Cranberry Sourdough Waffles

Have you sometimes wondered what to do with that left-over Cranberry Sauce beyond smearing it on the very important turkey sandwich on white bread, with mayonnaise and potato chips, (which is is a must, in my opinion), but what about after that? Well let me tell you; crispy sourdough waffles, smothered in Cranberry Orange Sauce are the answer. We unanimously "mmmed", "oohed" and "ahhed" over this combination. The tangy cranberry pairs so well with the "Sour" in the Sourdough Waffles, that it seems just flat to eat the waffles without the sauce... and now that the Cranberry Orange Sauce is all gone, but the waffles still remain in the freezer, I am considering making another batch of the sauce, so that the waffles don't seem flat... haha. But all that to say, "you're really gonna like these, so you gotta give this a try".


This sourdough waffle recipe is a recipe that my daughters have often made during their visits here. The recipe is an adaptation from All-Recipe's "Sam's Sourdough Waffles" Recipe, and it is delicious. The waffles are crisp outside, fluffy inside, with a wonderful flavor, and are perfect eaten fresh, or frozen and re-toasted. We have a whole batch in the freezer right now, and have been enjoying them all week... with the Cranberry Orange Sauce, of course.

 

Ingredients:

• 2 cups Einkorn, Spelt, or Organic All-Purpose Flour
• 1 1/2 cups Water
• 1 cup Sour Dough Starter
• 1/2 cup Cooking Oil (my favorite is Avocado Oil)
• 2 Eggs
• 2 Tablespoons Coconut Sugar or Organic Non GMO Cane Sugar
• 2 teaspoons Himalayan Salt
• 1 Tablespoon water
• 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
• 1 cup Cranberry Orange Sauce
• 1/2 cup Pure Maple Syrup
• 2 Tablespoons Water
• Organic Powdered Sugar for dusting
• Oranges or Mandarins for Garnish

Its best to start this the night before you want to make waffles.

1. In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, 1 1/2 cups water, and sourdough starter. Mix well. Cover loosely with plastic wrap or paper towel and let sit in a warm place 4 -12 hours.
2. Once the batter has been sitting 4 -12 hours, and is bubbly, add oil, eggs, sugar, and salt; mix well to combine. 
3. Whisk 1 tablespoon water and baking soda together in a small bowl until dissolved. Fold into the batter with a rubber spatula.  
4. Preheat the waffle Iron.
5. Spoon in batter into the waffle iron, and cook until waffles are crispy.
6. While the Waffles are cooking, place 1 cup Cranberry Orange Sauce into a sauce pan, and add 1/2 cup Pure Maple Syrup, and 2 tablespoons of water.
7. Heat until warm and well combined.
8. Spoon hot over hot, buttered waffles
9. Dust with powdered sugar
10. Enjoy!

They are so yummy, even for dinner, with sausage and eggs.

Meatball Sandwich Muffins

I don't know about you, but I do love a Hot Meatball Sandwich.  On those rare occasion that we eat at a Sub shop, the Hot Meatball Sandwich is usually the one I order.  These muffins are inspired by my love for those Meatball Sandwiches. These are made with bread dough and stuffed with pre-made meatballs and chunks of Mozzarella cheese. Dip them in Marinara Sauce and they are Mm Mm good. For this recipe I did use pre made bread dough, like I did for the Reuben Muffins for convenience sake, but of course, you can use whatever kind of dough you would like.  Also, this recipe now a class offered on Skillshare , so if you are interested in the video, just click this link.

Meatballs

Cheese Slices

and bread dough are all the ingredients you need to make these.

Serve Warm 

With Marinara or Spaghetti Sauce

Meatball Sandwich Muffins

Ingredients:
Bread dough: 24 frozen dinner rolls, thawed  (about 2 1/2 pounds bread dough)
24 Pre made Meatballs
24  slices Mozerella or Provolone Cheese (about 2 inches by 2 inches)
Marinara Sauce

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Roll and stretch each roll until it is about 4 inches across.
3. Top with cheese and then Meatball.
4. Stretch dough over meatball and cheese.
5. Squeeze dough together at the seems, to form a dough ball.
6. Place in greased Muffin Tin.
7. Allow to rise 30 - 45 minutes, or until doubled in size.
8. Bake 15 -20 minutes or until golden brown.
9. Remove from oven and cool 5 minutes before serving.
10. Serve with Marinara Sauce for dipping.
11. Enjoy!

