Sarah's Slow Cooker Pork

We went early to the airport on Saturday to pick up Chris and had a bit of extra time to look around. We found dinosaurs, Chris (eventually), and not much else.

A big one.

A little one, looking scared and a Phoenix.

Phoenix making faces.

Towers of luggage.

Despite travelling back from Germany and being jet lagged, Chris managed to get the beer started on Sunday. There will be more on that in the weeks to come. Here is a teaser.

 A really big pot.

A few things to go in.

Munich Helles of course.  What other type of beer would we make?

I will be taking more pictures and doing a proper post on the beer making process and will keep you updated through the weeks until it's finally time to taste. I can't wait!

Last week, a friend sent me a recipe to try. Naturally, I did. It called for stove top dressing which I don't buy so I looked up a recipe for it. This recipe ended up being pretty tasty!  You can find it here. This was also a perfect way for me to use up some bread that was going a bit stale too!

I started by basically making croutons.  I cubed up some bread and put it into the oven for about 10 minutes.

While, the bread was in the oven I mixed together the spices.

This calls for a few things but it was worth it. I didn't have sage so I just used poultry seasoning.

Let the croutons cool.

Put everything into a container with a lid.

Shake it up.  Simple right?

I had pulled out a pork roast and I cut into chops.

The pork goes into the slow cooker with one can of mushroom soup and one can of milk.

Top with two cups of stuffing mix.

Set it to cook for 5 hours.  I did it on high.

The pork will be falling apart, it's so tender. The sauce is rich and flavourful, the stuffing on top is soft and crunchy and so good!  I served this with a little rice and a nice salad.

Thanks for the yummy recipe Sarah!  Phoenix and I loved it and I would definitely make this again.

What Do You Do With Stale Bread?

I have been keeping myself busy this week making food for this blog and being sure to take lots of pictures. We also have some random stuff gearing up too. I have signed up for the cat foster program with Mississauga Animal Services. We have our home inspection coming up and will probably have a feline guest soon after.  

We have a fish tank. It's empty, but it's getting ready for fish this coming week.

My sourdough turned out tasty.

And my floor garden in the kitchen is green and growing.  It's too cold yet, but I expect these will end up out on the balcony at some point instead of my floor.  We stole their table for the fish tank.

Look at that garlic shoot!  There is some ginger sprouting along side it. Even the celery is getting crazy. The grasshead got a haircut too.

Now back to bread. I have been making a lot of bread. More than we can eat but we still need fresh bread sooooo what to do with the stale ends? Well I have frozen some for making stuffing and I have made bread crumbs and put those in the freezer. I'm running out of room in my freezer. I have composted way too much.  Finally, I found a couple solutions that don't go in the freezer.  I already made croutons that were great.  I'll be making those again.  

I often make breakfast, even during the week, but I rarely make french toast. Chris is usually the one that makes this dish and I have just left it to him, he's good at it. He is still away in Germany until tomorrow so I figured I would give it my own spin.

I was cooking for just Phoenix and myself so I broke two eggs into a shallow pan.  In this case, a pie dish. I added milk, vanilla, and lots of cinnamon.

I sliced my bread a bit thicker than usual and soaked it in the egg mixture on both sides.

Now onto the breakfast grill or frying pan.  Add a bit of butter if you want.  My grill is non-stick and I didn't add anything.

Cook evenly on both sides. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and drizzle with syrup. It's crisp on the outside, moist inside and sweet all over. It's way more delicious than the slightly dry stale bread it started as.

I am also making a recipe that my friend Sarah sent me that is using up more bread! The recipe called for stove top stuffing, which I don't have, so I made some. It's delicious. My kitchen smells so good right now. I'm liking this! What do you do with stale bread??

