restoring the roost

North Carolina Country Living and Farmhouse Style

North Carolina Country Living and Farmhouse Style
since 2010

recipes

Sourdough Bread Baking Tips

· Homesteading, recipes

Not much beats the wonderful smell of fresh bread baking in the oven–and sourdough bread is particularly luxurious as it fills the kitchen. I love baking bread but since I don’t often have much time to do it, I like to put my efforts towards sourdough with its rich and complex flavor. Sourdough bread is often easier to digest and a bit healthier than other types of bread because of its natural fermentation process, which boosts healthier gut bacteria. You don’t have to use yeast as the active sourdough starter provides the leavening needed for the bread to rise, so the only ingredients are flour, water, and salt added to your starter.

On the flip side, sourdough can be tough to master, time-consuming, and difficult to produce a great loaf every time. When I first became serious about sourdough bread, I decided to enroll in an online
class/workshop hosted by Jenny McGruther of Nourished Kitchen. She emailed daily instructions for preparing your sourdough starter all the way through baking your first loaf. Counseled by her advice, I ordered my sourdough starter cultures online from a source like this one.

I recommend either following Jenny’s instructions which can be found here or following the recipe that comes with your starter cultures. For me, it took a while for my starter to get to where it was doubling, nice and bubbly, with only a couple of feedings.

the starter before feeding

Once you have an established starter, you can store it in your refrigerator and take it out as needed to feed, and then eventually use for baking.  I truly believe for me, getting the starter to a point where it was a strong, active starter was the key to making a good loaf of bread.

Now–I’m not the type to continue with a complicated method like so many instructions you see out there for sourdough. And measuring in ounces with a scale–ha! Forget about it……I like to keep things as simplified as much as possible and in order for me to do that while also creating great sourdough bread, I’ve had to adapt my own way of making sourdough using a lot of trial and error pulling from a few different cookbook authors and recipes.

This is not the best or most precise method for always producing good results with sourdough bread (and definitely not the most detailed), but for me and my lifestyle it works so this is what I do:

1. Take starter out of the refrigerator a few days before you plan to make your Levain and bake bread. Feed it each day. Usually with my starter by the second day it is more than doubling in volume after feeding.

2. The night before you plan to bake your bread, make your Levain. For me, I had to alter my Levain recipe to 1 cup of water, 2 cups all-purpose flour, mixed with 4 generous tablespoons of sourdough starter. Mix all together and let sit overnight. (I usually cover with a towel or plastic wrap) Place your starter back in the fridge.

the finished Levain in the morning

3. The next morning, mix into your Levain 1 tablespoon sea salt, 2/3 cup flour, and 1/3-1/2 cup of water to form a soft dough. Let rest 20 minutes. Fold your dough over into its center 4-6 times, turning the bowl while doing it each time. Cover and let rise 1 hour. Repeat the folding of the dough, cover, and let rise 2-4 hours or until at least doubled in volume. It helps if you have your dough in a warm place (try setting it beside your stove while cooking or simmering bone broth).
the dough after rising, ready to be kneaded and worked into a ball before placing in proofing basket

4. Prepare a well-floured proofing basket. Turn dough out onto a well-floured surface and lightly knead until tension develops and you have a soft, taught, ball–but not for very long. I like to leave lots of air bubbles in mine and I err on the side of caution when kneading so that the dough is not overworked. You might try experimenting with not kneading hardly at all and see how it turns out–you may like it better that way!

5. Form a ball with dough, turning sides underneath and then place into the proofing basket. Cover and let rise another 1-3 hours. Preheat oven to 450 degrees and preheat a dutch oven (I use a small cast-iron one) that you plan to bake your bread in if you have one for 30-45 minutes.

6. Turn dough carefully out onto parchment paper (you can score the top if you want) and place the dough with paper into the preheated dutch oven. Place the lid on top. Bake at 450 for 15 minutes, then turn the temperature down to 350 degrees, remove the lid, and continue to bake for 1 hour more until the bread is golden brown.

7. Remove your bread from the dutch oven and let cool. Enjoy!

Don’t worry, it’s normal to run into problems and bread flops when starting out. My first loafs were too dense, or too hard, or too gummy. I also had issues with my dough not rising. But the more you work with getting your starter activated and healthy, the more forgiving the bread will be.

One of my favorite ways to enjoy sourdough bread is dipped into a hearty soup, but I also love it simply with butter and honey. I typically bake my sourdough on the weekends since you need to be home for much of the day when you bake it, so Saturdays or Sundays are a usually a great baking day for me, with the Levain prepped the night before.

Happy baking!

Cooking from Deep Run Roots Cookbook

· Homesteading, recipes

Y’all–I’m obsessed with this cookbook.

