Category: Around the Kisner Homestead

Finishing my Favorite Recipes notebook took almost as long as deciding which recipes to include! The finished notebook includes 32 recipes that I have made over the years.

Several recipes were included by special request, like Deviled Eggs…I’ve never had a written recipe so I had to make them first and take pictures before I could write it down. For others, I had not looked at the recipe for many years and had to make sure I remembered who had given it to me. The recipe for Sloppy Joe came directly from my mother-in-law when we first got married!

Years ago, I gave up on a tiny recipe box. The recipes had to be handwritten and any notes I wanted to make just didn’t fit on the cards. My daughter showed me a 3-ring notebook where she saved recipes she had found on the internet. Each recipe was in a plastic sleeve. She could remove the recipe from the notebook while she cooked and the plastic sleeve kept the original safe from splatters. Great idea! I bought the plastic sleeves at Staples:

I now have several notebooks going, some with my own recipes, another with recipes from the internet I want to try. If I make a recipe and don’t like it, I can just remove it from the plastic sleeve and discard it. If I do like it, I retype it in the format I prefer and add it to my notebook.

Over the last month I’ve been collecting and sorting recipes I wanted to include in this notebook…with plans to send a copy to my son and his family in California, and a copy to my daughter and her family at Christmas. I haven’t made some of the recipes for years, so I took the time to make a few to make sure it was still a “favorite.”

Once I decided on the 32 recipes, I made sure I had good instructions for someone else to follow. For example, I have a recipe from my mother that was in her recipe box with just a list of ingredients and an oven temperature. I had to look up a similar recipe in my Joy of Cooking (by Irma S. Rombauer & others) to see what they recommended for instructions.

Organizing the 32 recipes into a coherent list led me back to my Joy of Cooking for ideas. I ended up with 5 categories: Yeast Breads, Quick Breads, Desserts, Cookies and Other Dishes. The recipes are listed in alphabetical order in each section. This became the Table of Contents.

Then I made another list of the 11 recipes that I’ve written about on my blog, with links to those posts. Sometimes seeing the step-by-step process in pictures is helpful. That list became the Table of Contents Tutorials.

After I assembled all the recipes in their plastic sleeves, I realized I needed some Section Dividers. Since the pages are not numbered, you just have to get the recipe back into the appropriate section to make it easy to find it the next time. I will also include a few extra sleeves in each notebook so folks can add their own recipes over time.

Finally, I had not planned to create more than 3 notebooks…one for me, one for my son’s family and one for my daughter’s family. Already, I have interest from a few nieces and nephews who would like the recipes. Rather than try to figure out how to post the whole pile on DropBox, especially since it’s a folder of separate PDF documents, I decided to buy a few 1 GB flash drives. When I need to share, I’ll just burn a flash drive and put it in the mail.

Sounds complicated, I know. I think I’m finally done “editing.” Now I can stop baking so much and get back to the greyhound coats! Enjoy!

I’ve been asked to find some cookbooks that would be appropriate for my 11 1/2 year old granddaughter for Christmas. She’s the one that helped make various dog treats for a charity sponsored by her school and made $700! She obviously has some interest in cooking! I have ordered several cookbooks aimed for young teens but I’m not sure if they will interest her (more about those books later). Most of the books, from what I can tell online, show a photo of the finished product but don’t show the steps along the way. Then, the instructions are written in paragraph form. I know written instructions are followed more easily if presented in short bulleted sentences. I also like showing the steps with a photo if possible. I can’t help myself! The format I’m using for my recipes is modeled after my Joy of Cooking cookbook.

I’ve never really written my Deviled Eggs recipe down but I wanted to include it in my notebooks for my kids/grandkids of my favorite recipes. I thought I’d see if I could write the recipe in a way my granddaughter could follow along and make them herself.

Since my WordPress web program won’t let me format in two columns, I’m going to post the recipe first; then I’ll treat each page of my tutorial as a photo so you can see what I’m trying to do. See if this makes sense to you!

Here is the recipe:

Here are the four pages of the illustrated version:

Pg. 1

Pg 2

Pg. 3

Pg. 4

Granted, this is a pretty simple recipe. Before I expand other recipes of her choosing, I’d love some feedback if you have access to a young teen. Does it make sense?

