Category: Recipes

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Learning New Skills – Sourdough Starter

Sourdough starter
Sourdough starter

Sourdough Starter

Why am I learning to make a sourdough starter?  I have spent years at home rearing children, homeschooling, cooking, laundry, etc. So this time in our history hasn’t been as hard on me maybe as some of you. But it has given me an excellent opportunity to explore possibilities. Extra time at home, what will I do? Using this time to learn some new skills and improve some old ones seems like a good idea.

What have I been learning? In my crazy artistic, ok maybe chaotic (it’s those 11 kids I’m telling you!) way I tackled several things I have been interested in for some time. Today I will tell you about my sourdough project.

Sourdough

The problem is I love bread! If I had to choose one food group it would probably be bread. What smells better than fresh bread baking? With a little direction from my friend Eleni Melirrytou, I decided to learn to make sourdough bread. That entails first making a sourdough starter. Yes, you normally can buy yeast in the grocery store. Maybe not during a pandemic. And maybe not in Africa. I know that you can buy a sourdough starter on Amazon. However, I want to learn the whole process so that wherever I am in the world I can make bread. This is a long process that begins with flour and water mixed and worked with for at least 14 days before you can have a strong enough starter to make your bread rise. You can make some pretty yummy sourdough pancakes with your throwaway starter though.

Work With Refugees

Do you remember the first time you ate sourdough bread? I don’t. I’m sure it must have been in Seattle in the 80s. The best sourdough I have ever tasted was made by my friend Eleni Melirrytou when she and her husband came to Nashville, Tennessee, to share about their work with refugees in Greece. Check out their website here. As with most functions with Christians, there was food! Not just food but amazing Greek food which included Eleni’s sourdough bread! Yum, makes your mouth water bread!

Northwest Sourdough

I need to learn how to do this, I told myself. I asked Eleni for recommendations and she sent me a link to a video by Northwest Sourdough and Teresa L. Greenway. There is a link for a free guide below the video. This video and the following ones got me started making my sourdough starter, pancakes, and eventually bread. Click on the link to learn how to make a sourdough starter using only flour and water.

One interesting side note is that I lived very close to where Teresa L. Greenway filmed these videos and I never knew what I was missing or what great resources were right next door.

 

Sourdough bread
Sourdough bread – My first loaf
Sourdough bread 2
Sourdough bread 2
Sourdough bread
Sourdough bread

If you follow this link you will find the recipe I used for my sourdough bread. Bake with Jack is a great teacher.

Sourdough bread for beginners and that’s me!

https://www.bakewithjack.co.uk/blog-1/2018/7/5/sourdough-loaf-for-beginners

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Mayonnaise Biscuits and Enter the Contest

Who has ever heard of mayonnaise biscuits? I certainly had never! Read on for I am about to share the recipe. This year a friend of mine had a birthday. As is common his amazing birthday dinner was shared of Facebook complete with pictures. It was a dinner that made me jealous. Just kidding I was happy for Glenn to have an amazing birthday dinner after all he’s a pretty amazing guy. And he must have a pretty wonderful wife to do all that for him.

As I was reading the list of items on the menu something caught my attention. Mayonnaise Biscuits. I had to message Erica right away to find out if I could have the recipe. She was sweet enough to share her special recipe and a little bit of the story behind it.

Glenn’s mom used to make them for him and to make the story a little bit sweeter she got the recipe from her mom. I love to collect recipes and especially if they have stories behind them.

So today I will share this simple recipe for you to try.

Mayonnaise Biscuits
Mayonnaise Biscuits

Mayonnaise Biscuits

2 c. Self-rising Flour
1 cup milk
1/2 cup mayonnaise

Preheat oven at 375° and lightly grease a muffin tin.

Mix all three ingredients and scoop by the spoonful into a muffin tin each one about 3/4 the way full.

Makes one dozen. 


Bake for 30 mins or until these golden brown.

These turn out to be very light.


I hope you enjoy them!! They are delicious! Thanks, Erica for introducing me to Mayonnaise Biscuits.

