Company is Coming...and we're making a MESS

The cooking is still on a back burner sorry to say, I miss cooking! The garden is in full swing and the weeds are growing just as well as the plants are. The bank is driving us absolutely crazy and I can't tell you how my life will change when and IF this FHA loan goes through.

We are cutting down yet another tree today. A large limb fell and shattered Chuck's nice new truck window and dented the side of his bed. A couple months ago another limb knocked off his side mirror. So we have a complete mess in our front yard and half a tree to finish cutting down tomorrow. The stress of hoping Chuck doesn't get hurt is almost too much for me. I just hate it. We can't afford to get someone to do it and he does have lots of experience and has taken down 4 others so far, but I don't like it nonetheless.

Chuck's Aunt from Florida is coming one day this week, and I have to make something homemade since she is on the road and eating out so much. And I want to impress, since she is the closest thing to Chuck's Mom besides his sisters.

I going to try one of my readers recipes this week. Chicken Salad on buns and Cranberry Orange Walnut Salsa. Yum.

You'll find her Chicken Salad Recipe under my last post in comments. She is starting a cooking blog of her own...Which you'll find in my listing.

Here is my version of Cranberry Orange Salsa
1 12 oz bag of cranberries
1 large or 2 small pkgs cranberry jello (strawberry or cherry could be used here)
1 cup fresh squeezed orange juice
2 tsp grated orange peel
2 oranges peeled and diced fine (yes there will be more juice from chopping them fine, that's a good thing)
1 cup toasted walnuts chopped fine

Combine first four ingredients and bring to boil, cooking until jello disolves, cranberries are tender or pop and mixture thickens, about 10 min.

Mix in chopped oranges and toasted walnuts. Chill at least 4 hrs and keeps up to a week.

Thank you Annette, this is a life saver this week when I'm terribly stressed and not in the mood to make decisions...you really helped me out by your posting! This sounds very homey, light and refreshing. This should be a nice break from the road food Chuck's aunt is getting lately.

I'll let you know how the Chicken Salad turns out : )

Can't wait for your posts to start rolling in from your new blog!

Hoping to get back to cooking and/or baking soon!

Summer heat is here...Bring on the Pizza Pasta Salad!

I feel it's been longer than two weeks since I've posted, and really miss it. This new job and all the yard work, garden to put in, and getting this house loan through the bank...is taking up all my time lately. I love the yard and garden, but will be glad that most of the hard work is done for this year, and this stressful loan stuff is almost over now, and I can get back to regular posts soon. We've lived here for three years now on land contract and we are going through our second loan attempt. We could use a prayer or two! These pics were taken a couple weeks ago, and lot's has been done since then and it's amazing how much things have grown, bloomed and changed in the garden in just two weeks. I wish I had pics from when were first got here. The whole yard was over grown like you wouldn't believe. The grass grew in the back yard b/c it didn't see the sun...you had to see it...we've come a long way baby! We love to work in the yard/garden together and it's a good thing : )

That front bed at the drive is new and there's one on the other side of the drive too. There were bushes all along the property line on the outside of the garden, shading some of the garden....no more! Yippee! Eventually as $ allows we will put up either alot of ornamental grasses or privacy fence or both...we have new grasses planted every 3 ft or so and spread wildflower seeds between so we'll see what happens.

Enough of that...

I made something this past week, that I haven't made since last summer, that I have to admit I have really mastered and am pretty proud of...Pizza Pasta Salad. You haven't tasted another Pasta Salad like it.

No, no picture...can you believe it? Sorry. The story on THAT is I had it all made and was waiting on getting my mozzarella/provelone at the store, and my "almost hubby" couldn't wait...and I ended up adding his fav Sharp Cheddar that doesn't go with this...but is his FAV cheese (he's a cheese freak...my big RAT)...so I just added it and said "whatever" this time. He was happy. Sometimes it's good for Papa to be happy. Especially when he's trying to quit smoking...arg.

So, I wasn't about to take a pic of this truly awesome pasta salad with the wrong cheese in it for you! I will make it a few more times over the summer and post a pic...but after I tell you about it, you'll want to make it pic or no pic!!

