First try at a batch of Home Bread!

When I Graduated Culinary School I had 2 big interests That I wanted to explore and Improve upon. Butchery /sausage making: Breads/Baking I'll Talk about the Butchering On a later post Cause this one is about "The First Loaf" or in my case two! I picked up a book at Barnes and Noble for $22 bucks That I think is A great book to have and I've only used it once!

(Here's the book on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Bernard-Claytons-Complete-Book-Breads/dp/0743287096/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1325311136&sr=8-1 ) I browsed Through the first few Pages where Bernard tells you about all the ingredients, different additives etc, Worth a read to better Understand Breads in general The first Recipe in the book is called "The First Loaf" His Recipes and Directions are broken down in the best possible way, He describes Each recipe so you can make it with one of 3 different methods: By Hand: My Mixer: By Food Processor: It also Tells you important times for each Step in the Margin, Like How long to knead/ rest/baking time etc. Like I said before I Think you should get this guys book if you Really want to learn how to make some bread. There is a recipe for Bacon Batter bread (YEAH I'm Gonna Make it!) Ok on for the recipe and stuff: The First Loaf: 5-6 cups All purpose Flour (i needed 6cups) 3 Tbsp Sugar 2 tsp Salt 1 Package Dry Yeast .25C nonfat dry milk (i didn't have this so I omitted it) 2C Hot water (120-130degrees) 3 Tbsp Shortening room temp This recipe makes 2 8x4 loaves or 3 7x3 Loaves Because I have a KitchenAid Those are the directions I will List

place 2C of the flour and all of the remaining Dry ingredients into a mixer with paddle attachment Add the water and beat til well combined

Add the shortening add 1C flour and mix 3 mins Switch to Dough hook Add The remaining Flour in 1/4 cup incriments untill the dough forms a soft elastic ball around the hook.

now you have to Knead it. Just turn your kitchenAid to 2 and knead for 10-15 mins

When it is well kneaded you should be able to grab a chuck and stretch it into a thin sheet without it breaking Place the dough in a Lightly Greased bowl covered with plastic

for an hour untill 2x in size Time to shape! Turn out dough onto a floured work area knead briefly to force out air bubbles Cut the dough in 2 or 3 pieces (depending on how many loaves you want) Roll the pieces into balls and rest covered with a towel for 3 mins press the ball into an oval and turn it so it looks like an O with the shorter sides against you (the shaping process is similar to Tri Folding a letter to put in an Envelope) fold the top 1/3 down pressing it into the dough then fold that down and press the dough together, placing it into the greased pan seam side down One thing I didn't do was make sure the shaped dough is as long as the pan so when it rose it didn't rise up along those sides of the pan because it was expanding to reach them instead of rising up. After They are Shaped and in the Pans cover them with a kitchen Towel in a warm place and let them rise 45 mins. Preheat your oven to 400 when the dough has been Rising 25 mins Baking Place the loaves in the oven for 10Mins drop the temp to 350 and rotate the loaves to get even heat. cook at 350 for 25-30 mins When golden brown (and 200degrees internal temp) The Loaves are done!

Put them on a cooling rack til they are room temp and you can Wrap them in a few layers of plastic and Freeze one or slice for sandwiches,

or feed it to ducks, Whatever Floats your boat! for soft tender crust: brush the crust with melted Butter, Plus it's better so it can only make the bread More Delicious!( my Right loaf is butter basted)

Day two: PULLED PORK!

So i'll start with apologizing for not getting a picture of the Meat all seasoned and ready for the smoker! Ok so when I got the Sausage meat I got it in a 2 pack (15# of sausage in one day is toooo much) So I kept the smaller Pork Butt for Pulled Pork! This one is pretty Easy: Pulled pork 1 pork butt(it's good because it has a nice little fat cap that bastes the meat as it cooks) salt/Pepper Garlic Powder Cayenne Sprinkle the fat cap , the bottom, the sides, then open it (there is an opening naturally where the bone used to be) season in there too! Ok my family has a Trager smoker/Grill(it's awesome!) So to start I turned on the smoke and let the Meat smoke for a bit to get a little flavor.

While that was happening I went inside and made a little braising liquid The Liquid: 2 cups Apple cider Garlic, minced cayenne You just heat that all up and pour it in a 9x13 and bring it to the grill after about an hour of smoking if you don't smoke the meat first Just put the Seasoned pork in the pan and put it in your grill/oven(from now on if I say grill I also mean oven) once I had the Meat in the liquid I turned it up to around 350 and let it cook for a bit , About 60-90 mins Depending on the size, the meat not submerged in the liquid will kind of roast making for some Extra-tasty pieces after it's pulled. After it's been at 325-350 I turn the grill down to 250 and Let it go for another 15 mins then Cover the pan and let it go another 60-90 The Low temperature helps the connective tissue "melt" away making it easier to pull the muscle fibers apart. Similar to what makes a pot roast so tender The best way to know you're done cooking the pork, is to take a couple forks, and try to pull the meat apart if it pulls easy cover it back up , pull it out of the oven and let it rest for another 20/30 mins once it's rested , you get to have fun first pour off all the juices

