Cooking from Scratch
Basic recipes that are used in other recipes
If, like us, you bake a lot of bread using a natural starter — it’s coming back into vogue these days — you probably wonder what to do with the leftover starter. It’s a shame to throw it away; after all, it’s perfectly good, but there’s really not enough to make more bread, so out it goes. But not anymore. We fretted about the starter issue, and even though it’s only a cup a week going out the door, we really didn’t like the idea of throwing food away.
Continue reading “Sourdough Pancakes”
Let’s face it, everyone loves homemade bread. Just the scent of baking bread is enough to make people salivate and remember their childhoods. And it’s no wonder: as one of our oldest foods, bread is that one magical food that brings forth joy like no other. For those who have had homemade bread, our question to you is why would you ever settle for store-bought? We bet you said that homemade bread is “too difficult,” “inconsistent rising,” “crumbly,” or most likely, “takes too much time.”
Bah, humbug! We’re going to tell you how to make GREAT bread at home – easily, and it’ll taste better than anything you can get at the store in plastic wrap. This will be gourmet bread! Now, for great bread it will take time. Not too much of your time, but time for the yeast to work. Your time spent is about an hour of hands-on work, but it is well worth it. Trust us, this bread is so good, we bake three loaves at least once a week. It seems like a lot to do, but once you get the hang of it, there really isn’t that much to it.
Continue reading “Basic Bread”
Some people buy cornbread mix — can you believe it? If you’re used to scratchin’ it the way we are, your eyes are about ready to pop out of your skull and land on the floor right about now. If not, fasten your seatbeat, ‘cuz we’re about to scratch up some cornbread. Continue reading “Cornbread or Cornsticks”
Everyone should know how to make mayonnaise. Really. Truly. It’s not that difficult, and it’s much tastier than that store-bought glop in a jar. Besides, if you really want to impress someone, serve something like asparagus with homemade aioli (garlic mayo). Continue reading “Scratched Mayonnaise”
Pickles seem intimidating, don’t they? Making brine, filling jars, boiling water baths or pressure cookers, spending the whole day in a steamy kitchen. That’s true if you want to make a lot of pickles for storing your harvest, but, if you want to make just a few pickles for eating, they are super-easy. Honest. Fifteen to twenty minutes and the pickles are done. And you have pickles that you’ve scratched yourself. Now that’s what Scratchin’ It is all about!
Continue reading “Super-Easy Pickles”
To be fair, we’ll give a recipe for the naan, even though we didn’t use this particular recipe this time. It’s a good recipe and we do use it occasionally, but we already had dough ready for our weekly bread baking session, so we used that, instead. It saved us some time, and the doughs aren’t really all that different. This does mean that the number of pictures is lacking, though. Sorry.
Continue reading “Kashmiri Naan”
Does home-made pasta seem difficult? We thought so too, but once we tried it we found out that, not only is it really easy, but it makes your pasta-based dinners even better. Now we make fresh pasta about once a week.
UPDATE (5/21/2017): We’ve learned a lot about making pasta over the years, including the exact ratio of flour to liquid: 5 parts flour (by weight) to 3 parts liquid (also by weight), plus a pinch of salt. So to make 8 ounces of perfect pasta dough you need 5 ounces flour (pretty much any kind) and 3 ounces of liquid (pretty much any kind). Now you might find some people who claim the ratio is 3 parts flour to 2 parts liquid. This ratio will result in a dough that is too soft and a bit sticky. Do not be fooled, we make pasta dough weekly and have tried many ratios before settling on the 5 to 3 ratio.
Continue reading “Basic Pasta Dough”