I have been doing my share of cooking and baking over the holidays. It was actually a breath of fresh air to have some time off that could be spent in the kitchen once again. And then along came the starter for Amish Friendship bread. After 10 days of care which in fact produced two (delicious) loaves to share at the office, I was compelled to re-write the recipe. If you’ve ever received a starter from a, shall we call them “friend”, then you will likely appreciate my re-write.

Amish “Friendship” Bread

You’ve just been given a starter to make Amish Friendship Bread.

The polite thing to do would be to look your “gift-giver” in the eye and say, “why thank you so much.” Fight the urge to say things like, “what the !@#& is Amish Bread” or, “this sh#t looks gross.” There will be plenty time for swearing later.

You’ll notice there are dates on your plastic Ziplock bag. These are written there for your convenience, in the rare instance that you really don’t know what the hell you’re doing or how to count.

The original directions tell you DO NOT use any type of metal spoon or bowl for mixing. Only use a wooden spoon hand-carved by Abraham, the little Amish boy you purchased the spoon from at the Viroqua farmer’s market. Okay, it didn’t say that, just don’t freakin use any metal!

The original directions also tell you DO NOT refrigerate. Apparently your starter hates winter as much as you do. Also, if any air gets in the bag, let it out. Seriously, open up the bag, squish out the air and zip the bag back up again, leaving that lifeless son-of-a-bitch starter with nothing to breathe.

So you wonder why you – should you be a childless person by choice – have been given something that requires daily attention. Yes, that is the compelling question – WHY MEEEEEEE?

It is normal for the batter to rise, bubble and ferment. Consider this cheap entertainment.

So here is what you need to do:

Day 1: Nothing. Enjoy this day, for it is the last day of freedom you will ever experience.

Day 2: Mush the bag. That’s right, get in there and give it a good massage. Ignore the fact that it feels like a bag of snot. Squish it!

Day 3: Mush the bag. Let out any air any time you mush the bag. Repeat after me, “mush the bag.”

Day 4: Mush the bag. Seriously? If you’re like me and forgot to mush the bag on day 2 or 3, your bag is just begging to be mushed.

Day 5: Mush the bag. What the @#$&? I hate you Amish starter-giver!

Day 6: Add to the bag – 1 cup of flour, 1 cup of sugar, and 1 cup of milk. Remember what you learned on the day you first got this recipe – don’t use any metal stupid! To mix, simply…wait for it… mush the bag.

Day 7: Mush the bag.

Day 8: Mush the bag and curse your pitiful life.

Day 9: Mush the bag and seek therapy.

Day 10: Oh I know you’ve waited for day 10 to arrive. This is where it gets really exciting.

1. Pour the starter into a large NON METAL bowl. Didn’t you learn anything?
2. Feed the starter by adding 1.5 cups of flour, 1.5 cups of sugar, and 1.5 cups of milk. Think about all the flour, sugar, and milk you’ve just wasted on some unsuspecting suckers you’re going to give this to.
3. Mix this up – mind you, without using metal. Forget that, there are lumps developing everywhere in this crap. Okay, calm down and follow the rules, DO NOT use metal when mixing.
4. Measure out 4 separate batters of 1 cup each to give to your friends, and keep the cup that remains to make your friendship bread. Remember to date the bags just like they were dated when you received this precious gift of love.

I read the original recipe and quite honestly, stopped dead in my tracks at the step where I was to add 1 large box of instant vanilla pudding mix. What, the Amish have a secret underground ring of instant pudding smuggling just to make this stuff? I thought they were the original made from scratchers? Seriously, vanilla pudding as an ingredient didn’t sound good to me at all. So I found this simple recipe on the internet which quite honestly gave me hope that this whole ordeal would soon be over with.

1 cup starter

2/3 cup oil

3 eggs

2 cups flour

1 cup sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

1 ½ teaspoons cinnamon

2 teaspoons vanilla

There, that’s more like it. Now turn the oven on to 350° and grease 2 bread pans. Time to get creative. Mix up the above ingredients (I took the liberty of using a metal  whisk, and holy hell did that feel great). Now add whatever the @#$% you want to this batter. The recipe I found suggested nuts, dried fruit, chocolate chips, etc. I added chocolate chips to one, topped with crushed walnuts. For the second bread I coated the bottom of the bread pan with brown sugar and chopped walnuts before pouring in the batter.