(we'll get to that later) take the two forks and start to pull the muscle fibers apart

I had to transfer the pulled meat to a bowl to make room for the rest to be separated.

you can take the little bit of fat that is left and discard it or kinda just keep it in the mix. once it's all Shredded you can Just snack on it plain like my mom and I did. Or you can add your Fav BBQ sauce or whatever you like on pulled pork! I made a honey mustard sauce for Our Dinner Honey Mustard sauce: I took the liquid from the pan and Skimmed off the fat. Tasted it and took about half of the liquid out and watered it down to lower the salt level, (in hindsight I would have used stock , Any added Flavor is better than water) after adjusting the liquid, I added about a tablespoon of Mustard powder to a 1/4 cup of honey then added it to the simmering liquid.

I then Added more honey/and Yellow prepared Mustard(it looked crazy after I added the mustard!)

til I reached the right Amount of Tang and sweetness . To finish the sauce I thickened it up with a corn starch slurry, I used about 2-3 Tbsp of Corn starch and added some of the Sauce to the starch to make the slurry before adding that back to the simmering sauce. It thickens the sauce quickly and the sauce easily coats the back of a spoon and sticks to the pork. ok, almost time to eat. add some sauce to the pork, Adjust seasoning.

Put some meat on a warmed bun and Eat up .

Fresh pasta with Bolognese Sauce

The day after Christmas I ground up about 7 lbs of Pork Butt and made some Chorizo Style sausage. About 5# went into Casings and got Linked and Frozen. The other 2# got Sauteed up and Used for Dinner on the 28th WARNING: My Recipes are loose. Cooking can be an experiment. Add What you like, till you reach a taste profile you like This recipe and the many to follow are only a Guide of sorts, Keep that in mind!
Bolognese Sauce(about 4Qts):
2# chorizo(or any sausage, homemade or store bought
4 28oz Cans of tomatoes (I used 2xDiced 2xPureed)
1 16 oz can Fire roasted Tomatoes
2 onions
2 Tbsp Minced Garlic
.75 bunch Basil, Chopped
2 Tbsp Bacon fat

First I Cooked the Chorizo then removed it , Added the bacon fat and sauteed the garlic and onions til Translucent.
Toss all Them Tomatoes in there! and Add back the Chorizo.
Coook for a bit to let all the flavors Mingle.
I kept about a quart for dinner , Then Cooled and Froze the rest for Later Dinners

Fresh pasta:


1# Ap Flour
4-6 Eggs Depending on size( I used Eggs from our chickens , they are small so I used 5 and an extra yolk

The pasta is easy , Bring it all together and knead it for a bit. then I let it rest wrapped in plastic for 30 mins
Thankfully I have a manual Pasta roller So I was able to roll the dough a bit and feed it through the machine in 1/4 batches down to a #3 on the machine then ran it through the linguini cutter attachment. then floured them a bit and spread them on a sheet tray while I finished the other batches .


I got a 6 quart pot of water boiling and salted then Tested a noodle.

They took about 3-5 mins to cook I took them out Quickly drained them, and tossed the noodles in a bowl with the warmed sauce
Topped with Chiffonade Basil and Grated Parm


Meal One Complete!

Ok So here is my new blog!

It was suggested to be to make a food blog of all the stuff I make. So this is my attempt at sharing my food with all of you . First i'll tell you a little about myself, I'm 21 Recently graduated from the C.I.A Greystone, Now I am back in Wasington With a brand new KitchenAid Pro 550 , Meat grinder, Smoker, and Quite a bit of free time. this blog Will consist of a lot of food, Hopefully Recipes if I keep track of the ingredients and quite a few pictures maybe some videos. just hang in there with me I'm new to this whole food blogging thing so the pictures of food will be pretty amateur til I find a good light, plate combo for taking the pictures. My first post will be What I had for dinner tonight, Fresh Pasta and Homemade Sauce! I'll probably post some old pictures soon of stuff I made for my senior Project. and perhaps some other things I have in mind. I've got a big ole book of Bread I plan on experimenting with, May be getting an Ice cream maker for my KitchenAid so there may be some pretty awesome things in store for me and my family and anybody else who want's to taste what I have to offer. I am tagging things for difficulty/prep time/ cook time/ and Cost, sometimes there are many recipes to make one meal. those estimate are overall time the cost system is like 1-20 =$ 20-40is $$ 50+ = $$$ i'll also add a serving numbers as well! or amounts made etc..

Stay Tuned for The first food Post!

-Thanks for stopping by my little Nook of the Internet

-Zac