There are two ways to enter the contest to win a beautiful apron. Subscribe to my email list or send me a recipe with a story of why it is special to you.

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Instant Pot Black Bean Soup

Black Beans
Black Beans

Yesterday, I decided to try an old recipe…Instant Pot Style! Black Bean Soup has been a favorite of mine for a long time. Black beans are healthy, economical, and they taste great!

I don’t cook a lot using recipes, but I like to share them when I do:)

My first few experiences with the Instant Pot made me want to throw it out the door! I persisted because of my dear friend Lee who uses her Instant Pot constantly and is always telling me how it makes fixing dinner so easy. She is such a patient teacher! So here goes another experiment…

Ingredients:

4 cups dried black beans

2 quarts chicken broth

2 cups salsa (homemade or store-bought)

2 -3 teaspoons cumin to taste

4 garlic cloves (my favorite!) or 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

4 teaspoons lime juice

Salt (to taste)

Optional seasoning: red pepper added for heat

Optional toppings: cilantro, sour cream, or plain yogurt

Add the dried black beans with the chicken broth and cook in the Instant Pot for 14 minutes (use the manual setting to set the time).

While beans are cooking, saute the onions in a skillet.

After the 14 minutes is up, let the Instant Pot self-release its steam. Stir to make sure the beans are well cooked, and then add the sauteed onions, salsa, lime, and all the seasonings. Turn it on saute for about 5 minutes until it is all hot and mixed well. If you want it to have more liquid you can add some more broth or water at this point, and then it’s done! This soup has a lot of wonderful flavors! You can serve it with rice, tortillas, or tortilla chips.

 

Original Black Bean Soup and Short Cuts Added

The original recipe is not as large so I always had to double and triple it when the kids were home. You know how much boys can eat!

Here is the recipe:

1 lb. dry beans cooked according to directions (shortcut: use two cans cooked black beans)

1 -2 C  chicken broth  (substitute: 1 C water and 1 bouillon cube for each cup)

1 small onion, chopped

4 cloves garlic, minced (substitute: 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder)

2 cups of homemade salsa (substitute: 16 oz jar store-bought salsa)

4 teaspoons lime juice

2 teaspoons ground cumin

1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper

Optional toppings:

chopped fresh cilantro

sour cream or plain yogurt

Coat a large saucepan with cooking spray, cook onion and garlic over med-high for 4-5 min.  Add the cooked beans with their liquid, the salsa, lime, cumin, red pepper, and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to low.  Cover.  Cook, stirring occasionally for 25-30 minutes.  Top with yogurt and fresh cilantro.

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Easy Gluten-Free Cornbread

Gluten-Free Cornbread
Gluten-Free Cornbread

I bake gluten-free cornbread for my husband. According to the last three doctors and numerous tests, they have run my husband cannot tolerate gluten. He does, however, eat corn and loves to have a nice hot skillet of cornbread to accompany a bowl of beans. The two happen to go together right?

Can you imagine I have run out of the regular cornmeal? So instead I used masa flour. He really likes it. It has a softer texture than the regular stone-ground cornmeal I have used in the past. Here is the latest recipe I have come up with based on available ingredients at home.

Easy Gluten-Free Cornbread

1 cup of instant corn masa flour

1 cup almond flour

4 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1 cup milk

2 eggs

1/4 cup oil.

Preheat oven 425°. Bake in a small oiled iron skillet or pie plate for 20 minutes or until done. The top and sides should be golden brown and it should pull slightly away from the sides.

Let me know if you try this recipe?

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What Do I Do With 25 lbs. of Boiled Eggs?

What do I do with 25 lbs. of boiled eggs? I was recently given a “gift” of a huge bucket of eggs. Twenty-five pounds of eggs! As happens with gifts, you also have responsibility. First, I made room in my refrigerator for this big gift. Then I started thinking about what I might do with them. Thankfully the expiration date was a month away!

Egg salad and deviled eggs were easy. Then I looked up eggs in my Carla Emery’s Old Fashioned Book The Encyclopedia of Country Living. If you need to know anything about country living this is the book. There are over 800 pages to this book. There was a whole section on eggs with ten recipes for pickled eggs.

