The Teeny Tiny Egg

Last week Rob brought in the smallest, cutest egg. I have no idea which hen laid it.



Here it is next to one of our "normal" sized eggs. Not only was it really small, but it was almost perfectly round as well
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Only about an inch long. Just over 1/3 the size of the other egg. So we wondered what was in side it.


The little blob to the right is the little egg, the big blob on the left is the normal egg. The yolk wasn't even whole and firm like it was suppose to be. The kids thought the whole thing was pretty cool.

Make Your Own Sourdough Starter

It is so easy, really. I searched the internet expecting to find complicated directions or a long drawn out list of conditions that needed to be met to make it work.

What I found was that sourdough starter is the easiest and most basic of ways to make your own leavening agent for many things, not just bread. But before you can make any of these "things" you have to make the starter.

All you need is flour, water, a non-reactive bowl and a non-reactive spoon. That's it, really. You can add a little honey to help speed up the fermenting if you want as the wild yeast loves the glucose.

Simply put equal parts of flour and water into your bowl and stir it very well. I found I could not get all the lumps out. That's OK, they will disappear with time. Now just let your bowl sit out uncovered until it starts to get bubbly and smells a bit...um...well...sour. That's it, you just made sourdough starter.

Some people like to put a little commercial bread yeast in to get things started. You can do that if you wish. Just remember that your sourdough starter will then be a product of that commercial yeast, and not the wild yeasts that naturally occur in your area. Personally, I like the idea of grabbing from my environment what is right there just waiting for me to harness it.

Another thing I have read everywhere is that when you feed your starter, you take out "x" amount of starter and replace it with "x" amount of water/flour mixture. Me, I just add flour and water. Then when I take it out to use it, I find I don't have to wait so long for it to be ready to use because I have more starter. For example, if I start with two cups of starter and then feed it by taking out one cup of starter then add in 1/2 cup of water and 1/2 cup flour, I still only have two cups of starter. When I want to make bread, I then have to take out my starter, add a cup of water and a cup of flour and wait overnight for it to "sponge" so I can use two cups for my bread. But if I just add when I feed rather than take out, I only need to remove the starter I need for my recipe and allow it to come to room temperature. (Did I forget to mention you store your starter in the fridge after it ferments?) I just store mine in an old Mason Jar.

So there are the basics. Now who is ready to make their first sourdough starter? Or who in the Hersey, MI area wants some of mine? I have extra.

Sourdough: My Latest Obsession

Lately I have been obsessed with learning to use this:


It's sourdough starter. It's amazingly simple to make and maintain. What you can make with it stretches far beyond bread. How about sourdough pancakes?
Or maybe what we had for dinner tonight:
Hamburger Vegetable Stew topped with Sourdough Biscuits. You can find the biscuit recipe I used HERE. Here's my recipe for stew. This will feed my family for two or three days, depending on how many kids are having growth spurts.

1 pound ground chuck (it's what was on sale dirt cheap)
1/2 cup each frozen Corn, green beans, Peas & Carrots
1 medium onion chopped
2 Yukon gold potatoes, diced
1 28oz can diced tomatoes
1 1/2 tsp. beef bullion
eight cups of water
Salt, pepper, garlic powder, oregano, cayenne powder to taste

Brown the ground chuck and rinse. Put everything else in a pot and cook until the liquid has reduced by about 1/3. If you want it thicker, make a slurry with either flour or cornstarch.

That's it. Really simple.

What I did for the biscuits and stew is just put the leftover stew in a baking dish, top it with the biscuits and baked it. It will take a little longer to bake the biscuits than it would normally, and I also recommend heating the stew a bit before putting the biscuits on top. Otherwise the bottoms of the biscuits may not get done.

Roast Duck

A while back I was fortunate enough to get my hands on a nice muscovy duck all butchered and ready to roast. I couple weeks ago I finally roasted it. I'm always a bit nervous while cooking something completely new. Not only had I never cooked a muscovy duck before, I'd never eaten one either.

