Grease! or butter...whatever

Yeast! 

You want your bread to be so soft and light

You got a growin' thing, you gotta feed it right
There ain't no danger it can rise too far
So add some sugar now, just a pinch from the jar

Yeast is the word

Learning to bake can be a royal pain
When your bread don't rise, It's just a crying shame
The top is burning, a disaster so real
So take it out right now, you just ruined your meal

Yeast is the word

(is the word that you heard)
It's alive, can't mistreat it
Yeast needs the time, a warm place, and devotion
Yeast is the microbe we're eating

Time to make some bread! And I’ve got a carton of buttermilk in the fridge that’s about to go bad, so…

Buttermilk Bread

6 cups buttermilk

1 cake dry yeast

½ c lukewarm water

Flour

1 ½ T salt

2 T sugar

2 T butter

Heat buttermilk, stirring constantly until scalded.(Scalding breaks up the proteins in the milk, that’s why you see it so frequently as a step in bread recipes; it’s all about the texture.) Remove from fire and let cool. Add yeast which has been softened in the water. Add sufficient flour to make a medium batter. Beat until smooth. Cover and set in a warm place and allow to stand overnight. (This creates a fermented batter, with a greater depth of yeasty flavor, called a ‘sponge’. I love that term and that’s what it looks like.)

Add sugar, salt, butter, and enough flour to make a dough just stiff enough to knead. Turn onto lightly floured board and knead until smooth and elastic. Allow to rise until double in bulk and work down. Let rise again until double in bulk. Form into loaves. Place in well-oiled pans. Cover and let rise until double in bulk. Bake in hot oven, 450°, about 45 minutes.

From Mrs. W.H. Juedeman, Bristow, OK, printed in The Household Searchlight Recipe Book, 1936.

My kitchen is not very warm so this process took most of the day. That’s fine; it gives more time for the flavor to develop. Here’s the end product, a soft dense texture with a hint of sourness from the buttermilk. I would absolutely make it again. It’s very similar to my mom’s famous dinner rolls.

A bowl of homemade tomato soup is perfect with the bread, slathered with Laughing Cow blue cheese spread. The soup is my last hurrah to the tomatoes of summer. Never any recipe there, just whatever is at hand to add to the tomatoes, in this case: zucchini, carrots, roasted Anaheim chilis, a little chicken stock, and tons of garlic. My daughter didn’t want the soup, or the Laughing Cow, but she did eat the bread…smothered in ketchup. Which proves the old adage: you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him eat the stinky cheese.

Lesbian Zucchini

I don’t actually have a thing for zucchini. I really don’t. It’s just hard to find an ingredient with as much fiber, vitamins, and few calories as zucchini to bulk up dishes and add moisture to baked goods. Sure blueberries have more vitamin C but try putting them in your lasagna. Zucchini’s flavor is unassuming. Plus it’s cheap and plentiful. Oh boy, it can be plentiful. You carefully survey the garden and retire to bed assured that you have gotten ahead of the game and wake the next day to find several zucchini that have ballooned to human thigh proportions overnight. Zucchini I can’t use immediately gets grated or chopped and frozen for use throughout the year. I’ve been known to sneak handfuls into brownies and pancakes.

Consequently, I need a book like Garden Way’s Zucchini Cookbook by Nancy Ralston and Marynor Jordon, 1977. Now I’m an enlightened socially-conscious person that knows the dangers of making assumptions, however when I read that the authors each left teaching careers at the same University and moved to a farm to live a life of self-sufficiency together, what am I to think? That I’m kind of jealous, actually.

This book includes a recipe for French-Fried Zucchini that the previous owner had marked to make for Aunt Esther on her 92^nd birthday on the 18^th.

1 cups ½ slices of zucchini or other summer squash

1 cup flour

¾ t salt

1/8 t pepper

2 egg yolks, beaten

6 oz. beer

2 T margarine, melted

2 egg whites, stiffly beaten

Dry squash slices on paper towels. Combine flour, salt, pepper, egg yolks, and beer. Stir thoroughly. Add margarine and let mixture rest one hour at room temperature. Fold in egg whites. Dip squash slices into batter and deep fry at 360°F. until browned. Serves 4.

Here’s to you, Aunt Esther, I hope you enjoyed it! No matter how old a woman gets, she still loves a big vegetable.

Zucchini Bingo!

Let’s play Zucchini Bingo! (From Garden Way’s Zucchini Cookbook by Nancy Ralston and Marynor Jordon, 1977)

To start, sauté in a 10 inch skillet 1 cup zucchini, sliced, and 1 medium onion, sliced, in 2T margarine. Now make a selection from each category to make a prize-winning dish. For example, B3, I9, N5, G1, O8.

B (Vegetables, 1 cup, chopped)

1. Peas, Celery
2. Tomatoes. Mushrooms
3. Tomatoes, Eggplant
4. Summer squash, Celery
5. Tomatoes, Corn
6. Tomatoes, Green peppers
7. Green peppers, Carrots, Celery
8. Peas, Mushrooms
9. Green peppers, Celery
10. Green peppers, Mushrooms

I (Meat, ½ lb. cooked)

1. Chicken, chopped
2. Ground lamb
3. Turkey, chopped
4. Ground pork
5. Tuna
6. Ham, chopped
7. Bacon, crumbled
8. Ground beef
9. Ground veal
10. Ground pork sausage or Italian sausage

N (Sauces, 1 cup)

1. Bechamel sauce
2. Fresh tomato sauce
3. Tomato-cheese sauce
4. Sour Cream  sauce (1/2 c sour cream with a can of cream of whatever soup)
5. Sour-cream tomato sauce
6. Chicken veloute
7. Cheese sauce
8. Mornay sauce
9. Custard sauce
10. Mayonnaise sauce

G (Bottom, 1 cup cooked)

1. Vegetable squash
2. Rice
3. Barley
4. Noodles
5. Macaroni
6. Spaghetti
7. Green noodles
8. Use acorn squash shells
9. Use baking dish
10. Use scooped out zucchini shells

O (Top, ½ cup)

1. Bread crumbs
2. Bread crumbs and cheese
3. Crushed potato chips
4. Cracker crumbs
5. Grated Swiss
6. Grated Parmesan
7. Grated Romano
8. Grated Mozzarella
9. Grated Cheddar
10. Grated Gruyere

Bake at 350°F. about 30 minutes. Serves 2-4.

You are looking at B5, I1, N6, G3, O4 with yellow summer squash instead of green zucchini and a little creole seasoning, ready to go into the oven to brown on top, right in the skillet cuz I avoid using any extra pans I have to clean up later.

Verdict: It's a winner! But this is how I cook anyhow...find whatever is at hand and throw them together. I have very picky kids who don't like food mixed together so I set aside some of the corn, tomato, and chicken that went into this and left them plain for the girls. We're all happy. Now it’s your turn to play.