Divide into the two bread pans and bake for 40-45 minutes. If you like the results, thank me later. If you don’t, well too bad suck-a cuz I got you to jump through all these Amish hoops for nothing.

BTW – you do need a starter to make this – but where does the starter come from?

I guess the bright side is that some of the things I learned in that year have really stuck with me. While sitting down to write this post my house is bathed in the sweet aroma of maple syrup and toasted pecans, as a batch of fresh made granola bakes away while the granola bars I made earlier still cool down next to the stovetop. Those are two of the items I continue to make from scratch whenever needed, even though they are just as easy to buy as all of the other items that line our pantry shelves.

Speaking of the pantry, just one look and you can see how things have changed over the past six months compared to eighteen months ago. Canned beans and mushrooms balance nicely beside the jars of nuts, dried beans, and flour. Tucked safely behind the toaster is my “snack corner” – a plethora of salty choices I had to previously do without – and instead make a batch of popcorn whenever the munchie craving struck me. There really isn’t much room in the pantry for all of the jars of bulk foods, additional cookbooks I collected that year, and the newly added canned goods. But that’s the way it is now, the blending of two distinct ways of getting food on the table, either slowly from scratch or semi-conveniently.

While the pantry isn’t as organized as it was last year neither am I. Two necessary evils that cooking from scratch really forces one into are organization and planning.  In fact without the meal planning it’s just too easy to look at your significant other after a long day of work and say, “I’m so tired, let’s just pick up a frozen pizza.” Ah pizza, the dish I swore I would never return to in it’s frozen form. We’ve probably made a ratio of 2:1 frozen to fresh pizzas over the past six months. Without the planning and preparation of sauce in advance, let alone planning enough prep time for the dough to rise, that box of Connie’s Pizza is just too tempting of a backup plan. And so I give in.

The other thing I swore, I mean seriously promised to continue to make from scratch every week was bread. The first time we ran out of bread (which was probably in late May when the farmers markets opened up) I gave myself permission to buy a loaf from the market, since the bakery they were selling was obviously made them from scratch that morning. Lightening didn’t strike me as I handed over my money in exchange for that crusty loaf of multi-grain goodness, nobody judged me – I mean really – it was just too easy to get away with. We did that for several weeks at the market and by July the summer heat and my social calendar gave me even more reasons to make excuses to not bake bread. When the markets closed in late September I knew I either had to start baking bread again or make up a new excuse to buy it. Needless to say it’s November now and my bread pans remain as cold as my convenience-oriented heart.

I have had some other successes in sticking with the from-scratch routine, such as back in September when my Mom delivered a 5-gallon bucket filled with tomatoes from my brother’s garden. We cooked that down all day into some delicious sauce while the same day a neighborhood friend also brought over about 2 pounds of cherry tomatoes just gleaned from the remaining plants in her garden. Those sweet little things got roasted with garlic, olive oil, some fresh oregano and rosemary, and we packed them in small batches to freeze for use on our fresh pizza. The warm autumn weather in Wisconsin this year just kept on producing more and more tomatoes, and we processed one additional batch we received from a farmer-friend. Where was this abundance of free tomatoes when I really needed them back in August of 2010?

Well life does indeed go on and I’m recommitting to return to that path of real food love whenever possible. In fact I still have my list of things I never did try making during that year (nor have I ever made before) that still warrant discovery – like home brewed beer, layer cake, vinegar, mayonnaise…

My co-op, Outpost Natural Foods, is challenging all of our shoppers to take the Eat Local Challenge. For two weeks, September 1 – 15, the challenge is to eat the highest percent of your food  from local sources. At our store, we consider anything from our state of Wisconsin as local. The closer to home and fewer miles traveled, the better.

Another great group, Eat Local Milwaukee, is also supporting that challenge, and you’re not going to find more local food or local businesses in any one place than today at the Made In Milwaukee festival. I’ll be there in a few hours setting up a booth for another great group of local businesses, Our Milwaukee.

Don’t live in Milwaukee?  Hopefully you have a co-op nearby where you too can join others in eating locally!

My first meal of the challenge was a fresh corn, potato, and tomato salad served alongside an organic marinated chicken breast from Angel Acres farm in Mason, WI. My local ingredients included fresh sweet corn, golden plum tomatoes,  red potatoes, spinach, and a yellow pepper. Even the dijon mustard in the salad dressing was made locally! The only ingredients that weren’t local were the shallots, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper. That means along side the chicken, that 70-80% of the meal was sourced locally.

