Isand66's blog

Mookie likes to get his way and when he wants something he lets me know it.  For example, when he wants breakfast he will knock everything he can off of my night stand until I get up and feed him.  When he wants dinner he will flop down by the door when I come home and insist on a belly rub until he is satisfied and then run to the kitchen and yell at me to feed him.

I have wanted to try my hand at a Challah made with a Yeast Water starter for a while so I decided to give it a try this weekend.  Naturally I needed to change it up a bit more and added some shredded coconut and used coconut water in place of the liquid.

A couple of weeks ago I tried TxFarmer's 36 hour sourdough version but I had some issues transferring the rested baguettes to my oven and the results were less than stellar.  After experimenting with a different formula for a couple of bakes I decided to go back to this recipe and s

Last weekend I baked a multi-grain bread using white wine with sweet potatoes which came out as good as I could have expected.  This time I wanted to try using a red wine and what goes better with red wine but chocolate and cheese.  I used a cocoa rouge which is a special type of cocoa that has an intense bittersweet character with a rich deep red color and fudge-like flavor.

Here on Long Island, New York we have a ever-growing wine country on the East End of the Island.  My wife and I like to go visit a few different wineries and enjoy sampling the different varieties of wine available.  There is nothing more relaxing than to sit down with some good wine, cheese and bread and enjoy the cooler autumn air.

Over the last few weeks I have been experimenting with making different styles and recipes for baguettes.  A couple of weeks ago I tried TxFarmer's 36 hour sourdough version but I had some issues transferring the rested baguettes to my oven and the results were less than stellar.&n

I just received my delivery from KAF and I wanted to use some of the new flours and ingredients I purchased.  I decided to make a multi-flour bread using white spelt, whole spelt, rye chops (chopped up rye berries) and some black cocoa.

This is the second bread I made for Rosh Hashana to bring to my Cousin's house for dinner.  The other loaf was hearty multi-grain with Farro and Toasted Lager so I wanted to make something a little lighter for this loaf.  I used some Durum Semolina, Italian Style 00 flour, whole grain Spelt flour and roasted onions and greek yogurt.  I wanted to use the yogurt to try to make the

I decided to make a couple of breads to bring to my cousin's house for Rosh Hashana this weekend and she requested I make my Farro Hard Cider Multi-grain.  I didn't have any hard cider available nor did I have time to make a Farro starter so I used a nice Long Island toasted lager and substituted my stock AP starter which I recently refreshed.

Okay, so every time I go down to my basement I keep passing the bottle of Peppermint Mocha Kahlua staring at me from its perch on our bar.  It's red and white bottle was just yelling at me to try it in a bread or down some with ice, so I decided to do both.