If you haven’t watched the show “A Chef’s Life” or heard of Vivian Howard and you love southern food–you are missing out! We have watched the show since Season 1 came out and I fell in love with all the recipes, the stories, and the culture of Eastern North Carolina foodways.

Vivian Howard stars in “A Chef’s Life” and recently released her first cookbook–Deep Run Roots. If you are not familiar with her story, after being in New York working in the restaurant industry for some top chefs, she returned to where she grew up and started her own restaurant–Chef and the Farmer in Kinston, North Carolina. It features local ingredients and showcases food grown from farmers all within something like a 75 mile radius of the restaurant. We have been once to the restaurant and it was amazing!

I got the cookbook for Christmas this past year and I haven’t been able to put it down–I just love how it’s organized and I can’t wait to try all of the mouthwatering recipes. The commentary, stories, and photographs are wonderful as well. The cookbook is quite large–it contains 24 chapters each showcasing a different but significant Eastern North Carolina ingredient.

I’m gradually working my way through the cookbook and have been pretty pleased with the results of the recipes thus far. Some of them are a bit more involved and time consuming than you might want to take on for a simple week night meal, so I try to save them for weekends or a special occasion. So far, I have tried a handful of recipes including:

  • Sage Honey-Glazed Pork Tenderloin with Bacon-Roasted Rutabagas
  • Mom’s Cornpone
  • Turnip Root and Green Gratin
  • Crispy Ginger Rice with Leeks, Shiitakes and a Fried Egg
  • Grandma Hill’s Hoecakes
  • Salt and Butter Roasted Pecans
  • Brussels Sprouts, Apples and Pomegranate with Blue Cheese Honey Vinaigrette
  • Slow-Roasted Beef Short Ribs with Herb-Scented Turnip Puree and Turnip Gremolata
  • My Favorite Beet Salad
  • Squash and Onions
  • Blueberry Rosemary Pudding
  • Grilled Corn with Bacon Mayo and Pecorino Romano
  • Shirred Eggs with Stewed Tomatoes and Ham Chips
  • Blueberry Cobbler with Cornmeal Sugar Cookie Crust
  • Squash and Fontina Casserole Pudding

Today I’m going to make Fried Okra Hash since okra is in season and we are getting it from our CSA!

The recipe is as follows (on p. 402 of Deep Run Roots):

1/2 cup cornmeal
1 teaspoon salt, divided
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
2 cups okra sliced 1/3 inch thick (about 15 medium okra)
2/3 cup vegetable oil

Combine cornmeal, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and cayenne in a medium bowl. Rinse okra well with water and toss the damp okra with the cornmeal mixture. Set aside. In a cast-iron skillet, heat the oil over medium heat. Add okra once oil begins to sizzle, spreading it out in a single layer. Lower the heat slightly and sizzle on one side for 4 minutes.

Toss the okra around and cook an additional 3 to 4 minutes. Transfer okra to paper-towel-lined-plate to drain with a slotted spoon. Season with remaining 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Serve warm.

I’d love to know if any of you have Vivian’s cookbook and which recipes are your favorites. Happy cooking (and eating)!

Small Batch Pickled Beets

· gardening, Homesteading, recipes

This is the first year we have ever been able to grow beets that actually developed a root!

I had to thin them out quite a bit along the way, so although I didn’t end up with a ton, I still had enough to make one jar of pickled beets and have two or three batches left for regular cooking.

I just love pickled beets. It’s one of my favorite types of pickled vegetables for sure and beets are so healthy for you I like to enjoy them any way possible.

I used a recipe from the TV show A Chef’s Life, found on their website here. It was featured on the “beet” episode but instead of processing my beet jars I just stuck them inside the refrigerator instead since it was such a small batch and I knew I would eat them soon anyway.

One of the interesting things I remember them talking about was how important it was for flavor purposes to leave the beet greens on the roots when cooking them before canning the beets.

Beets cooking in the water with greens still on

Here is what you will need, taken directly from the website:

3 pounds beets
3 cups cider vinegar
2 cups water
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
3 cloves
3 bay leaves
2 teaspoons dried thyme
1 teaspoon chili flakes
3 star anise

Place washed, skin-on beets in the bottom of 6 quart or larger pot. Cover the beets with water by 2 inches, and bring them up to a boil. Boil, covered for 20 minutes. Check to see if they are done by sliding a knife into the center. The beet should give just a little resistance. If the they are not done, continue cooking just until they are. Drain off the water and set the beets aside to cool.Once they are cool enough to handle, peel and slice the beets into 1/2 inch rounds. Position the rounds in wide-mouth canning jars. If you have rounds that are too wide to fit, cut them into half-moons, or quarters, or whatever you have to do to get them in there.


