March will be finishing up here soon and April is headed on in. We have also had some beautiful sun breaks but a whole lot of that liquid sunshine has been coming our way. That along with a thunderstorm or two and all the plants are looking vividly green and the leaves on the trees are coming on out. Many of the trees and plants are blooming, Spring is here for sure!

May your family enjoy all the blessings God sends and hopefully He has sent some sunshine your way today. Thanks for visiting our little family farm!

"The chief things for man's life is water and bread, and clothing, and a house to cover shame." Ecclesiasticus XXIX, 27. Today we are sharing our recipe for the staff of life, that foodstuff that man has had for thousands of years, bread. But in our day and age bread seems to be on the list of things not to eat. It seems there may be many reasons for that as the type of bread many tend to eat in our time is different from what use to be eaten. In our previous blog post on Milling At Home Joseph Husslein S.J. Ph D. shows how just by the way wheat is milled takes our "staff of life" and turns it into something other than a healthful food stuff. 

Going down Father Fahey's list of 12 Factors of Proper Nutrition we are going to touch on numbers 10 and 11 today with our sourdough tutorial: proper preparation of food and proper cooking of food.

What is so special about sourdough bread? According to the all knowing Wikipedia, "Sourdough is the fermentation of dough using naturally occurring lactobacilli and yeast." Prior to the use of commercial yeast (bread yeast typically purchased for bread making) sourdough starter was how families baked their daily bread. Sourdough starter uses a natural leaving that takes the naturally occurring yeast from the air when flour and water are mixed together. This is what makes the bread rise in a sour dough recipe. Most sourdough breads purchased or served in a restaurant do not use this method but add other agents to mimic the flavor of sourdough.

Why is all of this important? Sourdough starter not only makes the bread rise without having to purchase a commercial man made yeast but it also helps to make bread more nutritional. The lactobacilli (the yeasts and bacterias) digest the sugars in the wheat, they give off gas in the process making the bubbles in the starter/bread dough which make it rise. When these lactobacilli eat the sugars they are "pre-digesting" the bread for us which makes it easier for us to digest. It also prepares the nutrients in the wheat for us so that we get more out of our wheat than we would have had these bacteria and yeasts not started the job for us. This study from the US National Library of Medicine shows that souring the bead reduces gluten and may be helpful to those who are gluten intolerant. In our own personal experience we don't have the bloating that is associated with eating yeasted bread and the whole wheat sourdough also ties us over to the next meal much longer. When we have gone back to a commercial yeasted bread we feel as if we didn't eat much and continue to feel hungry, in return eating more.

So without further ado, we present our family sourdough recipe. This recipe has been a labor of love in the making for about 4 years. One downside to sourdough is that it isn't a scientifically made commercial yeast. Meaning that it isn't a straight forward consistent item to use in the kitchen. It has been said that sourdough making is an art and there are as many ways to use this lovely starter as there are recipes in Russia for borsch, recipes in the US for potato salad and recipes in Bulgaria for Shopska Salad (as every country has its dish! Our children are adopted from these…). With that I will say this recipe might not work for every starter and every situation but it is what has been working for our family for 6 months almost without fail after 4 years of many sourdough bricks! I must also send a thank you to all those family members who have helped give tips along the way! To my sister-in-laws, cousin and aunt who put up with all my questioning and probing. This recipe is a combination of all of those tips and much reading and research. 

~*~ Important to note that this recipe starts the night before I want to bake bread, more on timing options will be discussed at the end of this post.  ~*~

Step 1- Grind 6 cups Wheat or skip this step for pre ground flour
This recipe makes two large loaves. I grind about 6 cups of organic hard red wheat berries which I order from Azure Standard but any hard red wheat will do. If you are buying pre ground flour from the store (Winco, Roth's, Fred Myer) I would recommend getting Bob's Red Mill brand of whole wheat.

​To grind wheat please follow the directions that came with the mill that you have. We started out with a hand crank Wondermill Jr. mostly because we thought it would be great to have something that didn't require power. Then the official wheat grinder became tired and so we invested in our lovely electric wheat grinder, the Nutrimill, which we have had about 6 years now.

