Category: Vegetables

Apple Carrot Kraut Sourdough Rye Bread

9/19/2016

Revisionist baking Method monday

If you’re following along with my carrot/apple kraut adventures, we were gifted several boxes of McIntosh apples last week, so along with making sauce, butter, and drying them I decided to make some apple/carrot kraut. I’d used apples in cabbage kraut before with fresh cranberries and loved it. Then came another off-the-wall idea from reading around in Fermented Vegetables to design a recipe to make a apple/carrot kraut cake. I did and it was good, but I couldn’t get over the fact that it just tasted like a good carrot cake, because I couldn’t taste the sour at all.

A good trick huh, ha-ha: You love that cake you just ate a big slice of?... and surprise it’s sauerkraut cake! I just pulled that trick on my daughter and her boyfriend this morning, haha. They did love the cake, and didn’t believe it was made out of kraut, which neither likes. Anything to amuse myself.

But the whole cake experiment left me wanting to taste what kraut’s like in bread, thus this recipe. So what is carrot/apple kraut like in a sourdough rye bread? It’s good, think Reuben with the kraut already in the bread.
I made it a steamed bread, although I’m going to try a Boule in the oven next.
Overall I was happy and will make it again, it didn’t rise as high or as quickly as my regular steamed rye loaves, but only by a bit. It rose to the top of the loaf pan, and took an hour longer to get there. My guess is that the lacto-bacteria become very active from both the levain starter and kraut, creating an acid environment that’s a little too much for the yeasts to optimally thrive. The dough is also denser with the kraut and sunflower seed additions, so the yeasts were having to work harder, and in more difficult circumstances. I could have added the kraut right before proofing with the salt, and maybe I will next time.

It’s texture is like a whole grain sandwich bread. I especially like the oats, and the way they taste toasted. I like the bits of sunflower seeds. It’s a good toast/sandwich bread, great with sharp cheese, and mustard. The two sour hits, but with different flavor profiles are worth it; the rye sour and then the kraut sour.

Learn Here How to Bake Steamed Bread in a Slow Cooker

Slow Cooker Steamed Apple/Carrot Kraut Bread

Makes one sandwich loaf

Overnight Ingredients
1 ½ cup/136g oatmeal
¼ cup/30g ground flaxseed
1 cup/150g gluten free mix ( ⅔ cup sorghum flour and ⅓ cup potato starch)
2 cups/240g rye flour
½ cup/100g firm gluten free levain (or firm sourdough starter)
2 cups/200g apple/carrot kraut
½ cup/65g sunflower seeds
1 ⅓ cup/315ml filtered water

Morning Ingredients
2 teaspoons sea salt
1 tablespoon honey

Evening Instructions
I use a food processor for mixing, but it can be done by hand.
Grind flaxseed in a spice grinder and set aside
Measure oatmeal into food processor and spin until fine
Add gluten free flour, ground flaxseed, rye flour, sunflower seeds spin
Crumble firm levain over mix and spin for a minute.
Add kraut and pulse to briefly combine
Dump into a mixing bowl, add water, stir until combined, cover and let sit at room temperature 65-75F for 12 hours or until fermented.

Morning Instructions
Turn large oval slow cooker to high for 20 minutes with the lid on
Sprinkle salt over fermented dough
Add honey and combine with your hands thoroughly
Butter loaf pan, smooth batter into pan.
After 20 minutes, turn OFF slow cooker and set the loaf to proof inside.
It should reach the top of the pan within 2-3 hours.
Pour 3 cups water into the bottom of slow cooker and set to high for 4 hours.
The loaf is done after four hours, its internal temp. should be 202-205F.
Turn it out of the pan and let cool completely before slicing,
This bread slices well when it’s fresh. It also re-steams nicely when dried out, makes wonderful toast, freezes well pre sliced. Store in a cloth, or paper bag at room temperature.

Another interesting note:
we’ve
had
a
few
fruit
flies
in
the house
with
all
the apples
and
pears.
They're
after
this
bread but
not
anything
else
baked.
Which
makes
me feel
the bread's
super alive
sweet,
ripe and in
harmony
with
the season.

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Apple Ginger Carrot Kraut

9/15/2016

2 Comments

Culinary Curiosity Thursday

It has the brief sour of a fresh kraut,
bite of ginger, melding melodic of cinnamon,
sweet/tart of apple,
a raisin depth and carrot crunch.
As my Granddad always said "Good Deal".

couldn’t leave it alone

I was reading through Fermented Veggies by Kirsten & Christopher Shockey, owning hundreds of cookbooks, and a short list of my workhorses, this will definitely be on that list. I glanced at their recipe for carrot kraut carrot cake, and was intrigued, cool idea. But I couldn’t leave it alone, and with all the apples in my house thought about making a carrot/apple/raisin/cinnamon kraut? Kinda riffing off the carrot cake idea, I thought after it fermented then I’d try making a cake out of it. Well, it fermented and exceeded my expectations, and it may become a favorite.
I developed the cake recipe and made it up last night, it worked but wasn’t completely what I wanted, meaning it just tasted like a good carrot cake, you’d never have known it was made with kraut. It used sorghum flour, potato starch, flax, butter, and only a ⅓ of the regular sugar in carrot cake. But, the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to know that it was made with kraut, and I didn’t want it to be so sweet. By the way, if you do want a sweet carrot kraut cake, just substitute pound per pound of kraut for grated carrot in your C.C. favorite recipe.
I put the leftover carrot kraut cake into the food dehydrator, because I’m into making rusks out of everything this week. It smells wonderful as I type. I've already gone ahead and mixed up a sourdough carrot kraut bread with rye. It’ll be ready to bake tomorrow, and if it turns out I’ll write it up. My recipe idea started with rye, sour, yet apples, in a bread so it didn’t have to feel like it had to be sweet. I hope it works, kinda looking forward to it.