I have to say I was really excited that the salad turned out so well, and I got a bit of extra flavor by roasting the corn and pepper on my stovetop. Hope you enjoy!

Wisconsin Summer Salad

3 ears fresh sweet corn (about 2-3 cups)

2 cups small red potatoes

1 red, yellow, or orange pepper (roasted and diced with skin on)

3 cups fresh spinach leaves

2 cups assorted cherry tomatoes, halved

The Dressing:

1 tablespoon dijon mustard

3 tablespoons white balsamic vinegar

3 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons minced shallots

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Black pepper to taste

Cook potatoes in boiling water until tender. Drain, and cut into quarters. Meanwhile while the potatoes are cooking, peel the sweetcorn and cook each cob for one minute in the microwave (or 5 minutes on the stovetop in boiling water). If you have a gas range, roast the corn over an open flame until the kernels begin to brown and carmelize. You can do the same with the pepper over the open flame, roasting it until the skin begins to blister and char. If you don’t have a method of roasting, it’s okay to skip this step.

When your corn has roasted, slice the kernels from each cob, and mix with the potatoes, chopped pepper and fresh spinach. If the potatoes and corn are still a bit warm, they will wilt the spinach a bit, which I think brings out a bit more of the flavor. Refrigerate the salad as is, for about 30 minutes.

Mix up the dressing in a small bowl with a whisk by combining the vinegar, mustard, shallots, olive oil, salt and pepper.

When the salad has chilled down, add the tomatoes and the dressing.

Optional ingredients can include some fresh basil from your garden and/or goat cheese. Had I included those 2 ingredients they would have also been local.

Cinnamon Dunkers - the most evil of all temptations.

Repeat after me – I am not a quitter – I am not a quitter. Well I guess “life” happened since my last blog post, as I have blissfully ignored the fact I haven’t yet completed my list of lessons. It’s not because I’m hard pressed to produce some cleaver or pithy responses. I’ve just been busy living through a summer with more time for work, projects and leisure, constantly tempted by the convenience foods that surround me. And I mean constantly.

And so, without any more excuses, I bring you my final list of conclusions.

26 – While you can save a bit of money by baking your own bread from scratch, the true cost-savings can be found when making your own corn tortillas. Packaged corn tortillas can cost up to ten times as much as the ones made from scratch. And they are the easiest thing in the world to make – just watch!

25 – I’ve made my own ranch dressing now quite a number of times. In fact I’ve yet to purchase any bottled dressing since I ended my challenge. What I love about this recipe is that if you really strain the yogurt until it’s super thick, you can use this recipe as a ranch dip, not just a salad dressing.

24 – Making your own tortilla chips – totally not worth it. Unless of course you’re going to deep fry the little suckers, maybe then you can get a nice thin chip that is full of flavor.

23 – Modern day small appliance manufacturers will try to convince you that you need their products in order to successfully produce something like yogurt (aka yogurt maker). But you don’t. Use a slow cooker and some bath towels to keep it warm. What about a $69 pasta roller? I made it through the year without one by purchasing a good $10 wooden roller.

22 – On the other hand, there are some kitchen products I couldn’t live without. If you’re baking any kind of hearth bread, pita bread, bagels – you need a baking stone. I bought mine at a restaurant supply store for about $50. It gives the best crust on all of those breads, as well as a crispy pizza.

21 – While I’m still on the topic of small kitchen appliances, I would have never survived the year with any amount of sanity if I didn’t have a food processor. I’ve had some people tell me they use their blender for everything and that a food processor is unnecessary. From my experience they just don’t give you the same results.

20 – Leftover food is priceless. When every eaten has to come from scratch you eventually learn to make enough to have extra food that can be frozen, or eaten again for lunch the following day. Duh!

19 – Okay I’m finally in the teens on the countdown. Keep a list of frozen meals on your refrigerator, lest you leave them frozen for too long and you lose either all that great flavor or texture to freezer burn.

18 – While I know I reduced the amount of packaging I would have produced in a typical year of buying convenient foods, I did use a lot of plastic bags, and I purchased a number of additional plastic storage containers for the freezer. Some of the bags I could wash out and reuse, while others didn’t hold up so well. Overall, my carbon footprint was probably smaller than what is typical.

