You may remember a few weeks ago I posted a “how to” guide on wrapping won tons? It is one of our favourite light quick lunches, so we tend to have it quiet often. I thought it was only fair to show you how I used them and how many variations to won ton soup exist. This is just a teaser…
This variation is fairly traditional. Clear broth (I use a vegetarian broth, but traditionally you would use chicken), lightly boiled vegetables (carrots, spring onions, celery, brocoli and bok choy) and won tons.
This variation is commonly called an egg drop soup. Again, I use a clear vegetable based broth with lightly boiled vegetables (carrots, spring onions, celery, zucchini and bok choy), vermicelli noodles and won tons. Whisk an egg until light and airy and slowly pour your egg into the hot soup in a very slow steady stream while mixing continually.
Shredded Chinese (wombok) cabbage, egg plant, and egg noodles all make great alternatives. Don’t go over board with your soy sauce – you don’t want to lose the integrity of the flavours that are present.
Every Friday, the fine folk over at The Daily Post issue a weekly photo challenge. This weeks challenge is Together.
This should be a simple challenge for most of you – find a picture of people or things which are together in your picture. Share a picture that means TOGETHER to you!
This photo was taken very late one night after a birthday party. Joe and I were cuddling in the hallway of a friend’s house, sleepily sharing space and time. It’s common for us to steal moments of intimacy like this – we tend to do it several times a day. This tactile interaction is essential for both of us, and although society frowns on such open displays of affection, we chose to ignore such dogma.
On this occasion, unknown to us, a friend had picked up a camera and had clicked off a few photos. We fell in love with this photo the instant we saw it. Its become to be our “couples” photo. Joe uses it as his Facebook profile picture, and I had it mounted on a piece of wood for our 5th anniversary last December. To us, its our symbol of us – together.
For my regular readers, the photo on my environmental blog The Environmental Rhi-Source is different from the post here! It’s quite a special story and photo and I hope you will enjoy it.
I’ve written this starter recipe out a few times in the comments sections on various posts now so I’ve decided to do it in a post so that its more accessible for people. There is something very wholesome about making your own baked goods. Its fun, rewarding, challenging and profitable. I wont bother going into the health benefits or the science behind sourdough as there is so much available on the internet about such topics.
There are many versions of sourdough starters on the net; potato starter, wholemeal / whole wheat starter, white starter, plum and grape starters – the list is long and exhaustive. While researching starters, I spent the better part of the summer looking to various internet sites for the right starter for me until I got this one.
I’d love to be able to give someone credit for this recipe, cause I sure didn’t invent it. After three failed starter attempts, the starter I am about to describe has worked a treat for me and given me superb results. Unfortunately, I can’t remember where it actually came from though, but the actual recipe is probably as old as the hills.
This start container has ample room for the starter to grow and is protected from wild yeast by a shower cap / bowl cover. This photo was taken about 5 hours post feeding and has doubled (risen) in size - note all the bubbles indicating an active healthy starter?
Mix the above ingredients well and place into a container covered by some cheese cloth or other breathable material. I use a loose-fitting shower cap style bowl cover (photo above)
Find a nice spot in your kitchen for your sourdough to sit. It will need to be in a warm spot free of drafts. Mine sits on my south-facing kitchen window.
A room with a view: My sourdough starter, sprouts and indoor herbs sit on a south-facing window sill. In the southern hemisphere, this position gets limited early morning direct sunlight, reducing the risk of over activation, drying out or scorching.
Every 12 hours, give your sourdough a vigorous stir. In a few days, you will notice bubbles forming that aren’t from the stirring. This is the tell-tale signs of your starter coming to life.
Once the bubbles have been observed, its time to feed your sourdough. You always want to feed it enough to double its weight. As we started with 100 g (total) flour and 100 g water, its time to add that same weight (200 g total between flour and water) to our starter. Mix 100 g of water into your starter followed by 50 g white flour and 50 g rye flour. Mix well and let it rest.
An active sourdough culture should be light, bubbly, and have a yeasty smell about it.
After this initial feed, you want to reduce your starter by a cup or so before each feed. Just ensure that you leave at least 1 cup of starter in your jar at all times to keep your starter going. Depleting it further than this point will weaken it and may cause the cultures to die. You can use the discarded cup or two of start in breads, pizza crusts, muffins, scrolls and pancakes. If you do not remove this starter each feed, you will soon have enough starter to fill a swimming pool. Also consider this; you must feed it enough weight to double which will soon become too costly to feed!
