Bread and tomatoes

Whole wheat bread and buns

Sourdough starter

Gazpacho?

Shrimp pasta sauce

Bread: This week I made bread and buns.  I used to make it all the time a few years ago when I was involved in the local Farmers Market. I used the same recipe but I tried soaking the flour a day ahead but I could only soak about 1/3 of the recipe as the rest I had to work in dry. Not sure how I’m going to overcome that problem. 

Sourdough Starter: I also tried making sourdough starter this week.  I think it might have worked?!  It was a really warm windy day and I set it outside. By the end of the day, it was all bubbly. 🙂  I had to put it in a larger jar.

Gazpacho: I used a recipe at cheeseslave.com but modified it a bit to suit what I had.  When we went to Spain we had gazpacho and I loved it!  My attempt at it didn’t quite taste like what we had there but it was still good.  I tried to make it smooth but turned out more like a smoothy than a soup.  Still tasted good.  It’s a good food to put in hubby’s lunchbox.

Shrimp Pasta Sauce:  This is a dish I created based on pasta dishes we would have in Italy.  Saute chopped onion in coconut oil, add sliced mushrooms, lots of minced garlic and lots basil.  When the mushrooms are just about done, add chopped tomatoes and shrimp.  Heat and serve over whole wheat pasta.  You can substitute the shrimp for any seafood.

Chokecherry Wine: Not pictured but I started a batch of chokecherry wine.  Not sure how “real” this is as I used sugar, but I did use an old fashioned recipe, the way grandpa would have made it.  Doesn’t the fermentation eat up the sugar?

This post is part of Tuesday Twister blog carnival hosted by GNOWFGLINS.com

I found my recipe!

I’ve been hunting for my chokecherry wine recipe. All the recipes I was looking at called for wine yeast, a campden tablet, tannin and/or pectic enzyme.  I wanted to make it the old fashioned way and I had done it that way before but a long time ago.  I was looking through my recipe pile for something else when I found this page, ripped from it’s original book.  YAY! You can click on it to enlarge. Well used, huh?  I found the rest of the book as well, without its cover.  My apologies to anyone interested in the Potato Wine recipe.

I’ll start making chokecherry wine tomorrow.

Chokecherries and wild plums

The boys picked some chokecherries and some wild plums for me.  The first pail of chokecherries, I made into juice.  The berries themselves look like jewels to me, the juice is this incredible deep burgundy color.  I got a quart of juice and I think we’ll just drink it like that.  I have lots more berries I’d like to turn into wine if I can find my recipe!  If you have a good chokecherry wine recipe, let me know.

I wish there were more plums because the sauce turned out really nice.  I pitted them then ran them through my tomato press.  The color of the plum sauce is incredible too, it’s a lovely pumpkin-and-spice orange.