Hurricane Rena's

I recently made this amazing bread. I was trying to sprout some rye kernels, but they did not sprout. After 3 days of watering and rinsing twice a day, I put them in my powerful Vitamix blender and whipped them up, and added them to 1/2 of my freshly fed sourdough starter.

They made about 2 cups of whole grain sponge. I let that ferment overnight, on the kitchen counter, covered in a tea towl. In the morning it was all bubbly. I mixed in an equal amount of unbleached, all purpose flour, kneading it in at the end, possibly with another 1/2 a cup added to get the right texture, soft and not sticky. I also added some olive oil to it at this point. I had forgotten to add fresh yeast, and did not want to add more liquids to this bread dough, so I sprinkled the yeast pellets, about 1 teaspoon, on the surface of the dough and kneaded them into it. I placed the ball of dough on parchment paper and left it alone, once again covered with a damp towl, near my woodstove for a couple of hours, until doubled in size.

I then heated up my clay stewpot in my oven to 450 c, plopped the dough in and baked for 40 minutes with the lid on and 15 minutes with the lid off.

This resulted in delicious, salt free sourdough rye bread from whole soaked grains, with a vivid, complex flavour and chewy texture.

Recipie

2 cups soaked rye grains. Blend with a little water into a paste.

Add 1 cup freshly fed and activated sourdough starter. Let soak overnight.

Add 2 cups flour, mix in first with a wooden spoon, then with your hands until the dough develops the right texture. More flour may be needed.

Knead in 1 tblsp olive oil and 1 tsp yeast pellets.

Shape dough into ball, place on parchment paper, let rise until doubled in size.

Preheat oven to 450 c. Heat up stewpot or dutch oven inside oven.

When oven is ready, pick bread dough up by parchment paper corners and plop into preheated pot. Put lid on

Cook for 45 minutes covered. Then remove lid and cook another 15 minutes.

Take bread out and let cool before cutting into it and eating it. This is important. It is still cooking inside.

Enjoy with smoked fish or Ruben sandwhiches or whatever else you like, and be sure to spice it up with Hurricane Rena’s hotsauces, relish or chutney!

  Here’s a concept I bet you’ve never tried before. Sourdough perogies

In my enthusiasm for making my food healthier, and especially for making my favorite refined flour foods healthier by using sourdough starter and fermenting processes, I decided to try something different with that challenging food, the home made perogy. I searched the internet for a recipe, to no avail. Perogies are a lot of work to make. In fact, previously I only ever attempted to make perogies once a year, to honour my Ukrainian heritage at Ukrainian Christmas. But I am embracing  married life with more domestic activities, perogy making included.

I fed my pet the other day. (My nickname for my sourdough starter, “the pet”) When I divided it in half, the half I needed to use up went towards making the perogy dough. I mixed it with some sour cream, and hydrated it well. I let it sit out for a few hours. Then I mixed some flour in. the proportions are you begin stirring the flour in with a spatula and end up mixing it all by hand until its absorbed.

I then covered the dough with freezer paper and let it sit for 24 hours in a cool place, but I didn’t refrigerate it. Some fermentation should take place, but slowly. We don’t need perogy dough to rise. We just want the flour mixture to become pro-biotic, easier to digest, and have sourdough flavor.

The next day, make the filling.

The filling I made was my unique take on a traditional perogy flavor. I mixed dill, cottage cheese, dried onion flakes, a pinch of chili garlic salt with some hemp hearts and dried nettle flakes. This enhances the nutritional value of the perogies as well as the flavour, as nettles are a vitamin filled veggie, and hemp hearts have protein and omega 6 in them. It also makes the perogies into a complete protein, so as a meal, they will be complete all on their own. Using dried onion and dried nettle absorbs some of the excess moisture present in the cottage cheese so the perogies will not be soggy and the filling will not sog out through the dough.

To make the perogies you roll out the dough. I find it helpful to roll out dough between 2 pieces of parchment paper. It saves on the mess created on your counter, and is also easier to get it off of if it sticks. Sprinkle a little flour to help keep it from sticking. Roll it out as thin as you can get it. Perogies with really thin skin are the best. This dough allows for a texture that will stand up to being rolled out and stretched quite thin, resulting in a delicious perogy that is not too doughy or thick.

Cut some squares in the dough once it is rolled out.

Each square will be one perogy. You stretch the dough out a little more in an individual square. Then carefully place a spoonful of the filling in the center of the square. Fold one edge over diagonal so that the square becomes a triangle over the filling. Then seal the edges by squishing the dough closed over the filling. You have now, a perogy. The shape is not so important as this part of the process. To pinch and twist the dough so the filling will not come out during cooking.

Bring a pot of water to a boil with a little bit of oil in it and salt.

When it is boiling, gently lower 4 or 5 perogies into the water. Stir immediately with a slotted or holy spoon. Notice how they sink When they begin to float, take them out of the water with the slotted or holy spoon. Place in an oiled dish. Avoid cooking too many perogies at once. My tester batch of this recipie made 24 perogies. They are best gently fried with onions immediately after boiling, and served with sour cream, or Balkan style plain yogurt for the health concious.

Or you can freeze them on a cookie sheet and have pre cooked perogies that you can fry up later. This was my first ever batch of sourdough perogies, and I will be defiantly trying this again soon. It was worth the time and effort, the results were spectacular, and made a satisfying meal all on their own. We had these for dinner on Good Friday.