Kitten And Grilled Chicken Sandwich

So, I've been a really bad blogger lately. I've been taking pictures sporadically but I haven't had the motivation to get on here and write about it. No worries, I have been cooking as much as usual just not translating to the web.

Also, I have been having a war of sorts with my bread making. My bread recipe has changed slightly because I have been making buns with a new recipe. When I tried to make it into bread (because I love the recipe so much) it didn't work. I have reverted to my old bread recipe that I love. The bread turned out great but STUCK in the pan GRRR!!! So much frustration! The only thing that I have found that will release my wonderful bread is to use liberal amounts of butter. Real deal butter. This is fine because I use butter in my bun recipe so I have it on hand. That's not the point. The point is that suddenly my stupid bread won't come out of the pans and it's *&%ing me off. Anyway...

I have wanted to get a recipe for hamburger buns but haven't been happy with previous attempts. While they have been nice bun recipes they weren't soft enough, they were really crumbly, or they turned out really dense. I think I have finally perfected the bun recipe. I basically make this hoagie recipe that I get from here. BUT, this time I added an egg for softness. They were PERFECT! So good. I grilled burgers to go with these wonderful buns and it was heaven!

Now I have these heavenly buns to eat, what do I do? Make a hot sandwich I guess. 

Let's take a moment to talk about our new kitten though shall we?

Her name is Skittles and we rescued her from the Mississauga Animal Services. She was 8 weeks old when we got her. We figured her birthday out to be around the time of my son's birthday. We don't know her exact birthday so we just say it is the same as Phoenix's for simplicity. She is so cute, sweet, cuddly, and CRAZY. 

You know that moment when you trip over a kitten, your foot is in the air, you have forward momentum and you now don't know where to put your feet to avoid stepping on the kitten freaking out underneath you now because you tripped on her?? No? Well you probably do if you have ever been around cats because they have this stupid habit of walking RIGHT in front of your feet while you walk. Kick the kitten, cue kitten scramble, cue fear of squashing scared kitten. Ugh! Luckily, it didn't happen on the stairs yet.

She LOVES to sleep on our shoulders or just lie across our shoulders. It will be a sad day when she is too big for her favourite spots. And by sad I mean painful because she will probably try, fall, and scratch us as she tries to catch herself. Much like she does now when she makes bad decisions and gravity corrects her.

Anyway, back to the food. I was going for a cornmeal sprinkle on these buns. It was a bit of a fail since I didn't wet the dough in anyway so they barely stuck on and just fall off ALL OVER THE DAMN PLACE. They are messy but I digress.

So first things first, toast the bun. I used my grill, some butter, and HIGH heat until I had evenly toasty buns. Add your veg and sauce. I used just mayo and lettuce at first but added some steak sauce after. So good.

Caramelize some thinly sliced onions. I used salt, pepper, and a touch of sugar. I cheated because I didn't want to wait 20 minutes for my sandwich. Sue me. They tasted great. 

Get some regular shaved chicken lunch meat. Brown it slightly and warm it all the way through.

Stack the onions on the chicken.

Stack that on the lettuce. Tomato would be totally wonderful on this too but I didn't have any big ones, just little cherry ones.

The finished product. It was so good!! 

I highly recommend taking the time to a) toast the bun and b) grill some onions. It totally took this sandwich beyond regular cold cuts to a warm loving embrace.... what? You know what I mean. Enjoy!

What happened to my sourdough starter?

What is growing in my kitchen? It's a sourdough! Well the starter anyway.  I have never worked with this type of bread before and it is such a weird thing.  It started out as goopy dough that could have been made into bread with just a couple cups more of flour.  But instead, I let it sit out in a warm place, as per directed, and put into the fridge over night.  I watched it with great curiosity throughout the day and much skepticism as it bubbled and frothed away.

This afternoon I was ready to bake.  I pulled out my starter, let it sit while I gathered a few other things and got started.  My recipe called to use 1 1/2 cups of starter two cups of flour and some salt.  I go at the starter with a measuring cup... umm no.  What in the hell is that thing in there?  The top bubbly/frothy layer stuck to the cup and tore back in long dangling tentacles of slimy looking dough only to reveal cloudy fluids underneath.  Uh, what. the. hell?  Is it supposed to look like this?  It certainly smelled as described when I tried to google what a sourdough starter should look like but it didn't say anything else about what it would actually look like.

This is my first experience with this and I have to say I was not prepared.  Do I mix the starter?  Do I just try to get equal parts tentacles and slime?  Back to the recipe for answers, it had none.  I can only assume that they assume that I would know what it should look like.  I looked back into the bowl, now what?  I grabbed a spoon and dug in.  There was a thick, sticky sludge on the bottom of the bowl that did nothing to lesson the ick factor of the stuff on top.  I mixed (I use this term loosely) it together as best as I could and started scooping.  It was more like wrestling long elastic slugs into the cup then quickly into the bowl of my stand mixer before they could escape.

According to the sourdough recipe, I had only to add salt, flour, mix, and bake.  It sounded so simple.  Well after the shock about the starter... it turns out I forgot to let it warm up for a couple hours so my starter dough was VERY cold.  This basically turned the bread dough into a hard cold lump of dough in the mixer.  As it was mixing, it sounded just like a pair of shoes crashing around in the dryer.  Not good.  I got scared and added a splash of water before I touched the dough to check for stickiness.  It was pretty sticky but mostly I was shocking by how cold it was.  I always start my dough for bread with warm water and expect dough to be slightly warmer than room temperature.  Well, now I was sure I had ruined my sourdough experiment but there was no going back.

I let it sit in a warm spot for a couple of hours.  I couldn't tell if it had doubled but it was bigger and I was worried that it was unevenly mixed, it was.  I stuck it back onto the mixer for a few tries with the dough hook and gave it a bit of a mix.  Of course, I had oiled the boil so the dough just sloshed around in the bowl merrily slapping the sides but not mixing.  Stupid.  Anyway, I took it out and formed it into a ball by hand and figured I might as well bake it.  It clearly was doing something as it had formed lots of bubbles all through the dough.

The recipe called for a baking stone for the oven and cornmeal for the pan.  I had exactly none of both of those so I improvised.  I'm sick of my bread sticking (it has been happening a lot to me lately) so I couldn't risk just putting the dough straight on the pan.  I liberally floured the pan, plunked my smelly unusual dough into the flour and set a pan of water into the over to provide moisture.  It had occurred to me that I don't know what I'm doing.  I get my oven preheated and stick the dough in.  For better or worse it is baking.

It actually looked amazing when I checked on it!

I was listening to a Webinar when I put this into the oven and I had no idea what time it went in.  I hope it is done because I took it out after what I think was the required hour.  Some days I have it together, some days I don't.  Today, I was winging it.

You cannot tell from these pictures but this is an ugly loaf, it just has a very pretty side.  I didn't get the ends sealed underneath before baking thanks to all the oil it was coated with but you cannot tell unless you look at it from the bottom.  Nobody eats bread from the bottom anyway!

The best part, it didn't stick!

  As soon as the bread started to cool it was making these cracking noises... what is that about?  I guess the crust is cooling but my other breads don't make noises...  Also, I just realized that I didn't let the bread rise a second time.  Doh, well the only direction is up from here.  This was my first sourdough experience and I think it might have been a success but I'm really not sure until I taste it.