Holiday Style Sourdough Banana Bread

One of the sometimes slightly maddening fun things about sourdough is that to keep it bubbling away you have to keep feeding it.  And, unless you're giving everyone you know, and a few you don't know, a starter of their own, you need to find ways to use the stuff.  It makes you get in the kitchen and cook!! And, unlike your family which does the same thing, it doesn't bitch and whine and moan about what you cook! 

Today I made some Sourdough Banana Bread but since tis the season and all that, I wanted to kick it up a little and spice that bad baby out.  Turns out, spiced out Holiday Style sourdough bread kicks some serious ass.

Ingredients:
*1/3 cup butter, softened (there actually IS a line on the butter wrapper for 1/3 cup! Who knew?!?)
*1 cup sugar - I used demerara sugar, but if you don't have that light brown sugar will do
*1 egg
*1 cup sourdough starter
*1 cup mashed bananas (approx. 2 large or 3 small bananas)
*2 1/4 cup self-rising flour
*1/4 tsp salt
*2 TB ginger powder
*1 tsp cinnamon
*1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:
1) Cream together butter and sugar.  Add vanilla extract, starter, and mashed bananas.  Mix together until just blended.
2) Sift together flour, salt, ginger, and cinnamon.  Add this to the other ingredients and blend well.
3) Pour contents into a greased bread pan (or two, do NOT over fill this unless you want a mess!) and bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until done.
4) Serve warm with a nice pat of butter on top. 

Review: This turned out really well, aside from overflowing and making a mess in the oven.  Oh well, c'est la vie.  It is meant to be eaten, not gawked at, and it is still great for that.  Next time though I'll divvy this up into a couple of pans.  If you have a knack for it, this would also make a great muffin!
The flavor came out really nice.  The ginger hits your tongue just enough to let you know it is there, but not so much that you're going to freak out about it being spicy.  Delish. 
Try it and let me know what you think!

~Happy Holidays!

Sourdough Sugar Cookies

Just in time for the holidays, I'm going to share with you my recipe for Sourdough Sugar Cookies.  I know we're all busy, so I'll make this quick and easy for you with a little review of the cookies at the end, ok?

Recipe:
1 stick butter, softened (if you use margarine I'll have to slap you!)
1 cup sourdough starter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. nutmeg

Approx. 1/2 cup sugar for sprinkling - I used colored sugar to zhush it up some.

Directions:
1) In a small bowl, sift or whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and nutmeg.
2) In a separate mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar.  Add vanilla extract, egg, and starter. Once well blended, add in the sifted/whisked dry ingredients.
3) Drop by the teaspoonful onto a well greased cookie sheet.  (*Tip - I've found that melon ballers are the perfect size for this!  Easy peasy and now you've actually got a good reason for having a melon baller!*)
4) Press down a bit on cookie dough ball with a fork dipped in water to give it the nice criss-cross pattern.  You'll want to re-dip that fork after about two presses or else the dough will stick to the fork.
5) Sprinkle liberally with sugar. 
6) Bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes or until edges are just brown. 

7) Let sit on a kitchen island or counter top to cool.  Watch out for Mastiffs and children during this cooling period. 

Review: The boyos loved these as you can see in the photos, so there ya go, it is a win and kid-approved.  However, my boyos are used to sweets being homemade.  If you've already got a taste for store bought or pre-packaged tubes of sugar cookie dough, you're going to try one of these and think "Man, that has a twang!"  ... Well, yea, it does.  That is because it is made with Sourdough silly!
This is definitely a neat way to use some of your sourdough starter, and I'll definitely be making these again. 
The dough spread out some but not too much in the oven, which is nice.  Just that right amount of spreading, as opposed to running off everywhere like batter. 
One change I might make for the next time is that I made these with my standby flour blend: a mixture of unbleached white and whole wheat.  I think these might be better with just white flour, but that is really a personal taste. 

Try it and let me know what you think!

Scenes from dinner

Homemade dinners should never be under estimated. Ever. They can be as simple or elaborate as you'd like. Here is what we had tonight.

A loaf of sourdough bread made with roasted garlic and Parmesan cheese. It came out of the oven just in time for dinner and to be topped with some homemade raw butter. Delicious!

Burgundy Beef Po' Boys were the real delight of the evening though. Justin began cooking the beef on Saturday in the slow cooker. The aroma of it was sheer torture!! I really thought I might go insane having to smell it and not being able to devour it.

The recipe came from the book Crock Pot Slow Cooker Best-Loved Recipes.

Burgundy Beef Po' Boys with Dipping Sauce:

1 boneless beef chuck shoulder or bottom round roast (3 pounds) ~ we used rump roast

2 cups chopped onions

1/4 cup dry red wine

3 TB balsamic vinegar

1 TB beef bouillon granules

1 TB Worcestershire sauce

3/4 tsp dried thyme

1/2 tsp garlic powder

*Trim excess fat & discard. Cut beef into 3 or 4 pieces. Place onions on bottom of crock pot slow cooker. Top with beef and remaining ingredients. Cover and cook on HIGH 8 - 10 hours or until beef is very tender.

*Remove beef from crock pot, allow to cool slightly. Shred with 2 forks. Let cooking liquid stand 5 minutes to allow fat to rise. Skim off fat and discard. Spoon beef into Italian rolls. Serve the cooking liquid as dipping sauce.

We served it with some corn and with the roasted garlic bread on the side.

Soooo good!!

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!