Sourdough Green Chile Bread

Of all the recipes that I make with my sourdough starter, this one is my FAVORITE! There's just something about the sourdough flavor combined with green chilis. It's addictive. Seriously.
I use the same basic recipe for all of my loaves of sourdough bread, I just like to play around and add things to change up the flavor.
You must have a starter on hand. I've had mine for about two years.

Here's the recipe for the starter:

2 cups potato water

1/2 cup rye flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons active dry yeast

Instructions-

In a 2-quart jar, mix all ingredients until smooth. Cover loosely with cheesecloth and let stand in a warm spot....like a sunny window sill. Stir every 24 hours, until bubbly (and smelling a bit sour). This takes 4 to 10 days.

Once it's nice and bubbly, store loosely covered in the fridge.

Once a week, feed your starter (it's like having another pet). Remove from the fridge and let it come to room temperature. Remove one cup of starter (and use it to make something delicious.....or, if you're in a hurry.....you can always just throw it away). Add one cup of unbleached all-purpose flour and 3/4 cup warm water and stir vigorously.  If I have potato water on hand, I use that. Occasionally, I'll add a tablespoon of yeast just to give it a boost. Let it sit at room temp overnight then place it back in the fridge the next morning. 

I have, on occasion, gone two weeks without feeding the starter....no harm, no foul. 

For this bread recipe, I use my Breville breadmaker. Begin by putting 1 cup of starter in the bread pan. 

Next, pour in 1 cup of hot water (about 110 degrees F)

Sprinkle in 1 Tablespoon of sugar

and 1 Tablespoon of active dry yeast (not rapid rise)

Stir gently and put in a warm place for about 20 minutes

After 20 minutes it should have started to bubble a bit

Next, add 3 cups of bread flour

3 Tablespoons of Olive Oil

2 teaspoons of sea salt

And, last, but not least, 1 small can of diced green chilis

Place the pan in the breadmaker and choose your settings. I use the whole wheat setting because it will preheat the pan and gives a longer rising time. 

As the dough mixes it will appear a little sticky. That's fine. Sourdough is a bit wetter than basic bread dough.  If it looks too dry, pour in a little more warm water. 

After the first rise it will be nice a poofy (cooking term).....

And the finished loaf!

Steak in a Cast Iron Pan

A few nights ago, my husband and I decided to cook steak inside rather than on the grill. It was easy and delicious! First of all, I made a seasoned butter to sear the steaks in. I didn't actually measure what I put in but it went something like this:
I cut up a stick of cold, unsalted butter and put it in my food processor. Next, I added about a heaping teaspoon, more or less, of sea salt, lemon pepper, dried parsley, and garlic powder. I also put a whole garlic clove in, several grinds of black pepper (using my pepper grinder) and a pinch of red pepper flakes. I whizzed it up, formed it into a roll in wax paper, and placed it in the fridge until we were ready to use it. (We saved two pats for the baked potatoes.)

Next, we preheated the oven to 475 degrees, seasoned the steaks with salt and pepper, and melted about half the butter in a cast iron skillet. Then we seared the steaks on each side for about 45 seconds, adding more butter when we turned the steaks.

Next, we put the cast iron pan in the preheated oven.

I like my steak medium well, my husband likes his medium. We left them in the oven for about 5 minutes. 

The finished product:

They were delicious! Alongside the tasty t-bones, we also had oven-baked potatoes (with the seasoned butter, fresh chives, and sour cream) and cowboy beans (a recipe for another day).

By the way, this was home-grown, grass fed, totally organic beef that we raised ourselves!

Winter Cattle Working

On the farm, we work our cattle three times a year; winter, spring, and summer.  "Working the cattle" involves giving vaccinations to the cows and calves, worming the cows and bigger calves, branding any new cows and bigger calves, putting ear tags in the ears of new cows and all calves (bull calves get blue tags, heifers get pink tags). We have a great group of friends who always help out and, although it's a half day of hard work, it's also a lot of fun!
This year we ordered custom made ear tags so we switched out the ear tag for every single cow in our herd (except our longhorns since we are planning on selling most of them). https://www.angusonline.org/Store/RFID/RFIDMain.aspx
And, for the first time, my sweet husband set up a propane heater for me to stay warm while I was working on the record keeping and filling up the syringes with the cattle vaccinations!

