I was sewing and cooking today and kept putting off the blog.  I kept thinking about it, until my fiancé got home from work and he was not feeling well (breathed in some kind of dust at work) so I had to concentrate on that.  All of a sudden, it was bedtime, and I hadn't done the blog yet.

That's life, folks.

So I decided to put on my PJs, make some hot cocoa, and type out something for you good people to read about.

Just life.

So, what to go on about?  How about spur-of-the-moment  sewing projects?  The missal cover for my 1962 Missal was grating on my nerves.  I had mocked it up out of some different pieces of thin Wally World flannel, different barely matching or mismatched pieces, just to see if I could do it.  It worked OK, so I left it on, all the time meaning to update it to something that actually looked like an adult owned the missal.  I was working on plans for a commissioned missal cover, realized I didn't have the correct measurements (but I did get some useful notes written down),  and all of a sudden decided to make a new missal cover for my missal.  It was good practice.  Any time you can not only practice your skills but use whatever practice piece you made for a practical purpose, that's a win-win situation right there.  Sometimes you just have to take some scrap pieces and try something out that will never be used for anything other that headers or footers or a scrap quilt, but if you can, use your practice to make a coaster or a place mat or just some little doo-dad.  You'll be glad you did.

Most of the day seemed to fly by.  I made another napkin out of another fat quarter.  I realized they are slowly making fat quarters smaller.  They used to be 18" x 23".  Now they're about 18" x 21".  If you're lucky.  I'm old enough to remember Andy Rooney's rant about coffee.  I think it was about how a 5 lb bag of coffee wasn't 5 lbs anymore.  At least, I think it was about a 5 lb bag.  And this was, what, 30 years ago? More probably, I don't remember when he did that one.  I think I watched it live on TV.  Who buys a 5 lb bag of coffee anymore?  Mostly I find 3 lb bags at the store now.  Everything is getting smaller, I swear.

Spice jars! Those are way too small.  And so expensive!  But still, if you can, make way in your spice cabinet or on your spice rack for some new spices this year.  I know we're halfway through, but why not try something different?  I just decided to try working mace and cardamom into my recipes.  In fact I made my own spice blend including those two things.  And I made my hot cocoa a little mysterious tonight by adding some mace.  Mace is like nutmeg, in fact it's just made from a different part of the nutmeg nut.  Nutmeg spice is made from the actual nut, and mace is made from the coating of the nutmeg nut. (By the way, it has nothing to do with the stuff you spray on attackers.  That's something else.)  I haven't side-by-side compared the two, but nutmeg is supposed to have the stronger flavor.  I'm not sure I agree.  I generally like cinnamon and nutmeg in my hot cocoa, but the mace is good, too, and just a dash perked up my cocoa more than I think a similar amount of nutmeg would have done.  Perhaps it's not stronger, but maybe a deeper flavor?  More experimentation is certainly in order. Cardamom is a completely different flavor profile.  I'm not sure if I would prefer it in sweet dishes or savory dishes.  I'm thinking it could work equally well in both.  It seemed to me to be a kind of fresh pop of flavor and fragrance.  And by the way, if you're interested, here's my spice blend:

• ​1/2 tsp roasted garlic powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 1/2 tsp onion powder
• 1/4 tsp turmeric
• 1/2 tsp paprika
• 1/4 tsp ground mace
• 1/4 tsp ground cardamom

You could increase it just by keeping the proportions the same.  In case I wasn't clear, "tsp" stands for teaspoon.  That's how I abbreviate it in my notes, anyway.  This blend is a work in progress, I think it lacks a bit of oomph. At any rate, if you wanted to increase it you could do, say, 1 tsp roasted garlic powder, 2 tsp salt, 1 tsp pepper, 1 tsp onion powder, 1/2 tsp turmeric, etc.  Just keep the ratio of ingredients the same.  Or don't.  Perhaps you like or dislike one of the ingredients? Use more or less.  Or omit entirely.  I'm keeping the mace and cardamom in for now.  I used this in my pizza sauce today and it wasn't quite enough.  I did forget to put oregano in my pizza sauce this time.  The last time I made pizza sauce I didn't forget the oregano and I made my Italian fiancé cry tears of joy because it reminded him of his grandma's pizza sauce.  I sure won't forget next time! 