I had duck breast in a restraunt once, but that wasn't muscovy and I didn't care for it. Muscovy is all dark meat. So I stuffed the cavity with quartered apples and onions like I would for chicken or turkey. (That's my secret for keeping poultry moist.) Then I made a glaze with orange juice, brown sugar, ground ginger, garlic powder and salt and pepper. I poured the glaze over the top of the duck, which was sitting nicely in a roasting pan, and put it in the oven set at 400 degrees. Then waited and waited and waited some more. The duck took longer than expected to cook, about 2 1/2 hours total. Maybe closer to 3, I don't remember exactly now.

When it came out of the oven, it looked like this:

And it tasted as good as it looked. The flavor is hard to describe, but it was amazing. Imagine crossing a cow and a chicken. Then you'd be close. And the texture was very similar to beef as well. If you ever have the chance to try it, I would highly recommend it.

Food Networkers: November Edition

This month I got to pick the recipes again. I choose four recipes from Paula Deen. I love Paula Deen. She always looks like she is having so much fun. And I also love it when she has her husband on any of her shows. He always looks all jolly like Santa Clause. But most of all, I love the way he looks at her. He looks at her like his life would end if she weren't in it. It makes me happy to see that kind of love show in a simple look. I'm rambling now. We are suppose to be talking food here. I have to confess that I only got three of the four recipes made this month. Due to the holiday and a very sick dog (see my previous post) I just didn't have the time or the heart to make the pie this week like I had originally planned.

Appetizer: Brie en Croute #2This was a great recipe. So easy to make and so full of flavor. The kids enjoyed helping me with it. Even Braden was able to help, it was that simple. Unfortunately the flavors are very grown up. The kids didn't care for this at all. I, on the other hand, LOVED it. It was sweet and creamy. The nuts gave it just the right amount of texture. I would make this again if I were having a party with adults. It would be great for a wine and cheese themed event.

Side Dish: Cottage PotatoesThis was one of the easiest things I had ever made. Really, it was almost as easy as straight up mashed potatoes. And it was so good. This is a recipe I will make over and over again. It's going into our families regular rotation. After feeding me and the kids, I had to fight to make sure there were enough left to send Rob for his work. I can see this being a "dish to pass" at potluck dinners.

Main Course: Cheeseburger Meatloaf

This was a bit of a disapointment. The green pepper was a bit much for this. I don't know about you, but I don't put green pepper in my cheeseburgers. I would love to tweak this recipe though using the flavors our family is use to in our cheeseburgers. It was an OK recipe, but not great in my opinion. More of a starting point for my own future creation.

Dessert: Old-Fashioned Sweet Potato Pie
As I said before, I didn't get to making this recipe. I do still plan to make it though. It seemed a fitting recipe for November. I've never had Sweet Potato Pie, but I'm told it tastes just like pumpkin pie. I love pumpkin pie, so if it tastes anything like it I'm sure to love it. I'll be sure to post about it once I've made it.

Due to live and time constraints Steena and Clorie have taken November off. I do believe Laurie was still in though, so check out her blog and see what she had to say. We are all taking the month of December off to concentrate on Christmas and family. Watch for us to be back in January with some more recipe reviews from your favorite Food Network stars.

More POM Goodness

So I played around with the POM Wonderful some more. What fun! I just love it when I get to experiment in the kitchen with new flavors. (I have no idea why all my text is underlined. How odd.)

First up was the Pork Chops. I bought thin cut boneless center cut chops. They were seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder. I fried them in just a bit of oil. Since they are so lean, I find I need that to keep them from sticking too much. When the chops were done, I added a pat of butter and some finely minced garlic to the pan. When the garlic was soft, I put about 6oz of the POM Wonderful in and let it reduce. It turned very dark, almost black, in color. The flavor was amazing. It had a slight tartness that added a new dimension to the pork chops. This is something I would make again and again.