Sourdough pancakes are a sensational way of using up your discarded cup or two of starter culture.
Observations
A healthy active starter that is sitting at room temperature will require feeding every 12 – 24 hours. You will notice a pattern in your starter over time. Within an hour of feeding, my starter begins to grow. Within four or five hours, it will come close to doubling in size before deflating as all of the food is consumed by your starter culture. When this occurs, its time to feed it again, however, I find morning and night feeds is sufficient.
Quality flours produce quality products. If you are going to go to all this trouble, don’t cut corners. I use organic, unbleached flours that are stone ground where possible. They do cost a bit more, but the end results are worth it. (IGA Organic White Flour is about A$3 / kilo while Fundamental Foods Organic Stone Ground Rye is about A$5 / kilo. I use a kilo of each in the starter every two weeks. (Sidenote: Since switching to the rye flour, I’ve had no problems at all. I think it is worth its weight for this sort of thing.) (Pro Tip! to save time, mix 1 kg Rye with 1 kg organic white flour and store in a container. The 50% / 50% flour mixture can just be measured straight, saving time.
Quality flours create quality products.
If your sourdough doesn’t appear to be active after three or four days, discard it and try again. If your sourdough doesn’t appear to be active after two attempts, change flour brands.
I would not use the discarded sourdough starter until it has stabilised. This may take a week or two. When your sourdough is predictable, its good to use!
If you are going away, put your sourdough in the fridge. This will put it in a dormant state until you are home again. Slowly bring back to room temperature, stir, and resume normal feeding.
Remember, you want to double its weight each feeding - don’t cut corners or you will starve your culture to death. Learn to weigh your starter. To do this, get to know the weight of your container. Total container / starter weight of 400 g less container weight 100 g gives you 300 g starter. To feed this, add 150 g water, 75 g Rye and 75 g White Flour. This is sufficient to double the starters weight, giving it ample food for growth!
These delicious cinnamon scrolls were made with a sourdough starter. Note how much they grew in just 120 minutes? There is no yeast in that dough - just some precious sourdough starter.
After feeding, don’t forget to scrape down the sides of your container. This will stop mould growing in warmer, more moist conditions. Also, change your container every three or four days.
When choosing a container to house your starter, consider that you will be feeding it (doubling its weight and volume) and it can rise by as much as 150% in hot weather. Make sure you have enough room in your container for this to occur.
Look how light and airy this bread is! Who would have thought it was possible with wholemeal bread? Sourdough no knead bread magic!
Final note of importance: Try to not use cup measurements. Weight and volume are not the same. You want to have equal portions by weight, not volume. By volume, your starter will become too watery and will not be able to hold its weight or raise bread. Weight, dear friends, is the road to sourdough heaven.
I know it all seems daunting and probably a tad overwhelming at the start, but trust me – once you get started it’s an addictive process that you will just love. It’s a happy part of my morning chores. I wake up, and feed my living dependent things – the cat, the garden (water), my sprouts and sourdough. So satisfying! AHHH its good to be alive!
SUCCESS. I can not begin to tell you how very elated I am to be able to report my bread success to you, dear loyal readers. After weeks and weeks of trial and error, I finally have a wonderfully stable sourdough starter (that I mentioned a few days ago). The next challenge was bread! After all, what is the point of it all if it can’t rise bread? There are so many bread recipes out there for the bread, that I had to carefully sort through them all (and look for the easiest one!). I don’t have a machine to knead for me, so the one that boasted no knead formulated was the obvious winner for me. I just hoped the promises of taste and texture delivered. I will let you be the judge…
1 cup sourdough starter
1 cup wholemeal flour
½ cup white flour
1 cup water
1 tablespoon salt
Methods
The night before: Mix your salt, water and starter together before working in your flours. If the dough is too thin / thick, add a little more flour / water. Cover with a tea towel and allow to rest overnight.
Next morning: Punch down your dough and fold the sides of your dough over the top of each other. (see video below for example).
Place in an oiled bowl and allow to rest for another 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 260°C during this rest period.
