If you have your making your first sourdough starter with me, after the step shown in the above video your starter’s consistency should be just a bit thinker than a pancake batter. You may or may not see any bubbles yet, but by tomorrow (about 48 hours since we started) you should definitely see some action. Let me know in the comments bellow how is it going for you. Don’t forget to come back tomorrow to see the progress.

Following is the recipe that I follow (hat tip to good folks at Breadtopia.com):

• Step 1. Mix 3 ½ tbs. whole wheat flour with ¼ cup unsweetened pineapple juice. Cover and set aside for 48 hours at room temperature. Stir vigorously 2-3x/day. (“Unsweetened” in this case simply means no extra sugar added).
• Step 2. Add to the above 2 tbs. whole wheat flour and 2 tbs. pineapple juice. Cover and set aside for a day or two. Stir vigorously 2-3x/day. You should see some activity of fermentation within 48 hours. If you don’t, you may want to toss this and start over (or go buy some!)
• Step 3. Add to the above 5 ¼ tbs. whole wheat flour and 3 tbs. purified water. Cover and set aside for 24 hours.
• Step 4. Add ½ cup whole wheat flour and 1/4 to 1/3 cup purified water. You should have a very healthy sourdough starter by now.

While the above recipe, as I mentioned in the video, asks to wait 48 hours between Step 1 and Step 2, the last time I made the starter there was plenty of “activity” to proceed after 24 hours. Stay tuned for the next video tomorrow.

Sourdough Bread

Now I generally bake at least one loaf of bread each week, some times more. I have even made an attempt use the sourdough to make a pecan nut-roll (pictured bellow), made sourdough focaccia bread, sourdough pancakes and some other yummy stuff. Unless there is no other way around the recipe, I tend to stay away from commercial yeast.

Sourdough Nut Roll

My wife’s recent video inspired me to make a few videos as well. To start off it my first videos will be related to sourdough bread making.

I plan to being those videos tomorrow. To star off, I will show you how can you make your own sourdough starter. I will follow what I call a “bullet proof sourdough starter recipe“, which I learned form the good folks at Breadtopia.

If you would like to follow along, you will need the following:

• Whole wheat flour. I recommend the King Arthur flour, but any whole wheat flour will do.
• No sugar or unsweetened added pine-apple juice. Look for it in the whole food section of your store. If you can’t find it, just pick can or two of diced pine-apple. Look for the kind that says “no sugar added” or “unsweetened”.
• A plastic container (about 1/2 to 1 quart)

Even if you never backed a loaf of bread before, you might enjoy doing this with me. While sourdough bread tastes great, there is also another aspect that I truly enjoy when working with sourdough- and that is working with nature itself, where nature is actually the true artist.

Enough said! Get your ingredients together and come back tomorrow!

I have been dealing with thyroid problems since I was 18 and when I was 28 half of my thyroid was removed. Last summer my doctors began to worry about a goiter that was rapidly increasing in size and they recommended a complete removal of the other half of my thyroid. The surgery was successful. However one of the temporary side effects of such surgery is drop of calcium levels. To remedy that, I was put on the maximum doze of calcium supplement, while my endocrinologist suggested to drink Kefir as well.

Our Homemade Strawberry Flavored Kefir

Beside the economic factors spelled out above, the home made Kefir has a greater number of probiotics. It sure tastes much better!

So what is kefir you might ask? To put it simply it is a fermented milk drink with tons of probiotics and other goodness your body will appreciate.

How do you make your own Kefir? To make your own Kefir you need to get your own Kefir grains from some or to purchase them on the internet as we did. When conditions are right, Kefir tends to multiply and people generally do not mind sharing their grains.

While there are many places you can purchase Kefir grains from, we bought our from Cultures For Health. But no matter where you get your Kefir grains from, more than likely your grains will come in a dehydrated form. In the video bellow Julie Feickert from Culturse for Health shows you how to activate your grains.

I would also encourage you to try kefir first before getting your own grains. Buy a quart from your store and see if you like it first. There are a few things you need to do to keep your grain healthy. But the best way to take a good care of your kefir grains is to keep making kefir.

It was fun and they turned out so much better than I expected!

If you decide to make them this way, make sure to not overfill the ice cream cones with the batter. Fill the out no more than 2/3 of the way:

You can see in the picture bellow when they bake they will rise considerably:

You can use the icing to finish them. Don’t they look just like ice cream???

The thing that surprised me the most was the fact that the ice cream cones held up their color. I thought for sure they will come out much darker, and was afraid they might actually burn.

Next time you are tying to do something new or different with your cupcakes, try baking them in ice cream cones. They’ve got approval from my little nephew!