17 – Blogging takes a bit of time. If you’re a blog reader versus a blog writer – maybe you spend as much time reading as those that are writing. But it’s not just the writing – it’s the editing, the photography, the tagging, and the subject matter. I was going to buy a better camera during the year and never quite got around to that.

16 – Okay I need a new camera. Food photography when you’re the one both cooking and taking photographs, means your camera ends up getting caked in egg, flour, grease, honey, etc. And you need a tripod, which I didn’t use, which means many of my photos were way too blurry.

15 – Freeze chicken stock in 8-oz bags or containers, then simply thaw for one minute in the microwave. Talk about economical!

14 – Ancho chili powder – where have you been all of my life? It has a smokier mild flavor that can be used in Mexican cooking, as well as in something like a dry rub for ribs. Oh, I have to post that recipe someday too.

13 – I spent a good part of the year watching cooking shows on the Food Network. One might think I’d want to escape all of the cooking, but I was really inspired by the amount of creativity you can put into food, and it gave me the confidence to try some new things along the way.

12 – Lisa, my partner, was a really great sport this past year. Thank you Lisa!

11 – In the year of inconvenience, I inconveniently gained weight. Damn.

10 – If at first you don’t like a recipe, try adding your own twist. I like making a recipe for the first time as it’s written, then changing it up to how I like it the second time. If a recipe has good structure don’t give up on it just because the flavor wasn’t right.

9 – Oh boy, single digits. This is hard work people! And that was lesson number nine…next.

8 – People have stopped me, mostly strangers when out in public, asking me if I’m still growing or canning all of my own food. Point made.

7 – Have I mentioned I really missed cold breakfast cereal?

6 – While I started the year cooking from a pantry full of cookbooks, by the end of the year I was getting most of my ideas and inspiration from other blogs or websites. Times have changed – and the iphone isn’t just for making phone calls.

5 – I regret not learning how to can this past year. Freezing yes, canning no.

4 – Blog stats can be addicting. I’ve been amazed at the number of followers of the blog, where they are coming from (I believe they represent four continents), what posts draw the most interest, and the incredible power of social media.

3 – Never would I have imagined at the beginning of this journey, that I would have written more than 60 posts, which have produced more than 38,000 views of my blog. Never.

2 – I spent a lot of time cooking last year. I mean a serious amount of time. While most of those chores became routine after some time, I didn’t realize how much time I spent in the kitchen until the past three months this summer when I wasn’t spending that time in the kitchen. I’ve spent more time with friends, with my gardens, with a good book, and… well working as well.

1 – At the beginning of this challenge what I wanted to learn most from it all was a true appreciation of food. Whether I grew it myself, made it from scratch, or tried to only buy it locally, I really wanted to connect to the energy it took to get that food on the table. And I did. I feel good about seeing it all the way through and not giving up when things got really stressful. And I still love to cook, in spite of my recent foray back to a frozen pizza and cheesy puffs. When all is said and done, this was truly and adventure of a lifetime. Thanks so much my fellow readers, for your inspiration and support!

But when push came to shove, there really were more lessons there than I originally may have imagined. So on with the countdown…

37 – Planning meals around seasonal ingredients is a great way to be a bit more creative with what goes on the dinner table. While we had many a meal composed of the typical “protein, starch, and vegetable” – there were some terrific moments of creativity using seasonal vegetables. Check out the spring asparagus salad (if it’s not too late in your region) or plan for this corn salsa.

36 – Processing your own tomatoes into something like sauce can be economical. I learned that while it takes a heck of a lot of tomatoes to get to the end product, the end product was generally a better value than the price I would pay off the shelf. By the way, I used 52 pounds last year to yield 144 ounces of diced tomatoes, 96 ounces of tomato sauce, 80 ounces of pizza sauce, 54 ounces of pasta sauce, and 28 ounces of roasted tomatoes. Check out the post, 52 weeks by the numbers.

35 – Roma tomatoes make the best sauce and give the best yield. I was a bit fooled by the notion that any tomato is a good tomato to process. I was wrong. The Roma’s make all the difference in the world.

34 – I won’t again be fooled into thinking I can “thicken” a pasta sauce by blending up the tomatoes with an immersion blender. Good sauce takes time on the stove. Plan for long cooking time, 4-6 hours not only helps thicken the sauce but it really brings out the flavor.

