Self Production of Food

[Massimo D'Alessandro]

Although there is for sure some overlap with the recipe forum, I would like here to focus on self production of food aimed at a more sustainable life style: less packaging, less additives, less food miles and so on.

How can we create our own food with primary ingredients instead of buying it already made? Which are the consequences in our life style in terms of time, money, health?

I hope it is clear.

Namo Amida Bu. Massimo

[Massimo D'Alessandro]

Home Made Bread (Italian recipe)

You can make your own bread without buying it or without using that funny electrical machine :-)

What you need is a home electrical oven, normal plain flour (you do not need special bread flour), salt, yeast or better the sour-dough, water.

At the Buddhist house we currently have a sour-dough coming from Souther Italy and more than 100 years old (the oldest the better). We would be very pleased to gift a bit of it to anyone who may ask us. The sour-dough is self-reproducing so you will not buy yeast anymore and you will reuse just a piece of your current bread dough for the next time.

So it is simple:

- put the flour in a big bowl (you may play with different kind of floors all together). You may use 1Kg of flour for having 1,5 Kg of bread.

- Then put the sour dough or the yeast (try to put half of the quantity suggested in the bag. We did in amida France and worked perfectly).

- add the salt. Follow your taste. It may be a tea spoon just for starting.

- add the water and start to stir with a wooden spoon. Better using warm water. Use your intuition for the quantity of water. If you put too much water you can add more flour.

- when the dough is kind of "coherent" (i.e. it is more or less a unique ball), put it on the table after having spread some dry flour (to prevent the embryo dough to stick)

- than knead the dough. I use to keand with a crossing tecqnique: kneading in a sense, then rotating the dough of 90 degress and starting to dough again. When the dough is weel compact (maybe after 15 minutes.. but you will llearn how to judge with the practice) you are almost there.

- if you are using the sour dough, rememebr to cut a piece aprat and put it in the fridge for the next time.

- put the dough back in the bowl and cover with a wet tea towel. Then cover with some woolen cloth. A fliss is perfect.

- if you are using the yeast it will take about 1-2 hours to raise. If you are using the sour dough it will take 10-12 hours (a night) to rise.

- when it is raised take the oven tray and put a film of oil on it (to prevent the dough to stick). Then put the dough out of the ball on the table (spread some little flour on it before) and create the loaf or maybe two loafs one aside the other (it does not matter if the touch each other. When the bread is cooked your will separate the very easily).

- make a cut in the middle of the loaf with a knife (this will make it more professional).

- turn on the oven at 175 C. When it is at the right temperature put the tray in the oven. It will take around 45-50 minutes to cook.

- to know if it is cooked. Remove it from the oven and turn the loaf over. Knock on the bottom ... if it sounds like wood it is ready. It is still too soft and does not sound then you can put it back. The bread cooking is quite resiliaant to various manouvres. You can put it back and forth from the oven many times without harming it.

Wait it cools down before eating. Preserve it in a tea-towel rather than in a plastic bag.

When you have practice all the procedure is very simple. I think 20 minutes for preparing the dhough and 1 hour in total for the baking. Of course you can bake while your doing other things.

Good luck!

Post here your adventures ...

Namo Amida Bu

Massimo

[Rachel mcHugh]

Hi Massimo, I have always made my own bread, it is easy to fit into normal daily activities and if i organise myself properly i can use the oven for other things too. thank you for the piece of sour dough, I made bread using it on Wednesday but i think i added too much water as it spread horizontally but did not rise very much but the taste was great and the texture light I am giving it another go today so hopefully tomorrow i will have a better proportioned loaf.

Namo Amida Bu

Rachel

[Massimo D'Alessandro]

Hi Rachel. I do not know which process you adopted. It may be you did not give the dough the time to rise (it may take up to 10-11 hours). Or it may also be that the dough has risen too much. In such a case it becomes almost liquid and sticky. To see the exact level of rising you can insert a hand deep into the dough and try to see how is the underneath structure (pull up some dough from underneath). It should be a spongy consistence with many strands separated by empty space. I will publish some photos... let me know.

Massimo

[yaakov matri]

Hello Massimo
Thank you very much!
In our home, I bake our breads once a week with sour dough I had made myself, beginning about 13-15 years ago (I do not remember exactly when it started).
My technique is a little bit different than the one you have given in the above recipe, and it is somewhat more complicated. (I keep the sour dough in a glass jar in the refrigerator as a liquid, taking each time half of the quantity for the next dough, and supplying the rest which remains in the jar with fresh water and some new flour. So, the new dough begins each time with the liquid of the sour dough from the refrigerator, and to this I add flour, water, salt, some honey and some olive oil).
I am going to try the recipe you suggested!
Namo Amida Bu
Yaakov

[Massimo D'Alessandro]

Home Made Peanut Butter

This is really simple. You only need:

- peanuts (toasted, not salted)
- sunflower seeds oil
- salt

Take the peanuts (toasted and not salted), let us say 400 g and you grind them in a grinder (I am not quite sure how to call it in English. It is the option of the kitchen machines which grinds the staff) to obtain a kind of peanut flour. Now take the mixer and put in it two spoons of sunflower oil. Add the peanut flour, some salt and mix ... it will take some minutes to mix, but you will see the miracle of the peanut butter happen in front of your eyes: flour and oil slowly transforming in peanut butter! It is very tasty ... and without any additive.

You can change the quantity of oi to obtain a more or less liquid result. I cannot judge the right peanut butter as an Italian!

Ask Kaspa where you can find unshelled peanuts in quantity.

[Simon Williams]

Marian's Caraway seed biscuits
65g SR flour
40g Caster sugar
50g Vegan (cooking) margarine
A few drops of vanilla essence
A shake of caraway seeds

Method
Cream margarine, sugar and vanilla. Stir in the flour and caraway. Mix thoroughly. Divide mixture into small spherical pieces, placing on a greased oven tray. Flatten slightly and bake for 10-15 mins at Gas mk 4, 180c until light golden colour.