Kefir bread? Looks good, as does everything else! No snow today in NE Ohio, but we are at our high temp for today, 13 degrees. Taking ds to dentist, then home for chili and cornbread.

Chili is another favorite cold-day comfort food.

I use milk kefir for the liquid in the bread recipe. It's yummy (that loaf now has a sample piece missing, just as the cornbread does), but you need to plan ahead, to let the kefir culture grow for a day before the bread is baked.

Oh, mamagoose-that all looks yummy.

OT, but has anyone "seen" trailrunner since the migration to Houzz? I was just thinking about her yesterday . . .

She left GW quite some time ago - early last fall perhaps, shortly after her biking trip to Europe with DH. I don't know why.

Mama_goose- I am in SW Oh and also spent the day baking! This is a white chocolate raspberry cheesecake, taste tested by DS2. I also have mini dulce le leche cheesecakes cooking and cookie batter chilling. The cookies will go in a college care package to DS1. I fear tomorrow will mean hitting the roads though...ugh

Mamma goose! Looks terrific. We are starting to get a storm here on the east coast. Guess I will be baking and drinking hot chocolate tomorrow :)

Are those marble counters I see? Beautiful!

Yum! No snow in SE MI but super cold

Yummy treats but we need recipes to go with them

Trailrunner commented on a thread in January--I'll link the thread
because I've always liked her kitchen. I miss her KAW threads.

The
cheesecake looks delicious, hatethecold. Aren't boys just so
appreciative of good home cooking?! We usually have cheesecake for
Easter dinner, because it's my FIL's favorite. Have a safe trip
tomorrow.

Lily Spider, I guess you've been hammered this
winter--this is our first real storm. I was hoping that we'd get through
without one, but the kids really enjoyed the sledding. Thank you, the
counter is a carrara marble dining table that we found on Craigslist,
and converted to an island/work table. I love it.

I'll look for your snow day baking pics tomorrow. :)

Trail's kitchen.

a2gemini, for some reason I can never stick to a recipe--not one of those items above follows the original recipes, which I've been using for years. I'll try to come up with the ingredients lists.

Years ago I read about culturing yeasts from one's own kitchen, with just a bit of commercial yeast in a sponge, which is left open to capture the natural yeast spores that colonize the kitchen--similar to the sourdough cultures which were unique to the areas where they were cultured. The kefir bread is similar to Mark Bittman's recipe and technique. I culture the kefir (one source) all day, then use it for the water in the recipe, with a teaspoon of sugar, the yeast, and one cup of the flour. Let that sponge 'work' overnight, then add the salt and remaining flour the next morning. Let that rise all day, and bake in the evening. If I don't have time for an all day rise, I add another teaspoon of yeast with the remaining flour, and let the dough rise until doubled, usually about an hour. The length of time for the kefir to culture, as well as the rising time for the bread dough, depends on the room temperature, although I usually proof it in the oven. If you're experienced in bread baking, you'll know when everything is right. Today's loaf is one-third whole wheat flour and two-thirds all-purpose flour, but I sometimes vary the ratio, and sometimes substitute a small amount of other flours, such as spelt or oat, or a tablespoon of wheat germ and/or bran.

The crispy-bottom cornbread is basically the Better Homes recipe for Bacon Cornettes, without the bacon. I have the cookbook, but here's a link I found online. I use half whole wheat and half all-purpose for the flour, and half yellow and half white for the cornmeal, and a little less salt and sugar than the recipe lists. To make it crispy on the bottom, I bake the mixture in a preheated iron skillet that has had a teaspoon of bacon grease melted in the bottom. The same way my grandmother baked her cornbread. :)

The crackers are a simple tortilla recipe, like this one, but I use olive oil, one-third whole wheat flour and two-thirds all-purpose, and add different herbs, spices, and grated parmesan cheese. As I mentioned above, I use the pasta roller, set at #2, using smaller pieces of dough than if I were making tortillas. The roller makes the crackers more oblong than round, but it's much quicker than rolling by hand. I sprinkle with a little kosher salt, then bake them at 400 for about 5 minutes, on cooky sheets. The last time I made crackers, I made a few using the #1 setting, which is almost paper thin. I reduced the baking time to 3 minutes, keeping a close watch so that they didn't burn. They were very thin, crispy, crunchy and yummy. I plan to try the thinner ones with half flour/half cornmeal soon--I'm thinking they will be similar to tortilla snack chips.

I know this might sound confusing, but that's the way I cook. :)