PIZZA PASTA SALAD RECIPE


2 boxes of Tri Color spring shape pasta
Drain good.
Pour into the largest bowl you own.
Pour over warm pasta 1 bottle Ken's Zesty Italian Dressing and 1 medium jar your favorite Salsa
(this salsa idea works especially well for those who don't care for raw chunks of tomato, you know who you are out there...)
1 long pepperoni chub or 2 shorter Hormel chubs (whatever you find at your store)
You want to hand cut this pepperoni into small bite size chunks how ever you like, and fry them up...yes...fry them up! This drains about 1/2 cup grease from it and intensifies the flavor, trust me. Drain on paper towels and let cool a bit, then add to the bowl. This really is one of the star ingredients of this recipe. Just trust me.
If you like your pepperoni crisp on your pizza...you know what I'm talking about...

1lb Mozzarella however you like it best. I buy the fresh chunks and dice it up in cubes.
1lb. Provelone same as above.
1/2 cup fresh grated parmesan cheese
Throw all the cheese in the bowl. Toss it all around to coat it all with dressing.

Now, you get to customize and use the toppings you normally would order on your side of the pizza!

Here's what we add:
1 medium jar whole green olives
1 small can slices black olives
2 containers of whole mushrooms
slice them and saute them in olive oil and wine a few minutes till soft but not mushy maybe 5 min.
1 green pepper/1 yellow pepper ...both medium sized 
Blanched well and diced (not too small)
Fresh ground Black Pepper and  a bit of Fresh Oregano and Basil (if you have it) makes it all POP!
If you don't have a bit of these fresh herbs, the herbs in the Ken's dressing is quite enough, so don't worry about it. Dried won't be the same here so I don't suggest it.

Throw it all in the bowl and fold so all is coated well and let sit for a day...YES a WHOLE DAY! haha

I've also put young zucchini in it before and it's great, although I know it's not a pizza topping : )

You can't fail at this since it's all premade basically, and your putting in what YOU like. And it's good for you too!

This stuff is so good you can eat it all week and not get tired of it...we pack it for lunches and snack on it, and it's so good for a cool dinner in hot weather. It's a meal itself, nothing else needed.

The combo of the Ken's Zesty Italian and the Salsa is really great for the dressing! Hope you like it!

The bread is on hold till the heat of summer is past...so we're back to buying bread for a bit. I just can't get it all done right now. But it's a goal to eventually have enough of the house work done to be able to bake on Sunday. Just not there yet.

Considering a new cooking project now that I have the bread where I want it. We love wings and have kind of ran out of places we want to go to get them.
I may start a Wing Project, starting out green...not making them at home hardly ever...and perfect a recipe for wings we can make at home, just the way we love them...and not settle for what we get eating out. I love a dry rub, low sodium and just a bit spicy...or a sweet sticky BBQ. He prefers Hot Wings (not me). What about you? Have a great wing recipe??

No, I have definitely not forgot about the "Legal" Rich Chocolate Cake recipe from the Flat Belly Diet Cookbook...it's coming soon. Wish I had a big old piece of that cake tonight with a tall cold glass of milk!

How about sending me one of your favorite summer recipes?

Janie

Tweaking the Recipe and Wishing for Sunshine...

Hello and Welcome to Kitchen Weekend Warrior Blogspot!

Rain Rain go away...will it EVER stop raining??? I had plans to get the rest of the garden in today and it's raining AGAIN. Yesterday Chuck and I mulched my Mom's landscaping which took most of the day and thank goodness the rain held out for us. Got a bit of sunburn and was worn out at the end of the day. Can't believe I can't plant again today due to rain...I'm so annoyed. I pulled all the weeds around what I already have in and was ready to put in my corn, green beans, tomatoes and peppers this weekend...and then it started pouring. Ug.

Well I have my bread project going, and that's a comfort that I am being somewhat productive. Laundry just doesn't feel productive somehow.

I was so excited to see I have my first follower this week! Welcome : ) I hope to see more following. Would love to learn some new things from my readers!

I have a request for the recipe for my recent sucess and am so  happy to share!