Well, I'm getting to the end of my mug of cocoa, and it's quite late here.  Have a good week, all, and take time to relish a bit of flavor when and where you can.

​Ciao!

​First off, a little housekeeping.  I've joined the Amazon Affiliate program, and I want to put the disclaimer in every post just in case: The operator of this website is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.  Therefore, some links in this blog may be affiliate links.  I might get paid if you buy something or take actions after clicking one of these links.

OK.  That's out of the way

Ok, sorry about the affiliate thing.  I don't think I'm putting any links in this blog post, but you never know.  I wonder how long I'll be in this program, I'm not a person that naturally pushes products on people.  I'd make a very bad telemarketer, I'd be like, "Do you want to buy our product?" and the person would be like, "No." and I'd be like, "OK."  I would be written up a lot, probably.

I'm trying to put together some things for the podcast, the Tomato Blog, and this blog.  Wow.  Plus thinking about Christmas presents I want to make. If you're going to make Christmas presents, you might want to start thinking about that now!  Certainly by August.  I usually wait until too late and, then, well, it's too late.

Also, I'm thinking about doing a giveaway.  I've got two mousepads I'm making, an eight by eight inch square and a six by eight inch rectangle.  It would be nice to give them to a couple people and have them try them out.  I'm really loving the one I made for myself.  In order to finish, I need to get some more supplies, though.  Hopefully I'll get some volunteers to be guinea pigs.  Which I think are really cute.  I mean, actual guinea pigs.  Have you seen those things? They are super cute.  Hedgehogs, too.  Super super cute.

Anyway.

Next subject.

Stacking processes.

I think that's going to be my next post.  I'm trying out more and more complicated things in the kitchen as well as having other things to do doing the day (like forgetting that I don't have certain ingredients and having to run to the store to get things, etc.) and I'm getting into some weird time crunches.  Thankfully, dinnertime is fluid so I don't absolutely have to be done at a certain time.  But it would be nice to be able to space things out so that I'm not so fussed with getting things done.  Part of the problem is I don't know how long certain things take.  Like, I want to do some homemade personal veggie pizzas today.  How long is the frozen homemade pizza dough going to take to thaw?  I took it out early in the morning (for me, about 8 a.m.) so I don't  now if it's going to thaw too early and then it will rise too much and, oh boy, what's going to happen?  But the only way to find out is to try something.  Plus, what about the veggies? I want to pre-cook them, especially the onions, I want them nice and caramelized.  When should I start that? How long does that take? The peppers?  Things are getting complicated.  I am hoping to have some tips for you on that by next time.

What's next?

Decluttering.

I'm talking about life, not necessarily your closet.

I've noticed lately a lot of subscription services.  A lot of stuff wants you to buy their product, but in order to get it, you have to have it delivered on a regular basis.  What started out as a way to try new and different things is becoming a lifestyle.  For me, it's too much clutter.  Too many boxes.  Too much stuff.  The more I can do myself, just buy something I can use over and over again and not have to depend on a service that may not be around in a few years, the better.  If you can buy a nice reusable bottle and throw some fruit, ice cubes and water in it, why do you need a water flavoring subscription delivered all the time?  That's a lot of packaging, even if they do try to reduce the amount of packaging they use.  And I'm talking about a lot of packaging for just one person -- how many people are using this service?  How much packaging is that?  Even if it's biodegradable, that's a lot of trash. I've decided, for myself, that I want to stop relying on things that often change, whether they change price, change their terms, or disappear completely.  I think it's time for subscription services to go back to what they should be instead of a lifestyle. Reduce, reuse, recycle.  Remember that?  Am I dating myself?

Well, that's it for today.  I'm trying another loaf of sourdough, seeing if I can complete a nice loaf in just one day.  It's quite warm here now, so bulk rise shouldn't take too long.  Wish me luck!  This will be my third loaf.  The first was bird food.  The second got half eaten, and then the rest cut into croutons.  Perhaps this will finally be a proper slice cutting loaf.

Ciao until next week.  See what you can reduce! Simplify! Have a good week, guys.