Serve carrot kraut as a side salad to people who don’t think they like kraut

Fermented Veggies Recommended book
Fermentista Good fermentation site by the same people

Apple/Ginger/Carrot Kraut

Makes 2 quarts
Ferment time at room temperature is about three days
Ingredients
3 lbs/1.42 kg grated carrots
1 ½ lbs/589g small dice chopped cooking apples
1 tablespoon/17g sea salt
1 cup/115g raisins
1 teaspoon/2.6g cinnamon
2 tablespoons/10g fresh ginger grated

Instructions
Grate carrots I use a food processor
Chop apples I used local McIntosh from old friend’s trees.
Add carrots, apples, raisins, spice and salt to a large mixing bowl
Massage the mixture with your bare beautiful hands, singing blessings, thinking good thoughts, and being grateful for the wonders of fermentation.
If you do this correctly the juices will begin to run, a miracle.
I use a ½ gallon mason jar but any big jar or crock will work
Put kraut mix in by the handful and using your fist
press and pack it into the jar, continue until it’s all in and the brine from the packing covers the carrots and apples.
Leave two inches of headroom at the top
The mantra is: “Under the brine doing fine” meaning as long as the veggies are covered in brine they are happy, safe, content and fermenting.
Tuck a grape leaf, or cabbage leaf over the veggies, tuck-tuck like a child for bed.
Set a jelly jar on top and press down pushing the brine to the top of the mason jar.
Set a bowl under the jar to catch any drips or spills
Put your fermenting kraut in a cool room temperature out of direct sunlight
Check it after three days, or everyday it’s ok if you’re the fussy type.
It’s done when it tastes pleasantly sour, instead of salty.
Repack into smaller jars, making sure some brine covers the top
It should last several months or longer in the fridge, but it won’t, it’s so good.
I made my ½ gallon a on Saturday and it’s already half gone.

Love apples in ferments!

Apple Spice Additions
Caraway
Cinnamon
Anise Seed
Nutmeg
Black Pepper
Ginger
Cardamom
Coriander
Herbs
Thyme
Fennel
Mint
Rosemary
Sage

Big Apple Ferment

Garden Gifts: Roasted Califlower Medley with Tahini Sauce

9/9/2016

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Garden Gifts: Roasted Califlower Medley with Tahini Sauce

Local Food Friday

Roasted Veggie Medley

Serves 4 as a side dish
Ingredients
1 medium cauliflower broken into florets
1 eggplant peeled and sliced into cubes
1 medium zucchini sliced into cubes
A handful of green beans cut into pieces
10 garden pole beans cut into sections
1 head of garlic peeled into separate cloves
3-4 tablespoons olive oil
Sea salt about 1 teaspoon

Instructions
Preheat oven to 450F to 230C
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper
Lay diced vegetables on the tray
Massage olive oil and sea salt into the vegetables
Bake for 20 minutes,
Stir and bake for another 25 minutes
Vegetables should be melty and tender roasted

Creamy Kefir Tahini Sauce
Makes 1 1/2 cups

Ingredients
1 cup roasted tahini
½ cup milk kefir, or water kefir
more may be needed to thin the sauce
2-3 cloves raw garlic crushed
or 5 cloves roasted garlic
Juice of 1 lemon plus zest
or ¼ cup preserved lemon chopped
1/2 teaspoon sea salt

Instructions
In a food processor while vegetables are roasting
Crush garlic in food processor
Add other ingredients and process until smooth
Taste and adjust for salt, sour or liquid
Serve roasted veggies with tahini sauce on warm flatbreads with lightly salted chopped tomato, cucumber and shredded lettuce
With Love Enjoy!

coveting a cauliflower

We had company, our friends Michal, Michael and their almost two-year-old daughter Maya over the weekend. As a parting gift Michal presented me with a beautiful locally grown dark yellow cauliflower, and mottled white and purple eggplant. She must of known I’ve been coveting a cauliflower, craving a favorite recipe of mine-- roasted cauliflower and tahini sauce with flatbreads.

Cooler full of Cucumbers

Then today, Lee who tends the big garden next to our house, brought us a cooler full of cucumbers, zucchini, and two kinds of pole beans. Garden gifts. Abundance of the season, it’s all rolling in from the farms and gardens. My dehydrator is a constant background whir, pickling pots bubbling, and the crockpots full of cooking down apples and plums.
I’d toasted and fermented garbanzo bean flour last night, because I’d glanced at the recipes on the backside of the Bob’s Red Mill package. One for falafel patties, and the other for Whole Grain Flatbreads. I had to, of course, reconstruct the recipes and started by toasting the bean flour in a dry skillet for 4-5 minutes on medium heat. I think I’ll do it in the oven next time; then added firm sourdough starter to both recipes and fermented overnight. Wonderful results, but I want to test them again before I publish the recipes.

From all the bounty I roasted the cauliflower in medley with the other veggies, rubbing them with olive oil and salt; made the tahini sauce; cut up cucumber and shredded lettuce; pressed and cooked up the flat breads and pan fried the falafel patties.
I wouldn’t really call them falafel, but they were good and have possibilities.
I love this local life, the soft rain, my garden transitioning to the slower season and warm meals inside with good company.