Buttermilk Bicuits

So I try (note the word "try") to make bread on Monday, as we are generally home.  So when I got home, I watered all my babies, by the time Joe & Kanan got home, I was almost done (we gots a lotta babies right now & it's starting to get hot during the days now, and we gots no automatic watering systems at the mo, so it took awhile!)

Anyhoo, so then I started bread, and then it occurred to me that I had no plan for dinner.  What else is new?  So I say to JoeBacon "whaddya want fer dinner?"  and he begins to list every meal that ever sounded good to him.  Helpful, isn't he?

Well, actually, it turns out he is.  The fist thing outta his mouth was "Biscuits & Gravy", and Kanan seconded the motion...so guess what I made? ;)

I had no grains soaking, I had no time for stuff like that, but I DID have some sprouted Soft White Wheat Flour (homemade, of course) so I used that for this lovely & simple recipe.

It turned out purty darn good, if'n I do say so misself... ;)  We each had half with butter & jam for dessert! Yum Scrum! (and we have breakfast covered tomorrow!  Woo Hoo (a plan).

Oh, by the way, the bread turned out pretty nice tonight..and I also squeezed in cookin' up some chicken thighs for future meals this week...

Burritos for Dinner

Ok, so I had ordered some (3) Mary's Chicken Thighs thru my CSA, so I put them in a pan during a free moment over my crazy gardening weekend.  I tossed them with my gorgeous new Olive oil from Azure, it's 100% pure EVOO from Napa, yum... S&P & broiled 

them for about 15 minutes.  Then I dumped about a half a cup of Salsa

 (I haven't ventured into the world of lacto-fermented salsas yet, so for now, my old FAV, Herdez will just have to do) on top, covered with foil, lowered the oven to 350 degrees & baked it for about 30-45 minutes (I honestly can't remember...)  The meat should fall off the bones & it will be VERY easy to clean & shred...

Anyhoo, I let it cool while I did a bazillion other things & eventually I got around to cleaning it (taking off the skin, separating the bones & ick away),  so it's mostly shredded by then, just from that process.  I put it back in the salsa it was cooked in & threw it in the fridge.

Tonight was THE night...

I got home, pulled the frozen, but pre-soaked pintos out of the fridge.  Chopped & sauteed half a brown onion & a clove of garlic, in the pressure cooker.  I added Cayenne Pepper, S&P, Cumin & stirred, added the beans, added stock to cover the beans, stirred it all up, put the lid on, set to #1 & once it came to a boil, I cooked for 20 minutes.  Turned it off, checked & sure enough, the beans were cooked. I adjusted S&P & added a half a Jalapeno, let it simmer on low for awhile while I got other things going...

I grated cheese, raw goat cheddar & raw Jack.

  

I chopped up 2 organic tomatoes. 

I LOVE, did I say LOVE, cuz I mean LOVE these wonder Spelt Tortillas I found at Lassens, the are soft enough to almost be as 'normal' as white flour junk tortillas & they keep FOR-EVER!

I also sauteed onion, added some salsa & then threw it in Rice Cooker for some easy-peasy MexiRice.... remind me to never use Short Brown Rice again, kinda weird!..

So I heat the tortillas (dry) in a large skillet (YES I still own some nonstick, but I love my Berndes pans, so hard to switch!)

Put some Re-Fried Pintos (fried in Bacon grease, yummy!)

Top with cheese, chicken, some sour cream & salsa and you got Heavenly mexican food for dinner!

Update: a couple nights later I wasn't up to making dinner, so I told Joe to make it.  He started pulling things outta the fridge en masse, so, natch, I panicked & took over.  ;)  Can you spell control freak? (I can! ooh I can! Pick me!  E-R-I-N)

ok, back to the story... he'd found the leftover tortilla shells so I thought ok, there's leftover pintos too... and I always have cheese.  We'll just have bean & cheese burritos.  Then I remembered that I'd fried extra bacon on Sunday & it was in the in the fridge... when I asked Joe if he wanted bacon in his burrito, he said, are we making breakfast burritos?  So I thought about it for a sec and decided that was doable.

So we had Egg, Bacon, Pinto, Salsa, Sour Cream & Raw Jack Burritos, they we huge & messy as could be!  But man were they tasty!

Crusty Sourdough

I tried a new Sourdough Starter and today was day 8, so it was time to make the bread. Now ALL the recipes I was seeing wanted you to bake it in a Dutch Oven or a Cloche, neither of which do I have (yet!)  So I was a bit nervous about this, but I just went for it anyway... here is the recipe I used.  But I split it into two small loafs, and basically halved the baking times.    I wanted them to fit into my Stoneware, as that was the closest thing I could come up with, and I put a shallow pan of water in the lower part of the oven & sprayed water in several times during the baking process.  Guess what?!  I got 2 pretty nice crusty loaves, and the texture turned out pretty good, nice & soft, with evenly spaced holes & the flavor is nice, not super strong, but a pleasant slightly sour tang...

Askinosie Chocolate Giveaway!

Hey Everyone!  Nourishing Days is doing a chocolate giveaway & I wanna win! ;)  Check it out!  I have to admit that I went to the site & read voraciously every word, hoping to catch a hint, a taste, something...(smile) but what I got was teary.  Yup.  Downright 'teary' at their story!  You must read it for yourself & decide if your budget & your love of chocolate can warrant supporting these wonderful folks at Askinosie who simply DO chocolate right.  'Nuf said.

Azure Standard

Ok, so last month was our first GO with Azure & I think I can speak for Tami when I say we are in love!  *smile*

Here's a few snaps of our loot:

Tami is dividing up the grains (we shared Soft White Wheat, Hard Red, Kamut, Spelt, Oat Groats & Rye

We Split a 25 lb tub of Raw Honey (my leftover 32 oz Agave Nectar jugs worked out great for that!)

We split a box of pears, Tami took hers home & the Chu Babies devoured them in short order.  I made about 2 gazillion batches of jam. ;)

This was my share of grains!

We also split a 10 Doz. box of Fertile Eggs three ways (with Terri), they are huge & wonderful!  After a month, Tami only needed to buy another dozen form TJ's before our next order, Terri still had plenty  & I had just run out.  This month just Tami & I split, so 5 dozen each!  Woo hoo!

As I said, this was January, so we've ordered again, Tami bakes bread 2-3 times a week, so she was thrilled to get a 50 lb. bag of Red Wheat for like $30!  She's also kept up using Soft White for all her baked goods like cakes & cookies, etc... with a noticeably finer texture!  Awesome!