(btw, sorry if there's a lot of grammar and spelling errors in this post, I'll go back and proofread later. :) )
​

I've left the blog until late because I had no idea what I was going to write about today.  I've been baking, sewing and cooking.  So I decided to just tippity-tap around and see where this goes.

​First off, I tried baking sourdough again.  It turned out much better this time.  It still had quite a bit of sourness to it, but it was within the range of the sour that sourdough is supposed to be, as opposed to the last loaf that was so sour I couldn't stand it.  That first loaf did not rise hardly at all, as well.  It wound up as a treat for cats or birds or whatever.  I hope it didn't hurt any local wandering animals.

This time, it did rise better and I was actually able to slash the loaf before baking (the last time the dough was so gooey, when I tried to slash it, it just kind of glumped back over) and I got kind of a nice pattern going.  I think I did bake it a little too much.  

It didn't rise as much as I would have wanted, but I'll figure that out next time.  

So, what did I change?  I didn't let it rise on the counter overnight.  I put it in the refrigerator to rise overnight.  I kneaded it on the counter more than the other loaf, as well.  I did use a lot of starter.  I used 1.5 cups of bread flour and 1.5 cups of whole wheat.  I also used the dollar store colander with the parchment paper trick I learned on YouTube.  I use the colander in place of a banneton.  I also didn't use the Dutch oven this time, I used the cast iron skillet with a metal bowl over top of the bread.  It worked out fine.  I do think I need new oven mitts that can take more heat, though.

For dinner I kind of made up my own recipe today.  I get tired of canned tuna, canned salmon, fish whatever, on Fridays.  So I looked up some rice and beans recipes and converted one.  I changed quite a bit from the original.  But it turned out really good so I'm going to have to write down what I did!

So, basically, you mix together beans, corn, green pepper, onion, garlic, veggie stock, cheese, a few spices, and cooked rice together and bake it in a casserole dish until everything is creamy and yummy.  I didn't have the beans the recipe called for, nor the cheese called for.  I changed some of the spices and I used saffron rice instead of brown rice. I cooked things a little differently than called for, as well.

So, here's what I did.

I a diced up a small, yellow onion and a yellow bell pepper and dumped them in my trusty cast iron skillet (not the same one I used for the bread, by the way) along with some olive oil.  The recipe said one tablespoon.  I have no idea.  I usually don't measure olive oil when I do this.  I used my garlic press to press through three cloves of garlic right into the pan.  The recipe said to cook this 4-5 minutes until things were a bit soft.  Nope.  I cooked these quite a bit.  I wanted the onions to start to caramelize and the peppers to get quite a bit softer and sweeter.  Just when things started to brown is when I stopped.  I dumped these into a big mixing bowl.  I added 2 cans of kidney beans and one can of whole kernel corn (drained), one cup of vegetable broth, some salt, pepper, a bunch of cumin, some parsley, some turmeric and an 8-oz package of shredded Colby Jack&Cheddar cheese.  Next came the cooked rice.  I cooked a 9-oz package of saffron rice in my rice cooker.  I had to wait for it to finish because I didn't time things just right  I poured it in hot and it started melting the cheese.  It was okay.  All that got mixed together well and poured into my biggest casserole dish.  I baked it for 30 minutes until it was hot, bubbly and wonderful.

This was a delightful change from tuna salad.  I'm sure it's going to become a staple in my kitchen.  You could vary it in so many ways, as well, switching out cheeses, beans, onions, peppers, spices, adding toppings like sour cream or cream cheese, salsa........

So many things.

Well, that's kind of it for today.  I waited so long that I have to start thinking about winding down my day and getting ready for tomorrow.  If you do a meatless day (or more) during the week, how do you change it up? 

​Ciao for now! 

First off, a little housekeeping.  I've joined the Amazon Affiliate program, and I want to put the disclaimer in every post just in case: The operator of this website is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.  Therefore, some links in this blog may be affiliate links.  I might get paid if you buy something or take actions after clicking one of these links.

OK.  That's out of the way.

​So....the sourdough starters have been stored in the fridge for the last week.  They seem to be doing well.  I decided Wednesday was going to be my designated day to feed the starters once per week.  The whole wheat is more active than the bread flour and smells better.  The bread flour one doesn't smell bad....just different in a way that is less pleasant than the whole wheat one. I may eventually decide to get rid of that starter and either just rely on the wheat or make another bread flour one, possibly using the dried backslop I have put aside.