Combine the remaining ingredients in a non-reactive, 3 quart saucepan and bring it up to a boil. Carefully pour the brine over the beets, making sure the beets are completely submerged in the liquid. At this point you could refrigerate the beets for up to 3 months without processing in a hot water bath. If you’d like to store them at room temperature and keep them longer, follow the directions on (pg. 00) and process the jars for 5 minutes. 
the brine for the beets


What is your favorite way to cook and eat beets? 


Recipe Organization

· Homesteading, recipes

When cooking, I prefer to use recipes that are written down or onto something, rather than from a computer tablet or phone. I like to be able to see a recipe simply and clearly and it’s important that I can access it very quickly. I still like to use the internet as a source for finding great recipes, but if it becomes a regular favorite I will write it down eventually. 

I tend to have a lot of recipes stored in different places. Some are in my little family recipe box, shown below, some are from magazines stashed in folders, and some are saved to my pinterest board for recipes.

My mother-in-law gave me this recipe box with family recipes inside as a wedding gift 🙂

I will say I find it easiest when I see a recipe online to save it to my Pinterest board first so that I don’t forget about it and at least I have it saved.

recipes from magazines to try out by season

As for the recipes in magazines, about every six months or so I will go through the magazines we have and tear out all the recipes I’ve dog-eared, then I arrange them by season (according the the ingredients that happen to be fresh) into folders that I then gradually will use to try out each one. I keep all the file folders in a big expandable folder.

I also use a lot of recipes from cookbooks. It’s tough to remember to try new recipes from my cookbooks, because we tend to get into a habit of making certain dishes and forget about Below is a picture of our cookbook collection.

an open shelf in our kitchen holds all our cookbooks in one place

Some of my favorite cookbooks I’m using right now…

Only the best recipes in the folders that I continually come back to again and again make it into the wooden recipe box. My recipe box mostly holds family recipes, but every now and then I add some new favorites that we tend to make often. I do this by reprinting the recipe on an index card and then placing it in the box according to the type of dish. I just hope I don’t run out of room!

I’m thinking about finding another little antique box for favorite recipes that are real-food based organized by season and leaving the smaller one simply for family recipes.  Do you have any tips on how you organize recipes?

More on Shuck Beans: Stringing, Drying, & Cooking

· gardening, Homesteading, recipes

I’ve had a lot of interest in my post on shuck beans, so I thought I’d expand on this topic and talk a little bit about my experience with making this southern mountain delicacy. Shuck beans were a way to enjoy beans during the winter, and from what I understand traditionally were eaten around the Holidays.

I first learned about and tasted shuck beans (some people call them shucky beans or leather britches) from my mother-in-law. She is from Harlan, Kentucky and grew up eating these beans.

The first time we dried shuck beans we really didn’t know what we were doing–in fact, we didn’t de-string them well enough. Oops! We strung them up and hung to dry in a cool spot in our house, and then I brought them home to KY with me for my mother-in-law to teach me how to cook.

These shuck beans were in the spring house of a mid 19th century home in Yancey County, NC. They had obviously been hanging there for many many years!

Instead of the traditional way of boiling with some sort of pork fat, she let them cook for a long time on the stove with olive oil for a healthier version. They actually turned out not too bad, but not nearly as good as I had had before. The next time we made them she brought back some wonderful shuck beans from famous heirloom gardener Bill Best, and we made them at my house together. They were very tasty.

To start, you need your beans. We grew greasy beans in our garden last year, along with some half-runners which I’ve heard are some of the best kind to use for shuck beans. If you can’t grow your own, see if your farmer’s market has some of these varieties. Some farmer’s markets will even have already dried shuck beans ready for cooking 🙂

Next you will need to remove the tough strings from all your beans. Then with a needle and thread, string them together in bunches and hang up in a dry cool spot. You may also be able to use a food dehydrator for faster drying of the beans. Or, you can break them into smaller pieces and let them air dry in the sun. Most of the time your beans will need to dry for at least a couple of months. I believe you can dry them for a very long time before they go bad.

Once they are ready for cooking, you will need to soak them overnight. Once soaked overnight you can start cooking them with whatever type of fat you plan to use. Some people use salt bacon, some use fatback, others canola oil.

one of my first attempts at hanging beans up to dry

A failed attempt at shuck beans–these beans I did not let grow large enough before picking. 

traditional shuck beans cooking on the stove

Cook the beans in enough water to cover until boiling and them simmer for a couple hours more or until very tender. Continue cooking until the water has cooked all the way down, stirring to avoid scorching the beans.

I’d love to hear about your experiences with shuck beans. Any tips for cooking them that I left out above? Please share!