Shiny Cooking

Neat, this made Foodie Views of the day! They gave me a pretty button to go with it: foodie_views_link_url = ‘http://shinycooking.com/easy-one-egg-omelet’;
foodie_views_submit_or_vote();
Routine is a good thing. I lost 60 pounds eating the same thing for breakfast every morning, and anecdotally people suggest that eating the same thing for breakfast and lunch, and mixing it up for [...]

Why would you want to make currant juice?
I can think of a few reasons, one of which is definitely going to show up here shortly.
One, to make currant jelly. Now, I’m a strawberry jam girl, so I don’t make currant jelly, but if you put some currant jelly in front of me, I won’t complain.
Two, [...]

Otherwise known as: kind of mashed, kind of sweet strawberry yumminess.
This how-to might seem pretty basic, and it is. It’s not hard, but there are a few things that are still nice to know. For instance, you might as well hull the berries before washing them. Inevitably you run into a mushy spot here [...]

I know, I know, you’re just antsy for that currant chiffon pie. Because there are no recipes for currant chiffon pie in existence (Google tells me so) I had to tweak from recipes for inferior fruits like lemon and orange. As a result, the first pie (yesterday) was good, but I decided it could be [...]

Yup, we sure did.
I provided the kitchen and the canner and my aunt picked the pears, cleaned the pears, peeled the pears, cut the pears, packed the pears, and processed the pears.
I practically did it all by myself!
the canning stuff, yawn

Right there you see the basic canning setup on the stovetop. I began doing this [...]

You can’t beat a home-canned peach. Store-bought doesn’t compare. Some other fruits handle store shelves pretty well, like pineapple and pears, but store-canned peaches are nearly flavorless in comparison.
If you can only one variety of fruit, can peaches.

Linda came over to do it with me, bearing a bushel of peaches from the local fruit market. [...]

Sis told me yesterday she began the starter for Amish friendship bread, which apparently involves mixing flour, sugar, and yeast and letting it sit on the counter. After it develops for several days, you can make sourdough bread from part of the starter, keep the rest of it going, and continue making bread.
I’ve always [...]

This is your brain on SmokeMonster!Locke.
Okay, it’s just the whole wheat levain before stirring it up on Day 2. You know what that liquid is on top? Sourdough breadmakers have a highly technical term for it. They call it hooch, because it’s about 15-20 proof. It’s a result of the fermentation process of the [...]

How about a nice tall glass of levain?
Today is Day 3, when we begin feeding the levain twice a day versus the once per day of days 1 and 2. That pic is at 3.5. I’ve put the levain into a tall, clear glass and marked it. In 12 hours we’ll see how much the [...]

Some of you have been expressing…concern…as to what happened with the whole big levain/sourdough plot. I’ll tell you what happened. A winter storm happened. Unripe levain happened. Flat bread happened. And a possibly unconnected but mysteriously coincidental horrible sinus flareup happened.
By day 4, I had a feeling the levain was ripe and active. Compare the [...]