Blackboard Paint

My dining room has a large south-facing window that is perfect for keeping a few pots of herbs going throughout the winter. I wanted to use terracotta pots since they are inexpensive and I like the rustic look. Plus, I had an idea for dressing the pots up just a little.

I found blackboard paint. Pretty cool stuff. Paint it on just about any surface and once it's dry, you have a surface like a chalkboard.

I painted the outside of a few plain old terracotta pots...

...and voila! They were transformed into something that looked like it came from Williams Sonoma!

Not bad for a couple bucks worth of paint and cheap clay pots!

Rock-Your-World Cheese Crackers

Oh yeah, baby! These little numbers really will rock your gluten free/ low carb world! 

My friend Kathleen shared the secret to these cheese crackers. It's hands-down the best snack recipe I've ever tried. One ingredient and a minute and ten seconds! It's brilliant! Absolutely brilliant! 

Here's the secret ingredient...deli-style American cheese slices. That's it.  Use the sliced American cheese you get in the deli department or else the "deluxe" style slices in the packaged cheese department....the kind that are NOT individually wrapped.

You also need parchment paper, a knife and a microwave. 

Stack two slices of the cheese on top of each other. Cut them into nine pieces.

Arrange the pieces on a small square of the parchment paper. You'll want them about an inch apart or so.

Put the cheese and parchment into the microwave. There's no need to use a plate or dish. Set the timer for a minute and ten seconds on high power. The cheese is going to bubble up and spread out a bit.

Somehow, during that minute and ten seconds, the cheese magically transforms into a crisp, light, pillow of cheesy delightfulness. Maybe it's kitchen elves? 

It's nothing short of amazing! Look at that airy texture!

You would never guess it's just a couple of slices of deluxe American cheese! They taste a lot like those Goldfish crackers or Cheez-its. And they're delicious with a glass of wine.

G.W. and I experimented with some seasoning before microwaving the cheese. A tiny pinch of seasoned salt or Tony Chachere's Cajun seasoning adds a little zip, but they are delicious without any added flavoring. 

If you serve these babies to anyone, guaranteed they'll be asking for your secret. Just wink, ask them to follow you into the kitchen, then show 'em how the magic happens. You have to see it to believe it!

Enjoy!

Rolling in Dough - Waffles!

"And in the morning, I'm makin' waffles!"

If you haven't seen the movie Shrek, that quote will be lost on you. Nevertheless, it's hard not to get excited about waffles for breakfast!

My friend and sourdough donut helper Kathleen and her hubby came over for a waffle breakfast.  I used the King Arthur Flour Company recipe for Classic Sourdough Waffles or Pancakes.  

Classic Sourdough Waffles or Pancakes

Overnight Sponge

2 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-purpose Flour

2 Tbsp sugar

2 cups buttermilk

1 cup sourdough starter, unfed

Waffle or Pancake Batter

all of the overnight sponge

2 large eggs

1/4 cup vegetable oil or melted butter

3/4 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

To make the overnight sponge, stir down your refrigerated starter, and remove 1 cup.

In a large mixing bowl, stir together the 1 cup starter, flour, sugar and buttermilk. Cover and let rest at room temperature overnight.

In a small bowl or mixing cup, beat together the eggs and oil or butter. Add to the overnight sponge. Add the salt and baking soda, stirring to combine. The batter will bubble.

Pour the batter onto your preheated, greased waffle iron and bake according to manufacturer's instructions. Serve waffles immediately to ensure crispness or hold in a warm oven until ready to serve.

To make pancakes instead, cook batter on a hot griddle or skillet.

The waffles turned out perfectly. I thought they had a more complex flavor than traditional waffles, but did not have a pronounced sourdough tang. Kathleen assured me that as my starter ages, it will develop a stronger sourdough taste. 

Did we like these waffles? Yup! This is my new go-to recipe for waffles and pancakes. Sorry, Bisquick...you've been retired!

Rolling in Dough - It's time to make the donuts!

Who remembers this guy? He starred in commercials for Dunkin Donuts for fifteen years back in the 80's and 90's.