I’m thinking I could work with my granddaughter and try a recipe…take photos of her making the recipe and create an illustrated recipe for her to keep in her very own Favorite Recipes notebook. We’ll see if she’s interested at Christmas time!

Do you have a stash of recipes you refer to all the time? Think about sharing them with your loved ones this Christmas!

I’m sure many of you love toasted English Muffins. I was interested in trying to make my own when I read my latest Mother Earth News magazine. Right there on the front cover was a teaser…

When I went through the article, I discovered why I haven’t managed to actually make English Muffins! The multi-step instructions seemed complicated. Then I remembered making English Muffin bread years ago that had many of the same ingredients. I found a recipe on the King Arthur Baking website that was pretty simple so I decided to try it before including it in my Favorite Recipes notebook I’m putting together for my kids for Christmas. Here is the recipe from that site: https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/english-muffin-toasting-bread-recipe/

Following the recipe, you’ll notice it calls for 1 cup of milk. I cannot have regular dairy milk…even in baked goods. So, I substituted almond milk. It worked fine.

The dry ingredients were measured into my stand mixer bowl.

The wet ingredients were measured into a small saucepan and heated up on the stove. I love the way they said to test how hot it was…120-130 degrees F. “It will feel uncomfortably hot if you quickly dip your finger into it.” That worked great…with clean hands of course!

I poured the warm wet ingredients into the dry ingredients in my mixer bowl and mixed it thoroughly. Amazing, the dough was fairly wet and stretchy…it looked just like the picture in the Mother Earth News article:

Look at the picture below and the small one on the upper left. When the mixer was running it stretched the dough out like that! Success!

Then I greased a loaf pan and sprinkled cornmeal into it.

To scoop the sticky dough out of the bowl, I sprayed my spatula with oil. Then I pressed the dough into the baking pan.

I covered the pan with a towel and let it rise about an hour. It rose just above the pan.

I preheated the oven to 400 degrees F while it was rising and baked the bread for 25 minutes. It turned out great!

This bread was delicious toasted and even did well as a sandwich bread! This recipe will go in my Favorites book!

The last few weeks I have been baking more than I usually do…cookies, breads, muffins, etc. My enthusiasm for baking seems to come and go. I’ll bake several days in a row and then I put things away and move on to other projects. The last several months I seem to have focused on my sewing projects.

When I started pulling out ingredients to begin some baking projects a few weeks ago I discovered that the bag of commercial whole wheat flour that I had kept in the refrigerator was rancid! Then I tried using some toasted wheat germ that is in a tight jar, but was last used a year ago when Bert made his chocolate chip cookies….yuk, it didn’t smell right! Several other ingredients that I use infrequently had also gone rancid! So, while I wanted to bake up a storm, I first had to replace many of the ingredients. What a waste!

I really like to see what I have on hand in my kitchen. Many years ago, Bert added two lovely shelves in the kitchen so I could store various pastas, rice, flour and sugar in glass jars. I’ve learned over time that the dry pasta, white rice, flour and sugar do well on the shelf. However, I’ve had to store whole wheat flour, corn meal, almond flour and even yeast in the refrigerator or freezer.

I’ll really have to organize the freezer better to store ingredients, not just finished products, like loaves of bread. I finally did a search online to see which baking ingredients can be frozen. you can see the list here:

https://www.tasteofhome.com/article/baking-ingredients-you-can-freeze/

Here are some of the ingredients I use and how I store them.

Home Ground Whole Wheat Flour

When I’m ready to bake with whole wheat flour, I pull out my electric wheat grinder and find the wheat berries in the refrigerator:

Then I grind about 5-6 pounds of flour.

After I use what I need right away, I’ll bag the rest in zip bags, about 8 cups (2 lbs.) each and store it in the freezer.

Toasted Wheat Germ

Toasted Wheat Germ comes in a glass jar (about 8 oz.) and is found in the cereal aisle, right near rolled oats. I used 1/3 cup in a cookie recipe and then dumped the rest into a zip bag and stored it in the freezer. I don’t want to ruin another whole batch of cookies with rancid wheat germ!

