Fresh bread, hulu freebies, and blueberry smoothies

I am one of the few people I know still making bread from scratch, punching it down a couple times throughout the day as it rises, and then filling my quaint apartment building with the smell of freshly baked bread. To be honest, I make most of my food from scratch or from raw ingredients. I enjoy growing, harvesting, cooking, baking, decorating desserts, and inventing delicious concoctions. I typically alter most recipes I find (unless they're the tried-and-true ones passed around family members or from my talented Mom). I grew up in what I would consider a very spoiled household with regards to food. No, the food was not spoiled. I was blessed with parents who enjoy gardening and see the benefits of planting their own vegetables and fruits as well as raising some of their own meat. I didn't realize there was such a thing called "organic" or "natural" until I was in middle school and realized that most other families did not relate to food the way I did.

I am looking to plant my own herb garden in my little apartment soon - I'll write about it sometime this next week. It is currently planting season in Minnesota if you weren't aware of that. The farm I grew up on is in full swing and my parents are hurriedly trying to get plants in the garden. Oh by the way, my older sister is at home helping out and documenting a lot of the neat stuff happening at the family farm (including her personal endeavor to renovate the old barn and turn it into a community art center/studio). If you're interested in following that project, please visit my sister's site www.meyerfarmproject.com. It's extremely awesome. Trust me.

Back to food. I recently watched a documentary, complimentary of hulu, called The Future of Food. It was rather intriguing with very few scare tactics, in my opinion. Give it a watch. It got me thinking about the food that I DO purchase in a grocery store and how it's processed. This is not to say I have adopted an anti-eating-food-with-too-many-ingredients-I-can't-pronounce attitude. I still enjoy chips on occasion and things with sodium hexametaphosphate (it's in Tostito's queso dip). All I'm saying is that I'm more aware of the KINDS of food I'm putting into the only body I'll ever get, as well as how MUCH of that food I'm consuming.

On to the good stuff! Yesterday I made chicken and parsley dumpling soup. I borrowed an online dumpling recipe (and altered it slightly) and then made up the rest. Soup is something you can do that with. :) I used a half gallon of chicken broth with garlic, celery, onions, and shredded meat from a homegrown chicken that I had boiled down previously and froze. First, I sauteed diced celery, onions, carrots, and garlic with a little olive oil and 1 tsp Italian seasoning until the onions were almost translucent. Then I added the broth with meat and about 4 more cups of water with 4 chicken bouillon cubes. Once heated through, I threw in cubed potatoes and fresh Italian parsley. I seasoned it with salt, pepper, rosemary, basil, and a bay leaf. While this was heating to a boil, I mixed up the dumpling dough. I combined:
1 cup flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
dash of pepper
dash of basil
1 egg beaten with 6 tbls milk (stir in until sticky dough forms)
Fold in 1/4 cup minced fresh Italian parsley
Next, I dropped in the sticky dough in small spoonfuls into the soup. Cover and simmer for another 20 minutes. The dumplings tend to spread out and might clump together, this is ok - just separate them or chop them up before you serve. Mmmmm, delicious! My apartment neighbor thought so too. ;)

The other recipe I concocted this morning was a blueberry smoothie. Sounds easy right? Well, I'm not sure what I did wrong but it coagulated like yogurt after it sat for a second! Tasted great, but the texture was majorly weird. I added half pint fresh blueberries, strawberry yogurt, a splash of milk, 3 ice cubes, 1/2 cup homemade apple sauce, and about 3 spoonfuls of orange sherbet. I'll play around with smoothies some more, I've got another pint of blueberries to use!!!

Stay tuned for my next "interest" and how I keep it alive! Also, make sure to look for the upcoming blog on my herb garden of lemongrass, cilantro, basil, etc.