 The Honey Starter is posted on a previous blog and is a fantastic starter. If you ever feel your starter has lost some of it's power you can always add a packet of yeast to the feeder flour/water, and a tad of honey for the yeast to feed on...to keep it going. I fed my starter double last week and noticed it was a bit weaker this time, so I give it a boost. If you keep making the same amount of bread you should be feeding it the same and have no reason to need to give it a boost. I doubled the amount of starter I'm using and think I added too much food for the small amount of starter left last time, so felt the need to give her a boost. But like I said, you should actually never have to do this if you feed regularly and use close to the same amount each time.

Above in the picture you see my long shaped artisan loaves rising today...made a couple 'tweaks' this week to see how I can improve.

Here is the basic recipe I'm using and tweaking this time around:

5 cups flour/3 cups King Arthur Bread Flour and 2 cups King Arthur Whole Wheat
2 tsp vital gluten (Hodson Mills)
3 cups filtered/distilled or spring water
1 3/4 cups starter
2 tsp salt (mix in first knead)

Mix and let rest 1 hr. Turn out on to well floured countertop and use something sturdy to scrape bowl it will be sticky and messy. Keep flouring hands and sprinkling dough and counter with bread flour as you knead for about 5 min. Add the salt to this knead along with your flour while your kneading.  Do your rectangle shape of stretching and patting dough out so you can fold once, then fold to meet both sides in the middle. Turn over seam side down on floured countertop, cover with flour sack towel and let rise 2 hours.
Punch down and knead again in 1 hr. Cut into two pieces and knead into a nice shape and place seam side down on your baking stone, make your cuts with a very sharp serated knife and cover and rest for at least 1 hr, can go 2 hrs without harm.

Bake with muffin tin cups full of water on lower rack and your bread on upper rack at 475 for 20 min.
Take water out and finish baking at 425 for another 45 min our until your bread sounds hollow and has a nice brown crust.

Today my tweaking consisted of :

1) adding yeast to my starter. I fed my starter double last week and I thought it looked a bit weak, not very bubbly. I added one packet of yeast and a bit of honey. I shouldn't have to do this again, just a fluke I had about a cup of starter and added 2 cups flour and water last week. They say it should take but I wanted to bake successfully today. No more brick loaves.

2) I used 6 cups of flour so as not to knead so much into it like last week, then just kneaded with bread flour as you normally would. (last week I added flour MAJOR to get it to firm up).

3) I used 2 cups of starter instead of 1 3/4 since adding more flour from the start this time.

4) Added 2 tsp of raw organic sugar.

Here they are out of the oven. They have a slight whiteish glaze to them, as I heard from someone who had grew up in a family owned bakery, to glaze the hot bread with a cornstarch and water mixture. Well, needless to say it didn't make it shine, so I rubbed the crust with butter, but you can still see the cornstarch and water glaze areas a bit. Lesson learned.

The loaves are larger and lighter this time! Chuck says it's lighter and airier this time, and, more moist and soft. The crumb was slightly dry last time.
I think this Tweak was a great success! Next week I want to finish them with a sesame seed/egg white wash to make them shine and add the sesame seeds Chuck wants.

So this week we have arrived at this recipe:

6 cups flour/half bread flour half whole wheat
2 tsp vital gluten
3 cups water
2 cups starter
2 tsp sugar
2 tsp salt
Mix all in large shallow bowl and let rest 1 hr.
Turn out on to well floured countertop and use something sturdy to scrape bowl it will be sticky and messy. Keep flouring hands and sprinkling dough and counter with bread flour as you knead for about 5 min.  Do your rectangle shape of stretching and patting dough out so you can fold once, then fold to meet both sides in the middle. Turn over seam side down on floured countertop, cover with flour sack towel and let rise 2 hours.
Punch down and knead again, cut into two pieces and knead into a nice shape and place seam side down on your baking stone, make your cuts with a very sharp serated knife and cover and rest for at least 1 hr, can go 2 hrs without harm.

