Ann_T

Moe's breakfast. He put in a request last night for scrambled eggs with my Chile sauce. I think he was dreaming about it. I make it to serve with our Christmas Eve Tourtiere, but he will eat it year around on eggs, ham, hot dogs, etc.

It is just a cooked chile type chutney so I don't see why you couldn't freeze it. I expect to net about 8 or 9 500ml bottles of it when I can today.

I started to just freeze leftover slices of our tourtiere. Once the slices are frozen, I vacuum package and will pull one out for Moe, often for breakfast. I also like to make small turnovers with the tourtiere filling and freeze.

Thank you so much for your kindness. If you are looking for the chile sauce recipe, it is on a blog post I made a couple of years ago. The recipe was from a friend in Toronto and she makes the original recipe to can in the summer using fresh tomatoes. She use to send Moe a jar of her sauce. So when I adapted the recipe to using canned tomatoes and reduced it in size, I knew what it should taste like. It reminds of a chile sauce that my grandmother made and would have little bowls of it on the table as a condiment to go whatever someone wanted to use it on. https://thibeaultstable.com/2023/12/21/homemade-chile-sauce/

I bought all the ingredients yesterday for the traditional chile sauce I make for Moe to have with our Christmas Eve tourtiere. It has been on simmering now for over two hours and has another 3 to go. Keeping my fingers crossed that our power doesn't go out before I get it into the jars and processed. Lots of power outages on the Island. Edited to add: 2025 batch of Chile Sauce. I ended up with 11 jars.

Sliced the sourdough sandwich bread yesterday and made hot chicken sandwiches for dinner. Rather than roast a whole chicken, I just roasted chicken breasts. "Diner food" served as always with our traditional twice fried fries and canned peas.

It was just my regular recipe that I adjusted. Basically just subbing some of the water with milk and adding butter. I used 100g of the "mini starter" with 900g of flour, 1g of yeast, 13g of salt, 300g of water and 340g of whole milk and 1/3 cup of melted butter. Autolyze, stretch and fold method. I leave the dough for an hour rest after the first mix, and then do three more stretch and folds with a 30 minute rest in between. I left the dough out on the counter over night from 8:30PM until 3:30 AM . Divided the dough in half, preshaped and left for 30 minutes before finishing shaping. Buttered the bread pans and left to proof. Baked at 375 for about 45 to 50 minutes.

Baked two enriched sourdough sandwich loaves using one of the mini starters. Dough was made last night and left on the counter overnight. Edited to add "crumb shots" .

Moe wasn't hungry for a big dinner so I made him a Prawn cocktail with a homemade cocktail sauce.

It had been a while since I baked biscuits so this morning I made Ham, Cheddar and green onion biscuits.

Beautiful crust and crumb. And I love your pan.

I had fed two of the "scrapings" of the jar starters on Wednesday and after they had risen, I put them both in the fridge. Took them out last night and made two doughs. One went into the fridge for a longer cold fermentation and one was left on the counter overnight and baked this morning. Left just enough scrapings in the bottom of the jars to feed again. Left them out on the counter overnight and they are now ready to go back into the fridge and will probably get used over the next two days. Baked 12 sandwich size baguettes.

I would be so happy with this green curry.

Yesterday morning I made my favourite meatballs. Pork, Garlic and basil. Moe had them over linguine for breakfast. And this morning I made him a meatball "sub" on a freshly baked bun. Fed a "scrapings" of the jar to make a starter before leaving for work yesterday morning and used it last night in an enriched sourdough. Left dough out on the counter overnight and baked early this morning. One sandwich loaf and six sandwich buns.

This is the same website that I found the method for just using the scrapings from the bottom of the jar for the next batch of dough.

Paul, it wasn't something I was familiar with until 2 years ago. I've made it a couple of times since. I adjust the recipe slightly depending on whether I have a starter ready to use. You can find the link to where I found it here: https://www.culinaryexploration.eu/blog/British-Bloomer-Recipe

Early morning bake. Crusty English Bloomer Bread. Started the dough yesterday around 5:00 PM using a small "sourdough mini starter" with the addition of 3g of yeast. 900g of flour added to the 132g mini starter at 60%hydration. Dough was blowing the top off of the container at 3:00 AM this morning.