Dip

and bite….

and dip and….

bite…. and dip and….

bite…. its like exercise… really it is.

Wholesome Orange Spice Cinnamon Rolls

Steve was hungry for some Cinnamon Rolls, and they sounded good to me too.  So I went ahead and made some.  I often use my Whole Wheat Bread Dough recipe for Cinnamon rolls, but I decided I wanted to try Heavenly Homemaker's Whole Wheat Cinnamon Roll Recipe this time, with my own variation to it.   They came out really yummy.  The recipe is at the bottom.

You might ask "Can Cinnamon Rolls be wholesome?" and my answer would be yes.  If you use whole grains and fresh organic ingredients they are a healthy wholesome treat; and these are moist and gooey and fulfill that "comfort food" longing that you might get... you get that longing don't you?  I know I do.

Wholesome Orange Spice Cinnamon Rolls.

1 cup water

2 Tablespoons yeast

2 teaspoons honey

2 1/2 cups milk

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup honey

4 teaspoons sea salt

8 cups whole wheat flour

For the dough…

In a large bowl, mix 1 cup very warm water, 2 T. yeast and 2 t. honey.  Stir this together and kind of mush the yeast around.  

Let this sit for a few minutes while you do the next step.

Melt a stick of butter in a large saucepan.  Add 1/2 cup honey, 4 t. salt and 2 1/2 cups of milk.  Heat this to 120 degrees.

Pour milk mixture into yeast mixture and stir.  Stir in 8 cups of flour, 2 cups at a time. (add more if you need it)

Knead the dough for 5-10 minutes.  Plop it into a bowl, cover it and let it rise for 1-1 1/2 hours.

After dough is nice and fat, punch it down and knead out all it’s bubbles.  Cut the dough in half, setting one half aside. 

On a well floured surface, roll dough into a nice big rectangle, about 1/4 inch thick.

Use a pastry brush to spread 1/2 of the melted butter all over the rectangle.  Sprinkle 1/2 of the rapadura/cinnamon 

mixture all over the butter; you may add nuts at this point (my addition).

Roll up the dough.  Cut into thin slices, about 1/2 inch thick.   Place rolls side by side on baking pan. Repeat process with 

other 1/2 of dough.  Allow dough to rise about 45  minutes to an hour, depending on the temperature of your home (Laura's 

instructions called for 30 minute raise time... it took mine almost an hour ... I believe the temperature in your kitchen 

makes a big difference.). Bake for 25 minutes or until golden brown at 350 degrees.  Allow rolls to cool a bit, then drizzle lots

 and lots of frosting.

Ingredients for the inside of your cinnamon rolls: 

 At this point I changed the recipe by increasing butter and 

cinnamon, and did my own thing for the frosting.   I have written the ingredient variations the way I made them, but feel 

free to use the link above and pop over to her site and do it the way she has it if you prefer.

3/4 - 1  cup butter

3/4 cup rapadura or sucanat (dehydrated cane sugar juice) (you can use white sugar if you want)

4 Tablespoon ground cinnamon 

Melt your butter and set it aside.  Mix together the rapadura and cinnamon in a bowl or sprinkle on separately.  

Orange Spice Frosting

1/2 cup butter

6 Tablespoons milk

1  teaspoon vanilla 

2 teaspoons grated orange rind

2 Tablespoons orange juice

1/2 teaspoon clove

4-5  cups powdered sugar to make the consistency you like

Melt butter.  Remove from heat and stir in vanilla, orange rind, juice, clove, milk and powdered sugar.  

Whisk together until smooth. 

Thanks Laura

Enjoy Everyone

Irish Soda Bread

I've been away  from Blogland far too long.  I think since Steve's accident, I have had  a harder time blogging consistently.    I had a wonderful month's summery in pictures to share with you, and realized after I started to down load that I , again, had my camera with the wrong storage designation, and the pictures  would not down load.  So frustrating.  So I said to myself "should I post without my pictures?" Well, I guess I am half way there so I might as well put something down.

We had a fun little Irish dinner tonight for St. Patrick's day.  It is our tradition to have the Corned Beef, potatoes and cabbage and Irish Soda Bread on St. Patrick's Day.  How about you guys, do you fix something like that.  Of course its always nice to buy the Corned Beef when its on sale.

