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recipes

No Knead to Rise

May 22, 2020 by gracefulfitness Leave a Comment

Oh yes, I’m a “quarantine” cliche.

My Victory Garden is sown. I’ve drank my quota (at least!) of Quarentini’s. I question everything I touch or don’t touch outside of my sacred little homestead bubble. The pantry is full of rice & beans. I workout (and teach) online. My mask collection isn’t just for Halloween. I daydream of long, cramped flights to far off places. I’ve had my fair share of tears, miscommunications, Netflix binges, distanced socializing, and…

I’ve baked loaves and loaves of SOURDOUGH BREAD.

This is top of the list of most satisfying kitchen projects I’ve ever done.

I did the whole shebang, including starting my starter from scratch and diligently feeding it copious amounts of flour for 6 days, making English Muffins, pizza dough, and waffles with all the “discard” along the way.

What’s starter?

Sourdough is a fermented bread that uses a “starter” rather than commercial yeast to provide the leavening and, of course, the sour flavor.

A starter is made from flour and water and gathers the “wild yeast” present within the air. Without getting technical at all, it’s not unlike the process of making lacto-fermented foods like kimchi, sauerkraut, or pickles.

(Technically speaking, it is a different fermentation process, I am just making the connection between the two in creating a tasty, tangy, good for digestion ferment.)

I used the King Arthur Sourdough Starter recipe as my guide.

Making a starter from scratch isn’t complicated but it does take attention, a lot of flour, and can be a little confusing the first time.

The first several days I was obsessed with making timelines for myself, setting reminders to feed, rereading the recipe and cross-referencing it with others.

I didn’t know what I was doing, I didn’t trust myself to know what to look for or that I was doing it correct. By about the fourth day, out of six, I finally got the hang of it and started to understand what I was doing and what I was looking for.

Starter recipes are daunting because fermentation is variable; every change in ambient temperature changes the fermentation rate, every tiny variation in ingredients influences the fermentation rate. Every starter is super unique and so what these recipes and guides actually need to teach is nearly impossible, the innate understanding of what you’re looking for as your starter goes through its process of eating the fuel (flour), peaking, and starting to get “hungry” again.

I experienced the same process as I started making bread; from confused to empowered.

The first few batches I had no clue what I was doing, I felt fumbly and insecure, rereading the recipe 1,000 times. Even when I was pleased as a peach with my first loaf, I wondered if it was a fluke.

Several batches later, I am a bread baker!

I know my favorite recipe from heart.

I experiment with it, changing the flours (adding partial whole wheat or spelt), and, most fun, adding olives and herbs and cheese!

This mornings loaves:

Half Whole Wheat with Green Olives and Fresh Thyme


Half Whole Wheat with Yard Pesto, Roasted Garlic, and Asiago Cheese

(the yard pesto was made my a friend and I believe is a mix of chickweed, dandelion, and herbs with all the other pesto usuals).

A little bit more on sourdough starters; once you have a starter, whether you were given one of made it from scratch, you can keep it forever. It will need regular feeds (once a week, you can go longer but you’ll have to give it several feedings before using it again when you are ready).

What’s up with people giving sourdough starter away?

Every time you feed the starter (a mix of flour and water every time), it triples or even quadruples in volume, depending on the exact recipe/ratio you are following. In order to not always have to increase the amount of flour you feed it, resulting in buckets and buckets of starter, you only need to save about a 1/2 cup of starter. What’s left, beyond that 1/2 cup, is called “discard” and you use it for your bread dough, you compost it, or you give it away for someone else to use for their starter base and dough’s.

What’s starter look like? Does it stink? It looks like a very wet dough and when it’s good and ripe it does have a slight sour, fermented smell but I don’t find it strong or overpowering at all. I store mine in a glass tupperware in the back of the fridge between baking.

Making the bread.

I’ve read several recipes and tried a few. The one I now use as a springboard again and again is the Food 52 No Knead Sourdough Bread, it’s been perfection every time and it’s truly no knead (thank goodness, I suck at kneading). As I said, I now play with what flours I use and what I add into the final fold but I stick with the general guidelines of their recipe, with the exception of increasing the salt to 2 teaspoons.

What’s the most satisfying “quarentine” project you’ve done?!

(I’ve decided to embrace the incorrect usage of quarantine. I’m well aware that I am not actually in quarantine but it seems to be common vernacular for whatever variation of “hunkering down” we are doing right now.)

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Posted in: baking, coronavirus, Covid-19, Fermented Food, food, goals, quarantine, recipes Tagged: Food52 No Knead Sourdough, homemade bread, homemade sourdough, homemade sourdough starter, sourdough bread

Quick & Simple Pickled Everything

May 18, 2020 by gracefulfitness Leave a Comment

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I love pickled things; cruchy, salty, tangy vegetables are my jam.

Unfortunately, really good pickles are hard to find and when you do, they can be pretty pricey.

