Tag Archives: Salt

sugarless pumpkin oat bread


Well with the latest smear campaign against me, I decided to finally put things to bed. So here’s my recipe which inspired my sugarless pumpkin oatmeal cookies with pecans. The ones that are the subject of the smear campaign. My bread calls for some unusual things, apple and banana flour. What is apple and banana flour? It is dried apple and banana chips that have been ground into flour using a blender or mill. This recipe makes 12 loaves and generally is only made by me during the holidays. If you’d like to see the recipe that’s gotten me the smear campaign which I believe is nothing more then a publicity stunt on their part, you can view that here. My recipe target of a vindictive smear campaign.  Before I get smeared for this bread recipe, I’ll take the liberty of explaining why I used the ingredients in this bread. The apple flour is a natural sugarless sweetener providing your using unsweetened apple chips. Olive oil is rich in antioxidents and other goodies believed to fight off cancer, as well as heart disease. It’s also got a pleasing flavor. The egg whites is mainly cause again, my doctor wants me away from egg yolks. The pumpkin is cause usually around fall I have a bumper crop of pumpkin. The spelt is easy to digest, and the older relatives some of which have a gluten allergy can’t have regular flour. The mashed banana helps bind everything even the flour version helps. Though if you are using banana flour I recommend adding a bit of water, or apple juice or apple jack until the dough feels right to you. Cinnamon, allspice, cloves, nutmeg, ginger and vanilla, all spices contained in pumpkin pie spice and I tend to like pumpkin pie spice with pumpkin, think any and every American likes these spices in their pumpkin pies and pumpkin bread. Coconut is delicious with pumpkin, and unfortunately since I’m allergic to nuts yet not allergic to coconut, I just simply can’t get enough, expecially toasted. It adds a crunch without the nasty allergic side effects, like death. I prefere to add steel cut oats or even swap out half oats for an equal amount of chocolate cause well oats, chocolate and pumpkin just taste good. The pink and red sea salts add a great flavor, and are filled with good healthy minerals. I’ll use red or pink salt or just omit. At one point I had chest pains up until a few years ago and have done my best to completely eliminate salt from my diet, and the high blood pressure and chest pains stopped. Baking powder and baking soda are required to make this quick bread rise, otherwise it be just too dense to enjoy.

Further more, and I hate to do this, but since I do like the offending parties vanilla extract I’ve been kind enough to link you to her recipe. Just click vanilla extract in the recipe list below.

Sugarless pumpkin oat bread

7 1/2 quarts ground apple flour (see commentary above)
2 1/2 cup olive oil
30 egg whites
10 lb pure pumpkin puree (fresh is best, but canned works too)
7 1/2 cups spelt plus extra for kneading
5 quarts mashed banana or banana flour (see notes)
2 1/2 cups cinnamon
1 1/4 cups allspice
3 1/3 tablespoons freshly ground nutmeg
3 1/3 tablespoons ground clove
5 1/2 tablespoons baking soda
1/2 cups fresh grated ginger
1 1/2 tablespoons pink himilayan or red alaea hawaiian salt
2 1/2 tablespoons baking powder
3 1/3 tablespoons pure vanilla extract
2 1/2 quarts coarsely chopped pecans (optional)
2 1/2 quarts shredded coconut unsweetened (toasted)
2 1/2 quarts chocolate chips or steel cut oats (optional, steel cut oats is healthier)

Preheat oven to 350F.Add coconut in single layer on a cookie sheet and bake until lightly toasted (5 minues) Turn heat to 375F With extra olive oil in a cheap spray bottle spray 12 bread pans that measure 9 by 5 by 3 inches. In a large bowl add in all dry ingredients, apple flour, spelt, allspice, freshly ground nutmeg, clove, salt, grated ginger, cinnamon, and banana flour if using. Add olive oil and ground apple flour in a bowl until blended. Mix in egg whites and pumpkin and banana and beat until it looks frothy like yeast. Add vanilla extract. Fold delicately with baking spatula and then whisk until well incorporated. Turn out onto clean work space dusted with spelt flour and knead for no more then 4 minutes or the delicate gluten will fall apart. Place dough in each bread pan, bake roughly 1 hour in batches of 4. It is ready when it is poked in the center with a skewer and it comes out clean. Let cool until easily handled. Using a sharp knife cut around the edges of each pan and turn out onto cooling racks. Slice and serve once cool. I doubt you can stop at just 1 slice.

