Day 13 Sourdough Blueberry Muffins and Chicken Noodle Soup

There's a cold making its way through our family.  Today I fought back with one of my favorite childhood Sunday dinners of chicken noodle soup and sourdough blueberry muffins.  Even if dinner doesn't actually fight off the virus, it certainly provided some comfort food to everyone.

I'm really enjoying using all of these sourdough recipes.  I'm especially excited that the starter that I began less than two weeks ago can be used to duplicate recipes that I've enjoyed at other points in my life.  We've asked our Bread 101 students to create a personal timeline around bread, and I think mine would have to include a 2014 label for realizing just how important sourdough starter has been throughout my life.  Fascinating!

Sourdough Blueberry Muffins
1 1/2 c Red Fife flour (Lonesome Whistle Farm)
1/2 c rye flour (Lonesome Whistle Farm)
1/2 c milk
1/2 t cinnamon
1 egg
1/4 c oil
1/4 c applesauce (our tree)
1/2 c sugar
3/4 t baking soda
1 c blueberries (Thistledown Farm)
3/4 c sourdough starter

Mix ingredients together in the order listed.  Mix until just moist but do not beat batter.  Put into well-oiled muffin tins or muffin baking paper.  Bake 25-30 minutes 375F.

Chicken Soup with Egg Noodles
1 egg
1/8 t salt
use small egg shell to get water to mix with egg.  Beat well.

3/4 c Red Fife flour (Lonesome Whistle Farm)
Add in flour until mixture makes a sticky ball.  Let dough stand 15 minutes.  Roll dough until very thin and then cut into desired shape.  I roll it over and cut diagonally to make V-shaped noodles.

Heat soup stock (today stock from a chicken that was first roasted with lemon, garlic and spices from Fair Valley Farm) and bring to a boil.  Add in noodles and boil until they float.  Add in cooked chicken pieces and carrots (and other vegetables if desired). The prescription for my family: eat a warm dinner, go to bed early, and enjoy leftovers for the rest of the week.

Day 7 Amish Friendship Bread

It seems reasonable that while I'm waiting for my starter to mature that I should try out the other recipes I have floating around for sourdough starter.  I was reminded of this Friendship Bread recipe by a student on the first day of our Bread 101 course who shared a friendship bread as one of her early bread memories.

I was reminded of receiving a bag of starter from a friend's Mom along with a recipe to make this recipe.  Her recipe was almost identical to several available on line include this from this website devoted entirely to "Amish Friendship Breads."  The instructions included 5 days of mushing the bag, day 6 adding flour, sugar and milk to the starter and then allowing it to be in the bag for another 3 days before baking.  The quantities are large enough to give each of 3 friends a bag of 1 cup of starter and make 2 loaf pans each time this bread is baked.  My friends were experimenting with how to make a recipe that calls for 2 cups of sugar, a box of instant vanilla pudding, and all while flour could be more healthy with less oil, whole wheat and soy flours, and applesauce.    I find it really fascinating that this starter seems to rely very heavily on sugar and milk especially since discovering just how easy it really is to begin a starter with just flour and water.  There are warnings in many places about not refrigerating this starter and never touching it with metal. 

For this version, I decided that I didn't need to spend an extra 9 days mushing a bag of starter because mine is very active already.  I also wanted to experiment more with reducing the sugar and using whole grain flours.  The recipe suggests baking in either 2 loaf pans or a bundt pan. I found it easier to just use the one pan.  It's a sweet bread, and I like the addition of the blueberries and nuts.  I cannot imagine adding in another 1 cup of sugar as called for in the recipe because I think the sweet would just be overpowering.

Amish Friendship Bread

1 c starter

1/2 c flour

1/4 c milk

1/2 c canola oil

1/2 c applesauce (our tree)

1/2 c sugar

1/2 c milk

3 eggs

1 1/2 c Red Fife Wheat (from Lonesome Whistle Farms)

1/2 c rye flour (from Lonesome Whistle Farms)

1 1/2 t vanilla

1/4 t salt

2 t cinnamon

1 1/2 t baking powder

1/2 t baking soda

1/2 c chopped filberts (from Thistledown Farm)

1 c blueberries (from Thistledown Farm)

Mix all the ingredients together.  Preheat oven to 325.  Grease one bundt cake (or 2 loaf pans).  Sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar.  Bake for one hour.

It still tastes good even if a cat jumps onto it while chasing a fly...