To make the pine apple upside down cake you will need:

• a box of your favorite yellow cake mix along with all the ingredients needed to make the batter, you can find those on the box
• 1 can of pine apple rings
• 4 oz of butter
• 2/3 cup of brown sugar (light or dark, depends on your preference). You might need more (or less) brown sugar- depending on the size of your pan
• About a dozen+1 of maraschino cherries (if you use the same cake pan as I do)
• a 13 inch in diameter cake board or serving plate

About the cake pan.
To make my apple upside down cake I use Wilton’s Viennese Swirl Pan. Unfortunately they no longer make this pan. I bought mine from my good friends at Chocolate Belles long time ago. I just saw there are two Viennese Swirl Pans available, I think they might have very limited stock of these pans. To make your cake you can use any round cake pan, or even your cast iron skillet. Make sure your pan is about 12 inches in diameter to be able to arrange your pine apple as shown in the pictures bellow.

Steps

1. Cut 6 pineapple rings in halves, reserve one ring for the center of your cake.
2. Make your yellow cake batter. Just follow the recipe on the box.
3. Meanwhile melt your butter. Spray the wall of your cake pan with a cooking spray, pour and spread the melted butter evenly in the bottom of your cake pan. Sprinkle evenly the bottom of your cake pan with brown sugar. Make sure that the entire bottom of the pan is covered with brown sugar, it will help to release the cake from the pan.
4. Arrange you pineapple pieces and cherries on the bottom of your cake pan by placing a whole ring in the center, and the halves around – see the picture bellow.
5. Pour your batter gently over the pineapples, making sure to cover all pineapples. Tap the cake pan gently to release any air bubbles.
6. Bake in the preheated oven to 325℉ for about 35 to 40 minutes. At 35 minutes insert a wooden toothpick in the middle, if it comes out clean your cake is done.
7. Let it cool for about 20 minutes before flipping it over on a round cake board or plate (about 13 inch in diameter).

You can split your cake in half (horizontally) to fill it with a freshly whipped cream. Otherwise cut into portions and serve with a generous spoonful of freshly whipped cream. Enjoy!

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I love the idea behind the contest, but as you can probably tell from the video bellow I was petrified to be in it. That’s before I knew it was a “casting call” contest. I can’t imagine how scared would I be now! So I decided that the bellow recipe will be my only submission to RWOP contest.

However the entire experience inspired me to do more videos and recipes for this website- so please, join my mailing list if you don’t want to miss any recipes. Due to the warm feedback I received on Facebook, I am very encouraged to more videos and share with you my recipes. Some of you I know, some of you know my husband and I thank you all very much. It turns out that some of you are great cooks as well. Every one of you deserves to be mentioned by name.

Christine, thank you for encouraging me.

Rexanne, thank you for being the first to notice my recipe on Facebook! I love your Cooking With Rexanne website – and greatly appreciate your recent mention of my recipe!

Sabrina, as a working mom, you have to juggle lots of things! Thank you for the “like” over at Facebook!

Thank you Chuck, I will be visiting your website to see what’s “cookin” in your part of the country.

Last by not least a huge thank you to Lynne, Diane, Doris (please stay cool down in FL), Mary Lou and Lonnie.

So without any further ado here is my….

Philadelphia Cheese And Chicken Quesadilla

If you ever end up with left over chicken (rotisserie, roasted or just about any chicken) this is a quick and easy recipe to make delicious appetizer or a snack.

Prep time: 15 minutes |Cook time: 30 minutes |Total time: 45 minutes |Servings: 12

• 8 ounce(s) of PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese
• 2 cup(s) of Shredded Chicken
• 1/2 cup(s) of Salsa
• 1/4 cup(s) of Crumbled Goat Cheese
• 2 cup(s) of Kraft Shredded Cheddar Or Mixed Cheese
• 3 tbsp. of Chopped Jalapeno Pepper
• 1/2 cup(s) of Cherry Tomatoes (Cut into quarters)
• 6 10 inch Flour Tortillas

Steps

1. In a large mixing bowl mix the chicken, PHILADELPHIA cream cheese, 1 cup of kraft shredded cheddar, salsa, goat cheese and about half of Jalapeno peppers.
2. Spray a 10 inch (or bigger) skillet with a cooking spray and cook your tortilla in the skillet until lightly golden brown on one side, for about 3 minutes on medium high heat. Set the tortilla aside.
3. Take another tortilla and spread evenly about 1/3 of the mix you made.
4. Spray your preheated skillet with cooking spray, place the filled tortilla inside the skillet.
5. Cover the filled tortilla in the skillet with the one you cooked earlier (brown side up) and cook it for about 3 minutes.
6. To finish it, sprinkle the top of your casadia with 1/3 of the shredded cheddar, some jalapenos (adjust to taste) and 1/3 of cherry tomatoes. Bake in the oven at 400 degrees for about 4-6 minutes.
7. Repeat steps 2 through 6 to make additional (two) quesadilla.

To be completely honest, I have never thought of a cornucopia as a table centerpiece. I always associate it it with a barn, but I might compromise by placing it by my door (inside or outside of the house). A table center piece? Never! Never until now that is.

If you are looking to be creative for this Thanksgiving, you can probably still get your cornucopia mold on time for Thanksgiving.

For the sake of disclosure you should know that my husband advises Ann about Internet Marketing, however the above post is only influence by Ann’s creativity. I have been Ann’s customer and attended her cake decorating classes long before my husband and I met.