Cottage Dill Corn and Millet Sourdough Bread (100% whole grain and sugar free)

 Cottage Cheese Dill rolls are and will forever be my first love when it comes to dinner rolls and what brought me to my obsessive compulsive need to have bread in my life...and to the love and dear friendship of Tara  ...my Evil Twin. I have many things to say about her. All good.  In culinary school I also met this stuff. My sheltered life. Tarragon. Who knew? It took school for me to know what this little herb was. 

 So, don't feel oddly if you have not ever met my friend Millet. He's a cutie, but he's not very well known in America if you're not a bird lover. It's sad really. Such a lovely grain should get more attention...affection...praise...perhaps a wall sconce in it's honor? Is that too Martha Stewart? How do you make a millet wall sconce anyway? What the carp is a wall sconce?!

 I digress. So. In my garden I have a freak-fest of this crazy dill. It's taller than me. Literally over my head. It's actually getting to be kind of epic. I might start a whole Star Trek episode in it's honor...because every time my son sees it he says, "By captain Kirk's Nipple's! It's incredible!"  You all needed to know that.

 Yes...that is my neighbor's roof...and my dill.

 The last time I went to be on  Valley Dish I was so desperate  eager to share the love that I took  some to the studio.

Decidedly it was time to start drying some of the epic mount of dill weed...and start baking. So, here we go.

Cottage Dill Millet Sourdough Bread 

with Onion and Garlic

1/4 tsp yeast (optional)

1/2 cup cold water 

1/2 cup Chef Tess Sourdough Starter

1 1/3cups whole wheat Prairie Gold bread flour

2/3 cup Hulled Millet  

1/2 tsp  Real Sea Salt  

Combine all ingredients in an 8 cup mixing bowl (non metal works best)...about 5 minutes. Cover and leave in a cool room until you are ready to bake the bread, 12-18 hours. If you will be leaving it for more than 18 hours, it may be stored in the fridge part of the time, or stir after 8 hours. This will keep the yeast happy, moving it to greener pastures and evaporate any alcohol produced by the fermentation process that would otherwise hurt the yeast's ability to raise the bread.

After 12-18 hours it will be really puffy and smell like a good yeasty bread dough. Remember to keep it rather cool during this overnight period.

Get out your liquid measuring cup...the one that is clear with writing on the side. You will also need a measuring spoon. The ones made with writing on them for baking, not just the flowers or whatever on your silver spoons...

To your bucket or bowl add 1 cup Luke warm water, 1 cup cottage cheese 2 T honey and 2 tsp yeast (optional). Note: if you omit the yeast, it will take the dough about 12 hours to raise.

Put that sponge you started 12-18 hours ago in the bowl.
 Wash your hands. Now don't be scared. You will have to touch the dough. Actually you will have to really get in there and mix it up with your fingers. Break it down.

This may be my favorite part.

Woosh it around (very technical term I know) until it is smooth and batter-like. Yea. Batter-like is a word.

Now get out your whole wheat bread flour I use Prairie Gold wheat from Wheat Montana. It is by far my favorite bread wheat and flour. I don't even work for them. I grind my own (Flour making day...flour power.), but you can buy it. As long as it is fresh.Here's a peek into my flour bin. We're gettin' a little low...

Don't mock me, but I am going to show how to measure flour. Someone asked me and I don't want to assume too much of anyone reading my blog. If you are seeing this for the first time, I'm glad to help. The rest of you can just sit tight and humor me. I love everyone wherever they are in the learning process here. So here's how it's done:
Lightly scoop up the flour...don't bang it or try to pack it in there.

Get a butter knife.

Set it up on it's spine so the blade is pointed up:

Hold it flush to the top of the measuring cup and push off the extra flour so it is flat:

Like this. See?

Add 3 cups whole wheat bread flour, 1 cup cornmeal,  and 1/4 cup oil (preferably expelled pressed or extra virgin) and 2 tsp salt, 1/4 cup dry minced onion, 2 T minced dill, 1T minced tarragon, 1/2 tsp fresh cracked pepper

 1 1/2 tsp fresh pressed garlic, about 1 large clove

 The dough should take only 10 minutes of efficient kneading to attain supple perfection--600 strokes by hand. Form into a ball. This makes a balloon like structure that helps hold in the fermenting gasses and helps the texture of the bread. Place in bowl smooth side up.

(From here on I'm using a few older pictures...)