Shape the dough as desired. (I made mine into a traditional vienna style shape and sprinkled it with flour).
Place it onto a baking tray covered with baking paper and bake for about 30 minutes or until brown and crispy.
Look how light and airy this bread is! Who would have thought it was possible with wholemeal bread?
Observations
To get the same consistency he does in the video, I have to use 1 cup wholemeal and 2 cups of white. I am not sure why this is (humidity, starter consistency, water?) but all in all, the dough still works out brilliantly!
Baking time will alter slightly according to the moisture content of your dough. This attempt was done within 25 minutes.
My dough quadrupled in size and produced a loaf approximately 750 grams in weight.
The bread was a lot lighter and fluffier than I had dared dreamed. I think that is because of the white flour incorporated into this recipe.
Diabetic Note: To be honest, I scoffed quite a few slices hot for breakfast and my blood glucose levels were quite happy considering. Normal bread would NOT have had my BGLs screaming for help. There is something about this bread that made all my body sing with joy.
Ethical Note: There has to be something absolutely environmentally sustainable with people producing their own bread and avoiding the chemical nightmares propelled by the industrial machine. This success certainly made my heart sing, and this sandwich was the embodiment of all my efforts.
Post Note: I’ve made this bread four times, and its been different each time. If only I could work out what I did the first time, cause it was so awesome!
This sandwich was sheer excellence. It had home-made hummus instead of butter, home-grown tomatoes, free ranged eggs, local lettuce and cucumbers. It was nutritious, filling and delicious.
Joe and I are quite partial to dips for a light snack or lunch. And who doesn’t love hummus on sandwiches instead of butter? I decided to give making hummus a try, and I am glad I did. It was just what the doctor ordered!
[ SERVES: Lots | TIME: 15 MIN | COST: <$3 ]
[ JOES' RATING: 4/5 | MY RATING: 4.5/5 ]
Ingredients
400 grams chickpeas
50 grams tahini
juice of one lemon
2 cloves garlic
2 – 3 tablespoons olive oil
½ teaspoon salt
water as needed
Methods
Dried chickpea preparation: Soak 250 grams chickpeas for 24 hours before cooking for 30 minutes. Drain and allow to cool, reserving the cooking liquid.
Canned chickpea preparation: Drain the peas but reserve the liquid.
Add the chickpeas and slowly blend, adding water or reserved chickpea liquid if needed.
Stir in the tahini and mix well to incorporate.
To serve, place a good dollop onto a platter, forming a well. Fill the well with quality olive oil. Sprinkle generously with paprika and serve with crackers or flat breads.
Observations
How wonderful and easy is this dish? Its packed with flavour, and is wonderful either as a dip or as a spread on sandwiches in the place of butter.
I prepared some of this dip as a house-warming gift. Nothing says welcome like some home-made dip.
Diabetic note: This is a lovely alternative to cream based dips that are heavy in fats. It is also a wonderful substitute for butter. My blood glucose sugars hardly even budged.
Ethical note: The lack of dairy in this dish is a breath of fresh air for the environment. When possible, consider dairy free alternatives.
A few weeks ago, I saw this amazing recipe for Wholemeal Sourdough Cinnamon Scrolls by one of my favourite foodies, The Ragamuffin Diaries. Due to continual sourdough starter failure, I’ve had it book marked with a promise of getting back to it once I had a stable starter. That amazing feat of strength has been achieved after four failed starters! (Organic rye starter succeeded where organic white and wholemeal attempts failed). These scrolls would be the real test for my week old starter, and let me tell you, my starter aced the test with a A+ grade test result!
1 ½ cup sourdough starter
2 – 3 cups whole wheat flour
2/3 cup coconut milk
2 tablespoons agave
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
Filling:
about ½ cup raw sugar
olive oil
cinnamon
chopped nuts
currents / raisins
Glaze:
¼ cup raw sugar
1 – 2 tablespoons coconut milk
1 tablespoon maple syrup
Method
Afternoon before you want your finished product, mix your sourdough starter with 1 cup of flour. Cover with a moist tea towel and allow the rough dough to rest for six hours.
After resting, mix the rest of the dough ingredients. Add more flour / starter as needed so the dough is workable but not too sticky. Knead it for 4 – 5 hours. Place in a well oiled bowl and cover with a damp tea towel to rest overnight.