What did I do? I pickled a gallon of eggs. I have never pickled eggs before nor do I think I have ever eaten pickled eggs. I have tried pickled pig feet, pickled okra, pickled peppers, cauliflower, and of course regular pickles. The pickling process for eggs takes ten days to complete. They are supposed to keep for months. So I will try to remember to share my thoughts on pickled eggs when they are ready to eat.

As Patricia Crawford said, “when you have eggs, you eat eggs”! We have been eating boiled eggs for breakfast, lunch, and snacks!

Please share your favorite boiled egg recipes! I have a few dozen eggs left.

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Making Old Fashioned Banana Bread

I didn’t really start the day planning to make old fashioned banana bread.  Today I was sorting books and got to looking through some old cookbooks. I found a recipe for old fashioned banana bread. We had some overripe bananas that needed to be used so I suggested Esther make banana bread. She got even more creative and made a video of her process. This was her first attempt at banana bread. She said to remind readers to soften the butter which she forgot to do.  And she said she poked it a few too many times checking for doneness. The bread turned out to be delicious.

Even though she put the recipe at the end of the video I am including it here at the bottom of the page.

Old Fashioned Banana Bread

3 ripe bananas

1 Tbs water

1 cup of sugar

1/4 cup butter

2 beaten eggs

1/2 tsp salt

1 Tbs vanilla

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

2 cups flour

1 cup nuts

Mash bananas and water together. Set aside 3 minutes, and then mix remaining ingredients together as listed. Bake in loaf pan at 350 degrees for 60 minutes.

 

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Easy Homemade Playdough Recipe

Easy homemade playdough
Easy homemade playdough

Are you looking for things to do with your kids?

Below is a recipe for playdough that I have used with my children for many years. You probably have all the necessary ingredients in your cabinet. This will only take a few minutes to make but will give you hours of fun!

One advantage of making homemade playdough is that you know exactly what ingredients are in it and you can create your own unique colors.

Recipe for Homemade Play Dough
1 cup flour
1/2 cup salt
2 Tablespoons cream of tartar
1 Tablespoon cooking oil
1 cup of cold water
food coloring

Mix flour, salt, and cream of tartar. I put this in a small non-stick pan if you have one. I add the oil, water, and color and begin to stir over low to medium heat until it begins to thicken and stick together. It almost becomes a ball. I remove from heat and knead a little and set aside to cool for a few minutes. It is ready to play with now. Remember to store this in a sealed container or a sealed Ziploc plastic bag.

Let me know if you make homemade playdough and please share how much fun you had making it and playing with your kids today!

 

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Easy Homemade biscuits

Homemade Biscuits
Homemade biscuits
Homemade biscuits
Homemade biscuits

This morning I woke up early. I decided I wanted to make breakfast for the two kiddos I still have at home. (How did this ever happen that I only have two kids at home?) When I had a house full of kids my biscuit making always started with 8 cups of flour!

We are packing to move and to go on a month long mission trip.  I have been trying to use our perishables before we go. Today I took a little extra time and carefully worked the butter into the flour mixture and it was well worth the effort. On busier days I confess I take the lazy way out and do a quick drop biscuit. These turned out so well that I think this will be my regular biscuit recipe for awhile for the small batch and they were really easy to make actually.

2 Cups of all-purpose flour

1 Tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

6 Tablespoons of chilled butter

3/4 cup of milk

 

Preheat your oven 425°. Combine the dry ingredients and then cut the butter into small pieces and then work it into the flour until the butter pieces are pea size or smaller. I do this with my hands, you can use a pastry blender or two forks if you wish. After this is done quickly add the milk without over stirring and then knead for a few minutes until smooth (not too much). Then pat out the dough and cut out with a biscuit cutter. Mine is already packed so I used this small square Rubbermade container which is probably used for salad dressing. I placed each cut biscuit into my iron skillet. Placed the skillet in the hot oven for about 12 minutes or until done. These were very good with boysenberry jam.
While the biscuits were cooking I scrambled a few eggs. Just a simple breakfast but still really good. Even with only two kids at home I turned around and the skillet was empty.
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What’s Happening?

