Thoughts from the Kitchen

It's been nearly a month since I blogged on here, yikes! Sorry 'bout that y'all. But I'm gonna sit down now and look around the kitchen ~ which sadly means no photos today, just thoughts.

Right now I have a moment somewhat to myself. The Sourdough Starter has been fed. Beer bread is in the oven baking. The kids are occupied and the dogs are playing.

Thought 1:
I love to cook. I love to bake. I love real food, slow food. I read cookbooks for fun and dream of dishes yet to be made. However, life can really through a kink into that desire .. especially when you're a mama .. even more especially when you have a finicky 4 year old at the table.
You lose the whimsically magical delight of "Hmm .. what shall I create today?" as you spin around the kitchen in a too-cute apron.
Instead, the sink is full of dishes, the dogs are slobbering on the floor, the counters are cluttered, you're wondering how you keep your shirt so damn dirty, and what the hell are you going to make for dinner that your 4 year old will take one look at that (sometimes not even that, just as soon as he HEARS about it) and begin absolutely SCREAMING "BUT I DON'T LIKE THAT!!!!"
"You've never had it before" you soothingly reply.
"BUT I HATE IT!!!" he screams back.
"It's made with stuff you like" you reassuringly begin to plead.
"NO I DON'T" he screams back again amid his dramatic sobs.
"Well, that's what is for dinner and you can eat it or not, so there." Because no matter how old you are saying "So there" and sticking out your tongue (even if you only do that part in your mind because you don't want your kids doing it back to you) feels REALLY good.
And this whole scene plays out first in your head, because you know it is coming, and then again as soon as dinner is announced, and then again once more as an encore when dinner is served.

Thought 2:
Real food rocks. It can go from being the easiest thing to find to the hardest thing to find. It seems like I'm always finding out new reasons why all these things in the grocery store are really poisoning us. But even through these trials, real food just rocks.
It makes me swoon & drool like some Rock Star Hottie flashing me his baby blues & six-pack abs. Raw Milk Cheese. Spent Beer Grain Bread baked in Flower Pots. Home-cured Ham. Pasture Raised meat on the smoker. --- oh, I am so swooning and drooling right now. Hello Pavlov.
This morning I had a breakfast of two eggs (thanks to the Blue Nymph Biddies, our backyard chickens) fried up in a cast iron skillet on top of a pad of raw milk butter (made here at home), topped with some delicious Irish cheese.
Right now the heavenly aroma of beer bread is filling the kitchen. I made it using Ruby's Deep Winter Stout (a dry Irish stout). I am already envisioning it, fresh out of the oven with butter melting on it as I dig into it for lunch.

The other day someone mentioned a whipped cream cheese to me, as it is lower in calories. I responded that I cared more about real food and didn't bother with calories. And I realized something really freeing: I don't care about calories. I don't even think about them.
Of course I care about health and wellness but, when it comes to food, I realize that I think differently than a lot of people ~ and a lot more like a hopefully growing number of people!
I think about where the food came from. How was it raised and grown? What processes did it have to go through to be the food it is in my kitchen? Is it natural? Does thinking about it and tasting it make me salivate or does it make my mind go "well, it's supposed to be better for me?" in that voice that sighs and silently says "ugh" and resigns itself to this food-like stuff.
I refuse to acknowledge that voice anymore. That voice isn't a happy one. Real food squashes that voice flat and has me singing in a flower-filled meadow.

Thought 3:
I am dreaming of my gardens over-flowing with produce. I am out of homemade ketchup and can't wait to make more. I long to see what the gardens produce this year.
I wasn't ready to welcome Spring. I love the snow and we didn't get it this year, so I've been pretty bummed about that. Now it is still February and I've noticed that my lilac tree has the beginnings of buds on it. So I am letting Winter go and looking forward to Spring. And my gardens. Which will fill my kitchen with fresh, organic food and stock my pantry full.

Thought 4:
What the hell is for dinner tonight?

Pumpkin Pie Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls

I've gotten back into sourdough bread. I love watching the starter bubble and grow. Lucky for me my mother is a sourdough fan and had wonderful, time-tested recipes that she shared with me a couple of years ago. I'll share with you the base recipe for these.


Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls:


*Dissolve 1 envelope (or 2 1/4 tsp) yeast into 1/2 cup warm water. Add 1 cup starter, 4 TB oil, 2 + cups self-rising flour, and a dash of salt.
*Mix & knead with extra flour. Shape & let rise in a warm place for 1 hour.
*Divide into half. Roll into 2 rectangles.
*Mix 1/4 cup melted butter, 1/2 cup sugar, 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon. Spread onto rectangles & drop on raisins.
*Roll lengthwise & slice.
*Bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes.

Now, like I said, this was my base recipe. Here are some of my substitutions:

1) I use a mixture of 1/2 whole wheat & 1/2 unbleached white flour. Even in my starter. So these have more wheat oomph and are a little healthier. I also used 2 1/2 cups flour when I began, then extra flour for dusting when rolling.
2) I don't use self-rising flour. To make 2 cups of all-purpose flour into self-rising flour you need to mix in 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp baking soda, & 1 tsp baking powder into the flour.
3) Instead of 1/2 cup warm water for the yeast I used 1/2 cup raw cream. I warmed it in the microwave - about 30 seconds.
4) To the dough mixture I added a little bit of homemade vanilla extract and also some organic maple syrup.
5) For the filling I used 1/2 of a 15 oz. can of pure canned pumpkin, 1/4 cup (give or take) homemade raw butter, 1/4 cup brown sugar, 1/4 cup organic raw sugar, 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie seasoning, roughly 1 TB organic maple syrup (this was eyeballed, not measured), and a good dash of homemade vanilla extract.
6) I don't necessarily use all of my filling. I spread it on there so that it looks properly covered. This left me about 1/4 cup filling leftover, maybe less (again, eyeballing it!). Read on to see what to do with it!

Fresh out of the oven & filling the house with an aroma that is far too tantalizing!

I've made Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls once before, and I made the mistake of not making icing to go with them. I don't think Justin has stopped sulking about it since, much less has he let me forget my horrible, horrible faux pas.
So it comes with no surprise that when I told him what I was going to make today his first question was "With icing?" I reassured him yes, with icing. "With cream cheese icing??" Yes, with cream cheese icing.
But this wasn't just cream cheese icing!

I got the base recipe here: http://www.food.com/recipe/cinnamon-roll-icing-276879 - but I'm going to go ahead and just give you how I did it.

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Icing for Cinnamon Rolls:

*1 block cream cheese (do NOT go with anything other than regular .. aka "full-fat" cream cheese!! If you're going to indulge, do it properly damn it.)
*3+ TB raw milk butter (it does taste better & is better for you, but store bought is ok too. Best if you can find it from pastured cows though!)
*1/4 tsp vanilla (as usual, I used the homemade stuff. It's too easy not to make it yourself and so much better!)
*1 cup powdered sugar
*2 - 3 TB raw cream (actually, this was another eyeballed one. Use less for thicker icing, more for thinner)
*Remainder of filling
*Another splash or so of organic maple syrup

~Blend room temperature butter & cream cheese together. Add the rest of the ingredients. Attempt not to dig in with a spoon right then and there. MAKE SURE you are armed with a good wooden spoon to smack away your loved ones' hands as they attempt to eat the whole thing right then and there. -- Special note to single gals -- Want to be swarmed by men?? Make this up!! They'll swarm around you, trying to charm their way into the mixing bowl. And, no, I'm not being a pervert there. You don't even have to put on makeup, their eyes will likely not go that high. Unless you are shorter than the mixing bowl, and if that's the case, go for the make-up just in case.

Still warm, topped with icing (though they would get more before it was all over), and ready to be devoured.

Would you like more proof of how delicious these little babies are?? That above photo wasn't the first one I took of them "done." Here is the actual photo.

As I was trying to take the photo this little hand snuck in, giving me the thumbs-up! So .. there you go, Shannon's seal of approval!! ~ fyi .. Tristan was unavailable for comment at the time of the photos as he was still sleeping. But, when he got up he was very excited about getting "Ciddabon Rolls".

Be kind and share these with those living close enough to be tormented by the aroma!