Then I lightly spray the top of the dough with water. This helps it to stay moist, which ensures no lumps of crusty dough in my bread, just a nice even dough.

Keep that spray bottle around too. I use it a few times during bread making.

Get it pretty wet. Look how shiny. Oooo. I'm easily entertained.

Cover with plastic wrap and allow to raise at room temperature (75-80 degrees) about 1 and 1/2 hours. Sometimes it takes 2 hours if the room is cold. It helps to measure the temperature of the dough if you want to be sure. This can be done with a meat thermometer. This one was right at 85 degrees internal temperature so it took almost exactly 1 and a half hours. If it is cooler it will take longer.


It has raised about 2 inches from the top of the bowl. See the tiny belly button dot where I poked it with a meat thermometer?

When you just can't resist it anymore, go ahead and giggle and poke it with your finger.

If you don't have to use much effort, it gets those creases right around your finger, and it leaves a hole when you remove your finger, then it is ready to punch in the head.

So, punch it down already. Expel as much air as possible. This moves the yeast to greener pastures, releases trapped alcohol, and evens out the dough temperature. It's not just for the fun of punching something (though it is elating to punch something sometimes).

Reform into a ball and place back into the bowl. Spray with water again and cover with plastic. Allow to raise again. This time it should take about 1 hours. Less if your house is warm.


I had to show how the gluten strands are showing here. It's really something wild to see...

Like an alien in my kitchen...that we eat. Toasted. Mmm. Alien...

Okay, so cover the ET blob with plastic. In the meantime, lightly oil 2 standard size loaf pans. I also lightly coat them with a little cornmeal. I use 8inch by 4 inch almost without exception. This size makes great shaped loaves (see:Sandwich Loaf Molding and baking for more details on this phenomenon).

Once the dough has risen to within 2 inches of the top of the bowl again, or passes the finger poke test (yea, I know, not again a technical term). The actual technical term is the "ripe test". Just poke it. It works...

Take the dough out of the bowl and place on a clean counter top that has been lightly misted with WATER.

Why did this picture just make me giggle with joy? I'm either really nuts or really love bread. Not sure which... Please look at this and find joy...

Mmm. Dough. Okay. Now get giddy crazy and divide the dough in half. It should look like this if you get on your knees and peek up over the edge of your countertop...

Now go here: Sandwhich Loaf Molding and baking . It will lead you in all things right and good with makig this bread into a sandwich loaf. Go ahead now. Don't be scared. I will still hold your hand and walk with you.

The killer delight is the millet nibbles. They just make me giddy. Oh millet. I love theeeeeeee.

Look at all that crusty delightfulness. Don't you just want to make some right now?!

There you go.

Sourdough Carrot Cake with Warm Cream Cheese Lemon Sauce

I love Monday. It's the day I share a little on how to cook with food storage, make a mix, or in this case, use sourdough. Really, I just get giddy happy sharing ways to have some inexpensive wholesome goodies.
Two weeks ago my husband Ace brought home this great sourdough cookbook from Alaska called Simply Sourdough The Alaska Way by Kathy Doogan. I was able to contact the author,and ask her if I could share a recipe or two with all of you. Well, she was more than gracious to let me do so, with the understanding that I wouldn't change her recipe and I would give her the credit for her work. I'm all about that here. All the recipes in the book that I have tried so far, have been outstanding. I will however never forget the day I chose to make her sourdough carrot cake. It was National Carrot Cake day last week...a day that will live in infamy as the day...I found the most evil wonderful carrot cake ever.
I made my own Homemade Sourdough Starter and the method is very similar to what Kathy outlined in her book. Mind you, I used the starter that came with the book, just to see how wonderful it would really be. Here's what it ended up looking like...
Feel free to use the regular cream cheese frosting that Kathy uses. It was really quite good. However, the second time we made the cake, I used my recipe for cream cheese lemon sauce. It reminded me so much of my grandmother's carrot pudding with lemon sauce, that I almost cried.

Chef Tess' Cream Cheese Lemon Sauce

1/2 cup sugar

1 cup water

2T cornstarch

1/4 cup cream cheese, softened ( I make Homemade cream cheese )

2 T lemon juice (fresh)

1 tsp lemon zest (micro-grated)

fresh grated nutmeg

Directions: Mix sugar and cornstarch in a medium sized sauce pan. Add water gradually, stirring constantly. Bring to a boil and cook 5 minutes. Add cream cheese, lemon juice, zest and a little fresh grated nutmeg. Remove from heat. Stir until cream cheese has melted and combined completely with sauce. Serve warm over carrot cake.