Step 2- Measure out 1 1/2 cups Sourdough Starter
After trying to make our own starter from scratch (just flour and water, feeding equal amounts for a week) we opted to just purchase a starter from Cultures for Health. In this tutorial we are using their Whole Wheat Desem Starter which has worked great for us. I've killed it twice I think but always save some, dehydrated, for back up. Either follow the directions for the Cultures for Health starter, make your own or get some from a friend. Perhaps another post will be up on all those details. For the purpose of this tutorial though have your starter ready to go, fed at least 1-3 days before. We like to keep ours in the fridge. I take out what I need then feed it equal parts flour and water enough to fill my canning jar and put it right back in the fridge.

Measure out 1 to 1 1/2 cups of sourdough starter into a large glass bowl (sourdough will eat stuff stuck in plastic bowls and metal is a debatable material).

Step 3- Add 2 cups flour, 2 cups purified water to the 1 1/2 cups sourdough starter

To the bowl which you placed your sourdough starter add 2 cups of your ground or bought whole wheat flour and 2 cups of filtered or purified water. City water/tap water won't work well for this as the chorine that is added and other chemicals isn't good for the sourdough starter and may kill the only thing you have to rise your bread. Mix until well incorporated. Let this set for 8-12 hours. I mix mine before bed about 9:30 pm the night BEFORE I want to bake. Then the lactobacilli have plenty of time to do their thing (eat those sugars and digest the gluten). At about 9:30 am the next morning I move on. This step takes about 5-10 minutes. I cover my bowl with an Uber lid or any reusable bowl lid that doesn't seal tight like these. I was using plastic wrap but when you make bread every day or every other day it just seemed like an unnecessary waste. A cloth towel works ok but in the summer fruit flies snuck their way in.

Step 4- Add 1/4 cup raw honey, 2 cups of filtered water, 2 tsp sea salt & 6-7 cups of whole wheat flour.

After the sponge (mix of water, flour, starter) has sat 8-12 hours I dump it into my Kitchen Aid mixer and add 2 cups of filtered water (again the starter likes pure water), 1/4 cup of raw honey (the best kind to use with the most nutrition, local if possible), and 2 tsp. of sea salt (we prefer RealSalt full of minerals and no additives). I give the mixer a little short run to blend that together then add my 6-7 cups of flour. The flour amount depends on how watery your starter was, how fresh your flour is (more flour if fresh less if bought) and the how warm or cold the weather is. The dough should be wet but shouldn't make a squishy should when you pinch it. Sourdough prefers a wet dough and you can usually add some later in the process but you don't want it too wet or the bread won't rise well. The fourth picture in the set above shows how it should look. This will probably be more wet than a dough that is made with yeast at this point. The whole wheat takes a while to soak up the water so it will need to be more wet.

Once you have your flour mixed in I rinse out the large bowl that was used for the sponge and give it a quick wipe down with a clean cloth napkin. Pour about 1 1/2 tbl. of oil in the bowl to grease it. Then transfer the dough from the mixer into that large bowl. I cover it with my Uber lid and let it sit about 4 hours. The timing on this will also depend on the warmth or coolness of the house. On cold days it might go longer than 4 hours though generally that doesn't happen with ours. On hot summer days I have to watch it, it could go in an hour or so. If its really cold sometimes it gets to snug close to the wood stove. It can also be placed in the fridge if the baker will be busy longer than 4 hours. (Read I ran to town and didn't make it back ;)  ). The coolness of the fridge will slowdown the fermenting process and give the baker some extra time.

At any rate, no matter your condition you are essentially looking for your dough to rise double in size for it to be ready.

Step 5- Knead dough, shape and place in bread pans.

After your dough has doubled in size (for me, the size of the bowl I use and my Uber lid this means when it pushes the Uber lid off the bowl). Once that happens I get out my trusty, could-not-do-without, Pampered Chef Pastry Mat (one of my favorite kitchen tools can you tell?!) I dump out my dough on an oiled mat (if my dough is too wet I use flour instead of oil) and use a pastry knife to cut my dough in half so I have equal parts for two loaves (or close to equal). 

