Refrigerator dough

This is a slight alteration to a recipe my mom gave to me. It is really a convenient way to have home-made rolls freshly baked out of the oven. I use about 1/2 unbleached organic white flour and 1/2 organic whole-wheat flour.

Mix in a bowl:
1 cup flour, 3 Tablespoons sugar, 2 teaspoons dry yeast, and 1/2 tsp salt.

Place unbroken egg in cup of hot water to warm egg.

Heat in pan:
1/4 cup milk, 1/2 cup water and 1/4 cup butter.
Heat on medium heat until butter is almost melted. Remove from heat.

Add egg and 1/2 cup warm mashed potatoes to butter mixture.

Add this mixture to the dry ingredients. Use mixer to blend on low speed just to moisten. Then blend for 3 minutes on medium speed. Add 2 to 2 1/4 cups flour, first add little bit at a time and blend with mixer till dough is semi-stiff. Then add by hand kneading in flour. Knead for about 5 to 10 minutes. Place in bowl and cover with plastic wrap let rise until double about 45 minutes to an hour.

Punch down and cover closely with plastic wrap. Put in refrigerator until ready to use.

Shape into rolls and let rise for an hour. Bake in 350 degrees oven for about 10 minutes.

A real food dinner

I have found several things helpful in my quest to eat real food in America. One is having a brother who has an organic garden. And of course who kindly shares much of the nutritious produce. I've used cabbage in several meals. Tonight I made a dish I learned from my mother another person who has been a help. I saw my mom cook and bake many things from scratch. So, I made chicken divan crepes with broccoli from my brothers garden. I was thinking of a website regarding the same thing and the domain name was taken. So I thought I'd check it out http://realfoodchallenge.org/ . The focus is to bring real food to college campuses and a greater understanding about local, sustainable and organic.

Education is definitely the key, because when you understand more about what real food is and what a food product is - you are more likely to make an effort to eat real food. Instead of eating the subsidized american food products that are so cheaply and abundantly available. I suggest reading these books by Michael Pollan, The Omnivores Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals and In Defense of Food: An Eaters Manifesto. And also the book by Joel Salatin, Everything I Want to do is Illegal: War Stories from the Local Food Front. There are currently 35 requests for Omnivore's Dilemma at my local library. I have yet to read In Defense of Food.

Another Cabbage Dinner

Tonight I made stuffed cabbage. I could have cooked the cabbage a bit longer but, it still turned out pretty tasty. I served it with fresh home-made bread. I usualy mix white, whole wheat and oat flour. I decided to use rye flour instead of oat flour. It turned out really well. I'm not getting any better at slicing bread though. I'll be getting a good bread slicer this month.

This quote was in the cryptogram I did today.

"The time has come the walrus said to talk of many things. of shores and ships and sealing wax of cabbages and kings." Lewis Carrol

Cabbage Kuchen

My brother Kevin has quite a garden this year. I took home half a large cabbage the other day. I had some left-over meat loaf. So, I thought I'd make some Cabbage Kucken. The recipe is from a vegetarian cookbook Laurel's Kitchen by Laurel Robertson, Carol Flanders, and Bronwen Godfrey. I've had this cookbook for years and remembered how I liked this recipe

Cabbage Kuchen:

Topping: 2 onions, 4 cups shredded cabbage, 2 T butter, 1 cup yogurt, 2 eggs beaten, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/8 tsp black pepper, 1 T caraway seed.

Dough (Kuchen): 2 cups whole wheat flour, 2 tsps baking powder, 1/2 tsp salt, 1 egg beaten, 1 cup milk, 2 T butter melted.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

To make topping , slice onions thinly and saute with cabbage in butter. Mix in other topping ingredients and set aside.

Stir flour, baking powder and salt lightly with a fork. Combine egg, milk and butter and stir briefly into dry ingredients.

Spread in greased 8 x 8 pan. Spread with topping and bake for 35 minutes.

I varied this recipe slightly. I like to add in other flours so I also used rye and oat flour. I used only 1/2 cup yogurt and 1/4 water in the topping. Next time I'm thinking to adjust the recipe to have less kuchen and use only 1 1/2 cups flour. I made it in a 9 x 6.5 inch glass baking dish. It was surprisingly good just like I remembered.

Tonight, I warmed it up and we had it with pork chops and hashbrowns. I had fried onions with mine. I made a mushroom sauce for Mike.