This would also be amazing on the Sourdough Maple Ginger Cake. Should you feel the urge to bake a second cake this week...that's the one I would use.

Sourdough Maple Ginger Cake

On a lake of ice, my husband Ace did some advanced driver training and instruction in Alaska. Look how those cones just shatter because it's so cold there. I can't even relate to that. Arizona is a polar opposite. No pun intended.

It's Monday and I like to share mixes or homemade recipes using food storage items on this day of the week. It doesn't always happen (me sharing a mix), but when Ace came from Alaska Saturday, he brought me this book called Simply Sourdough The Alaska Way by Kathy Doogan...that also included a dry packets of some Alaskan Sourdough starter. I had to experiment. Oh my gosh. I almost fell over in shock when Ace handed me this book. He's come a long way since our first Valentine's day were he bought me radial tires for my car. As practical as I was and am...it just didn't seem right. This gift on the other hand...to a baker...genius.
So, I took out my Homemade Sourdough Starter and got the one that was included with the book started on it's way. It will take a few days to be ready for use. The book has some really amazing sounding recipes too...so I'm excited! However, knowing how enthusiastic I always am about new recipes and knowing how much I love to bake...I couldn't wait. I used a recipe that was in the book for Sourdough Gingerbread...and altered it a bit to use the sourdough starter I had, as mine has a thinner viscosity. Just so we're clear...this is not Kathy Doogan's recipe. I altered it to fit my sea level altitude and moisture content of my homemade Chef Tess Sourdough starter . I uses different ingredients as well. You can bet I'll be contacting the Kathy Doogan to see if I can share any of her other recipes here on the blog. In the meantime... Here's my recipe using the Chef Tess Sourdough Starter and dry food storage items and my own Chef Tess Wise Woman of the East Spice Blend:

Sourdough Maple Ginger Cake

Dry ingredient mix:

1/2 cup dehydrated honey or brown sugar

2T dehydrated egg powder (if you use fresh egg, whisk 1egg into the wet ingredients ).

1 1/2 cups whole wheat cake flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1T Chef Tess Wise Woman of the East Spice Blend (OR 1 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp ground ginger, 1/4 tsp ground clove, 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg)

To bake combine:

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/2 cup pure maple syrup

1 cup Chef Tess Homemade Sourdough Starter

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease and flour a nine inch by nine inch cake pan. Combine the dry ingredient mix. Combine the wet ingredient mixture. Mix the wet and the dry ingredients together, beating about 100 strokes by hand. Pour into prepared pan and bake 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean.

While cake is warm, top with the maple glaze.

2 cups organic powdered sugar

1/3 cup maple syrup

1T melted butter

1tsp Wise Woman of the East Spice Blend

Heat maple syrup and butter together until just boiling. Stir in powdered sugar and spice blend.

Remove from heat and use immediately on the cake.

There you go. Make some Cake. It's amazing.

Simply Sourdough The Alaska Way has so many great ideas and again, comes with some starter. Check it out! Remember to go to my 75$ CSN Store Giveaway

Started Potato Bread Ooo Laa Laa

Papas! Potatoes. Spud-nifticent creation. All hail the zee pommes de terre. Yup. We're making potato bread. I'm really excited about that. Can you tell? Well, look at this fluffy cloud of bread. What's not to love about a light luscious spud cake? Spud muffins are hot. My auntie Dorothea is the queen of puns. She used to do a whole spiel about potatoes. Or was it a potato peel? Participa'taters...anticipa'tators...pontifipa'taters. "The eyes have it"...

This bread is raised without the use of regular yeast...just potato starter. Once you have a potato starter you can bake forever and a day using just it in place of commercial yeast. So, my cousin String Cheese came over yesterday and I had to make sure she had an ample sample (see my rhyming skills...yeah, be impressed). This onion poppy seed potato bread is out of this universe bursting with homemade matronly goodness and glory. Praise be.