I knead the dough, flattening it out and folding it over itself until it has a nice smooth elastic feeling to it. I estimate this takes less than 5 minutes for each ball of dough. The sourdough starter does such a good job at digesting the gluten that it almost kneads it for me. I usually knead one half let it rest while I knead the other. Let the second set rest while I shape the other into a loaf.

Once it is rolled and folded I tuck in the ends, flip it over and make sure the seam is sealed by pinching it together. Then rub some olive oil on the top to keep it from drying out and in the summer it keeps the fruit flies off. I grease my Good Cook Stoneware Bread pans with olive oil and place the shaped loaves in the pans to rise a second time. While the Good Cook Stoneware is working great for us they are wearing down on me after 4+ years and I have some Pampered Chef Stoneware Bread Pans on my wish list! Why stoneware? It cooks really well, very evenly, holds heat well, makes a nice crispy golden brown outside and its made natural materials that won't leach into the food that is baking in it. Just a few reasons we love stoneware!

Step 6- Bake both loaves at 400 degrees for 40 minutes.

For our average oven this tempature and time are perfect, every time. Everyones ovens are different though so a good tempature for bread is about 190 degrees on a meat thermometer. When the bread is done I remove it and then turn it out of the pan onto a baking rack to let it cool. I brush some olive oil over the top for a little less rustic look and it browns the top a bit while it cools.

​You could slice right away but the longer it has the cool the better. Hot bread (which is really hard not to cut right into!) will be super moist and will mush together when you try to cut it. A couple of hours would probably be the perfect amount of time to wait. This recipe makes a great sandwich bread. Its very hearty, healthy and simple!

Not everyone is home all day long to bake bread and I admit that timing was really a lot of what took me 4 years to figure this out. For those that work baking many loaves on a Saturday and then freezing them (pre sliced) would be an option. One could also place the dough while in the first rise stage (in the bowl before shaping) in the fridge and then take out when home from work to shape for the last rise. What ever schedule works for your family this bread is a healthful blessing!

Ok so these are not in our shop yet but they should be this coming week. Also coming soon are a line of lip balms and a few more salves as we gear up for the Stayton Christmas and Craft Bazaar on December 6th. Also coming soon are a few tea infusers to use with our loose leaf teas and sample sizes. Please keep a look out in our shop for new items!

Earlier this week we made a trip to Fresh to You, a local CSA farm that has a u-pick Strawberry patch. It was neat to get to see some of their 15 acre farm and spend an hour or so in their strawberry patch, which is much more lively than our poor strawberry box suffering from a spring transplant. Perhaps next year we will get our own box of berries from our yard like the box we brought home from Fresh to You!

With so many yummy fresh strawberries they were screaming SHORTCAKE! at me. That and they were so perfectly ripe they needed to be used in quick order, so for dessert we had Sourdough Strawberry Shortcake and the rest of the berries are going to be made into jam. This recipe was adapted from GNOWFGLINS sourdough biscuit recipe from their Sourdough E-Course.
Recipe serves about 6-8 people
Ingredients:
3-4 cups  strawberries; washed, hulled & sliced
2-4 t/l organic sugar (for sugar free replace with maple syrup, honey or other sweetener of choice)
1 can full fat coconut cream (We used Trader Joe's Coconut Creme)
1 tsp. vanilla extract

For the shortcake:
6 tbl solid Coconut Oil 

2 1/2 c. Freshly Ground Soft White Wheat Flour (or if store bought whole wheat pastry flour)

1/2 c. sourdough starter 

3/4 c. Organic Soy Milk (water works as well as any other type of milk)

1 1/2 tsp non-aluminum baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

 2 tbl. organic sugar 
(for sugar free replace with maple syrup, honey or other sweetener of choice.)