Moe's appetite as been off at night so I decided to make dinner for breakfast this morning. I had saved and froze leftover wild rice dressing from a couple of weeks ago when I made the boned Cornish game hen . There was just enough to make two chicken ballotines. I boned out two chicken breasts leaving on the skin. Stuffed with the wild rice and roasted. I soaked some dried shiitake mushrooms in chicken broth for the sauce. Made a roux with the addition of butter added to the drippings, along with the mushroom chicken broth and finished with just a touch of Armagnac. Served with Moe's favourite braised red cabbage, peas and roasted potatoes. Dinner out of the way before 9:00 AM.

Moe requested soft boiled eggs and toast finger for breakfast. I call them soft boiled but they are actually steamed for 4 minutes in a steamer insert, rather than directly in the water. Best way to make hard boiled eggs as well. Accompanied by a side of bacon. Not shown.

Roasted a couple of chicken breasts and made gravy and made Moe a hot chicken sandwich with twice fried fries for breakfast early this week. Last night I made our favourite chicken fried rice and served it with Egg Foo Young. Moe had actually requested the Egg Foo Young. He liked the Egg Foo Young so much he is having leftovers for breakfast today.

It is sometimes confusing, with the different terms that are used. Levain, Poolish, Biga, Pate Fermentee are just different preferments. So when Gerard renews his Levain, I'm not sure what he means by that. When I want a preferment for my next batch of sourdough bread, I start a new preferment, whether a levain, poolish, biga, etc. I've experimented with all of them over the years. The one I used more often was a "Biga". Both a yeast version and a sourdough version. The sourdough version was made using 60 to 80g of sourdough starter and added to 250g of flour and 250g of water. Once it had more than doubled it was added to the next batch of dough. These little scrapings of the jar preferments, I just refer to as mini bigas. I have still been maintaining my mother, feeding it every couple of weeks. I think that it has just become a habit that I've been feeding for 6 years and I don't want it to die. I usually leave a dough in the fridge for a longer cold fermentation from 24 hours to 4 days. But I have left them as long as 8 and 9 days and the only difference I find is that the sourdough flavour is a little stronger. This works for my son who loves a more sour taste. I like a milder sourdough flavour.

A sourdough starter should never have yeast added. When I started my "mother' back in 2019 it was started with organic rye and bottled water and when it was ready to maintain, I fed with organic rye and bottled water. Nothing else. Pure sourdough.

I mentioned a few months ago that I was using a new method I found for maintaining a sourdough starter, using just the scrapings in the bottom of the jar. I've been using this method now consistently since February. The method is from Culinary Explorations. You start with about 22g of your sourdough starter and feed it with 55g of water and 55g of flour. Once it has more than doubled it is ready to go into your next batch of dough. You just need to leave a little of the starter in the bottom of the jar and feed the scrapings with the 55g of water and 55g of starter. After the first time, I never bothered measuring the scrapings. You just need to leave less than a tablespoon in the jar to feed. If you don't plan on baking anytime soon, just put the jar of scrapings in the fridge and pull out and feed with the 55/55 ratio 8 to 10 hours before you want to make your next batch of dough. So if you want to make your bread dough in the morning feed it at night and it is ready to go. Or feed it in the morning and make your dough later in the day. I found that since I am baking every two or three days, I just feed the scapings immediately and after they have more than doubled, I put the jar in the fridge until I want to bake. This works for me. Last night I made three doughs using three of the mini bigas. All three doughs went into the fridge for a cold fermentation. That left me three jars with scrapings to feed. I fed each jar and left them on the counter overnight. I just took pictures of them and they are now going into the fridge for a couple of days. If you look closely at the lids, you can see how they are expanding so you know that these little starters are active and strong. Made a nice popping sound when I realized the lid. Besides being really easy, what I really like about this method is that there is no waste at all.

I agree. That loaf is a beauty.

Last night's dinner. Apricot Glazed "boned" Cornish Game Hens I started early in the morning to bone out a Cornish game hen. And cooked the wild rice. The wild rice stuffing was seasoned with garlic, onions and celery, along with chopped dried apricots and cranberries, pepper and fresh thyme and rosemary. Stuffed and sewed the bird up with unwaxed dental floss. Been using this method for more than 40 years. When ready to serve you just have to give a little tug on the floss and it just slides out. During the last 20 minutes the bird was basted a few times with an apricot spread thinned with Grand Marnier with the added addition of fresh thyme and rosemary. Added a little chicken broth to the pan drippings and drizzled over the bird and served with roasted butternut squash and steamed green beans.