You will need to make some of the basic potato starter from Tuesday's post (Potato Starter "Everlasting Yeast"). From that point, let us proceed. The starter will smell nice and "yeasty". It will not smell sour unless you've let it sit for more than a few days. The beauty of this potato starter is in fact that it doesn't get too sour if you use it frequently enough, which for me means I get a nice long fermented dough that doesn't taste sour. Sometimes I just want a deeply intense earthy bread with a nice flavor, but not have it be a sourdough. I also happen to be to my core one of the most frugal people you will ever meet, at least when it matters most. I also know when to just blow the wad and get a quality product. Seriously, I have such a split personality in that sense sometimes. Buy a quality solar oven and grain mill (coming soon, I might add)...scrimp and save on ingredients by grinding my own flour and making my own starters, cottage cheese... I'm nuts. I also buy really good quality spices and extracts. I got a pedicure once. Like I say, I'm such a split personality.

Here's what the potato starter looks like. Cousin String Cheese got a jar full of it from me today. I'm cool that way. You know, giving away fermented potato goop is such an act of love. Really. Like valentines day for really quirky people. Oh hey speaking of Valentines...remember to leave a comment on the potato starter entry from Tuesday to enter the drawing for the EatSmart kitchen scale! You have until midnight Friday.

Chef Tess' Basic Started Potato Bread Ooo Laa Laa

yield 2 loaves

8 oz potato starter (scant 1 cup)

16 oz water (2 cups)

3.3 oz oil or melted butter (about 6 T)

1 lb 11 oz. bread flour (about 7 cups)

1 oz "everything bagel topping" (about 3T) (Remember the frozen dinner roll post?)

.2 oz salt (about 2 tsp)

Combine all ingredients in a 2 gallon bowl and knead by hand about 5 minutes, until smooth. You may need a little more liquid if your flour is really dry. Notice the weights on the recipe? That's a new feature. I'll be doing a lot more of that in the future for the pro-bakers out there who want to use my recipes. Notice the other regular measurements? Those are for the beginners who don't have a scale. Honestly, I love you all wherever you are in your baking. Smoooches.

Okay, form the dough into a ball and place in an ungreased bowl and cover with plastic or a lid. My dough was 90 degrees and my room was 75 degrees. At that temperature the dough took 8-12 hours to raise. Before you panic, realize that you can mix this dough at night before you go to bed, and whenever you wake up...it's ready to form into loaves. Easy stuff right? It can be done as early as 7 hours and as late as 12 hours, so there isn't a rush. Or, if you make the dough in the morning before you leave for work, you can form it into loaves when you get home. It takes 2-4 hours for it to raise into loaves to go in the oven...again it's very flexible for life "happening". I love that. If I want it for dinner, it's golden. If I want to bake it in the morning after running all my errands, I'll form it into loaves first thing in the morning and it's ready when I'm done with my 3 hours of running around. Nice...and it's flexible either way.

i love mom so much

Little man hopped on the computer while I was away for a second. Totally leaving that in my post. Oh, I also wanted to say that this Watkins bacon and onion dip seasoning is really wicked. It should never ever ever be put in your bread if you want the bread to remain uneaten. It's so good. 1 oz in place of the everything bagel topping is insane. Don't do it. It's too good. Shameless plug for the awesome folks at Watkins. Outstanding...outstanding. I love your stuff! http://www.wayneatwatkins.com/ Wayne's wife Laura is the best darn Watkins salesman I've met. Wait...she's also the only one I've met, but I loved her right away. Thanks Laura!

When the bread has raised and is ready to bake, preheat oven to 425 degrees. Bake 35-40 minutes until internal temperature of 165 degrees. Oh...I also really love replacing one cup of the bread flour with fresh ground cornmeal...this one was made with fresh ground popcorn.

With the everything bagel topping, you end up with this seeded wonderfully onion and garlic loaf.

So what do I do with the starter stuff now?

Your brilliant question has merit. It shows you are reading well...and I am in need of editing for beginner starter bakers. I've been at this so long sometimes I forget. OK.

Answer...add same amount as first recipe and mix it up. Allow to sit a couple more day. In this way, the portion that was left in your container is fed starch to keep being effective yeast, and the portion you put in your dough is raising your bread. You can make a double recipe of the bread and have just a little bit of starter left...mix this with a new recipe...same as the first, and there you go. It just continues.

Another bright question from a reader named Barb:
Do you keep the yeast in the refrigerator after it is made? If you do, how long in between feedings?
Good question! I usually keep it at room temperature if I'm using it often, but in the case of storage in the fridge, I would take it out about twice a month and refresh it. Meaning, use a portion for dough and the remaining refresh with more potato and water and leave out at room temperature for 24 hours. Then you can return it to the fridge until you're ready to use it again.
Any more questions? Keep them coming...I'm happy to answer.

There you go.
Be a participa'tater. Go make some.