It’s beginning to look a lot like Thanksgiving! Long time followers will know that I often make a few things ahead of the big foodie holiday. I also typically try a riff on your standard cranberry sauce. This year,I found some fantastic italian plums at their peek so I frozen them to add to this Plum Pear and Cranberry Chutney. It’s delicious, and while it doesn’t take very long to make, it’s nice to have it ticked off the list. Should stay good in the ridge until Christmas, if you don’t eat it all at Thanksgiving.
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Dinner
I made this absolutely fantastic soup the other day: I roasted a Kuri squash (sort of like a small pumpkin) and made a bisque with some other aromatics (onions, carrots and peppers) and lot and lots of curry. Its delicious and I’m seriously contemplating making another batch with my leftover squash (I bought a whole bunch and I still have two left). The one thing though, is that single color soups don’t photograph well, so the pictures aren’t all that great. Just pretend you have a whiff of the curry and that makes up for the photo. I need a scratch-and-sniff website.
This is dinner: an “Italian BLT with added Mozzarella”. It’s a labor of love thing …. I baked the Sourdough Basil Pesto Focaccia, after making the pesto. I grew the basil to make the pesto. I also grew the tomatoes and the lettuce in the BLT. I didn’t make the mozzarella and I didn’t cure the prosciutto, but nevertheless, 2/3 of the ingredients were grown or made by me so that’s worth the labor. And it was a delicious sandwich.
Another sourdough experiment gone right. I know, I know, I’ve been going a little overboard with the bread-baking these past few weeks, but soon it will be summer and I won’t want to bake bread nearly as often. Anyway, this is a traditional German Bauernbrot — German-style Farmer’s Bread. It’s a combination of rye, whole wheat and high-gluten bread flour, and a wee combination of some typical bread spices: caraway and fennel seeds, a bit of ground anise and coriander. None of those spices on their own are my favorites, but put together, they do taste like traditional bread. And the loaf turned out fairly pretty so I am happy. Yay!
Brötchen/Brötle, Semmel, Weck/Weckle/Wecken, Bömmel, Schrippe, Rundstück, Laible, Weggen … and I am sure that I am missing some! Germans and their regional words for “bread roll” … English speakers aren’t much better, but when it comes to Germans and their love of the bread roll, it goes to a whole new level. These rolls even reference that Germanic culture in that they are Kaiser Rolls, with their distinct markings. I used a roll press to imprint them and they sort of stayed imprinted — I think my baker’s ratio made a little bit too lose of a dough (and I have to admit, Alice, my starter, was especially bubbly yesterday afternoon). These are delicious and light and perfect for breakfast with butter and jam, or a lunch sandwich. Just the perfect amount of crunch. Pleased with the result. You can also make them with poppy seeds or sesame seeds.