Vital Wheat Gluten Flour

This is an important additive to whole wheat baked goods. It helps make a slice of bread stay together! I seldom use more than 1/4 cup in a recipe, so the rest has to stay frozen so it won’t go rancid.

Corn Meal

I don’t use a lot of corn meal, so it’s important to keep it frozen until I need it.

Almond Flour

So far, I’ve kept this in the refrigerator, but I think I’ll move it to the freezer.

Active Dry Yeast

I keep unopened yeast in the freezer. When I open a package, I put about half of the package in a jar in the refrigerator. The rest of the package I fold up tight, tape it shut and put it back in the freezer.

Butter

We always have several pounds of butter in zip bags in the freezer. It stores well.

Chocolate Chips

We seem to always have a partial bag of chocolate chips in the freezer!

Nuts

I use a lot of walnuts in various recipes. Depending on what I’m making, I may just store them in the refrigerator.

Baking Soda and Baking Powder

I store Baking Soda and Baking Powder in their original packaging in the cupboard. I have found baking soda in a different kind of package instead of the cardboard box. I was not happy with how hard it was to close the container…it just seemed open all the time. This hard plastic container is much easier to scoop out of and closes easily.

Storing ingredients in my freezer sounds easy, but I’ve had to rearrange the freezer some. Bags of things don’t stack very well. I need to invest in some kind of organizers (maybe plastic shoe box-size containers) so slippery lumpy bags of stuff don’t slide off the shelf!

I have begun the planning for a Christmas gift for my kids and grandkids. I hope to pull together about 25 of my favorite recipes to make each family a notebook (kind of like the recipe box my mother handed down to me!).

It seems my recipes are always a work in progress!

Unfortunately, I can’t just use copies of many of my recipes, because my stand mixer is larger than the ones my kids have and the quantities of things I make…like my oatmeal bread…won’t fit in their mixers. I’m not sure anyone has tried to make Bert’s chocolate chip cookies either…the volume of his single batch is huge!

So, today I pulled out my Oatmeal Bread recipe, an adapted Whole-Wheat Oatmeal Bread recipe and my basic Whole Wheat Bread recipe to see which ingredients needed to be adjusted.

My original Oatmeal Bread recipe made 3 (sometimes 4) loaves; I have an additional recipe that makes 6+ loaves of bread if I use our huge industrial mixer that Bert uses for his yearly cookie marathon.

I reduced the ingredients from the original Oatmeal Bread recipe to about 2/3 so my kids can make it with their smaller mixers. I took notes as I measured out the flour. I also had a handwritten recipe to make Whole Wheat Oatmeal Bread using similar procedures, so I tried to show the additional ingredients if whole wheat flour is used.

Then I wanted to compare the Whole Wheat Oatmeal Bread to the basic Whole Wheat Bread to see if using the oatmeal made a better loaf.

Here is the basic Whole Wheat Bread recipe. It also needed to be reduced, so you can see my notes. Instead of starting with the rolled oats, this basic recipe started by making a sponge with some flour and the yeast mixture.

The key ingredient when making all whole wheat bread is the addition of Vital Wheat Gluten flour. All-purpose flour has more gluten available because of processing. Whole wheat flour is not as processed so adding this extra powdered gluten makes it possible for the slice of bread to stick together and not crumble like a slice of cornbread.

Here is the package of Vital Wheat Gluten flour:

I ended up making two batches of bread…first the Whole Wheat Oatmeal Bread and then the basic Whole Wheat Bread.

Whole Wheat Oatmeal Bread:

Basic Whole Wheat Bread:

The Whole Wheat Oatmeal Bread slice is on the left. The basic Whole Wheat Bread slice is on the right.

They tasted pretty much the same…EXCEPT…the Whole Wheat Oatmeal Bread on the left had a much lighter, more spongy texture. I think as long as I had rolled oats available, I would choose to make that one.

The next step is to formalize the recipes and instructions so they are ready for the Christmas notebooks! Next, I’ll move on to some of the cookie recipes…including Bert’s Chocolate Chip cookie recipe. The quantities of the ingredients when Bert uses our industrial mixer are huge…I don’t think anyone has tried to make a smaller batch. I’ll see what I can do!