cookin

Once the weather turns cooler, one of my favorite things to do on the weekend is to make bread. I love baking bread. Some of my earliest memories are of Mom making Bread. When it would come out of the oven, she'd slice off the heel, and spread butter on it and then sprinkle it with sugar.

That was the best snack ever. I can still remember the feel of my teeth crunching through that layer of sugar down into that buttery warm bread. (Give me a minute to just enjoy that memory...I haven't eaten bread that way since I was little.)

Ok.

Kev loves home made bread, so I make lots of bread in the winter months. And now, with the new bay window, I found a new place to let my bread raise:

What? Doesn't everyone stick their bread dough in their living room window to raise? I read in lots of cooking blogs of different ways to cover bread dough, but we have always gotten a tea towel wet --with warm water, and used it to cover the bread dough. So, that's what is on my bowl of dough. It raises quite nicely in the window too.

This mess below is sauerkraut.

Last winter, a friend of ours, Deanna, gave us a jar of home made sauerkraut. Now, I greatly disliked sauerkraut until I tried Deanna's home made kraut. It is SO much better and flavorful than store bought kraut. Nothing at all like that nasty stuff they used to serve us at school. I never had kraut at home because it's one of those food items that Dad didn't like and refused to eat, so Mom didn't cook it or make it.

Kev and I really enjoyed our home made kraut on our home made brats. It was yummy. so, this year, we decided to make some ourselves. I didn't get much brine when I initially made the kraut, so someone told me to simply make a brine when it came time to can it. I did that, but think that the brine was too much. It's a wee bit salty. But, we've rinsed the brine off and that seems to remove that saltiness. I'm not sure my kraut is as good as Deanna's, but we're all set with 7 jars.

I have to admit, it was fun making Sauerkraut. How many times do you purposely let something ferment in a bowl, in your guest bedroom/office? Every day or so, I'd go peek at it and watch the mold grow on top of the brine (and, yes, I discarded the mold. Everything I've read said that was normal.)

Now, we've got Sauerkraut...all we're missing is home made brats. We've still got some ground pork in the freezer, so we'll get those whipped up in no time...and then, aah...good eatin!