Spices Over Yanda Blog (Previously Allyson's Attempt at Domestication)

 Hello friends!  If you are here because I gifted you some of my "love" sourdough starter, below you will find (hopefully) most of the information you are looking for to get started on your sourdough journey!  If you have just happened upon my page, welcome!  Hopefully you will also find useful information here. "Love" (my sourdough starter) is about 6 months old.  I started her at a really weird time in my life, because I currently don't have an oven to bake bread in.  However, that's for another post.  I bake at my daughter's house, my mother's apartment, and lately I have been making my loaves in my crockpot!  I also have made many other things with "love" and she has truly been amazing.  I'm so happy to share her! In your jar, is fed and active starter.  Here are your options: Feed it and use it for bread in 8-12 hours Get a larger clean jar, place it on your kitchen scale and then set it to zero grams. Pour the starter I gave you i...

I am really soo excited! I LOVE wheat bread. As I've posted before, I store and grind my own wheat at home, so using it is really important to me. I posted a recipe for Fast and Easy Whole Wheat Bread before and it is super easy and it is super yummy. However, there were a couple things I didn't like about it and I think I figured out a couple easy ways to improve the recipe. Here is the recipe after I changed a couple things: 2 1/2 cups hot tap water 2 tsp. dry active yeast 5 1/2 cups whole wheat flour 1 cup white flour 1 tbsp. salt (I use kosher) 1/3 cup oil (I use olive oil) 1/3 cup honey or sugar (I use sugar) 1 1/4 tbsp. lemon juice Mix together water and yeast and add 1 tsp. of the sugar or honey. Allow to sit for at least 5 minutes to proof the yeast. Add the 1 cup white flour and 3 cups whole wheat flour, stir and let sit for 10-15 minutes just until it starts to rise. Add salt, oil, the rest of the honey or sugar and lemon juice and mix for one minute. Add the ...

I've been meaning for awhile now to post this fabulous, easy french bread recipe. I have given it to several people and I love making it! I have a request for it again tonight, so I decided to just get it posted. Here ya go! French Bread - recipe from Debra Oldroyd 2 Tbsp sugar 2 Tbsp yeast 2 Tbsp oil (I use olive) 1 1/4 tsp salt (optional to taste) 2 1/2 Cups water (hot from tap) 6 Cups flour In a large bowl, put sugar and yeast then pour water over them. Let yeast proof for several minutes (until foamy...) Add 3 cups flour and mix until smooth. Add salt and oil, mix until smooth. Add 2 1/2 Cups flour, stir (dough should pull away from sides of bowl). Leave spoon in the dough. Cover and let dough rise for 10 minutes. Stir down (repeat this step 5 times, stir well each time). Pour dough out onto floured counter, knead lightly. Divide into desired loaf sizes - roll each into a rectangle, loosely roll dough into french loaves, place on greased (or sprinkled with cornmeal) cookie shee...

On Monday nights I don't get home until around 7:30, but Ray and the two youngest get home around dinner time. Sometimes my mom is here with the kids and cooks for them, but some nights I need to make sure there is something waiting for them. Like tonight. :) I needed something easy, something yummy and something I could make ahead and it would be hot and ready for them. Here is what I ended up doing and it got rave reviews by all. Hope you enjoy it as well. When I'm on my game I brown my hamburger ahead of time and then freeze it in ziploc bags. This is sooo convienent and easy, I wish I would be smart enough to do it all the time. So today, I took a bag of already browned hamburger out with onion and stuck it in my small crockpot on high. It heated up and when it was all loose again I added: 2 Tbsp mustard 2 Tbsp brown sugar 1/2 cup ketchup 2 tsp wheat germ (sneeky ;) ) Mixed it up real well and then set it to low and left it. Then I made the rolls which were sooo easy and qu...