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Brady’s hail mary sandwich


Ok…your not going to like this, but I know us guys will absolutely go crazy. This is my Brady’s hail mary sandwich. We start with pull apart, beer cheese and mustard bread….YES you heard me right…beer…cheese….and mustard bread…Onto this we add bacon, ham, more cheese, lettuce, tomatoe, mayo, and of course….mushrooms and onions that have been sauteed with a bit of red wine vinegar. So here’s the sandwich bread.

Bread
8 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup plus 2/3 beer guinness draught
5 cups all-purpose flour, divided
2/3 cup rye flour (use additional all purpose flour as sub)
4 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 packages instant yeast
2 teaspoon table salt
4 large eggs, at room temperature

Filling
6 tablespoon unsalted butter
2 tablespoon spicy dijon mustard
3 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
2 Dash of srarchia
2 teaspoon mustard powder
2 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon table salt
some black pepper
3 cups shredded sharp cheddar

In a small saucepan, heat the butter and 1/2 cup of beer, just until the butter has melted. Remove from heat and add the remaining 2/3 cup beer. Set aside to cool down slightly. You want the mixture warm (110 to 116 degrees), but not steaming hot.

Stir together 4 cups of the all-purpose flour, sugar, yeast and table salt. With the mixer on low, pour in the butter-beer mixture, mixing only until the flour is moistened. Add eggs, one at a time, and mix until combined. The batter will look lumpy, but will become smooth in a moment. Add the remaining 1 cup all-purpose flour and all of the rye flour, mixing until just combined. Replace paddle with a dough hook and let the machine knead the dough for 3 to 4 minutes on low.

Oil a large bowl and transfer dough to it. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and set aside for 50 to 60 minutes, until doubled.

I love to do this ahead by also resting the dough in the fridge overnight — wrapped tightly with plastic. The next day, let it rest at room temperature for an hour before rolling out.

In the same small saucepan you used for the butter and beer, melt the 6 tablespoons butter. Remove from heat and whisk in mustard, Worcestershire and hot sauce until smooth. Set aside.

In the bottom of a medium bowl, stir together mustard powder, paprika, table salt and some ground black pepper. Add shredded cheddar and toss until grated strands are evenly coated with spices. I like to keep this in the fridge until needed so it doesn’t get soft and clumpy, making it harder to sprinkle over the dough.

Either coat a 9-by-5 loaf pan lightly with oil or a nonstick spray and set aside.

Turn dough out onto a well-floured counter and roll the dough into a 40-by-24-inch rectangle, making sure it doesn’t stick to the counter by lifting sections and re-flouring the counter as needed. Brush the butter-mustard-Worcestershire mixture evenly over the whole surface, right up to the edges. Cut the dough crosswise into 5 strips; each should be 12-by-4 inches. Sprinkle the first one evenly with a heaping 1/4 cup of the grated cheese. Gently place another strip on top of it, coat it with another heaping 1/4 cup of cheese, and repeat with remaining strips until they are stacked 5-high and all of the cheese is used.

With your very sharpest serrated knife, gently and I mean gently! The lightest sawing motions the weight of the blade will allow! — cut your stack into 6 to 7 2-inch segments (each stacked segment should be 4-by-2 inches).

Arrange stacks of dough down the length of your prepared loaf pan as if filling a card catalog drawer. I make this easier by standing my loaf pan up on its short end to make the next part easier. If, when you finish filing all of your dough stacks, you ended up with less than needed for the dough “cards” to reach the end of the pan, when you return the pan to rest flat on the counter again, just shimmy it a little so the dough centers. It will all even out in the final rise/oven. If you ended up with toomany dough cards, before you add the last stack, simply press gently on the dough already filed to make room for it.