Next order of business was trying out an idea I had.  Using my usual Emmymade bread recipe, I switched out 1/3 of the bread flour with whole wheat.  It wound up changing the whole character of the loaf, but we'll get to that later.

By the way, I put a link to Emmy's video on my links page, in case anyone is interested.

At any rate, I looked up some instructions on how to substitute flours, luckily whole wheat flour is still fairly high in gluten, unlike some other flours, especially "flours" made from non-grain sources like nut flours.  With those, you either need a lot of bread flour or Xanthan Gum if you want to make a yeast bread.  Just about everything I read noted two things: 1) start with about 1/3 flour substitution and  2) work your way up from there to a consistency you like and keep in mind that you'll have a stickier dough (well, they didn't say "sticky" they talked about "hydration" and stuff but I'm not that advanced yet).  This dough was much more sticky as we'll see later.

By the way, do you like the containers?  I ordered these off of Amazon, they come with the labels and a chalk marker.  I guess this is going to be my very first affiliate link!  It says it is a 12 piece set, which sounds impressive, until you realize that it is two big containers, 4 smaller containers and 6 lids.  But it is still a nice set.  Get it here: Food Storage Containers.

​I sift all my dry ingredients in the stand mixer bowl.  This is a simple recipe with only one twist which is making the tangzhong (did I spell that right?).  I don't even proof the yeast....but it comes out OK.  Think bread machine kind of technique here.  Simple.  Sift the dry ingredients in and give them a whisk to mix them up so they are well distributed.

Yup--yeast and everything not wet is in there: flours, yeast, salt, sugar, etc.

​

Ok, so I was substituting so I had to do some math.  It wasn't too hard.  but since the original amount of flour was 2 1/2 cups of flour, the amount of whole wheat flour I had to put in was 5/6 cup.  Easy peasy: that's 2/3 cup of wheat flour plus 1/2 of the 1/3 cup measure of flour, pictured here.

I forget what I figured out what the amount of bread flour in sixths was.  I was just pretty proud of myself for figuring an easy way to measure out 5/6 of a cup.

I know it really isn't that big of a deal, but it meant a lot to me.

​And as long as we're substituting things, I figured I'd switch out the white sugar and use brown sugar instead.  It doesn't really change much, they are nutritionally the same.  I thought brown sugar was somehow more healthy--nope!  Just tastes different.  Has molasses in it or something.  I do like the flavor of brown sugar, so in it went.

​Here are all the wet ingredients.  We'll be adding those a bit later.  But here they are all ready to go.  It's ok if the milk is a bit cold.  It can be room temp too, but just don't warm it.  You'll find out why in a moment.  Also, melt the butter now if you haven't already.  You want that to cool down so you don't kill your yeast or cook the egg when you add it in.  

​Here are the ingredients for the tangzhong: water and milk in the saucepan and flour waiting to go in.  This is what helps to hydrate the bread and make it fluffy, almost like that Hawaiian bread stuff.  We'll need that hydration with the added wheat flour.  By the way, I'm using bread flour for the tangzhong.  I guess you could use all-purpose, too, but as I was using bread flour for the rest of the loaf, I just used what I had already taken out of the cupboard. 

​Dump the flour into the saucepan BEFORE turning on the heat.  Whisk it until it is mixed in and smooth, no lumps.  You can even sift it in if you want, I didn't this time and it worked out OK.

Next, turn the heat on kind of med-low and KEEP WHISKING.  I cannot stress that enough.

​This is the kind of consistency I go for.  In her video, Emmy says to heat it until you can just see the whisk marks in the pan.  I go a bit further than that as Joshua Weismann says to get it to be a lump.  I go for the middle of the road on that, I guess.  It seems to work.  The bread turns out delicious.  Could it be just dumb luck?  I don't know, but it works, so I do it.