Bake with muffin tin cups full of water on lower rack and your bread on upper rack at 475 for 20 min.
Take water out and finish baking at 425 for another 45 min our until your bread sounds hollow and has a nice brown crust. (1 hour)

I have this whole process down to 4-5 hours which is awesome compared to the recipes I started out trying! And these days you need all the extra time you can get. We work 8hrs and still do all the household stuff we were expected to do 50 years ago that the stay at home women did, and it's so hard to do.

Brush with butter when you take out of the oven. Let cool if you can! I dare you!

I would love to hear from someone who wants to learn how to easily and inexpensively bake fresh loaves each weekend...and share our successes and failures...and learn how to perfect this process together!

THERE'S NOTHING LIKE FRESH HOMEMADE BREAD

If I wasn't so busy I would have tried to make the Rich Chocolate Cake from Prevention's Flat Belly Diet I've had on my mind...stay tuned for that post!!
I will be making that very soon! It has all mufa fats and low sugar, dark chocolate which is a healthy antioxidant : )

Thanks for reading, send me a comment!

Janie

Old World Authentic Sourdough Success!

Happy Mother's Day!

It's 9:37pm and I'm covered with dirt, grass, probably bugs, and so excited to write...here I am.  Today has been the best Mother's Day I've had in seven years...long story I'll spare you. The day started out so quiet, overcast and a bit boring. But as the day progressed it got sunnier and so did my day. Hope all your Mother's Day's were nice too : )

Well I have FINALLY had success with my bread! I am so exited to know that I can keep my sourdough starter going and bake wonderful bread every weekend! This is so much better than store bought, and better for you...it's TOTALLY worth the effort. As you can see we didn't wait even 15 min to cut into this bread. We had no lunch no dinner and it was 9pm and we were totally starving and so excited it turned out so well, we had farm eggs steamed in the shell with homemade bread and butter for dinner tonight.

Today's journey came from a couple of new website's I found to be very informative and helpful. One is called Wild Yeast and the other is The Fresh Loaf. Great sites, be sure to go visit if your into baking breads.

Since it's late I won't be posting the recipe quite yet, but I just had to get a post in this weekend and share my success with you...not that I can tell anyone is reading...but I'm hopeful, yes, that is my nature. And I'm having such a great time with this blog. I love writing and sharing my experiments and success with you, and I am also hopeful I will hear from someone, somewhere, at some point. HINT.

I have percentage ratio's I found successful for the starter, flour, and water this time. The amount of starter is almost double from what I've been using, (and as you have read, I've been getting way too dense of a loaf).
The water is actually more and the flour is less, so I've learned alot so far. I've also learned to only steam for the first 20 minutes of the baking and take the water out after that. The last thing to mention is that I learned a new technique to add to the kneading process, it's called Folding, which is just like it sounds. Before the kneading process you get in a couple of foldings both an hour apart or so, and you make a rustic square shape and fold over fully, then half a fold meeting the middle and fold the other part into the middle half way and you turn it over and let it rest another hour, adding air and rising power to your dough. It worked well!

This time it has a wonderful crusty crust and a very soft light airy inside and it's white and whole wheat so it's got great flavor too. I am so pleased that now I have a successful base to start working with and now I can focus on fine tunning and perfecting this recipe and while I'm working on that, meantime we can enjoy it too!

My previous post for Honey Starter is a definite great starter and I'm still using it. I feed it 1 cup of flour and 1 cup of water each time I use it. Remember if you plan to use it more you must feed it more. I have a feeling this recipe will also be able to make some great pizza crust as well so I may feed it extra this week so I can make pizza soon.

So, I've found a way to make my own yeast agent and omit buying yeast at the store. I feel very triumphant this evening...now to go get in the shower! What a wonderful day it's been.

Sometime between now and next weekend I'll be posting what Chuck was working on all day today...the biggest and most beautiful flowers I ever got for Mother's Day! I was a social butterfly for the biggest part of the day, either talking to neighbors passing by, or on the phone with Mom, Andrew or Cinda. Then Cinda came by with two huge containers of clothes to go through (I LOVE HAND ME DOWNS) while we had girl talk and got caught up on eachother's lives which was so nice, as we don't see eachother often anymore. She also brought a couple starter plants from her Mom & Dad's house for us which was so great.

Did I mention I had a great day?