Day 6 and Sourdough Pancakes

Since beginning this starter, I've been reflecting on how many different ways sourdough has been in my life through recipes and sharing with friends.  However, I have never created my own.  I've always inherited it from someone else, and I've not successfully used a starter to bake a traditional loaf of bread but mostly for sweet and quick breads.  I'm looking forward to experiencing the bread baking component with my new starter later this spring.

One of my favorite recipes has always been sourdough pancakes with blueberries sometimes we would have these as sourdough, buckwheat, blueberry pancakes as well.   This particular pancake recipe came with the same directions from both my mom and friends, who generously shared a portion of their 30+ year old starter with me.  I had this starter in the back of the refrigerator for nearly a decade.  I revived it numerous times from a black and gray sludge into beautiful bubbling batter, but in one thorough cleaning spree, it was dumped down the drain.

On a couple of occasions, I have made sourdough pancakes while camping. I would carefully measure out the ingredients before leaving on the trip so I could feed it the night before and make pancakes in the morning.  In one particularly memorable camping trip, the starter outgrew its container over night and continued to grow all over the floor of my car.  The pancakes still tasted good though!

I was a little hesitant this morning to make the pancakes because the starter smells so strange.  Adding the salt and baking soda caused the batter volume to nearly double and increased the bubbles. I was will a little dubious so I made a test batch before adding any blueberries.  I shouldn't have worried; these pancakes were delicious.  They were light, fluffy, airy, with just a hint of "sour" taste.  This recipe makes A LOT of pancakes.  There's a couple dozen now in our freezer for later!

Sourdough Pancakes
1 c starter
2 c water
2 1/2 c flour
Mix together in a bowl, cover, and let the ingredients stand overnight. (In the morning, put 1 c of starter back into the refrigerator or just use it in the batter if you already have starter set aside.)

To the remaining batter add,
1 egg
2 T oil
2 T sugar
1/4 c milk

Mix thoroughly before adding,
1 t salt
1 T baking soda
1 c blueberries

Mix ingredients together thoroughly, and bake on a hot griddle or pan until bubbly and ready to be flipped.  These pancakes cook quickly and do best with a hot griddle. If the mixture is not bubbly, this may mean that the dough did not revive well enough over night.  Adding more milk can help.

Buckwheat Pancakes

My mom calls these the "best buckwheat pancake recipe" that she has ever found.  I really enjoy the taste and the texture of the buckwheat flour from our Open Oak CSA.  It's not as coarse as buckwheat flour that I have bought in the store so the pancakes feel more like a buttermilk pancake.

I was having a very difficult time getting my cast iron skillet on the right temperature for these pancakes.  On medium they were burning on the outside and were still gooey on the inside.  When I turned the temperature down just one "notch" the pancakes were cooking very slowly, not browning up on the outside and still gooey on the inside.  Unfortunately, I burned more pancakes than were cooked to a perfect golden brown color.  (In retrospect, I think I should have used small amounts of butter in between batches rather than cooking spray.)

The non-burned pancakes were delicious.  Even the burned one with blueberries were good to eat!

This recipe makes a huge amount of pancakes.  For my family, next time I think I'll halve the recipe.  I think I now have more in my freezer than we ate for our meal!

Buckwheat Pancakes 

1 c buckwheat flour (from Open Oak Farm CSA)

1/2 c wheat flour
1 1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1 c buttermilk (or sour milk)
3/4 c milk
1 T honey
2 eggs
2 T oil
1 banana mashed
1 c blueberries (optional) 

Mix dry ingredients together.  Mix wet ingredients together separately (including mashed banana), and then add to the dry.  Mix thoroughly before cooking. 

Buckwheat pancakes

Honey Berry Bread

We have lots of rye flour in our freezer from our Open Oak and Lonesome Whistle Farms CSAs. I thought it would be worth while experimenting to see if I could substitute it into a quick bread without anyone noticing. I adapted this recipe from the Fanny Farmer Cookbook for this test.

It was quite tasty and the rye flour worked just fine with both texture and taste in this recipe. It made it a little more "earthy" than white wheat flour, but everyone liked the bread for dinner and with cream cheese for breakfast the next morning.