Although my friend Kathleen and I did not wake at the crack of dawn, we churned out three batches of sourdough donuts before noon today. Not too shabby!

We used a recipe from the website of the Mid-Atlantic Innkeepers Trade Show and Conference. Why that recipe? It's the one that seemed most simple and didn't use a lot of ingredients. Plus, these donuts are baked and not fried. You use a special donut pan for the baking.

I never had an assistant in the kitchen before, but after today, Kathleen has me completely sold on the idea. She measured out all my ingredients AND did the dishes as we went along. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven!

First up is the rye flour starter.

We spooned the dough into zipper bags to make it easier to fill the donut pan. This dough rested while we made the other two.

Here are the rye starter donuts going into the oven. And you can see what the donut pan looks like, too.

 And here they are all done baking. The bottoms browned nicely, the tops did not. Even after we turned my oven another fifty degrees higher, the donuts didn't brown. It's an old oven and obviously isn't  heating up the way it needs to for baked goods to brown. I had the same problem with the biscuits.

The texture was very similar to what you'd expect from a fried cake donut. They were slightly sweet and had a very delicate sourdough taste.

Next up is the unbleached flour starter. Browned bottoms, pale tops, but not the fault of the recipe.

And finally, the wild yeast donuts.

There wasn't a noticeable difference in taste or texture among the three batches.  All three were moist, cake-like in texture and lightly sweetened. The sourdough flavor was very subtle.

I'm very happy with how these donuts turned out. They are a great way to use your starter! 

The next experiment is sourdough waffles. I'll let you know how they turn out!

Rolling in Dough - Biscuits

Now that the three sourdough starters are a week old, it's time to start using them. Over the last three days, I made biscuits with each of the starters. The clear winner is the potato water wild yeast version.

I chose a simple biscuit recipe from Mother Earth News.  The recipe uses baking powder in addition to the sourdough starter, so it's not an authentic sourdough recipe (which would only use the starter as the leavening agent). Baking powder wasn't even invented until the mid-1800's!

Sourdough Biscuits

2 cups flour, preferably unbleached
1 Tbsp sugar, if desired
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup shortening or butter
2 cups starter (approximately)

Put all the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Cut in shortening or butter with a pasty blender until you have pea-sized bits. Now add in your starter using a fork, putting in about 1 1/2 cups first. If the dough is still too stiff or dry, add enough until you get a soft dough.

Once your dough is formed, pat it out (you can also use a rolling pin) on a floured board. Cut out biscuits using a 2 inch cutter, and place 1 inch apart on a greased cookie sheet. If you want to do something different, you can pat your dough into a square or rectangle, and using a knife, cut out square biscuits.

Bake biscuits in a 425-degree oven for about 12 minutes. Always keep and eye on them and they should be nicely browned when done.

Remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack. Serve warm with butter.


Last night, it was time to feed the starters again. I took out and reserved 1 cup of each. I fed the rest with 1/2 cup of flour and 1/2 cup water. Removing some starter before you feed it helps keep the yeast vigorous.

Each of the reserved starters also got a feeding of 1/4 cup flour and 1/4 cup water.

The first batch of biscuits used the unbleached flour starter. 

After all of the starter was mixed in, the dough was still very dry, so I added a little splash of milk to get it moist enough to hold together.

I took the quick route of patting the dough out into a rectangle and cutting it into biscuits. The more you handle the dough the tougher the biscuits are, so this method besides being quick and easy, eliminates the need to re-roll scraps of dough for cutting more biscuits. I think the rough shapes are rustically attractive!

After nearly 15 minutes in the oven, the biscuits seemed to be done but were not browned. I was afraid to leave them in the oven any longer because they'd dry out.

Of course I forgot to photograph them right from the oven. G.W. and I had already sampled them before I remembered the camera.

