rosemary potato bread

I have some starter that I have been feeding and using over a few months now. I wanted to make a simple rosemary potato loaf. The rosemary in our garden is still fine and thriving and so I decided the make this rosemary potato bread using a recipe I found at recipezaar.

Ingredients:
as listed in the recipezaar recipe, except:
instead of melted butter, I used canola oil
and about 4-6 Tbsp of chopped fresh rosemary

The dough does need to be left alone to rise overnight, per the recipe. And, spraying with water every 15 minutes while baking just like the recipe says was quite a bit of fun and I think it also gave a nice crust.

Toasting a few slices with some herbed garlic butter made this a good accompaniment to a simple pasta meal. And, it was great with soups as well... plus the bread made a good earthy bruschetta snack.

Rye Spelt Injera

Over the last few years, I have started incorporating more of buckwheat, rye and spelt flours in my recipes.

Pizza, injera, and even some earthy breads seemed to turn out fine. The trick was to experiment and find the right balance with all purpose flour and gluten when using spelt or rye or buckwheat flours. Many of my breads and naans with spelt and rye flours turned out a disaster - dense and stiff like cardboard.

Spelt especially can be difficult to work with as it doesn't have as much gluten as whole wheat, so, it won't rise as much and tends to stay dense, but tastes pretty good. And precisely for this reason of low gluten it is preferred by many who have gluten-intolerance.

Even now, I can't say I have any sure-fire way of success... am still experimenting and documenting all the successful ones here :)

A while back, Sig sent me some starter which I have been feeding and using in a few other recipes. This injera recipe is one of them. I started the fermentation on a Sunday night and the batter was ready for dinner following Wednesday.

If starter is not handy, I am sure my usual recipe with rapid rise yeast would work just fine.

The only main difference I found between rye-spelt injera and all-purpose flour injera is that I had to make these a little thicker than normal else they fell apart easily. Plus they had a more wholesome earthy flavor than the all-purpose injeras.

This time, I served the injera with some steamed spinach (with spices similar to y'abesah gomen), a mushroom and bell pepper curry, and some kohlrabi dal ... not quite the traditional Ethiopian sides, but, I had them handy and it made a sumptuous weeknight meal.

Ingredients
1 cup yeast starter
1 cup rye flour
1 cup all purpose flour
2 cups water (plus more as needed)
½ cup spelt flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
salt to taste

Preparation

1. Mix the starter, rye, spelt, all purpose flour with the water, stir well, cover and allow to rise in a warm place for about 2-3 days, stirring once each day
2. I usually mix them in a ceramic bowl, heat the oven to about 175°F, turn it off and leave the bowl in there to start the fermenting process
3. When batter is well fermented, it will acquire a pleasant sour odor and be a little gooey with sort of latex paint consistency, and when stirred, gets quite bubbly
4. When ready to make the injeras, add the baking powder, salt, stir well, add water as needed to make a thin crepe-like batter
5. Heat a pan, brush or spray with oil as needed, ladle some batter and swirl it around to form a thin layer; bubbles/holes will form at the top surface and as it gets cooked the batter will set and no longer look wet; can remove from pan at this time - no need to flip and cook the second side

cornmeal rava idlee

I've been making minor variations of my regular recipes, nothing spectacular to post, but, I was quite surprised by this batch of experimental idlee batter that I decided to note it down here.

It is a variation of the rava idlee, with cornmeal and rice idlee rava, plus some starter for fermenting the batter. The starter is optional. I had it handy from the Lemon Fruit Cake recipe and wanted to see if it would stay active and ferment this batch of batter. And it did! In about 24 hours.

The idlees came out quite fluffy and mildly sour, just the way I like it:)

Serve warm with chutneys of your choice, or even sambar.

Ingredients
1 cup bread starter* (optional)
1 cup rosated coarse sooji rava
1 cup rice idlee rava
1 cup coarse cornmeal or cornbread mix
1 cup buttermilk
½ tsp sugar (only if using the starter)
1 tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
plus water as needed to make a fairly thick batter

tempering: 1 tsp oil, 1 tsp urad dal, 1 tsp chana dal, 1 tsp mustard seeds

*if not using the starter, can use 1 Tbsp rapid rise yeast instead; or, simply leave out the yeast and allow for natural fermentation, which might take longer than 24 hours depending on where you live.

Preparation

1. combine the batter ingredients, (all except baking soda and salt) in a ceramic or plastic bowl, the batter can be thick at this point, stay conservative with the water till ready to cook; cover and set aside in a warm place to ferment overnight or for 24 hours
2. when ready to make the idlees, get the tempering ready: heat the oil in a pan, add the chana dal, when it turns golden brown add the urad dal and when it turns golden brown add the mustard seeds, when mustard seeds pop turn off the heat and add it to the batter, stir well
3. taste the batter and add salt as needed; stir in the baking soda and add water to desired idlee consistency
4. grease the idlee moulds, pour the batter and steam till done

Lemon Fruit Bread

My dear pal Sig sent me some starter for the Amish Friendship Bread so I decided to make this Lemon Fruit Bread with it. Not only was she nice enough to send the starter, she actually sent me a bread book! Thanks a bunch, Sig, you know how much I appreciate it.

Unlike the yeast-leavened traditional earthy breads (like the Ciabatta Olive bread with a Biga)which need to rise, and maybe rise again a few times, this bread is along the lines of banana bread and zucchini bread and such which are closer to cake recipes, using beaten eggs, baking powder and baking soda for the rise and fluffiness.

The starter came with the traditional Amish Friendship Bread recipe so I decided to try it out, with a few simple substitutions.

It turned out moist, fluffy and moderately sweet (just the way I like it - not too sweet). I've passed along the starter to some of my friends who don't have a food blog to pass along the goodwill...

Ingredients

wet: 1 cup starter 1 cup oil 1/2 cup milk 3 eggs 1 tsp vanilla

dry: 2 cups flour 1 cup sugar 1½ tsp baking powder ½ tsp baking soda 2 tsp cinnamon 1 - (5.1 oz) box instant lemon pudding mix 1/2 tsp salt

additional: 1 cup chopped prunes, figs, dates, apples 1 Tbsp lemon zest (optional) 2-3 Tbsp lemon juice (optional)

Preparation

1. Beat the eggs till fluffy
2. Heat the oven to 325°F ; Grease two bread pans and keep handy
3. Combine the dry ingredients in a plastic or ceramic bowl, make a well in the center
4. add the wet ingredients and mix gently with a spatula till well incorporated, do not over beat
5. stir in the additional ingredients, if using
6. Pour the batter into the two bread pans equally, spread a bit to fill the corners and bake in the 325°F oven for about one hour, or till done
7. Remove from oven, allow to cool for 10-15 minutes, slice and enjoy!