Last week I went to Graue Mill near my home in Elmhurst, IL and took a tour. Ended up with a 5lb. bag of stone-ground cornmeal. If you've never tried stone ground cornmeal, you are in for a treat. At the advice of the man who was grinding the corn, I removed from the burlap bag and put in a ziplock bag in the freezer. He said it will last a couple years there where moisture can't penetrate it. In the basement are the gear wheels from the waterwheel. Here is a checkerboard using corncob game pieces. I used my sourdough started to make some New England Anadama Bread. I got the recipe from my King Arthur Flour...
I made the most amazing carrot cake using the discard from sourdough starter. The cake is so moist. It's filled with carrots, spices like cinnamon, walnuts, coconut, crushed pineapple, and raisins. The frosting is cream cheese with pecans.
The lily of valley and iris are from the yard. It was so hot today the iris were just laying on the lawn, too weak to hold themselves up. So I cut them and took them inside and refreshed them with some cool water.
Finally seeing affordable domestic apricots in the grocer store. Love to add them to coffee cakes, muffins, and this puffy egg pancake.
Before dusting with sugar. I melt some butter in the pie plate. Then add a sprinkle of sugar and some apricots and mix eggs with milk and flour. Throw the whole thing in the over at a high temperature to bake till puffy.
I made a delicious onion bread I found in the King Arthur Flour Baking Book. I don't usually think of onions in a sweet bread. But this combination is like comfort food.
A rich dough with butter, sugar, milk, and sourdough starter. Then on the second rise, adding chopped onion and caraway sprinkled on top. Also baked on a bed of cornmeal sprinkles. This is one of my new favorite breads.