Mug Cookie and Croutons From Stale Bread

Obviously, I don't intent to eat these two together and, in fact, I never even made them on the same day.  As you may remember, yesterday I was eating croutons in Campbell's tomato soup.  I have had this reoccurring issue every week of what to do with my bread after a few days.  I have been trying a few different bread recipes, incorporating whole wheat flour, and just trying to find that perfect bread recipe.  And all I have really found out is that I have already perfected my bread recipe and all the others aren't holding up to it.  This means that I have bread going stale every week and I need to find something to do with it.

To further my bread problems, today, I'm making sour dough bread.  The creature growing on my counter yesterday was the starter.

It looks like a hot mess but I hope it will be delicious.

I am officially out of yeast as of this starter yesterday so, naturally, I ordered some from a company online instead of just getting more at the store.  I ordered two kinds of instant yeast from the Vanilla Food Company, red and gold.  The product descriptions are here.  Yeast is the most expensive part of making plain bread so I figured it was time to go bulk.  I bought two pounds of yeast for only double the same amount I was paying for a small bottle in the stores.

Every now and then I get a fierce craving for something sweet.  It is usually in the evening so I try not to indulge but sometimes the craving is strong than me.  Introducing, Mug Cookies.  I experimented with mug cakes while I was in Germany and had varied success but they had one big problem, they were big.  Too big.  They required an egg and multiple people to be down for some dessert which was harder to come by than you realize.  This recipe requires neither.  No egg, no partner in crime.

In a microwave safe mug, melt butter or margarine.

Add in the white and brown sugar, flour, baking soda, vanilla, and salt if you used unsalted butter.  Skip the salt if you used margarine or salted butter.

Mix well.  You will have a shiny doughy looking paste.  Now toss in some chocolate chips.  You can mix or just let them sit on top like I did here.

Microwave for 20 - 30 seconds and test.  You can eat this as gooey as you can get it since there is no egg.  Just cook the raw flour taste out and you are golden.  The recipe is here and I provided a photo of the recipe below.  It is way too easy and accessible, it's perfect.  Once you make this a couple times you will have it memorized.  Unless, you are me, then you will always need to check the recipe.

Look at that!  If you don't cook it too long it is like warm cookie dough.  If you cook it a bit longer it hardens up a bit into a warm cookie.  Don't over cook!  You want it to look really soft and gooey still.  It will be SCREAMING hot when it comes out, let it cool a bit before that first bite.

Now, because mug cookies are so straight forward and simple, they don't require a lot of photos or make much of a blog post so I'll tell you how I used up my stale loaf ends.  Every week I have bread that goes stale.  I make one loaf a week and we rarely finish it before it gets hard.  I have been freezing my crusts in preparation for stuffing.  I have made bread crumbs.  I have composted too much bread.  Finally, I realized I should make croutons (thanks Tipsy Baker).  I love croutons.  I love salad with croutons, soup with croutons, onion soup (easily made with croutons) I don't know why I didn't think of this myself.  Some day I might make bread pudding and french toast.  Those are on my to-do with stale bread list now.

I had about three thick slices worth of bread and the crusty end.  I cut this into bite-sized cubes.  I didn't want my mouth shredded by trying to bite a big hunk of dry bread so I made them a bit smaller than one inch square.

I was going to make them plain but why?  Peel some garlic.

Smash up that garlic how ever you do and get it heating in some oil in a large pan for about 30 seconds.

Toss in your stale bread cubes and toss well to even coat the bread until it soaks up all the garlic oil.  Season with salt and toss again.

Pop the lot onto a tray and into the oven for 10 minutes at 325F until they are completely dry and slightly toasted.  They will be sort of soft, chewy, and slightly crunchy when warm but they will get harder and even more crunchy as they cool.  Serve in place of crackers with soups or in salads.  I added a handful at a time to my mug of soup because I like that perfect moment between crunchy and soggy when the crouton has soaked up the soup but is still crisp when you bite into it.  So good!  These can be stored for weeks in a cookie tin as per the Tipsy Baker.

What do you do with your left-over, less than oven fresh bread?