Sourdough Recipe #1 The Not Very Whole Wheat Loaf

...bowl with a lid). Let it ferment in a warm place–in our case the top of a stove which has a pilot light for 3 to 4 hours. 5. Shape the dough into a boule (a pretentious way of saying a flattened ball) and place in a floured proofing basket. We have a wooden proofing basket, sometimes known as a “banneton”, which gives the finished loaf a medieval look, but you can also use a bowl draped with a cloth towel. Just make sure to flour the towel. 6. Pu...

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Prickly Pear Jelly Recipe

...stion, burn off the nasty spines by holding the fruit over a burner on the stove for a few seconds. Using the non-cutting edge of a knife held at a 90º angle to the fruit, scrape off what remains of the spines (technically called glochids). 2.There are many methods described on the interenets for extracting the juice. The way we have found best is to slice the fruit (you need not skin it) into quarters and put in a pot with just enough water to co...

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Home Baked Bread in Five Minutes

...let it rise for 45 minutes and stick it in the oven. A pan of water in the stove creates steam and gives the bread a nice, hard crust. We tried the basic white bread recipe in the Mother Earth article and can report that it works quite well. Hertzberg and François have penned a bread cookbook, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, that takes this basic recipe and uses it as the base for variations such as pizza dough, sticky rolls, and whole-wheat...

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What to do with not-so-good tomatoes

...things going on in the kitchen–like maybe a pot of beans simmering on the stove–so you will be around and remember to look in on them. What you are trying to do is remove some of the liquid and concentrate the flavors. You’re not actually drying the tomatoes, but you’re heading that way. Keep a close eye on them to make sure they don’t burn. Check their undersides as you go, because those tend to burn first. I like the blackened bottoms myself–bu...

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Worth Doing From Scratch: Corn Tortillas

...dients by weight I’ve figured out that for enough tortillas for four people you need to mix 250 grams of flour with 300 grams of water. Cook as many tortillas at once as you can. I can do three at a time on our stove. Cooking one at a time takes forever. Keep a bag of masa harina around and you’ll be ready for any tortilla emergency. In just a few minutes you’ll have healthy, tasty tacos and save money....

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