33 – I swore that after this year, I would never again purchase granola. It’s been eleven weeks since I ended my year, and I have made about six pounds of granola during that time. Keeping true to this lesson, it’s so easy to do yourself and the benefits are that I control the flavor, the sweetness, and the amount of pecans I want in every bite! I will start a batch at 6:30 in the morning, and it’s ready to eat by 7:15.

32 – Homemade bagels are not all that easy to make, they take a bit of time to make, and the flavor is, well OUTSTANDING! Don’t be scared by the bagel is the lesson learned. Also eat them quickly, they really are the best the day you make ‘em.

31 – I figured out my slow cooker isn’t just for dinner. We made “Crock Pot oatmeal” which fills the house with a wonderful aroma, not to mention is ready when you get out of bed. And then there is Crock Pot yogurt, which is not only so simple it’s also a great value. Strain some yogurt in cheesecloth to make Greek yogurt, and you’ve saved even more money.

30 – Bison is better than beef. Don’t get me wrong, I l-o-v-e beef of many cuts and eat it often. However when I want to cut down on the fat and calories without losing any flavor, then bison is a surprisingly great choice.

29 – One can make cinnamon rolls without yeast. While they taste a bit more “biscuity” than yeasty, once you pour on the glaze it hardly makes a difference.

28 – I won’t go back to eating frozen pizza. Okay, I did break that promise this week as we were leaving our friend’s house after helping her move and it was already 7:30 pm and we hadn’t had dinner. A frozen pizza was easy, and quite honestly pretty tasteless by comparison. I won’t go back to eating frozen pizza!

27 – I now understand what little Miss Muffet was thinking, don’t discard the whey! I still regret making the first batch of cheese and tossing all of that whey goodness down the drain. Now I use it in place of milk when baking and it really does add some great flavor.

There you have it, and I have only 27 more lessons learned to write!

For me, I’d much rather be warm than cold any day. I like it when the weather so hot you can smell the heat rising from the sidewalk. I’d much prefer a beach vacation to a mountain retreat, although I can appreciate both quite easily. So, I’ve learned over the years to appreciate both warm and spicy food on a hot summer day as the perfect way to stay in my comfort zone.

I made this pork posole a few weeks ago, a dish I had been craving ever since we returned from New Mexico in March. Posole is one of those dishes that is made a number of different ways, so if you had it one way and didn’t like it don’t write it off. I love the rich flavors that come from chipotle chiles and I’ve now discovered a new favorite – guajillo chiles. I could only find them dried here in Wisconsin, and serendipitously the recipe I found uses dried guajillos that you roast in the oven for four minutes, which brings out the amazing flavor of this mild chile. Staying true to much of what I learned last year, I used my own homemade stock (I had beef instead of chicken), but I did rely on canned hominy. But what made this dish truly awesome, besides the guajillos, was the Berkshire pork shoulder my co-op is now selling. Berkshire pork is well worth using if you can find it – is the new red meat and what I imagine pork used to taste like before the flavor, and yes, fat, was bred out of it.

I hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

Toasted Guajillo And Pork Posole (adapted from Cooking Light)

3 dried guajillo chiles

1 ½ pounds pork shoulder, trimmed and cut into 1 ½ inch pieces

½ teaspoon kosher salt

½ teaspoon fresh ground pepper

1 tablespoon canola oil

3 cups homemade stock (chicken or beef)

3 cups water

2 ½ teaspoons ground cumin

¼ teaspoon ground cloves

3-5 garlic cloves, crushed

1 medium onion, cut into 4 wedges

2 tablespoons chipotle chiles in adobo sauce (1 tablespoon of sauce, 1 tablespoon of chopped chiles)

1 can (29 oz) hominy, rinsed and drained

Cilantro, chopped cabbage, and limes to garnish and add flavor at the end.

Preheat the oven to 400° and place the guajillo chiles on a baking sheet. Bake for about 4-5 minutes until they begin to darken and the fragrance of the chile really opens up. Let them cool and remove both the stems and seeds.

Take the pork you’ve trimmed and cut into smaller pieces, and sprinkle with the salt and pepper. Heat up the canola oil in a large Dutch oven over medium high heat. Add the pork and cook for 5 minutes or until the pieces are browned. Remove the pork from the pan and wipe the drippings from the pan. (Note: I didn’t do this, I just drained the pan and I regret not following the directions, as the posole was a little fatty.)