The biscuits did not rise into fluffy clouds. They formed a nice crunchy crust on the top and bottom and were moist in the middle. But they are considerably more dense than traditional biscuits. And there was the distinctive sourdough tangy taste. I love that flavor! G.W. was not as impressed. He said he prefers light, fluffy biscuits. While these are not 'hockey pucks', they are definitely in the stick-to-your-ribs category.

The second batch used the potato water wild yeast version. I followed the same procedure as the first batch.

These rose a little more than the first ones, but didn't brown either. The outside was crunchy and the inside was moist and a little lighter than yesterday's version. They also had a much stronger sourdough tang. Both G.W. and I liked the way this batch turned out.

The final test batch used the rye flour starter. Supposedly, rye flour creates a stronger yeast, so I was curious if there would be a noticeable difference in how much the biscuits rise. I used unbleached flour to make the biscuit dough, by the way...not rye flour.

Once again, I forgot to take a photo of them right out of the oven. We were hungry and started in on them immediately. As you can see, they did not rise much. So much for that "rye starter is better" theory.

The insides were moist and dense, but not in an unpleasant way. 

The flavor was OK, but not nearly as good as the wild yeast ones.

I'm not surprised that the wild yeast made for a better biscuit. After all, it's how people made starters for pretty much all of baking history.

In order to get a nicely browned biscuit, I will either brush the tops with butter before (or mid-way through) baking, or add a little more shortening to the dough. 

Before I throw out the other two starters, I have one more experimental baking session with them. Today, a couple of friends are coming over to help make sourdough donuts. Stay tuned for the results!

Help for the Hoop House

Here is what I have added to the hoop house to (hopefully) keep it from getting crushed under the weight of the next snow. And that next snow is supposed to be here this coming weekend!

I put in three vertical supports to help strengthen the hoops.

I slipped a T-joint onto each of the three hoops, then put another section of PVC pipe through the joint and down into the raised bed.

                             

The snow storm that's predicted to arrive this weekend is supposed to bring a half foot of snow, low temps in the single digits and below zero wind chills.  I'll let you know how my little hoop house holds up!

Oh, I peeked under the mulch on the garlic bed....everything seems to be fine. Some of the shoots are several inches high.

Improvements to the Hay Nets

We've been using the hay net slow feeders for about a month now and it's been a success. We did make some modifications/improvements to them and feel we have a durable, easy-to-use version now.

G.W. thought that running some rebar through the back portion of the net would provide some structure and a means to secure the net to the fence. He was right, of course. He used pipe clamps to fasten the net to the fence. The zip ties were OK, but got brittle in cold temperatures.

The horses were flipping the nets over the fence until we began tying them to the middle rail of the fence. Tying it in the middle of the back of the net and tying tightly minimizes the chances that a horse would somehow get a foot caught.

The chains and snap hooks work beautifully. They had been slipping around and getting hung up on the net and chicken wire until we used some zip ties to secure the chain to the fence rail. We may use more pipe clamps instead of the zip ties. 

I scavenged scraps of stall mats from around the barn and put them under two of the nets. They help prevent the hay that filters out of the nets from getting trampled into the ground and wasted. I'm not sure yet if it's effective enough to warrant purchasing more rubber mats for the other two nets.

The hay that just came in is really nice and long. When the horses pull it through the net, it works like Kleenex in a box by pulling the next few strands up.

We had our last three tons of hay delivered last week. There's hay everywhere! 

Here's G.W. and another of our billboard hay covers.

And here's Carson demonstrating a hay net. 

Carson's coat, even his shaggy winter one, has started to dapple. I think it's from a supplement we give them called Omega Horseshine. Omega Horseshine does a lot of things for our boys, but the main reason we give it to them is to prevent sand colic. 

Horses who are fed on sandy ground run the risk of a dangerous accumulation of sand in their digestive tract. There are a number of sand colic prevention supplements on the market. These products usually contain psyllium, which forms a gel that picks up and moves the sand out of the digestive tract. Omega Horseshine contains ground flax seed, which works much like the psyllium does. Flax also contains essential fatty acids that are usually missing from a hay diet. 

Before I wrap this up, I wanted to  share just one more photo of the horses...