Loosely cover the pan with more plastic wrap and set it aside to rise again for 30 to 45 more minutes. Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Bake loaf for 25 to 35 minutes, until puffed and brown. Transfer it to a wire rack and let it cool for 5 minutes before flipping it out onto a serving plate/cutting board. Serve warm with cold beer.

Loaf pulls apart the best when it is hot or warm. If it has cooled beyond the point that the layers wish to easily separate, simply serve it in thin slices.

Now slice up your ham, cook your bacon, add bacon, ham, more cheese, lettuce, tomatoe, mayo, and of course….mushrooms and onions that have been sauteed with a bit of red wine vinegar. Put together and your golden for the next game with your friends.

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pie in a pipkin


Pie in a pipkin is a 16th century italian recipe. It means it’s a crustless meat pie in a stew pot. It’s a nice thick gravy, and a sweet and tart flavor…Delicious with fresh italian bread.

3 lb Stew beef; cut in 1/2″ cubes
2 md Onions; chopped Cooking oil
1/2 c Raisins
1/4 ts Each cloves and cinnamon
1/4 ts Each nutmeg mace and pepper
1 tb White vinegar; or to taste

Salt; to taste Brown the beef in a skillet in a small quantity of oil. Place browned beef *and its juices* in a stewpot. Add more oil (if necessary) to the skillet; saute onions until tender and translucent. Add onions to stewpot. Add raisins and spices to the meat mixture along with a small quantity of water (approximately 1/2 cup). There should be just enough water to prevent scorching and to help form the gravy. Bring stew to a boil and reduce immediately to a simmer. Simmer covered until meat is tender (about 1-1/2 to 2 hours). Stir occasionally. Add water as necessary. When beef is cooked add vinegar and salt. Cook a few minutes more.

2 ways-Bresaola-salumi


A traditional cured meat, typically made with beef, venison, or horse. Thanksgiving 2011 Obama in all his infinite wisedom or lack there of, signed lifting ban of the slaughter and sale of horses for human consumption. Now don’t panic.  Horse tastes very similar to beef and venison. That’s why you can use beef or venison. The color varies with which meat you use.

First and foremost let’s go over salumi. Salumi means, Cured meats that are sliced and served as an appetizer in an Italian meal, or A general word for cured meats including those made with ground meats, such as salami and mortadella, and whole, bone-in meats, such as prosciutto,or salt-cured meats, such as salame, salsiccia, prosciutto, bresaola. A salumeria is a shop where salumi are sold. It’s italian.

Sometimes people come to me with recipes and say things like I got a problem. The problem is there is white mold on salamis or cured meat. Well this naturally occurring mold is encouraged by the right storage conditions. It is harmless and adds to the flavor of the product. That’s right, scape it off, some salumi has this white mold on outside rather then it being scraped off to add flavor to the end product. YOU WILL NOT DIE FROM IT!

Then there is people who tell me there is green or black mold on salamis or cured meat. The salt solution was too weak, or the meat was not cured properly, or the storage atmosphere was too damp and warm. Do not eat it…it will kill you! 

First and foremost there are three factors in curing meat. They are:

temperature: a safe temperature range for curing meat is below 60F. Above that and bacteria grows a lot faster. Ideally you want the temperature between 50F and 60F. Below 50F and the curing process slows down a great deal, making the process take much, much longer. Most likely you are going to find that you will have to cool of an area to get it to 60F rather than heat it. (Bresaola is traditionally cured at 65, I recommend lowering the temp to 60)

humidity: for most of the curing you want the humidity between 70% and 75%. Below 70% and you run the risk of the outside of your salami/meat drying out too fast, which means moisture is trapped on the inside, leading to spoilage. If the humidity is really high for too long then the sausage wont dry correctly, and you run the risk of getting a lot of bad mold on the charcuterie. Charcuterie is the french word, in english, meat curing, or sausage making.

Ideally when you first put something in to dry cure, you want the humidity at around 85%, and then over the course of the next week you want to drop the humidity down to 75%. The reasoning here is that you want your humidity just a bit less than the water content of the meat you are curing – this stops the meat drying out too fast and developing case hardening. At the start of curing the meat has a lot of moisture in it (especially leaner cuts), so you want your curing humidity to almost match that. As the meat looses water you drop the humidity down accordingly (or roughly anyhow).