Speaking of green (well in a round about way we were speaking of green weren't we?)  We have been seeing green coming upon the land, and are feeling the joy of spring coming.   We have an expression when it gets so green and pretty; "It looks like Ireland".  And so today, it looks like Ireland and it tastes like Ireland at our house.   We got our spring garden beds ready throughout the week.  We  planted peas, garlic, onions and a few other spring veggies.  It sure felt good to get out there in the sunshine and dirt. It feels like life is returning to me as well.

Steve and Eddie and Luke were able to get the chicken coup up at last, and I feel so happy about that.  I will have to take some more pictures and show them to you another time.  Steve goes in for another surgery on his leg at the end of this week, so keep him your prayers if you don't mind. He is going to get the metal removed (he had two screws that broke)  He is doing good other wise.

My Family has been re-arranging.  As I mentioned in the previous post that Nathan and Himilce were moving to North Carolina, well, now Marie and Jon and babies have moved to Florida... Jon was offered a job in the same town that Elizabeth and Benjamin are in... and if you can imagine this, the house  next door to Elizabeth and Benjamin became available to rent.  So guess who rented it?
It is so sweet, and there are many cute stories to come out of that bit of news... but I will save it for another post perhaps.  And lastly, Olga has moved down to the Phoenix area with my sister and brother in law.  So  there you have it.

The Irish Soda Bread  is really good.  I make it often, and not just for St. Patrick's day, because it is one of the easiest and quickest ways to offer fresh warm bread to our family dinner. Its crusty outside and warm and moist inside and is amazing  spread with a little butter and even some jam.  Here is the recipe, I hope you enjoy.

  White Irish Soda Bread

4 cups (16 oz) of all purpose flour.
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2  - 2 cups of of buttermilk

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Lightly grease a round cast iron skillet or dutch oven (or you may use a round cake pan or even a cookie sheet.

Mix dry ingredients together.  Slowly add the buttermilk and stir until slightly wet and sticky.  You may add any other ingredients you wish.... raisins, oats, butter, egg, cheese; its up to you.  I usually leave mine plain, but I am not opposed to adding some goodies on occasion.  Pour out onto a floured surface and pat into a flat round then put into the iron skillet.  Be sure not to knead this bread (which would cause your bread to be tough). This reminds me of making biscuits, except you cook it in one big loaf rather than cutting up biscuits.  With a knife cut  an X in the top of the bread; this will allow the bread to cook more thoroughly in the middle.

Bake with lid on for about 30 minutes, and then remove lid and bake another 15 minutes.
Cool about five minutes, and then slice and slather with butter.

Enjoy.

I hope you all are doing well.  I will be catching up with you on your blogs the next couple of days.

Blessings to you all

Pam

Whole Wheat Bread

Yesterday, Luke and I spent the day in the kitchen baking.  I made whole wheat bread and hamburger buns, and he made pita bread, raviollis and egg noodles.   I think I am gaining weight now that Luke moved back home.  He is a great cook, and I am an enthusiastic encourager.  The other night I told him I had been thinking about the Stromboli he had made us several days before.  A couple of hours later (bedtime to be exact) he came up stairs with a fresh, out of the oven, plate of Stromboli and homemade Bruschetta.  Needless to say, I did not give my waistline a thought, I simply devoured...(expect a post on dieting, exercise and loosing weight from me in the near future) Haha.

So, Todays post is my favorite whole wheat bread recipe.  It is what I make most of the time when baking bread..... and a few pictures of our baking and cooking day together.

 

The first of Luke's egg noodles drying.

Pita Bread fresh out of the oven.

 Whole wheat bread rising.

I think homemade bread is beautiful, not only to taste, but also to look at.  I  think a loaf of whole wheat bread looks like a classical painting.  About 12 years ago, Steve bought me 2 machines that I have loved.  One is a Grain Master Whisper Mill, and the other is a Bosch Mixer. 

Look at that pretty wheat.  I didn't get a picture of my wheat grinder, but I did have this picture.