Note how much the dough has risen after the first rest period!
The next morning, prepare a work space by oiling its surface. You will need a workspace that is roughly 50 cm x 30 cm.
Punch down the dough and move it to the work surface. Use your hands to shape the dough into a rectangle shape. Use the rolling pin to make it an even thickness of 1 – 1.5cm thick.
Using your hands, lightly oil the dough surface before distributing your filling evenly over the entire surface.
Note the well oiled surface and evenly spaced ingredients.
Carefully roll the dough along the long side. Be gentle and go slow, patting it firm along the way. (You don’t want to rush and rip the dough or make it too loose.
Cut the newly formed scroll log into individual scrolls that are roughly 2 – 3 cm thick. Place them into a baking dish that has been lined with some baking paper. Cover with a tea towel and allow to rise for 1 – 2 hours.
Before and after final rest. Note how much they have grown in size.
Preheat the oven to 180°C. Once the scrolls have finished rising, bake them in the oven for about 20 minutes.
After the scrolls have cooled, break then apart carefully. Prepare the glaze by whisking all the ingredients together. Drizzle the glaze over the warm’ish scrolls.
Observations
Use honey or maple syrup if you don’t have some agave syrup.
Oiling your hands before transferring your dough to the work surface will make it easier to handle and work with.
I have to admit that I did all this in one day so we could have them that night and it worked perfectly well, but do observe the rest periods – the dough needs that time to incorporate and let the sourdough to do its thing.
The original recipe called for coconut oil. I used olive oil and it seemed to be fine (although I don’t have a real comparison)
We used walnuts, almonds and currents. I really would have loved some shredded coconut through this, but didn’t have any on hand. The fruit / nut combinations are endless.
Diabetic Note: Hmm, all that sugar. As you can guess, it didn’t do my blood glucose levels any real favours, but that might also be because I had 4! Limit how much sugar you use, and your serving size for happy BGLs.
The sourdough battle continues. I am now onto my fourth sourdough starter in just over a month and a half. My starters get to about 10 – 14 days and dies. My current starter *seems* to be ok, so I decided to experiment. Using this Sue Lau recipe as a guide, I made some delightful sourdough pizzas. The crusts were light, thin and crispy and I will definitely be using this recipe again.
In a bowl, mix all the crust ingredients together. If the dough is too moist / too dry, add more flour / starter as needed. Knead lightly and allow to rest for 30 minutes.
Turn oven (and / or preheat pizza stone) to the hottest setting to start its preheat.
After resting, work the dough for 15 minutes. Once it is quite elastic, divide it into thirds and allow it to rest for a further 30 minutes.
Sprinkle flour on your counter top / work bench and use a rolling-pin to shape the dough. Turning it a quarter turn each roll will help give it a round shape.
Prick the base with a fork several times and bake on a pizza stone or pizza tray for four to five minutes.
Top your pizza with your favourite ingredients and bake for an additional five minutes.
Enjoy while hot!
This was my pizza. It was topped with a drizzle of olive oil, roast garlic smeared into the oil and base, caramalised pumpkins as described above, crumbled Nimbin Valley Dairys Lemon Billy goats cheese, torn baby bocconcini, freshly chopped chives, thyme, salt and pepper. Sometimes, the simple flavours win the day.
Observations
It’s important to note that this dough will not raise much (if at all). The resting and kneading allows the dough to be workable and elastic, but does not encourage much of a rise.
If you would like to make roast pumpkin, garlic and sweet potato like I have here, prepare the roasted vegetables ahead of time. Cut the vegetables into bite size pieces. Skin the garlic but leave the cloves whole. Place the vegetables and garlic into an oven tray and sprinkle with olive oil, cinnamon, salt and pepper to taste. Mix well and bake in a moderate oven for 30 minutes, until caramelised. (The cinnamon gives roast vegetables such as pumpkin and sweet potato a delightful flavour and enhances their natural sweetness).
I departed from the original recipe in several places. In my version, I gave the dough an extra knead. This activated the gluten in the dough and made it much more pliable. This dough had a beautiful texture and was very easy to work with.
We enjoy thin pizzas. If you enjoy a thicker base, double the crust ingredients quoted.