Doesn't this look delicious? Guess what? It is!!! I love rye bread. This also is from my new cookbook, "Artisan bread in 5 minutes a day". It was almost as easy as the master recipe, just a couple more ingredients. I started out with my NEW grain grinder. Isn't is BEAUTIFUL! I'm a big fan of appliances and this is one I've waited a LONG time for. It's super easy to use and gives me the BEST flour to work with. I started out with this. Rye berries. I got them in the bulk department at Central Market. I don't remember the price per pound, but I know I got that whole huge bag for under $5, so not too bad. Here is how my rye flour turned out. Isn't it pretty? LOL! Then you can see my dough after it's first rise. Now it's your turn to try. Let me know if you try it and how you liked it! 3 cups luke warm water 1 1/2 Tbsp yeast 1 1/2 Tbsp kosher salt 1 1/2 Tbsp caraway seeds, plus some for sprinkling on top 1 cup rye flour 5 1/2 cups white flour ...

I really like sourdough bread. So, I thought I would try to make some. It was a long process and when I finally made it, it was good, but it wasn't sourdough. It turned out tasting VERY much like that sweet hawaiian bread you buy. So, that's what I'm calling it and you can decide whether or not you want to try it. I will be trying another sourdough recipe soon, so stay tuned. 1 cup sugar 1/2 cup oil 1 tsp salt 1 - 1/2 cups warm water 1 cup sourdough starter 6 cups bread flour Mix all ingredients thoroughly. Oil bottom & sides of large bowl & put bread dough in. Let stand overnight at room temperature. In morning, punch dough down 4-5 times and divide into 3 equal balls. Kneed each ball 8-10 times and put into 3 greased and floured loaf pans. Brush tops with oil and cover with oiled foil. Let stand 4-5 hours or all day. (If dough has not risen well, put small pan of water on bottom rack in oven, heat to 200 degrees, turn off oven. Put dough on top rack for 1-2 hours....

I have been reading more in my new cookbook about the different ways to use the master dough. If you don't know what I am referring to, check the post right below this one. Another way listed to make the bread was in a loaf pan. This appealed to me because then I could have regular slices instead of small weird shaped slices. Also, it was nice because I didn't need the stone or the pizza peel. So, if any of that describes you, this is the way to do it. Use the same dough you already have made in the fridge. Flour the top of it and break off 1 1/2 pound piece, about the size of a cantalope. Shape it into a ball the same way as before, but then elongate it into an oval. Place the oval loaf of dough into your greased loaf pan and let it sit to rise for about 1 hour and 40 minutes. The dough before rising should fill your pan just a little past half way. After rising, flour the top of the dough and slice the top with a sharp bread knife, place your loaf pan in the middle of the ove...

I had heard about this cook book called Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day , I love learning new ways to bake bread and this just seemed like a great system! So, I had a giftcard to the bookstore from Christmas and got it a couple weeks ago. At first I was going to wait until I had all the perfect supplies (the dough riser bucket and pizza peel) but I decided today that I couldn't wait! So, I didn't have a big enough bowl - so I mixed it up and then split it into two bowls. It worked fine. I used my stoneware bar pan from pampered chef instead of a pizza stone or bread stone and for my pizza peel I used a flat cookie sheet. It sounds like a lot of time, but really it's no more time than any other bread recipe and the amount of acutal labor you put into it is wayyy less. Just pick a time when you are going to be home and go for it! It turned out sooo yummy! Try it and let me know. The cookbook has many, many other recipes, so I'm sure you'll get a lot of posts abou...

I have been really trying for about 2 weeks now to cook meals for my family. Healthy and planned and every night. Don't get me wrong...I've always cooked, but I would cook like meat and potatoes and maybe add a veggie. Or, I would get stuck in a rut and cook the same old things. Or, I wouldn't plan and at the last minute we would eat out or I would have Ray bring dinner home. As a means to save money, get more organized and eat healthier I have been menu planning and preparing our meals each night. One good thing is that when Ray and I were first married, he wouldn't eat leftovers. He had eaten some bad food as a child that were in the form of leftovers and he was dead set against all leftovers. Luckily he has finally come around and will eat leftovers. Yay! So, I can cook all week and he has lunches as well. Perfect! So, I thought I might post my menu plans and recipes and give my "review" of each one. I might even do it each week. We shall see. :) Leave me c...