The Whisper Mill is a convenient electric grain mill  which  can easily grind wheat (or other grains) fresh every time I make bread or desire flour.  I can store my wheat berries with no worries of spoilage and yet still have whole wheat flour when I need it (once berries have been ground into flour, the germ is exposed to oxygen, and will soon begin oxidizing, causing the flour to become rancid in a short amount of time. Mass marketing in the 20th century brought us flour with the germ removed, which gives a longer shelf life, but cheats us out of vital nutrients contained in the grain.  This is why I love to grind my flour fresh as opposed to buying it.  .  We recently started grinding some wheat berries that we had in storage for over 10 years.  The grains were fresh, clean and ready to grind.  The flour made delicious bread.  Wheat berries if stored in a clean, fairly cool environment, will actually remain nutritious and intact for thousands of years.  Wheat berries which were discovered in Pharoah's tomb were found to contain all vitamins and minerals still intact,  and were able to be sprouted and also ground for bread after 5000 years. God sure knows how to package and preserve food doesn't He?

There are several good quality mixers on the market, but for making whole wheat bread, my favorite, is my Bosch Mixer, which is a wonderful heavy duty mixer that allows me to mix and knead  dough in large quantities (5-6 loaves at a time), without worries of burning up the motor, which incidentally I did with a couple of bread machines years ago from excess whole wheat bread making.  

The first mixture of bread dough sponging in my Bosch machine.

The recipe I use for my basic whole wheat bread is one I got from the little bread making supply store that we bought these machines from.  They were located in Denver but I can't even remember their name now... they are no longer in business. Everyday they did demonstrations for grinding wheat, making breads, buns, rolls, pizza etc. I have been using the recipe ever since.

Basic Whole Wheat Bread

Grind approximately 10 cups Wheat Berries in your Wheat Grinder. This produces about 16 or 17 cups of flour.

In your mixing bowl put:

6 cups of very warm water (when it is hot to the touch, but not scalding)

1/3 cup oil (I use olive oil... you could use whatever you like)

1/3 cup honey (if you use the measuring cup for your oil first, then measure the honey, the honey comes out of the cup easily)

2 tablespoons yeast (I use instant or fast acting yeast)

5 cups wholewheat flour

Mix together and let sponge 10 - 15 minutes.... until bubbly.

Turn on mixer and add:

1 1/2 tablespoons salt

1/3 cup gluten (this gives the bread a softer, airier, stretchier texture; in recent years I have been leaving this out. I sometimes add a cup or two of white flour if I am craving that softer airier texture).

Approximately 9- 1l cups more flour) Each time you make bread, your flour measurements can be different, depending on the moisture in the flour or the moisture in the air, or whether the flour is freshly ground, or has been ground previously (the flour will be more compact, the longer it is stored as flour). The best way to determine if you need more flour is to watch as you put in each cup. Once it no longer sticks to the sides of the bowl, you have enough.

Add ins may be added at this point... such as sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, oatmeal, dill or caraway seed what ever you like.



Knead for 5-6 minutes if you have a Bosch Machine, or 7-10 with a standard mixer (if using a standard mixer, cut this recipe in half or 1/3), 13-15 minutes for hand kneading (not for me).


Put bread dough onto an oiled surface (this keeps the bread moist, where a floured surface can dry out whole wheat bread). Cut dough into portions for each loaf pan, pat them nicely into a log shaped loaf and place into oiled pan. This recipe makes 4-5 large loaves, or 5-6 medium loaves. I also use the dough to make pizza, cinnamon buns, hamburger buns and rolls.


I grease my bread pans with natural shortening or Pam type spray or you can also use a mixture of oil with a little bit of liquid lecithin as described below: Also, a narrow sided bread pan is best, in order to support the rising bread dough, providing better chance that your dough will not collapse in the center.

1 Tablespoon lecithin (this adds to the non-sticking quality of the oil)

2 Tablespoons oil

You can keep a mixture of this in your fridge for ready use.

Allow bread, or rolls time to double in size (this will vary depending on the temperature, and also the size of what you are baking.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Bake bread approximately 25- 40 minutes depending on the size of your loaf.  You may use a thermometer to check the internal temperature; you will want it to be about 195 degrees.  I don't ever use a thermometer, but take it out once it is lightly golden.

Dough waiting to be oiled, and divided into loaves and rolls.

Rising Loaf

Rising Hamburger Buns

I added sunflower seeds to this batch of bread and rolls, which is a variation we enjoy.

Cinnamon rolls and sticky buns are a yummy way to enjoy healthy, wholesome, bread.

Cinnamon Buns rising

Look at that wholesome chicken salad sandwich with mounds of fresh veggies heaped onto the whole wheat bread.