1/4 tsp. sea salt (I used Real Salt in this recipe)

First mill your soft white wheat berries so that you have your 2 1/2 cups of white whole wheat flour. On average when milling wheat berries your flour will be double of the amount of berries that you put in the mill. So if you need 2 1/2 cups of flour 1 1/4 cups of wheat berries should get you that amount. I believe I milled 4 cups here that gave me about twice what I actually needed. With extra just pop it in the freezer and it will stay fresh for a week or more. Grinding your own wheat provides you with lots of vitamins and minerals and makes this dessert even more healthy than it already is. Before you move on pop your can of coconut creme into the fridge or even the night before would be best.

After your wheat is ground, or perhaps you have measured out your store bough whole wheat pastry flour mix it with the 2 tbl. sugar and the 1/4 tsp of sea salt. Sprinkle the sugar and salt over the flour and then mix in thoroughly with a fork, pastry fork, measuring spoon… what ever is handy!

Measure out the 6 tbl. of coconut oil. I measure most things by eye, which gets me into trouble some times, at any rate I used a regular tablespoon (one used to eat with) and scooped out what looked like 6 tablespoons. If your coconut oil is not solid before making this recipe pop it in the refrigerator or the freezer for a few minutes before using.

Once your oil is measured out cut it in with a pastry knife or two butter knives… if all else fails fingers work too. Cut it in until it resembles coarse crumbs.

Its time to ferment our shortcake and give it optimal nutrition by breaking down the phytic acid in the wheat, along with the gluten making this tasty treat more digestible. Measure out your 1/2 cup of sourdough starter. Mine this time around was very thick, a little dark on top and very hungry. It was a warm day and looked like it could have used an extra meal. Normally the consistency of my sourdough starter is more watery than this but this worked just fine by adding a little bit more liquid… say 1/8 of a cup or so. Adjust your sourdough starter accordingly. Make sure to feed your starter with equal parts of flour and water after you take from it what you need for this recipe.

Once you have measured out your sour dough starter now its time to add your liquid. Using a 2 cup measuring cup makes it easy to add the liquid to your starter and mix it well before adding it to your other dough ingredients. Add your choice of 3/4 c. liquid. Here we used organic soy milk and added about 1/8 c. more to accommodate our dry starter.

Mix the liquid with your starter throughly so that it is well incorporated. For sourdough to work the starter must be spread through out the entire mass of dough to get a good even rise and fermentation.

In your flour and coconut oil crumbles, make a well in the center and add your liquid mix of sourdough starter and milk. Gently fold in making sure not to mix/stir in the liquid or you will end up with runny soupy dough. Stop when the sourdough mixture is JUST mixed in and form a rugged ball with your dough.

When your dough has been mixed as above, cover with plastic wrap or a towel and let your dough ferment for 4-8 hours depending on how quickly your sour dough is working and the tempature of your house. If its warm as it was at our house the other day it only took 2-3 hours. It had a little more motivation sitting outside. Just make sure if you put it out in the sun that you keep an eye on an critters looking to take a bite.  Such as say a really hungry cat, or some of the two legged kind over anxious for their dessert. Really uncooked sourdough is not very tasty… 

While this time around I had my trusty kitchen helper, anxious to learn how to cook, slice up our berries… now would be a good time to get those berries sliced. Add your 2-4 tbl. of organic sugar and let them juice a bit. If you want mash them up a little with your pastry knife to speed up the juicing process. For those of you going sugar free either substitute sugar with your dry sweetener or mash up the berries and add a bit of maple syrup or raw honey. Or if you have really good sweet berries perhaps no sweeter at all!

Its been 4-8 hours (in our hot sunny day case… 2-3 hours) and our sour dough is fermented and ready to go. How does one know its ready? It will have doubled in size or close to. Your dough will have gone from wet almost too wet, to just moist and looking a little puffy. It will have more of a smooth texture and perhaps a slight sour smell to it though ours was not to that point yet so it could have gone longer if need be. 

