red red wine you make me feel so fine

Actually, it'll be dandelion wine and mead.

I picked up all the ingredients for both of these this weekend and I'm taking a break from cleaning out my carboys. I don't suggest leaving your carboys in the basement for almost a year unused. They are a pain to clean out.

Pictures and such when I get a chance...

Soup Stock & Rye Bread

This weekend I decided to bake bread and to make soup stock and freeze it. My favorite bread recipe comes from the Joy of Cooking. I use the basic white sandwich bread recipe with a few modifications:

• Substitute Earth Balance for butter

• Replace about 1/3 of the white flour with an equal amount of rye flour. I wouldn't really recommend using more rye flour than that because it tends to make the bread v. dense.

• Add a LOT of caraway seeds.

My favorite part about rye bread is the caraway seeds, so I tend to go a bit overboard with them. I couldn't tell you how many I used for my bread on Sunday. I use a mortar and pestle to grind some of the seeds up. I think that this really helps to flavor the bread with a stronger caraway flavor.
I doubled the recipe, but I only had 2 loaf pans, so I had enough dough for those 2 pans and then I made a round loaf with the rest of the dough. Sadly, I have no pictures of the bread to share. We've managed to finish it all. And it's only Tuesday. But, here are some pictures of the bread rising. I forgot about it and it got a bit out of control:




While the bread was rising I started a veggie soup stock. My grandmother is turning 85 this year and we are having her birthday party this month. I'm in charge of making Roasted Butternut Squash, so I figured I needed to get a head start on the stock.