Secondly are the cupcakes. I was really looking forward to this one. I love paring fruity flavors with chocolate. The cupcakes are just from a boxed devils food cake mix. (Eeek! How could I when I have such great from scratch recipes at my fingertips.) All I did for the frosting is use powdered sugar, salt vanilla and POM Wonderful. I just added the juice in until it was the consistency that I wanted. Again, the juice made it tart. But not unpleasantly so. It was actually very good. When paired with the rich chocolate of devils food cake, it was wonderful. Jade has even asked to have this frosting on her birthday cake in December.
So there you have it. Two more recipes with POM Wonderful. Next up will be the roast. I'm really looking forward to that.

POM is Wonderful

A couple weeks a go I got an email from someone named Kristen at POM Wonderful. The email said she had come across my blog and wondered if I might be interested in trying some of their product. Once I was pretty sure it wasn't a scam, I emailed back and said I would love to try it. I mean really, who doesn't want FREE stuff. And I know I love pomegranates, so I was pretty sure I would like the juice.

Well, it got here and I was sooo excited. Unfortunately, life got super busy and I didn't have time to do anything with it. I have wanted to use it in some recipes. Sure, I drank a couple bottles of it. It tastes great. It's sort of like a rich red wine, without the alcohol.

The other night, I decided a cocktail was in order. So I got out a champagne glass (because they look pretty) and put some POM Wonderful and vodka in it. It was good, but since the POM is rather tart, it was not as palatable as I had hoped. Add in a little sure and BAM it was GREAT. It was a simple, tasty cocktail that was perfect for sipping. One was plenty and it lasted me a good hour without feeling like I had too much or too little.

Once a gain I have misplaced my camera, so I had to use my phone. But here is a picture of the drink in question.

I have a few other things I am hoping to try with this juice. As I said, it has a flavor that reminds me of a rich red wine. I will be trying in the crock pot with a beef roast. After that, I plan to fry pork chops and use the POM to deglaze the pan making a sauce to put over the chops. The last plan I have (which I will really probably do first) is to make some rich chocolate cup cakes, then use the juice to make a powdered sugar frosting.

Oh, and I also am about 1/2 a cup short on the juice I need to make wild grape and autumn olive jelly. I think I may add some POM juice for that too. Who knows what else I may think up.

Anyone else have ideas? Maybe you'll suggest something that I'll try and blog about.

Food Networkers Ride Again

Here we are again. It's the third installment of the Food Networkers. It was my turn to choose this time. I haven't read what Laurie, Steena and Clorie thought of the recipes yet, so you'll need to check them out for yourself.

Appetizer: Prosciutto-Roasted Figs
The recipe called for fresh figs. Apparently I missed the end of fresh fig season by like two weeks or something. Whoops! So I used dried figs instead. You can soak the dried figs in hot water if you wish, but I didn't feel like going through that trouble. I just used them dried. I loved this recipe. I would make it again just for me. Braden at a couple and seemed to like them ok, Rob hated them, Jade and Megan wouldn't even try them.

Main Course: Roast Chicken with Herbed Mushrooms
This was a fairly easy recipe to make. Roasted chicken is always a big hit around here and this was no exception. It was simple, flavorful and juicy. It wasn't profound in comparison to any other chicken I've made. Everyone loves mushrooms though, so I will probably make it again. My chicken didn't come out very pretty, so no picture this time.

Side Dish: Honey Roasted Cipollini Onions
I couldn't find Cipollini onions. So what I used were broiler onions. I'm not sure what kind of difference the right onions would have made. If I do ever see them in the store, I will most likely buy them and try this recipe again. I may even try it with pearl onions. This was full of flavor and even once they had gone cold were still delicious. The only problem was that the outer layer became a tough skin. But we just tossed that to the chickens and all was well. None of the kids liked this recipe, but I didn't expect them to. Bottom line is it's more of a "grown up" flavor. My mother-in-law tried them and thought they were delicious.
Dessert: Chocolate Pudding
Now this is what it's all about. Rich, thick, creamy and delicious. I have thought several time about learning to make pudding from scratch. It was just one of those things I never really got around to. The recipe was easy to follow and came together perfectly. A big hit all around.
Next up it's Clorie's chance to choose our recipes. Tune in two weeks from today to find out what deliciousness she has in store for us.