If at this point something comes up you can stick the dough in the refrigerator to slow down the fermenting process. It will continue to ferment but at a much slower rate so make sure to use it as soon as you are able. If disaster strikes and there is no way to finish your shortcake then wrap it up in plastic wrap and stick it in the freezer. Just make sure to bring to room temperature before using.

The next step is to spring on the 1 1/2 tsp. of non-aluminum baking powder and the 1/2 tsp. of baking soda. Gently fold in the dry ingredients but do not mix. It will turn into kind of a wet ball and then you can place it in your pie plate for baking. (Or cut for single cakes, like biscuits, place in muffin pans for shortcake cupcakes, even stick in a mini loaf pan for slicing…) Make sure to grease and flour the pan that you are using. 

With your fingers, and if really sticky maybe some wax paper, pat down the dough evenly into a greased and floured pie plate. Here we are using a stone ware pie place which I love, they cook so evenly! If you want sprinkle some organic sugar over the top. Pop your shortcake into a pre-heated 450 degree oven for about 20-25 minutes. When done it will be golden brown and puffed and when a toothpick is inserted it will come out clean. 

I apologize as I forgot the pictures while whipping the coconut cream. The best way to whip coconut cream is to make sure first that it is full fat because the fat is what whips and the less there is the harder it is to whip. The second most important thing is to make sure it is cold. Putting the can in the refrigerator (not the freezer, tried that once and it did not work out at all) over night so that the fat can separate from the liquid and make it easy to remove only the fat for your coconut whip. 

Now if you are like me and don't plan that far ahead sometimes the Trader Joe's coconut creme (in the brown can) will whip fine with the liquid in it, sometimes it is already separated at the bottom of the can but it just depends on the can purchased. This time around we had some left over in the refrigerator so it was nice and cold.

Separate the liquid from your creme by scooping the cream out and the liquid should be at the bottom of the can. Once your cream is out whip as you would cows milk whipping cream until the peaks are slightly stiff. Add 1 tsp. of vanilla about half way through and if you want a little powdered sugar, we didn't use the sugar this time around.

Once your shortcake has cooled slice (if in cake form) and then cut in half. Place your sliced berries in-between and top with some of your coconut creme. Now its time to enjoy!

Our family started using a sour dough starter about 2 years ago. I forget now how we stumbled upon it but my sister in law and I traded tips on sourdough back and forth for some time. I took a sour dough course online and since then we have been making several things with our starter.

When we started I tried to make my own starter from scratch and after many failed attempts and brick loafs I bought a boxed starter from Cultures for Health. From there on out things went much better. Once a week or more we have sour dough pancakes which are super easy to make and very tasty. We noticed with those right away that we didn't 'feel like a pancake' after eating them like we usually did with the white flour non-sourdough pancakes we had eaten for years . These freshly ground whole wheat sour dough not only tasted better but was easier to digest. We have also had sourdough cake, sourdough pie crust, sourdough muffins, and of course sourdough bread which I'm still trying to master. Today I wanted to share our sourdough English muffins as a favor to a friend that requested it, who would like to make them as well.


Ingredients: (Recipe makes appox. 8-12 muffins)
- 1 cup Active Sour Dough Starter (we are using a whole wheat one in this recipe, though any should do)
- 4-5 cups of freshly ground hard red winter wheat
- 2 cups of milk (here we are using Organic soy but any non-dairy milk or water will work)
- 2 TBL raw honey
- 2 tsp baking soda
-2 tsp sea salt (We love using Real Salt)


A quick note about the flour used in this recipe. If you have a starter that uses a flour other than whole wheat you are welcome to use that type of flour to make your english muffins as sour dough starters prefer the flour they are use to being fed when making baked goods out of it. The starter may act differently if a different type of flour is used. We have always fed ours with hard red winter wheat as when we tried to feed it hard red spring wheat the starter did not grow as well or act as we needed it to. Store bought wheat will work as well but again it may act differently than you see here. 