Fortunately, making them is crazy easy. For real.

Here’s a basic brine to pickle anything.

(This “recipe” is for refridgerator pickles, no canning necessary)

Per PINT mason jar:

1/2 cup distilled white vinegar (or any other vinegar, my preference for this is the ‘clean and basic’ flavor of white vinegar)

1/2 cup water*

2 teaspoons salt*

2 teaspoons sugar*

Vegetables! Any combo, cut to your preference, enough to pack however many pints you plan to make

Optional add-ins:

1-3 peeled raw whole cloves garlic, a pinch or two red chili flakes, 1-2 fresh clean rosemary, dill, chives, or thyme sprigs, a bit of chopped onion, a pinch or two of a premade dry pickle spice blend, a teaspoon of dry mustard seeds, a pinch of dry dill, 1-2 bay leafs, a pinch of coriander seeds, a few allspice berries…the options are wide open really!

Step One: Prepare your vegetables by washing and cutting them.

IMG_3537

You can cut them however you’d prefer; keep in mind that the thicker the cut, the cruchier the vegetable will remain and the thinner the cut, the easier to pack into the jar.

Step Two: Make the brine.

Bring the vinegar, water, salt, and sugar to a gentle simmer.

Step Three: Prepare jars** and pack them.

While the brine heats, prepare your jars by washing them with soap and warm water then packing them.

To pack, put any “add-ins” in the bottom of your clean jar then tightly pack your vegetables in the jar, leaving at least a quarter inch of “headspace” between the top of the vegetables and the rim of the jar.  Or add-ins can go on top, for these pickled carrots I did both.

I prefer to pack the jars very tight because it maximizes the pickles-per-jar and balances the brine to vegetable ratio to my liking.

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Step Four: Pour the hot brine into the jars to just cover vegetables. Depending on what vegetables you have and how tight you pack them, you may have a little bit of leftover brine, you can discard it or save it in a jar for the next batch.

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Step Five: Let cool for 10 minutes then put your two piece ring lid on.

Let cool another 30 minutes then store in the fridge for up to two weeks.

Full disclaimer: I often keep these in the fridge for months but every single recipe I’ve ever read says just a few weeks.  You will know if they’ve gone back by mold or film on the surface, if they don’t look spoiled, they aren’t.

 

My favorite combos with this brine and technique

My Papa’s Rosemary Pickled Carrots

Carrots cut into sticks

2 medium rosemary sprigs per jar

2-3 cloves peeled whole garlic cloves per jar

a generous pinch of red chili flakes

(I also used pickling spice in the pictures above but I think I prefer without so the rosemary is more dominant)

We made these every year with garden carrots growing up and canned them for pantry storage, it was a revelation when I realized I could make them with store bought (organic, they taste so much better) carrots and make them just a few jars at a time without having to break out the canner!

Jalepenos and Carrots

My take on Zanahorias en Escabeche, or spicy pickled carrots.

Thinly slice carrots and jalepenos or, like I do, use the slice option on your food processor for quick and easy. very thin cut veg, follow method above.

We love these on “fajita salads”, tacos, rice and beans, really anywhere you would use hot sauce.

Share your winning combos! I’d love some more inspiration!

 

*This balance of salt, sugar, and vinegar is my preference but it is not a solid “rule”. If you are new to making refrigerator pickles I suggest you start with these ratios then decide for yourself what your preference is; you can increase the vinegar and decrease the water if you prefer a really vinegary pickle, just go for 1 cup of liquid per pint. You can also adjust the sugar and salt balance up or down (or skip the sugar all together, I personally like how it helps balance to intensity of the vinegar and brings out the sweetness in the vegetables).

Note: when you are canning fruits and vegetables for long term storage unrefridgerated, you must stick to the recipe for food safety, since these are stored in the fridge you have much more room to adjust and play with the balance.

**Please use canning jars for this because they are designed to withstand the heat of the near boiling brine.

 

I like to joke that my garden is a “Pickle Garden”, I cannot wait to get all the cucs, okra, green tomatoes, squash, and green beans in brine!

Other preserved/pickled posts

Lacto-Fermented Cucumber Dill Pickles

Lacto-Fermented Pickled Vegetables

Kimchi

Preserved Lemons

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Posted in: cooking, DIY, Fermented Food, food, gardening, recipes Tagged: homemade pickles, pickle brine, pickled carrots, pickled jalepenos, pickles
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I am Faith Levine, a movement instructor, home gardener, mountain biker, hiker, pickle maker, closet poet, and best of friend to some of the most amazing women in the world.

I’d love to hear from you,
gracefulfitness@live.com

Header photo: Meredith Coe

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Hi, I'm Faith! New? Check out I Am for my story, I Cook for recipes, and I Move for some motivation to get moving! I'd love to hear from you, e-mail me gracefulfitness@live.com
Header photo: Meredith Coe

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