All right, so I skipped over some pictures here, but you don't really need them.  Remember the wet ingredients from before?  Well, you mix the cold or cool milk in with the tangzhong and the egg and the melted butter.  I do that first, although Emmy just says to mix the milk in to cool the tangzhong (see, that's why we don't want the milk heated, you're cooling the tangzhong off from the cooking so we don't have to wait to use it so you don't kill your yeast).  I just put all the wet ingredients together and mix them up until well combined, then pour them in the stand mixer a bit at a time, mixing after each addition.

This pic is after all the wet ingredients have been added and it's been mixing for a bit.  Mix for about 8 minutes on your mixer's knead setting.  I stop mine occasionally because I'm kind of paranoid I'm going to wear my mixer out and make the motor crap out.

After the 8 minutes are up, you're going to dump the dough onto a lightly floured surface.  

​There have been times with this recipe I haven't had to add any extra flour but with the added extra whole wheat flour this dough is more sticky.  On the left is the lump just dumped out of the mixer bowl. 

You have to knead it just a little bit once you've got it out of the bowl.  I just knead until I have a nice smooth ball of dough.

​Pop that dough into an oiled bowl and turn it around a time or two to get the oil all over the dough.  Cover with a damp towel, put it in a warm place, or just a place where it's not drafty or near an A/C vent, for about and hour.  Maybe an hour and a half if it's a cold day.

​You can tell it's risen quite a bit, but how do you know it's risen enough?

I've heard that if you poke your finger in and the hole stays and the dough doesn't spring right back, it's ready.  I tried this at about the half-hour mark, and you pretty much couldn't tell where I poked the bread a few seconds after I had poked it.  This looks really good, though.  

We're ready for the next step.

I had something special planned for this dough, though.

​Measuring and portioning was going to be pretty important this time, so I used my kitchen scale (I would recommend using one, like this kitchen scale: handy dandy scale)

I measured it out and divided it into six approximately equal portions.  I rolled each into cute little balls.

Then I did something totally different.  Well, kind of different.  You'll see.

​Well, I've done this before. I froze some regular bread flour loaves a day or so ago.  I used my mini-loaf pans for that, though.  This time I just put each ball of dough into extra big muffin cups. Just 5 of them.  The 6th was saved for something special.

By the way, this is BEFORE the second rise.

Then, I popped them into the freezer.  Instructions I read say to freeze them for 10 hours before you wrap them individually.  I just freeze them until they seem pretty solid and are easy to get out of the muffin cups.

After they seem very solid, I wrap them individually in wrap and seal, then put them into a zippy bag that I've labeled with what they are and the date.  You can freeze them for up to 6 months.

The last one I sort of free-formed into a mini artisanal loaf. I've never made a loaf free form like this.  I always have used a loaf pan or made balls and put them side-by-side touching in a pan.

This time I thought I'd just go for it.

I put it in a warm place and covered it with a damp paper towel and let it do its second rise.  This time I let it rise for about 45 minutes.  It doesn't have to double but you want a noticeable difference.

This little loaf is going to be baked at about 350 F for about 8 minutes, I think.  Bake until it's nicely browned and when you thump on the bottom of the loaf it sounds hollow.

​ 

​Here it is!  Nicely browned.  I was going to use an egg wash but I forgot to.  It didn't really matter.  The loaf was very nice anyway.

I let it cool for about 10 minutes and I just couldn't stand it, I had to try some.  The texture was more coarse and **not quite** as fluffy as a purely bread flour loaf, but the different texture was very nice.  A little more "tooth" to it, I guess you could say.  I'm not sure I would like it with more whole wheat flour or not.

Also, I like my bread with Brummel & Brown.  It's yummy.

​There's the muffin tin in the freezer.  Also, the banana expresso/choc chip muffins and the white bread mini loaves.  The whole wheat ones will be wrapped and and packaged when they're more solid.

When you want to use one, take it out, let it come to room temp and then start watching it for the second rise.  Obviously it will take quite a bit longer because of it having been frozen.  At least, that is what I read about it.  I haven't made one of these loaves from frozen yet.  I'll update you when I do.

Wow! And that was my bread baking morning this past Wednesday.  It was quite a lot, wasn't it?  All those pictures at each step make it seem more complicated than it was. 

I hope the links weren't too intrusive.  I really did order those things and use them frequently, though.  I'm thinking I might order another set of those containers.  They really are handy.

Have a great week, I'll write at you next Friday!  Ciao!