Cooking
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Acorn Bread (Recipe for the above 2 videos)
by Tam
2 cups of lukewarm water
1 tablespoon of dry yeast
1/4 cup of olive oil (other oil is fine)
1/4 cup of molasses or honey
2 farm fresh eggs of your choice
2 cups of your fresh ground (or thawed out) moist acorn flour
a pinch of salt
6 cups of flour (best is 3 cups freshly ground wheat berries, with 3 cups unbleached white)
I take my mixer bowl and put two warm cups of water into it, sprinkle the tbsp of yeast on it, while I gather the next three items.
Add the oil, (molasses or honey) and two eggs that have been beaten slightly.
I put this mixture on low in my kitchenaide mixer, while slowly adding the first four cups of flour. I add them one at a time, stopping to scrape the sides of the bowl between additions. When that is mixed real well, I slowly add the last two cups of flour. I personally add one more into the mixer, then remove the entire lump and knead in the last cup on a floured counter. Now bread making is interesting, depending on all the temperatures, the room, each item, is how much flour you'll need. If the batch is still very sticky, add another cup. I knead about 1-15 minutes, and my finished dough is elastic and does not stick to my hands or the counter.
Now take this lump of dough and put it into a greased large bowl . Lightly grease the top of the dough, and cover the bowl with either plastic or a cloth.
Keep this in a nice warm area. In winter that's near the stove, in summer its up on my counter. After about an hour you'll see that the dough has more than doubled in size. This is good! Punch it down, and dump the dough onto your counter again. Not floured this time. Divide the batch into two, and shape two loaves. Put them into greased loaf pans. Brush a wee bit of oil onto the tops of each loaf, and put them back into your "warm" spot. These will double again! Don't punch them down this time. Instead, pop them into a preheated oven, (350° F)
I bake them for approx. 40 minutes. They will be well-browned, and sound hollow when you knock on them.
Let them sit about five minutes, then turn them out brush them lightly with butter, and put them on a rack to let them cool.
Of course we don't wait until they are cold to eat....they are the best warm and fresh!
Enjoy!
by Tam
2 cups of lukewarm water
1 tablespoon of dry yeast
1/4 cup of olive oil (other oil is fine)
1/4 cup of molasses or honey
2 farm fresh eggs of your choice
2 cups of your fresh ground (or thawed out) moist acorn flour
a pinch of salt
6 cups of flour (best is 3 cups freshly ground wheat berries, with 3 cups unbleached white)
I take my mixer bowl and put two warm cups of water into it, sprinkle the tbsp of yeast on it, while I gather the next three items.
Add the oil, (molasses or honey) and two eggs that have been beaten slightly.
I put this mixture on low in my kitchenaide mixer, while slowly adding the first four cups of flour. I add them one at a time, stopping to scrape the sides of the bowl between additions. When that is mixed real well, I slowly add the last two cups of flour. I personally add one more into the mixer, then remove the entire lump and knead in the last cup on a floured counter. Now bread making is interesting, depending on all the temperatures, the room, each item, is how much flour you'll need. If the batch is still very sticky, add another cup. I knead about 1-15 minutes, and my finished dough is elastic and does not stick to my hands or the counter.
Now take this lump of dough and put it into a greased large bowl . Lightly grease the top of the dough, and cover the bowl with either plastic or a cloth.
Keep this in a nice warm area. In winter that's near the stove, in summer its up on my counter. After about an hour you'll see that the dough has more than doubled in size. This is good! Punch it down, and dump the dough onto your counter again. Not floured this time. Divide the batch into two, and shape two loaves. Put them into greased loaf pans. Brush a wee bit of oil onto the tops of each loaf, and put them back into your "warm" spot. These will double again! Don't punch them down this time. Instead, pop them into a preheated oven, (350° F)
I bake them for approx. 40 minutes. They will be well-browned, and sound hollow when you knock on them.
Let them sit about five minutes, then turn them out brush them lightly with butter, and put them on a rack to let them cool.
Of course we don't wait until they are cold to eat....they are the best warm and fresh!
Enjoy!
Perfectly Peeled Fresh Boiled Eggs
I finally have found a way to peel fresh eggs without tearing them all up. It is a collaboration of a lot of different info gleaned from the internet. Here goes: I took fresh eggs (no more than 2 days old) and pierced the large end with a thumb tack trying not to puncture the membrane (which I punctured anyway). I brought a pot of water to a full boil THEN put the eggs in and boiled for 10 minutes. The eggs will seep out of the hole a tiny amount. This does not affect the finished product. After 10 minutes I turned the heat off and let the pot stop boiling then dumped the hot water and filled the pot with tap water and ice to cool the eggs as quickly as possible. Once cool, the eggs were cracked and peeled perfectly. A bonus was that there was no green coating on the yellows. There were perfect and a very bright yellow tint. I have retired the remainder to the refrigerator to see if they still peel well tomorrow and will then give an update. UPDATE The eggs peeled perfectly after an overnight stay in the refrigerator. You still have to be gentle with them to keep them from tearing up, but carefully removing a bit of shell at a time produced perfect eggs for those deviled eggs that everyone loves. |
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