Chewy chocolate chip cookies are the best

I have stored away some food items for a rainy day. You can never tell when a natural disaster could strike, and leave you helpless for a short period of time. I must be delusional today, because I decided it would be “fun” to try to make my own corn tortillas for homemade Tex-Mex. Little did I understand how labor intensive this project would become. I’m sure that once I’m not bumbling my way through this, things will get better. Blue corn I started off with an heirloom qual

I recently made bread dough in a turn of the 20th century bread maker called the Universal Number 4. It’s a hand cranked antique that still works pretty well. Every once in a while I break out my ancient kitchenware and practice using it. Why ? Well maybe I’m nostalgic. Maybe I’m a glutton for punishment. Actually there’s method to my madness, and I do things like this to stay up to speed on providing for myself in case of an unforeseen event. I’ve already discussed it once b

Back in 1862, a company was founded from several different manufacturers and became known as Landers, Frary, and Clark. The company...

I start off the grind with whole wheat berries from my storage area. This bag indicates that this is Organic Summer (OS) wheat packaged in 2015. While flour itself only has a one year shelf life, whole wheat berries can last 30 plus years in proper storage. I ordered my bluestone granite mill from Amazon for a reasonable price. Check it out here…. Stored wheat berries Why grind your own flour, when you can buy it fairly cheap in a grocery store ? Well, for one thing store bo

It’s a typical slow Sunday around here, so I baked a fresh loaf of rye black bread early this morning. I already posted about that and...

Bread is a little more involved than most of the other things I bake or cook. Mostly I just throw things together in the pan and it turns out fairly well. But not bread. It needs to follow a specific recipe, because if it’s too wet, the dough may not rise. If it’s too dry, you end up with a mouthful of flour and a loaf that doesn’t hold together. Everything is mixed together in precise measurements to form a really delicious bread after baking. So here’s my recipe for a dark

It was such a nice day, I decided to load up the sidecar Harley with me, the dog, and some chow. We rode over to a lake where I knew they had some picnic tables out — and it wouldn’t be crowded. This time I was going to get serious about the picnic. I broke out the bigger portable oven that’s wood fired. As per usual, the prep work was done at home beforehand so I could concentrate on the cooking and eating. The portable kitchen Anything that can be cooked or baked at home c

I decided I needed some new cooking tools for my fire pit. I ended up getting talked out of my older ones by someone. I looked around the...

Bread with visual appeal

A recipe for basic whole wheat bread.