Who would love my secret "so far" recipe for this BEAUTIFUL OLD WORLDE ARTISAN SOURDOUGH WHEAT LOAVES?????

Anyone??


Janie

Homemade Italian Bread!

Here is my first attempt at Italian Bread, as requested by the Incredibly handsome man I live with : ) He just isn't into the whole wheat scene...

As you know I've been experimenting with Sourdough Starters, as to avoid using store bought yeast and limit ingredients, improve the healthiness of the bread and all that great stuff...and keep cost down!

During my web browsing I found authentic Italian recipes, and one that called for "pasta madre" which is actually a starter you make first and let ferment just like sourdough starter. I was so surprised and as you can imagine...happy to find Italian bread I can make with my sourdough starter!

Above are the results which look great so far, and the house smells sooooo good!

While I was doing laundry, cleaning, going out to the herb garden, pulling weeds in the flower beds and whatever...oh yes, I did take a nap too : ) Chuck stripped our front door with a heat gun, gave it a preliminary sanding and put it back up for now.  We are remodeling this house we just bought together and we decided we want to keep the original door, stain and varnish it and make stained glass pieces for it ourselves. The door was coated with more than a couple coats of white, and aqua paint, but it came off pretty easily...it's just time consuming. I helped a bit, but he did 95% of it himself. We love working on our house together. He was just as happy to know I was baking bread when I wasn't helping him with the door.
The guys at work tease him that I peel his oranges for his lunch, wait till they get a load of his homemade bread...hehe.

Next weekend I'll let you know how the bread actually was...I'm afraid it's too dense, but we'll see after it cools...this pic is taken while it's still warm. Chuck grins at me coming to the computer to post for you...I am having such a great time with this blog. I can't wait to get a few comments and maybe a follower or two! I'd love to hear about what your cooking or baking or...new things your learning about healthy cooking...or just healthy finds at the store.

I just read where we are better off not even having canned or boxed items of any kind...fresh produce meats and that's it. Makes sense I guess. The keeping and preserving methods are not good for us in the long run.

I just picked up a Prevention guide mini magazine at the store about Outsmarting Diabetes...no I'm not diabetic my numbers are just up a bit due to my weight so I'm trying to manage myself by making better choices...being more active...changing old habits...learning new ones that are better for me...and hopefully losing weight along the way...we all know how difficult that can be. Anyway, this book reverts back to their Flat Belly Diet which I have both the book and the cookbook and they are fantastic!!! I love the chocolate zucchini snack cake!!! I'm now looking at making their Rich Chocolate Layer Cake in the next couple weeks. No I don't need it...but its a MUFA fat, low fat, and antioxidant and looks INCREDIBLE.

Anyway would love to hear from you and what's on your mind or in your kitchen these days!

Until next weekend,

Janie

Though lots of rain and no sunshine...we have Asparagus!!!

That's what's one of the great things about gardening...when you've paid your bills, and don't have much money left...you have s o m e t h i n g  that can be used from the garden, whether it's potatoes, carrots...whatever...and create something to get you through.

We are going through purchasing our house and still have some transactions to deal with, and are running short this week, in addition to my being off work almost two months not helping financially.  Now that I'm back to work we are getting caught up but it's a slow process. Thank Goodness for our Asparagus!! It's coming up all over the place in it's little row out in the garden!! And, it's fabulous!! I fried some potatoes and added the asparagus and poured whisked eggs and milk over it and turned it over...and WOW what a meal!

I'd love to hear about what you've been cooking, or your garden or gardening plans!

With gas @ 4.25 down where my Mom lives...(4.19 here in Canton), we all need to make sure we do all we can to be economical and thrifty.

Is anyone reading???

Baking more bread tomorrow and going white this week...stay tuned.

Janie

Eggstra Special Tip for Boiling Eggs!

You'll also see this tip in my Potato Salad post...

About now or very soon you'll be peeling some of those colored Easter eggs to make egg salad and you'll get frustrated at the peelings not coming off so great...

Steam your eggs next time!

Steaming with lid on for 15 min will give you absolutely perfect hard boiled eggs!

Thank Farmgirls on the MaryJane's site for this tip : )

Janie