Return the pork to the pan and add the stock, water, cumin, cloves, garlic, and onion, scraping up any browned bits along the way. Add the guajillo chiles, adobo sauce and chopped chipotle chiles and bring this all to a boil. When it boils, cover and reduce the heat to a simmer and let it simmer for about 2 hours. The pork will be tender enough to pull apart when this has cooked long enough.

Remove the guajillo chiles, pieces of onion and garlic. Take about 1 to 1 1/2 cups of the liquid from the pot and place in a blender. This liquid is hot, so remove the center piece from the cover of the blender lid to allow steam to escape. Place a towl over the opening in case your blender enthusiastically spurts out this hot mixture. Blend until smooth and return this liquid to the pan, stirring it in along with the hominy. Cook for another 10 minutes and it’s ready to serve.

We garnished our posole with cilantro, chopped cabbage, and a squeeze of limejuice at the end. It was fabulous!

Photo by Stephanie Bartz Photography

Some people have mentioned to me that planning all of my cooking and baking must have been the hardest part about committing to a one-year project. I confess however, that it was actually the blogging that was most difficult. While I truly love to cook and bake and take on “never made before in my kitchen” kinda projects, prior to this I had never kept any kind of diary, especially not about my life in the kitchen. You see I’m not really the “journaling type” so accounting for the highlights or lowlights of each week and sharing it with friends and strangers, and stranger friends, was quite difficult for me at times. Putting it all out there to the world without knowing what kind of response I would get was rather intimidating. Before I started the project I read the many “snarky” comments people would make on various blogs and I was a bit apprehensive about the first one I might receive. But the snarky never came. In fact I was surprised at how the positive responses really encouraged me and kept me going when I felt like quitting. Thank you all so much for that!

SO… that brings me to write about what I learned over this past year. This comes in no particular order, mostly from the ramblings in my head, however it leaves me a little surprised at the impact this has had on me, as well as the lives of others I now know through this experience.

A Year Of Learning, Inconveniently

52 – Convenience foods are packed, I mean PACKED, with sodium. Start to cook it all from scratch and your taste buds will notice the difference in a few short months.

51 – When making pasta, make sure you locate your flour well in which you will add the eggs, AWAY from the edge of the table. Cautious as you may be with stirring it together, the egg will break the wall and you will have to keep it from running onto the floor.

50 – I love bread and nothing compares to bread fresh from the oven.

49 – You can bake bread with a crusty, artisan-like texture by adding moisture to the oven. Keep a spray bottle with filtered water on hand to mist the top of the loaf. When using a baking stone, set a cast iron pan in the oven when heating, and add 2-3 ice cubes to the pan to create steam as you slide the loaf on the stone.

48 – When making mozzarella cheese remember one thing: kneading and stretching curds hot out of the microwave are quite honestly like touching the sun.

47 – I really, really, really hate cooking beans from scratch. Really.

46 – Someone in your life (aka: Mom) will try to feed you salty snack foods at every opportunity when she knows you are seriously trying to avoid them.

45 – A good stock (chicken or beef) takes 3-5 hours of slow simmer to give it a rich flavor. And a little fresh thyme is the secret ingredient.

44 – No one should have to buy chicken stock from the grocery store. It’s so economical to make, you can freeze it in whatever portion you like, it thaws in the microwave in no time, and it makes your house smell great while you’re making it.

43 – The secret is in the sponge, or in the starter. All great bread begins with a sponge or starter.

42 – The freezer is your best friend. You need a full upright or chest freezer to take on this type of cooking, without a doubt.

41 – Cooking from scratch requires a commitment to a production day once a week, if you have a busy work schedule and plan on eating a variety of foods.

40 – There aren’t many reasons to buy salad dressing when you can make great dressing yourself. You control the fat, the flavor, the salt, and the quality of ingredients. And there are plenty of good recipes out there.

39 – Mustard is one of the easiest condiments to make.

38 – Some of the best “foodies” live in Milwaukee and they have a great passion for sharing recipes. Check out many of them listed in my links of favorite food blogs, such as BURP, CakeWalk, Eating Milwaukee, and Good Graces!