So much has been going on that I have been a bit overwhelmed with how to share it all!  I will share a couple of things to update you a bit.

Malawi

As many of you know my husband and I made a trip last year to Malawi. We spent two weeks meeting fellow Christians in several different districts. We taught hundreds in churches and prisons. I am changed forever by this trip.

These people have our heart in an amazing way. We are in contact with them or involved with the work every day! We are praying, encouraging, grading lessons, writing new lessons, speaking with interested people who want to share in this work, planning the work as well as preparing for our next journey this year. (Lord be willing).

There are so many needs and so many ways to get involved in this work. If you would like to have us come share our presentation with you or your church, or  are interested in joining our mailing list for Malawi or getting involved in helping the people of Malawi then reply below or send me an email to redaredding@gmail.com. I can’t wait to share with you!

Baking for Profit

Several years ago I published a small ebook called Baking for Profit. I made extra money while being a stay at home mom using my baking skills. I wrote this small book back in 2007 which includes how I got started doing this as well as exact recipes I used, how I found customers, etc. I want to share that this has recently it has been released on Kindle edition on Amazon!  So if you know anyone who would be interested in this please pass along my information. Or if you just want my recipes help yourself!

https://amzn.to/2UTPcbc

Hope to share more later! Happy Spring!

 

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Valentine Party Cookie

I am really stretching myself today to share this video from the past.

Several years ago I wrote an ebook called Baking for Profit. I also produced my very first traumatizing (for me that is) video on youtube. If you would like to see how I decorate a Valentine Heart Cookie or learn about my Baking for Profit book check out the video below. Through the years I  have made hundreds of these cookies if not thousands. You can find the recipe below the video.

You can probably use any Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe. Below you will find the recipe that I have used for many years.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:

2 1/4 cups flour

1 teaspoon soda

1 teaspoon salt

2 sticks or 1 cup butter or margarine

3/4 cup  brown sugar

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla and almond (if desired) I love it!

2 eggs

12 oz. chocolate chips

Directions:

Beat the softened margarine with brown sugar and white granulated sugar. Add eggs  and vanilla and beat again. Scrape down sides of bowl. Add the flour, soda, and salt.  Beat together. When mixed well add chocolate chips. For party cookies, I spread about 1/2 inch or a little more in my cake pans which have been sprayed with cooking spray. If I am baking a lot of these to sell I weigh the pan and the dough as I fill it. ** I write it down so that all of them will come out the same OR if you just want to remember how much dough you would put in each pan.  I want these to come out about 1 inch thick. I never weigh these unless I am baking them to sell. I usually bake until the top is springy and the cookie has pulled slightly away from the sides.  It will depend on your oven. I start checking the larger ones at about 30 minutes. It will be a beautiful golden brown, not too dark though. I can tell now by the smell when they are just about ready. With a little practice you will be able to do this. When you take this out of the oven you run a table knife around the edge and let cool for a few minutes. Turn this out on a wire rack to finish cooling. For the really large ones I use two racks one to hold on the front of the pan while I flip it out and one rack to flip the bottom side of the cookie  onto to cool. This prevents breakage.

Variation:

You can also bake these in a round pan or 13X9 pan.

Use a small scoop and drop them on a cookie sheet for individual cookies,  bake until done.

HINTS:

** I have found that even the same size Wilton pans may vary in weight so I do not give you the weights.

For the large party cookies make sure that you coat your baking pan with cooking spray or shortening.

I usually double the recipe to make my largest heart cookie. I make one small heart and my large heart from a double batch.

For the heart cookies I have 4 sizes of Wilton’s heart cookie pans. 6,9,12,14 inch pans. I have used the same pans for many many years. You may use any size you wish just put about 1/2 in the pan (not more than half full because it will rise and be too thick).

To Decorate the Cookie: 

I make a buttercream frosting. I usually do my message in green. I write the message first (It’s easier if you do it first and then I use an open star tip and make a border around the cookie. Make a rose or purchase roses and add to your cookie. Add a few green leaves and you are finished. Or omit the roses if you wish.