Kitchen Chaos

Sometimes when developing recipes, it has to be tried several times and tweaked. Other times it just all falls into place but you never quite know which way it will go. A few weeks ago, Living Without sent a newsletter with a recipe for a sourdough bread and we had been wanting a sourdough. Yum. So I called Daisy in to help me mix up the starter, mainly so she could see that it wasn't a big deal. It isn't a long complicated thing, it just takes a few days. Four days later we had a loaf of sourdough bread with supper and Daisy took one bite and said "contest bread!" We had been experimenting with some yeast bread and had pretty much picked one out but once she tried the sourdough, she loved it. I had seen a beautiful round loaf on Pinterest that had herbs baked onto the bread crust as decoration. Daisy and I thought it looked beautiful and since the judges won't actually taste the food (worries of food poisoning), it needs to look as good as possible....

Each year my kids have participated in our county's 4-H Food and Nutrition contest where they make a food and then have to tell how healthy it is. Its a long list of stuff they need to do and know since they need to know the calories per serving, which food group it goes with and how that fits into a healthy diet, could it be made healthier, as well as explaining how they made it. They have to know what primary nutrients the dish provides (ie protein, fiber, vitamins, minerals) and what those nutrients do. They also have to tell what community service they did, what sort of leadership they did, what they have learned in the project and what sort of activities they did to learn those things. This was Junior's first real year to compete. In previous years he would make the food and the older teens would ask questions but he would get a ribbon just for showing up. He could say he didn't make it, his mama did and he would get a ribbon. He could say he didn't even ...

I love baking. I made my first loaf of bread when I was 12 and my mom was out of town. My dad let me do what I wanted in the kitchen. It was a basic white bread loaf and I was so proud of that loaf. Later in speech class we had to come up with a speech explaining how to do something and I chose bread baking (since I had made 3 or 4 loaves and was now an expert in my 13 year old mind). I loved the kneading and punching down, it was a great stress reliever. Plus, since regular bread takes so long to prepare - a minimum of 3 hours - it would force me to slow down. That is really what I miss about baking gluten-free is the stress-busting properties of bread baking. When I saw the list of ingredients for a basic gluten-free bread recipe, it was discouraging. I searched for weeks trying to find the definitive basic white bread before I realized there wasn't one. This person may use white rice flour, cornstarch and sorghum while this person uses brown rice flour, millet and tapioca st...

The meringue is the persnickety part of the whole thing. Or at least the most persnickety. If you missed part one click right here Next comes the buttercream but it isn't the sugary sweet stuff on the store cakes. Ok. If I am honest it is still plenty rich though. This is with the white chocolate but you get the idea Using a double boiler you melt 6 ounces of semisweet chocolate and 2 ounces of unsweetened chocolate. If you have never done a double boiler, you place a bowl over a saucepan with an inch or two of boiling water but be sure the bowl doesn't touch the water. I like covering the bowl with cling wrap to be sure that no water droplets get in the chocolate so it doesn't seize. It will take about 8 minutes. You then remove that bowl from the heat and put on one with 8 ounces of white chocolate and let it melt for 8 minutes. The dark chocolate will need stirring to make it look melted and then after the while chocolate is done, you stir it as well. While t...

After making 4 batches of brownies this week, you would think I would have some pictures but you would be wrong. I forgot to take any and now . . . They are all gone. Every single one. While we like them, I didn’t know that they would be such a big hit. We made 2 batches for the 4-H meeting with no leftovers. Several commented that they enjoyed them and wanted the recipe. I made 2 more batches for my Bible study class this morning and several more asked for the recipe. One of the ladies in the class was delighted that it was a snack she could enjoy (she is gluten-intolerant as well). We also had one of the preschool teachers look for us because there was a little boy who was gluten-free dairy-free and had no snack and they wanted something for him. These are unbelievably good and no weird ingredients. . . Ok, let me rephrase that, no ingredients you won’t find in a normal grocery store. But one of the ingredients is decidedly weird for brownies. Are you ready for it? ...

Our 4-H group starts off each year with having a cookie contest for the first meeting. The kids make the cookies and then judge but there are 2 divisions, 12 and under and 13 and up. Then for snack they have the cookies. Can you say "sugar high"? Daisy made her cookies with almost no help - I got stuff off of high shelves for her and put them in and out of the oven but that is all I did. She did Cowgirl cookies that I found on Bakerella 's website (I would directly link to the cookies but the site is down right now for maintenance). They were a bit too dry and crunchy that night but the next day they were really good. Junior made Pumpkin Pecan Chocolate Chip Cookies. Have you ever heard of them? They are the perfect fall chocolate chip cookie! Yummmm! We really weren't sure how good they would be because really, pumpkin and chocolate. together. But we loved these. Again, I got the recipe from Bakerella although we did not frost ours. Because I was tired. and it was...