Honey Rye Bread

2 c rye flour (from Open Oak CSA)

1 t baking powder

1 t baking soda

1/2 t salt

1 t cinnamon

1 t ginger powder

1/2 c honey (from Thistledown Farm)

1 egg

1 c milk

1/2 c blueberries (from our garden)

1/2 c Marion berries (from our garden)

Combine dry ingredients and then mix in wet ingredients (except berries). Beat in mixer on medium speed for 10 minutes. Stir in berries. Pour into butter bread pan and bake 350F for 40 minutes.

Wheat, corn, rye, blueberry muffins

On a cold winter afternoon we needed a preschool friendly activity. Muffin making! These are adapted from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. I like them. They're really substantial and the mix of flours was really nice. (Our cat likes to eat muffins and she liked them too!)

Muffins

1 c whole wheat flour

1/2 c rye flour (from Open Oak CSA)

1/2 c Saskatoon corn flour (from Open Oak CSA)

4 T molasses

1/4 t salt

2 eggs

1 c milk

1/3 c canola oil

1 c blueberries (from McKenzie River Organics)

Mix the dry ingredients in one bowl and the wet ingredients in a separate bowl. Combine until just mixed. Pour into oiled muffin tins. Bake 375F for 25 minutes.

Christmas Blueberry Roll

Yum. This is one of my favorite family Christmas recipes. It never tastes quite as good as when my mom makes it (I know she doesn't use whole wheat flour and probably adds more blue berries), but the combination of gooey blueberries in sweet bread is just delicious. Everyone in our family has been snacking ALL day long!

Swedish Tea Ring

Dough
1 c scaled milk
1/2 c sugar
1 t salt
1/2 c margarine

Heat milk until just before it boils. Remove from the stove and put into mixer. Stir in sugar, salt, and margarine. Let mixture stand until lukewarm and the sugar and margarine has melted.

2 1/2 t yeast
1/4 c warm water
1 t sugar

Dissolve yeast in water and 1 t sugar. Let grow about 15 minutes until bubbly. Add to milk mixture.

1 egg beaten
4 cups unsifted flour (mixture of whole wheat and white)

Add to egg and 2 c flour to milk mixture. Beat until smooth. Add additional 2 cups of flour to make a stiff batter. Place in a lightly oiled bowl and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Cool in refrigerator for at least 2 hours of up to 2 days.

Filling
2 c blueberries (from McKenzie River Farm)
1/2 c brown sugar
1/2 c flour
1/2 c chopped nuts (Filberts from Thistledown Farm)
1 t cinnamon
3 T melted butter

Mix sugar, flour and cinnamon together. Add blueberries and nuts.

Roll our dough into a square. It can be made into 2 smaller rolls (rectangle 7"x14") or one larger roll. Smaller rolls are easier to handle.

Put melted butter on dough once rolled out. Spread filling over the dough.

Roll up and pinch the edge to seal.

Form into a ring on a greased baking sheet (stuff in more blueberries before sealing ends together) with the sealed edge down.

Cut 2/3 through the ring at 1 inch intervals.

Twist each section sideways.

Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled (about 1 hour). Bake at 375F for 20-25 minutes.

Wheat berry breakfast

I had some cooked wheat berries left over from the chili that I recently made and turned it into breakfast!

I defrosted blue berries, which we had picked and frozen during the summer, and mixed in Nancy's Vanilla yogurt.

Simple, delicious, and very filling!

Corn Flour Waffles

I love making breakfast on the weekends. This corn flour waffle recipe from The Joy of Cooking was given to us by our CSA farmers last year.

I like to have a variety of toppings for waffles too so that I can alternate between blueberry syrup, maple syrup, and yogurt. The blueberry syrup recipe from my mom is so simple to make and delicious. I use the leftovers with yogurt during the week. Our maple syrup comes from Funks Grove in Shirley, Illinois; we restock our supplies when we visit my brother and family in Illinois. Yum!

Corn Flour Waffles

4 T butter

1 1/2 c milk

3 eggs

1/2 c corn flour (from CSA)

1 1/4 c wheat flour

1 T baking powder

1 T sugar

1/2 t salt

Melt butter, cool, and mix in milk and eggs. Add in dry ingredients and mix well. Cook on waffle iron. Remove when golden brown.

Blueberry Syrup

1 1/2 c sugar

1/2 c water

1/4 t cinnamon

3 slices lemon or oranges

2 c blueberries (Willamette Valley)

Mix sugar, water, cinnamon, and lemon/orange in a pan. Heat until boiling, and boil 5-7 minutes stirring constantly. Turn down heat and add in blueberries. Continue to stir and simmer 5-6 minutes.