Category: Basics

Basic recipes that are used in other recipes

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Homemade Soba Noodles

A pleasant change from plain white rice!

Well, it certainly has been a long time since we put together a new recipe. I guess it’s just a bit difficult to come up with something new and different when you’re staying in most of the time. Plus, it’s a bit more difficult to head out to find special ingredients, even if it is just a trip to the store where we normally shop. Rather than look around, we just try to grab what we need and head for the checkout. So, we rely on a lot of standard dishes that we’ve already written up; therefore, a lack of posts.

Today, we have something for you: Homemade Soba Noodles. Somewhere along the line, we picked up a package of soba noodles on sale at the store. We think they might have been approaching the “best by” date, so they were 50% off. Even so, we think that they were close to $2.00 for a 300g (10 ounce) pack. Sure, they were nicely formed, separated into three 100g bundles and all that, but it’s not as if we’re going to pay the original price of four bucks for less than a pound of noodles. We know how to make noodles, and, how much different can soba noodles be, anyway?

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Whole Wheat Sourdough Lavash

A stack of warm lavash. Yum!

So, are you one of those people who began baking with a sourdough starter? We’ve read that many people are these days, and that’s a good thing. Making bread from three simple ingredients: flour, salt, water, and a couple of more complex ingredients: time and patience, is just amazing. I like to refer to making bread as the miracle of the prehistoric age. Every time I make sourdough bread (basically once a week for, oh, probably the past ten years), I’m amazed that something that good can come from just three ingredients. Of course, everything has a downside. With sourdough, you need to keep the starter thriving through regular feedings. Week in and week out. Even if you don’t want to or need to bake a lot of bread that week. Over the years, we’ve come up with ways to use that excess starter during the weeks when we don’t want to make three large boules of bread, and today’s post is a new one.

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Handmade Udon Noodles

Freshly made udon! Simple and easy!

Earlier this year, we happened to stop for lunch in a popular noodle shop near the University of Washington in Seattle. We had the simple udon noodle soup, which made for a nice, filling meal that gave us the energy to walk back to our B&B over in the Capital Hill area (for those who don’t know Seattle, that’s about 3 miles, not super far). And, over the months, we thought off and on about buying some fresh udon noodles at the local Asian supermarket, but we never could decide which ones. There are literally dozens of brands/styles/types; we felt overwhelmed, and wished there were something like a sign indicating which noodle would be for people who don’t know anything about Asian-style noodles. So, we just went without. At least, until now.

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Kashmiri Chutney

This is another “lost recipe.” Unlike the Corn nuts from yesterday, we remember this recipe because we like it. A lot. It’s a super simple chutney that you can make in just a few minutes, plus, it’s quite adaptable by using other fruits or nuts. Since this recipe never seems to have been posted, we don’t seem to have photos, or really anything else to go with it, so we can’t even give credit where it’s due. Enjoy anyway.

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Onion Dip from Scratch

Oh, we already know that you make all your meals from scratch, or you wouldn’t be here at Scratchin’ It. But, what about condiments? You know, ketchup, mustard, or dips? Yes, you can make them too. They really are pretty easy, so you should try them at least once in your life. After all, that’s what being a scratcher is all about. Today, we’ll tackle a simple onion dip. After all, who doesn’t love sour cream and onion? We’re sorry about the lack of final photos; we just got excited by how well this was turning out.

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Barley Pancakes

Just a bit of maple syrup and these are perfect.

Are pancakes one of those things that you only get when you go out for breakfast? Not us; it’s just too easy to mix up a batch that’s the perfect size for the two of us. And, if you think pancakes are kind of boring, think again. Because pancakes don’t rely on the gluten in flour to hold them together — it’s the egg that does it — you can swap out pretty much any type of flour for the wheat flour and have great- tasting pancakes made from, well, in this instance, barley flour.

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Tomato Jam

It should be fine in the fridge for a few weeks, but it won’t be around that long.

This is probably the last tomato recipe for a while, mainly because it was the last thing we made from the flat of tomatoes that we purchased. Or, you could say we saved the best for last, even though this is the first time we’ve made jam from tomatoes. It might seem odd to use tomatoes to make jam, but it shouldn’t. After all, we’ve all learned that tomatoes are a fruit (although the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that tomatoes are a vegetable, really, look it up), so, why not use them for jam?

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