This Makes my Heart Happy

FIREWOOD!! Yeah....I know.....doesn't take much to excite me. But this will get us through a long cold winter. Our central heat is propane, and that can be very expensive. We have two fireplaces, one in the living room, one in the master bedroom. And that's a much more economical way to heat our house. So, I'm thankful that my husband filled up the wood racks before he left out for work again. I'll be nice and warm while he's gone!

Homemade Croutons

Well these little things turned out to be delicious! AND so very easy! Remember that Rosemary Olive Oil Bread that I made a few mornings ago in my pajamas? If not, you can view the whole thing, pajamas and all, on my YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnU7VCexsdSYRZBIhUGR7ZgbFSXHq0BJa
So anyway, there was just a little bit of the loaf left and I wanted to put it to good use. So, I made croutons with it. I preheated the oven to 400 degrees and cut the bread into cubes. I placed them in a large bowl and drizzled them with olive oil.

Next, I sprinkled the cubed bread with salt and pepper and mixed it well.

Then, I spread the bread out on a foil-lined baking sheet.

And baked  at 400 degrees for 15 minutes or until crispy.

They were delicious spread with fresh roasted garlic!

LOVED This Book!!

I just finished reading Ree Drummond's book, "The Pioneer Woman Black Heels to Tractor Wheels" and it was SOOOOOOO GOOD! My youngest daughter gave it to me for Christmas. It was hard to put down once I started reading it. And I didn't want it to end! I'm sure hoping she writes a sequel!!
http://thepioneerwoman.com/

Sourdough Chocolate Cake

Yep, you read that title right, I made Sourdough Chocolate Cake. And it is yummy! A slightly different texture from what you might be used to, but yummy! (And worth trying if you have a sourdough starter.)
I didn't come up with this recipe on my own, but I did tweak it some. It came from an old cookbook that belonged to my mother.

There's no YouTube video for this recipe, but I'll list the step by step instructions here.

First of all, you must have an active starter. I've had mine for over a year. The recipe for my starter is in a previous blog from August '15 called, "Oh the Smell of Fresh Baked Bread!"

Here's a picture of my active starter

Mix 1/2 cup sourdough starter with 1/4 cup non-fat dry milk, 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour, and 1 cup of very warm water. Mix well and let this stand, in a warm place, for about two hours.

This is what is looked like when I mixed it up

And this is how it looked after two hours

Next, in a separate bowl, cream 1/2 cup of shortening and 1 cup of sugar. Add 1 tsp vanilla (I used my homemade vanilla made from soaking vanilla beans in vodka for several months), 1/2 tsp of salt, and 1 1/2 tsp of baking soda. Next, beat in two eggs, one at a time.

Add 3 squares of melted semi-sweet chocolate and stir this creamed mixture into the sourdough mixture. Gently blend.

Pour into a rectangular pan, 7x11 (odd size, I know, luckily I had one this size) and bake at 350 degrees for 35 to 40 minutes.

I used the old toothpick in the center trick to test for doneness. Next, I let the cake cool completely before frosting it. You can make your favorite frosting recipe or use this one, which was also from the sourdough cookbook, and which I found to be not quite sweet and creamy enough for my taste.

Cream together 2 1/2 cups sifted confectioner's sugar, 2 T butter, 1/4 tsp salt and 3 T milk. Blend in 2/3 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips, melted and slightly cooled, and 1/2 tsp vanilla. 

I added a little more milk than it said. The recipe also stated you could use water or coffee in place of the milk. Coffee would be interesting....

Here's the finished cake, which, by the way, was for my wonderful husband's 47th birthday.