To Be Continued…

Bagels

Cinnamon Raisin English Muffin Bread

Cornmeal Crackers

Corn Tortillas

Croutons

Egg Noodles

Eggless Pasta

Flax Crackers

Honey Whole Wheat Bread

Pie Crust (Curried Chicken Pot Pie)

Pizza Crust

Multi-Grain Sandwich Bread

Whole Wheat Flour Tortillas

Sweets & Breakfast Treats

Christmas Stollen

Chocolate Graham Crackers

Cinnamon Rolls Quick & Easy

Granola Number Five

Granola Bars

Whole Grain Pancakes

Beef

Bison Chili

Bison Stroganoff

Corned Beef & Cabbage

Lasagna

Pork

Frijoles Borrachos

Pork Carnitas

Posole

Tomatillo Pork Stew

Chicken or Turkey

Curried Chicken Pot Pie

Curried Turkey (or lamb) With Autumn Vegetables

Mediterranean Chicken with Potatoes

Tomatillo Chicken Dia de los Muertos

Vegetarian & Vegetables

Anasazi Bean Burgers

Corn Salsa

Rainbow Chard With White Beans

Refrigerator Kimchi

Roasted Tomatoes (oven dried)

Spring Asparagus Salad

Sushi

Super Lentil Dal

Sauces, Dressings & Condiments

Bechamel Sauce

Balsamic Salad Dressing

Buttermilk Ranch Salad Dressing

Coffee Bourbon BBQ Sauce

Marinara Sauce

Mustard

Pizza Sauce

Tomato Sauce

Tomatillo Salsa

Vita’s Pasta Sauce

Make It With Milk

Crock Pot Yogurt

Meyer Lemon Cheese

Chocolate Graham Crackers

½ cup all purpose flour

¾ cup whole wheat flour

½ teaspoon salt

½ cup dutch-process cocoa

1 ¼ cups powdered sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter

2 tablespoons honey

2 tablespoons cold milk

Preheat the oven to 325°and line two baking sheets with parchment paper or Silpats.

Whisk together the flours, salt, cocoa, sugar, and baking powder in a mixing bowl. Using a pastry blender or your fingertips, cut the butter into the flour mixture until evenly crumbly. In a separate bowl, combine the honey and milk, stirring until the honey dissolves. Add the liquid to the dry ingredients and toss lightly with a fork until the dough comes together. Add a little more milk, ½ teaspoon at a time if necessary, to make the dough pliable but not sticky.

Turn the dough onto a well-floured surface and fold it over gently until smooth. Divide the dough in half, keeping the other half covered with plastic.

Put your half of dough onto the parchment paper or Silpat, and roll it into a rectangle about 10 x 14 inches. The dough will be about 1/16 of an inch thick (pretty darn thin). Trim the edges and prick the dough evenly with a fork. Repeat with the remaining half of dough on the other piece of parchment. Place the parchment/dough on a baking sheet, and bake for 15 minutes or until they begin to brown. Immediately cut them into rectangles with a pizza wheel or knife. Transfer on a rack to cool. They should crisp up as they cool down.

Here’s a glimpse into my 52 weeks of inconvenience, primarily cooking or baking for just the two of us (although some food items became gifts, while others were served to our dinner guests. I started to provide links to the recipes below, but decided instead to develop a recipe listing in one of my future posts just to stretch this out a bit further.

My year ended on April 17, and I still have some of the tomatoes and chicken stock in my basement freezer. I remember when I was so worried about putting up enough tomatoes last summer, to last me through the winter, and much to my surprise I didn’t use them all. We’ve eaten a few meals over the past two weeks (since the year officially ended) that were part of my stocking up on frozen dinners. Things like curried chicken pot pie, turkey meatloaf, turkey noodle soup, and pork carnitas have added a bit of value to what might have otherwise been a convenience food splurge for me.

In fact, over the past two weeks not a whole lot has changed for me… uhm yet. I baked two breads, made a batch of granola, one pizza, a number of from-scratch dinners, and averaged at least 3 out of 7 lunches from scratch each week. What did change is that I purchased pasta, chips, salsa, breakfast cereal, canned beans, a few salads and one sandwich from my co-op. I have a half-gallon of milk in the refrigerator right now for making yogurt (tonight) and I also think twice before buying anything convenient, partly out of habit and partially out of guilt. Could I actually be a changed woman? Only the next 50 weeks will tell for certain.