Freshly milled flour is the best way to utilize all the lovely nutrients that God placed in the wheat berry. Store bought flour, even whole wheat, has the bran and other parts removed to help keep it shelf stable otherwise it would go rancid quickly. The more that the flour you use is in its natural form the more health benefits you will get from it. We have been blessed with a Nutrimill for grinding wheat but have also previously used a Wondermill Jr. which is not electric. I'm afraid our wheat grinders got worn out and that is when we welcomed the electric mill. I highly recommend the Nutrimill, it has done a wonderful and consistent job. Our wheat berries are ordered from Azure Standard and sometimes we get them in the bulk section at Winco who usually carries Wheat Montana brand but our starter has been finicky with that on occasion so we stick with Azure for the most part.

The first step to making Sourdough English Muffins….


The night before or early in the morning mix your 1 cup of active sourdough starter (it does not have to be in its bubbly risen state as with bread but it should have been feed in the last 12 hours or so) with your 2 cups of milk. Once mixed well you will have sort of a thick looking milk with specs from your flour.

Next….
Add your flour, starting with 3-4 cups. Mix that well and see how sticky or dry your dough is. It will change depending on the freshness of your flour, which flour you are using and how wet your starter was. You want to add enough flour that the dough comes off the mixer bowl but make sure it is still sticky to the touch. Whole wheat flour is going to suck up some of the moisture but later on you will be adding honey that will make it sticky too so it will take some practice. Always err on the side of too wet, you can add it later even though it won't ferment but you can't take it out and will have dry muffins. The dough show here below the pictures is still just a little bit sticky, so I'll add just a little more flour, maybe 1 tablespoon or so.

Mix it up some more…


While sourdough English muffins don't need to be kneaded, a part I love, I do knead them a little in the mixer. Now that we added our flour I let the mixer knead the dough for a couple of minutes until it all comes off the edge of the bowl and starts to form a nice ball of dough. A quick tip! Make sure that you either wash the mixer/spoon right away or put it in water to soak. Sourdough starter is like glue and is very hard to get off if left to dry. Now its time to take a break! 

Let the dough ferment…


Sourdough is not like commercial yeast in that it will take one hour to rise and then be ready. Sour dough works on its own time fermenting the dough as it rests. I find that my starter takes about 4 hours, some others say theirs will go 12 hours or something in-between. I have found though that if I let mine go past 4-6 hours that it usually starts to deflate so it will depend on the temperature of the room that the dough is in and how active your sourdough is. 

If its a cold day I like to part it on a little chair in front of the wood stove, or on top of the dehydrater and turn it on low to warm it up or on the back of the stove if I'm baking and heat is coming out of the vent there. The top of the refrigerator is also a warm spot, or even out on the porch if its a sunny day (with plastic wrap over the top or a towel to keep out bugs, and kids fingers! )

Time to get cook'n!


Now that it has been 4 hours or so the sourdough has risen to about double its size. Warm up your griddle and/or frying pan to about 375 degrees. We have an electric griddle that takes care of this size recipe pretty easily with only a couple left for a second round.

Its now time to add the 2 tablespoons of raw honey, 2 teaspoons of baking soda and 2 teaspoons of sea salt. Sprinkle that over the top of your dough and put the mixing attachment back on and mix until all the new items are evenly mixed in. (If you placed your dough in a different bowl its just fine to move it back to the mixing bowl)

Once those are all mixed together, dump your dough out onto a rolling service that is well floured (according to how sticky your dough is). If you want you can use a rolling pin and roll your dough out to about 1/2 inch thick. Usually I just pat out our dough because the amount is rather small and its less to clean that way! Using a biscuit cutter or as we use, a wide mouth canning lid, cut out your muffins. Place your muffins on the griddle or frying pan and cook on a med. low heat until they are nice and brown on one side. About 10-15 minutes or so depending on the consistency of your dough. Then turn the muffins over and do the same to the other side making sure the middles of the muffins on the outside are not squishy before taking them off the griddle. 

Let cool and then slice and toast! They make great mini sandwiches, toast, mini pizzas and more. We mostly use this recipe for the bread in our house because they are simple and easy to make with just a little bit of planning ahead. Enjoy!