Diabetic Note: My blood glucose levels were slightly elevated after this meal, but that was to be expected. Be mindful of your serving size and limit your cheese (my pizza is the one above and has a reduced amount of cheese). I also opted to avoid sauces which are high in sugar.
Ethical Note: I used my sourdough starter for this. To feed sourdough, half of the mixture is discarded each time. That half can be used for things such as this. Reduce your waste, support local produce, live long and prosper! (ok, well, only if you are a vulcan….)
This was Joe's pizza. The base was layered with tomato and garlic pizza sauce, garlic flakes, sliced chorizo sausage, roasted butternut pumpkin and sweet potato, whole roasted garlic, torn baby bocconcini, generous amounts of grated light tasty cheese, oregano, basil, chilli flakes, chives and salt and pepper to taste.
Every Friday, the fine folk over at The Daily Post issue a weekly photo challenge. This weeks challenge is Sun.
We’ve done sunset before, but what about when the sun, in its full glory, is the feature of your photo? Here’s a picture of a Roman alleyway, and the sun transforms this normal scene into something magical with its rays.
This morning, the skies were full of more heavy clouds. Muddy puddles were unavoidable; evidence of water-soaked soils stretched beyond capacity thanks to last nights drenching. On three occasions, my morning walk was interrupted by showers. The sun has been sorely missed in this part of the world as we battle daily with the effects of the most recent La Niña weather system. Given our uncooperative weather, I honestly thought this weeks photo challenge was going to be impossible.
I was visiting Joe at work this afternoon, and was pretty tickled pink to see the sun. Oh long-lost friend – how wonderful to see you peeking around the corner of the building!
For those people who follow both this blog and The Environmental Rhi-Source *SURPRISE* the photo on my enviro blog is different! =)
I recently blogged about the delicious produce I recently got from Byron Bay Farmers Markets. That post lead to a wonderful exchange with regular reader, Ragamuffin. It turns out that Ragamuffin lives in Alaska. She related how farmers markets are not available for 8 months a year, and sometimes a trip to the produce store may be 6 hours long. I have never considered how difficult it would be for someone to get fresh produce living in such an extreme climate. I can not relate to that type of restrictions for fresh produce as it is such a huge part of our daily diet here.
Once every week or two, we order a $35 box of fresh produce from Fruitos Direct. On the off weeks, we visit farmers markets. In this way, we are able to access a wide range of local and state sourced produce. We specify what we would like in our Fruitos delivery, and I usually aim to get seasonal fruits and vegetables that the whole family will enjoy. I thought of Ragamuffin today as I unloaded my box. I wish everyone had fair and equal access to such gorgeous fresh produce.
I do love it when our dear friend Kat comes to visit. She comes once every two weeks for a night of delightful food, fine wine, great company and the odd Disney cartoon. I may have mentioned previously that Kat is a professional chef, and is an awesome source of inspiration. This mornings breakfast is a classic example. We had just come home after an hours walk along the water and was trying to decide what to have to eat. Kat suggested French toast to use up left over sourdough bread from last nights chicken cacciatore dinner. As I was not familiar with the process of making French toast, I let Kat do the work… for educational reasons, of course…
½ Sourdough Loaf (Vienna Style, cut thickly)
3 free range eggs
200 ml skim or low-fat milk
Sprinkle of Nutmeg
Method
Mix the eggs, milk and nutmeg with a whisk. Soak the bread in the mixture until absorbed – approximately 5 minutes
Place the bread in a well oiled hot pan. Cook for four minutes per side, ensuring it doesn’t stick.
Serve once the bread is firm to touch and cooked evenly both sides.
Observations
Can this woman cook, or what?
You can top these little delights with your choice of toppings. I opted for the fruit version you see above while Joe ate his with tomato sauce and Kat had hers on a more savoury side with just salt and pepper.
Diabetic Note: This whole dish is heavy on the carbs, but kept us all full for several hours. Diabetics can technically eat this dish, but watch your serve sizes and of course what toppings you use. For me, banana always sets my blood glucose levels off, but oh my goodness… it was worth it!
Ethical Note: French toast is also known as pain perduwhich literally means “lost bread” or day old bread. It is a way of using older slightly stale bread, rather than wasting it. More food is wasted in this world then eaten, so do your best to reduce food wastage.