Typically we find that most areas in a house aren’t this humid, unless you have a cold, dank basement. Often enough we find ourselves having to add extra humidity to a space to make it perfect.

air flow: some air flow is critical in not only helping to dry the meat (pulling moisture away from the surface of the meat), but it also really helps keep bad mold (green, black and fury mold) off the meat too, since there isn’t stagnant damp air constantly around the meat. In practical terms this can just mean fanning the meat a couple of times a day, or setting up a low powered fan to blow a little air around.

Now that you understand the conditions needed and a few pitfalls. Let’s get this onward.

I was gifted for an early birthday present a scale that measures in grams. Yay! I recommend getting one.

This is for DRY CURED BRESAOLA
The marinade.

100 grams Kosher salt
120 grams sugar
20 grams InstaCure #2 (“pink salt” not very fond of using it but it’s needed)
20 grams ground black pepper
30 grams Laurel leaves, finely chopped
24 cloves, ground (I used my blender)

Coat a 16 pound horse roast with this mixture until evenly well coated. It will need to be an top round. The roast must be trimmed of all…and I mean all fat. Fat will turn rancid and destroy the end result.

Take the roast and place it into a ziplock and squeeze the air out. The cure will start drawing juices from the meat making a marinade. Other recipes call for wine, specifically an inexpensive italian red wine. Which is added to the bag so that the meat is covered fully. I won’t do this, I use wine from Valtellina the area of italy the bresaola is from, any good lombardia wine is good. Inexpensive is one thing, any old red is just sacrilage. (I will provide another recipe for a wine version)

The meat should after you put in the ziplock you will need to wait a week it should feel quite firm. This means the marinade did it’s job, but make sure you flip it and agitate it daily during the week. It may take longer depending on how cool. 60 degrees is perfect, if it’s lower it’ll take longer.

For the next step Your best bet is a curing chamber. If you got a curing chamber built, you need to drop the humidity down 1.5% per day.

A week has passed it feels firm, it might take 10 days depending on the temp. keep it at 60 degrees and it’ll be a week. Wrap the bresaola in 2 layers of cheesecloth. Hang it at 60 degrees, with good ventilation and humidity will start out at 85%, drop it down 1.5% humidity every day. It will take about 4 weeks. When you squeeze it it should be hard and will not have any give.

Bresaola is then traditionally is covered and hung in a mountain pass to age for 3-4 months. I lack a mountain pass in my backyard, it’s ready to eat right now. You could however wrap it and age it in your fridge. Wrap it in 2-3 layers of cheesecloth and let it sit. The temprature must be BELOW 40 degrees.

Here’s a good link on building a cheap yet good curing chamber. http://www.sausagemaker.com/tutorials/chamber/curing_chamber.html

NOW! Let’s get onto wet cured. Wet cured means it’s cured submerged in a liquid.

20-24 pounds of top round, eye round or bottom round (top is best) [cut into half and trimmed of fat]
2 to 2.6 gallons of red wine from lombardy
5 pounds salt, course is preferable.
24 large branches rosemary
2 large bunch of thyme
16 bay leaves
16 large garlic cloves
1 cup black peppercorns
1 cup juniper berries
2 tablespoon pepperocino (crushed red pepper flakes)
2 head of fennel and fronds diced small
4 large sweet onions diced
4 large carrots diced
4 oranges worth of peels

Mix all ingredients to make a wet marinade. Place the meat in it the marinade should cover the meat. Leave for a week.The meat will be firm. Turn over once during the week. After a week is up, remove from the marinade. Wrap in 2 layers of cheesecloth. Hang at 60 degrees. Put something under it, it will drip. Leave it for 3-4 weeks. It is done when you squeeze it and there is no give. If mold forms thats perfectly ok as long as it is white. If it’s green or black toss it. Remove the white stuff with a brush then wash with vinegar. Oil with olive oil and wrap and keep refrigerated. The instructions from my translation of the notes also say you can drop the temprature down to 32 f with the mold still on it, and allow it to age 3-4 months or longer. Then remove the mold after it has aged, and give it the olive oil bath.