your garden provides everything you need for pickles. The dill is dry, the Garlic Chives are blooming, the herbs are prolific and the veggies hopefully are as well. So, pick what you need and pickle away I say.
There they are all laid out on the left. Anaheim Chili Slices, Garlic Chive Blossoms and leaves, and Dill heads. A little for each jar. In a separate pot I prepared the hot brine of vinegar, water and salt. I then Packed the jars tightly with the beans, blossoms, chilis and Dill. After packing the jars you add your hot brine to about the last quarter inch, wipe the top and then cover and process in a water bath. I went 25 minutes for my altitude.
If you want to ignore what I did and do it the traditional way, here is a recipe for you:
Dilly Beans
2 lbs. trimmed green beans
- 4 heads dill
4 cloves garlic(I used garlic chive blossoms and leaves)
1 tsp. cayenne pepper (Iused a large slice of Anaheim chili)
2-1/2 cups vinegar
2-1/2 cups water
1/4 cup canning salt (don’t substitute regular salt, it will make a cloudy brine!)Pack beans lengthwise into hot jars, leaving 1/4 inch head space. To each pint, add 1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper, 1 clove garlic and 1 head dill. Combine remaining ingredients in a large sauce pot (non-reactive, like an enamel or glass pot). Bring to a boil. Pour hot liquid over beans, leaving 1/4 inch head space. Remove air bubbles. Adjust caps. Process pints and quarts 10 minutes in boiling water bath.
Yield: about 4 pints.
When all is said and done you will have something that looks like this!
Dilly Beans My Way – Or, how I can’t follow instructions.
Last weekend we made a trip up to Day Farms. We had never been and I wanted to check out what they had before we head up for the U-pick opening of watermelon and tomatoes next weekend. Well, I picked up a couple pounds of green beans and after asking for ideas on Facebook I ended up with the overwhelming urge to make Dilly Beans.
So I pulled out my canning book(The Art of Preserving (Williams-Sonoma)
I look at my garden this way, when pickling season comes your garden provides everything you need for pickles. The dill is dry, the Garlic Chives are blooming, the herbs are prolific and the veggies hopefully are as well. So, pick what you need and pickle away I say.
There they are all laid out on the left. Anaheim Chili Slices, Garlic Chive Blossoms and leaves, and Dill heads. A little for each jar. In a separate pot I prepared the hot brine of vinegar, water and salt. I then Packed the jars tightly with the beans, blossoms, chilis and Dill. After packing the jars you add your hot brine to about the last quarter inch, wipe the top and then cover and process in a water bath. I went 25 minutes for my altitude.
If you want to ignore what I did and do it the traditional way, here is a recipe for you:
Dilly Beans
2 lbs. trimmed green beans
- 4 heads dill
4 cloves garlic(I used garlic chive blossoms and leaves)
1 tsp. cayenne pepper (Iused a large slice of Anaheim chili)
2-1/2 cups vinegar
2-1/2 cups water
1/4 cup canning salt (don’t substitute regular salt, it will make a cloudy brine!)Pack beans lengthwise into hot jars, leaving 1/4 inch head space. To each pint, add 1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper, 1 clove garlic and 1 head dill. Combine remaining ingredients in a large sauce pot (non-reactive, like an enamel or glass pot). Bring to a boil. Pour hot liquid over beans, leaving 1/4 inch head space. Remove air bubbles. Adjust caps. Process pints and quarts 10 minutes in boiling water bath.
Yield: about 4 pints.
When all is said and done you will have something that looks like this!
Brewing Beer on the SLC Urban Farm.
I have a day off today and on top of everything else I do I thought it would be a good idea to take some time and brew 5 gallons of beer. So that is what I did.
My assistant immediately set to work assisting and I started the mash.
In the end The house smelled great and I had a pot of wet grain.
And that is the part that the ladies who lay eggs liked best.
