Bread, Broth, and Onions, Oh My!

Bread, Broth, and Onions, Oh My!

This weekend wasn't as rainy as we were expecting, but somehow we still didn't have time to work on the deck. Instead, Sam ended up mowing the yard, weed-eating around all the trees in the front, and we did some garden work. 

We finally got our red onions, white onions, shallots, and garlic into the ground. I know we are late, but they'll probably be ready in the fall. If not, we will over winter them and pick them next spring. I was really happy with the price of the onions-- $2.99 and you get probably 50 onions in a pack. The shallots only came with ten, and sadly most of the garlic was dried up from the pack that we bought. We only ended up being able to plant about ten cloves. 

We do have some onions lingering in the last-years-herb-garden that we started from seed. I think they are ready even though they never formed a bulb. They did however flower and produce seeds of their own. I think next time that we try starting onions from seed we will sprout them inside and then plant them when they are a little bigger. You are supposed to plant onions 2-3 inches apart so they have room to bulb, and that's really hard to do with seeds. Especially since the seeds are so tiny (bottom left of the picture). 

Speaking of last-years-herb-garden, you know you have way too much oregano when you trim the bush so that it doesn't overwhelm the peppers and you end up filling up a three gallon bucket with oregano. I need to get those in the dehydrator sometime today!

Sam and I also tried to make our own ranch dressing. We've tried before with limited success, but this time we were really motivated to try again and make it work. We've been trying to get away from MSG (monosodium glutamate) and ranch dressing is one of the few things we've been unable to give up that has MSG in it. Ranch without MSG does exist, but it seems like the companies then add extra sugar, poor Sam. So we were driven to try and make our own (yay!). It's a pretty simple recipe, though Sam won't let me share it until we perfect it. The first  attempt tastes more like dill dip than ranch dressing, which is fine with me but Sam isn't a fan of dill. Our next iteration will include way less dill and less seasoning overall. I'll keep you all updated. 

I decided to make bread this weekend for the first time since around Thanksgiving last year. Life got busy, and Sam and I found that it was simply much easier to buy from the bakery than to spend two and a half hours making bread. Since we had been eating bread from the bakery, I wasn't really expecting our homemade bread to be anything different. We were pleasantly surprised. I don't know why, but this bread was DELICIOUS! I think I will try and go back to making our bread for a while. (Recipe below).

 Speaking of Thanksgiving, Sam and I ended up buying a few extra turkeys because they were so cheap this year. We were able to get a decent sized turkey for about $7, which is way cheaper than the chicken you buy from Kroger. Well, cheaper than the large packs of meat. The single roasting chickens are $5-$8. Still, you seem my point. A tiny roasting chicken for $7, or a turkey for the same price... Sam spent hours preparing the turkey in a brine and basting it as it roasted in the oven. It turned out beautiful (I forgot to get a picture) and super delicious. When we finally got all the meat off, it took two crockpots to fit all the bones in to make broth. I turned the crockpots on last night before we went to bed and woke up this morning with the house smelling heavenly.

 Broth (chicken, turkey, pork, beef, vegetable) 

Making broth is so simple; I'm surprised more people don't make it. We make our own broth because we can control the amount of sodium in it (have you seen how much sodium is in a can of broth?), and because I like that we can get a little more out of the meat that we cook.

Ingredients: 
Left over scraps
      All the skin, fat, bones left over after you cook a big hunk of meat
Water

Directions:
Place the scraps in a crock pot and fill with water. If you are using left over bones from say drumsticks or bone-in-skin-on-thighs and so you don't have very many bones, you can reduce the amount of water you put in the crock pot. Just make sure everything is covered.

Turn the crockpot on low and let it cook for around twenty four hours. It doesn't have to be exact. I usually turn it on after dinner and turn it off the next day sometime in the afternoon.

Freeze the broth in two cup quantities being sure to put the date and what broth it is on the bag. Make sure that you freeze the broth in freezer bags. Regular zip-lock bags will not work well and you will end up with leaking bags and freezer burned broth (we know from experience).

Notes: 
You can make broth out of any meat bones: chicken, pork, turkey, though I haven't tried mixing them. I try and stick to one species at a time.

If the broth has a lot of fat that you don't want, you can allow the broth to cool down to room temperature. The fat will harden on top, and you should be able to scoop it off.

You can make vegetable broth by using the same method but with vegetable scraps. Almost any vegetable scraps will do. Alternatively, you can add vegetable scraps in with your meat broth for a bit of extra flavoring.

What do you cook with the broth? 
     * Use the broth for bases in soups
     * If you like to cook beans with a bit of chicken bouillon, try freezing chicken broth in an ice cube tray so that you can make mini servings of the broth to flavor small dishes.
     * I've used pork broth to make bean soup and let me tell you, it was delicious.
     * If you are cooking rice on the stove top and you want it to have a little more flavor, cook it in broth instead of water.
     * The same goes for pasta. If you want your pasta to stand out in an incredible way, try cooking it in chicken broth instead of water.

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French Bread 
We got this recipe from Margie Burns (Sam's lovely mom).
Makes one loaf of bread (this recipe can easily be doubled)

Ingredients: 
2 1/4 tsp of yeast
1 1/4 cup of warm water
1/2 tbs salt
3.5 cups of all purpose or bread flour

Optional egg wash:
1 egg white
1 tbs cold water

Directions
1. Dissolve yeast in warm water. Add salt, butter and flour.
2. Knead with your kitchen aid mixer dough hook on speed two for about two minutes, or knead by hand until the dough is smooth. The dough will be sticky.
3. Place dough in a greased bowl, turning the dough to coat all sides. Cover the bowl and let rise for about an hour, or until doubled in bulk.
4. Punch down and gently press until dough is shaped into a rectangle (the directions say 12 x 15", but I never measure. I try mainly to not squish the dough too much and have it loose its airiness.)
5. Starting with the long side, roll the dough tightly. Using the sides of your palms, press the edges (the part where the dough didn't roll evenly on the sides) flat and tuck under the loaf to make a more even shaped loaf.
6. Place the loaf on a lightly greased pan sprinkled with cornmeal and allow to rise for an hour, or until double in bulk.
7. Optional: before baking, make four horizontal slices in the bread using a sharp knife
8. Bake at 450 for 30 minutes or (optional) bake for 25 minutes, remove the loaf from the oven, and brush lightly with the egg wash. Bake for an additional 5 minutes. I usually don't use the egg wash, but if you want a beautiful golden-brown crust on top of your bread, use the egg wash.