farm to table – My Oak Street Kitchen

Irish Soda Bread

March 18, 2020March 19, 2020

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Irish soda bread is a long standing Irish staple that uses baking soda and buttermilk for leavening instead of yeast. A cross is cut in the middle to help it raise while baking. I make this bread often throughout the year, especially on days I’ve not allowed time for a regular yeast bread!

Ingredients

3 3/4 cups flour

4 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon soda

1/2 cup butter cut into small pieces

1 1/3 to 1 1/2 cups buttermilk

Optional: 1 cup currants

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350. Grease a large baking sheet or line with parchment paper.

Mix all dry ingredients in laarge mixing bowl. Next cut in butter with pastry cutter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add buttermilk and mix together until a slightly sticky dough forms. Transfer to to prepared baking sheet and shape into an 8 inch round.

Make a cross in the middle and bake 50-60 minutes until golden brown and the crust is firm.

Cool on baking sheet 10 minutes and then move to wire rack to finish cooling.

Family Pizza Night!

You can eat healthy and have your pizza, too! In fact, we’ve come to love homemade pizza best!

You can make any kind of pizza you want, add as many toppings as you want!

Sometimes we have a buffet with exotic pizzas like the one pictured above (black tomato, asparagus, onopn, and feta), BBQ chicken pizza, taco pizza, onion-bacon-tomato…whatever you like!

It may sound like a lot of work but actually, homemade pizza is pretty simple, especially if you make a big batch of dough and freeze it!

Ingredients (for two 8 slice pizzas)

4 cups flour (I use a combination of Einkorn, sprouted spelt, and Bob’s Organic unbleached white) — but any wheat flour will do

1 tablespoon sea salt

2 tablespoons honey

3 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons yeast

1 cup water, 110 degrees plus more to mix in

Whatever toppings you fancy!

Preparation

Proof the yeast: dissolve yeast and honey in the one cup of warm water. Allow to bubble and grow 5-7 minutes.

Add flour to the mixture and stir. Add salt, oil, and 1/2 cup of water. Mix together with your hands. Continue to add water a little at a time until a nice dough forms…soft but not sticky. Kneed soft dough until smooth and stretchy. If dough does become sticky, simply add more flour.

Once dough is kneaded, cover bowl with towel and set in warm place to rise until double (usually 1 hour).

Once doubled, remove dough from bowl and punch down, releasing all air bubbles. If freezing the dough, do so at this point by freezing fist size balls in quart size bags. Otherwise divide dough in two and roll out onto floured parchment paper. Puncture crusts with fok all over.

Bake crust at 400 degrees 7-8 minutes until light golden in color. Pull out and press down any bubbles that form for crispy, chewy crust.

Top pizzas however you wish, and bake until done.

Enjoy!

Hearty Farm-to-Table French Toast

Ingredients

8 slices homemade bread (sliced about 1/2 inch thick)

10 eggs, beaten

1 cup milk, (I used almond milk plus 1/4 cup heavy cream)

2 teaspoons cinnamon

Blueberries, fresh or frozen

Preparations

In a large bowl, whisk 1 teaspoon cinnamon, eggs, and milk (and cream if you use that) until frothy. Lay out pieces of bread in greased casserole dish…it’s OK to layer slightly if necessary. Pour egg mixture over bread, being sure to coat all the bread. Sprinkle rest of cinnamon on top. If you have fresh blueberries or strawberries, sprinkle them on top. Cover with foil and set in fridge to soak 2 hours or overnight (I always just make this the night before).

Bake, covered at 350 30-40 minutes or until cooked through. Remove foil and bake 5- 10 minutes until slightly browned.

HOMEMADE BLUEBRRY SYRUP: add two cups of frozen blueberries into a saucepan with 2 tablespoons honey, xylitol, or coconut sugar, cover, and cook down on low 10-15 minutes. Spoon over top of french toast.

Serves 6