recipes – Page 4 – Planet B Gardens

sesame bagels, homemade

My first try at homemade bagels was a success. While they take several hours to make counting rising times, the recipe is easy and hands-on time is just little over an hour. I got the original recipe from Munchies, and made some minor adjustments. Here’s the skinny: 5 cups bread flour (you can use all-purpose flour as well; I like the chewiness bread flour gives them) 1 tsp yeast 2 tbsp sugar 2 tbsp buckwheat honey (barley malt syrup could also work) 1.5 tbsp salt 2 cups water 1/2 cup raw sesame seeds *** Put water, yeast, sugar, salt, and honey in stand mixer (like a KitchenAid) with dough hook. Mix

February 8, 2015

red sauerkraut

Sauerkraut in white plastic bins next to NYC dirty water hot dogs was my only experience with the cabbage condiment until I was well into my 20s. It was a grayish-white, limp, slightly sourish mush to put on top of the dog — dosed with a serious helping of bright yellow mustard to give it some umph. It wasn’t until I had a proper bratwurst dinner with friends from Germany that I finally tasted what fresh sauerkraut could bring to the palate. Crisp, bright, and with a perfect balance of salt and sour. I had to make some of my own. Sauerkraut is simply made of shredded cabbage fermented in salt. That

October 5, 2014

bison stew pressure canning

Keeping jars of stew in the pantry makes preparing a healthy quick meal easy and tastes much better than any canned stews you’d buy in at the supermarket. When I make a stew, I often set enough aside to can a few jars. Dice onions, yellow potatoes, and cube bison chuck roast for this stew, and put them in a pot separate from the main batch. Toss in a little oil and lightly brown the bison and vegetables. Bison is a naturally lean meat, so the extra fat doesn’t hurt. Add enough beef broth to almost cover the meat and vegetables, followed by a 1/2 cup or so of red

October 4, 2014

roasted hot salsa

I love salsas — the hotter the better. To make my own for canning, I cubed and seeded a couple pounds of heirloom tomatoes. I charred sweet peppers and tomatillos from my friend Nancy’s garden over an open flame, and sliced hot peppers — keeping the seeds of the fresh cayenne pepper in the mix. Chopped a cup of sweet onions. Tossed it

September 28, 2014

plum jam

Plum trees turned out enough plums in this first season to make three pints and one quart of jam. Here is a bowl of the pitted bounty: The trees yielded 6 cups of fruit once I pitted the plums. I added 1.25 cups of water, 4 cups of sugar, and 2 tablespoons of powdered pectin to the mix, plus a teaspoon of citric acid to up the tartness. Then set it on the stove to boil. While boiling the fruit, I boiled the jars and lids. When the fruit was boiled down to the right thickness, I jarred those babies and put them in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes.

September 18, 2014

easy crunchy crust bread

Homemade chewy, moist bread with a crunchy crust is something I attempted for years. I’ve tried a variety of bread bibles, baking stones, clay cloches, brotforms, multiple gadgets and techniques to make the kind of bread I was aiming for. Turns out, the very easiest technique I tried ended up creating exactly the kind of bread I wanted. Here’s the skinny: Step 1 – Mix the dough The dough has only four ingredients: 3 cups bread flour, 1.5 tsp. salt, 1 tsp. yeast (I use Saf Instant), and 1.5 cups water. Put the ingredients, in order, in a 2- or 4-quart mixing bowl. Mix ’em together. The dough will look shaggy when completely mixed.

August 31, 2014