Sourdough Stories #18: Discard Recipes - Orange Cranberry Quick Bread & Waffles

Mandough has been very healthy & growing rapidly, so I took advantage of the Mother's Day weekend to make a few extra things to gift (and use up extra starter & discard).

We had oranges, orange juice, and dried cranberries in the house, so this recipe for orange cranberry quick bread seemed a perfect way to use up some discard.  I made some modifications to the recipe, so sharing my version below.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1/2 cup coconut oil
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 cup (113g) sourdough discard
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 cup orange juice
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1.5 cup AP flour
• 1.5 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries
• zest of one small orange or clementine
• Optional glaze: 1/2 cup powdered sugar, 2-3 tsp orange juice (I didn't make this, just because we were running short on time and the bread was still warm when I wrapped it up to take to my mom.)

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. In a large bowl, combine the oil, sugars, and eggs and whisk together until creamy.
3. Add the sourdough discard, nutmeg, orange juice, milk, and whisk until well blended.
4. Add the flour, salt, and baking powder, and fold until all the dry ingredients have been incorporated.
5. Fold in the zest and cranberries, then transfer into a lightly greased loaf pan.
6. Bake for 60 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
7. Transfer out of the loaf pan and allow to cool completely on a wire rack. Then add the glaze if you choose to.

I also made a giant pile of discard waffles using this recipe Rustic Family Recipes--I made no major changes to the recipe so you can just click over to their site.  They crisped up nicely--but word of warning--their recipe denotes a yield of "3-6 waffles".  That assumes that you have a large, normal size or Belgian waffle maker. if you have a cutesy little single waffle iron that makes Eggo-sized waffles, it actually makes about 15 waffles.  Perfect for keeping in the freezer or fridge and popping into the toaster. But again...you're making them one at a time.  So plan to spend about 45-60 minutes on that task.

21-Day Keto Diet: Day 18

After two mornings of waking up early, I was really stoked to sleep in till 7:30a this morning, and wake up of my own free will rather than to the sound of an alarm clock.  (The kid banging on a metal bowl "drum" in his room added a nice background ambient noise.)

Breakfast:  Coconut flour waffles & sausage.  

I found two recipes on Pinterest, (this one, and this one), and went with the latter because it didn't involve whipping egg whites and because we had cream cheese that needed to be used up.  However, neither of the recipes called for letting the batter thicken for very long, which seemed odd because coconut flour takes a while to absorb the liquids around it.  But one did call for a 5 minute resting time...so I went with that.  ...it was not long enough. They still came out pretty flat, and the first couple definitely tried to escape the waffle iron.  

Resulting in this conversation:
Me: *as batter flows out the sides of the waffle iron* CRAAAP.
Lil' Man: *in the other room* Dada, Mama just said "crap".
Me: CRABS! I said Crabs.
LM: Why you said 'crabs'?
Me: Because...the batter coming out of the waffle iron made it look like a crab.
LM: ...that's yucky.

The recipe made quite a few waffles, but they were pretty thin and broke easily at the seams.  Still very tasty though.

I also whipped up a quick batch of whipped cream (topped my coffee with a bit of it as well--YUM), and a raspberry sauce. 

Lunch: Leftover fish and thousand island dressing, to get some protein before the gym...

After Gym: Gatorade Zero, and some deli rollups (with a pickle instead of pepperoncinis.

Dinner: "Fathead" alfredo pizza.  We used the coconut flour version of this recipe for our crust.  And I saved some of the alfredo sauce from earlier in the week for this.  We warmed it up with some fresh spinach to make sure we had some veggies in there. Added bacon, ham, mushrooms, and lots o' cheese. Very tasty.

FYI--the site where the original recipe is has a lot of ads and I found the recipe/directions a little confusing, so at the bottom of this post, you'll find the exact process I used (which uses a food processor to knead the dough, instead of having to do it by hand).

Totals: 1644 kcal, 120g fat, 26g net carbs, 96g protein

Thoughts:  Things were pretty great until we got back from the gym.  I guess that zapped all the energy that we had.  Definitely hit a wall around 2pm and didn't feel like doing much after that.  

FATHEAD CRUST INGREDIENTS:

1.5 cup of mozzarella (note: we didn't have straight up mozz, so I used Italian blend,which has mozz in it)

2 Tbsp cream cheese

2 eggs

1/3 cup coconut flour

DIRECTIONS:

Heat the oven to 475F.

1. Put the cheese and cream cheese in the bowl of your food processor, and then nuke it in the microwave for 45 seconds. Stir, and then nuke 45 more seconds and stir again.  
2. Move it back to the food processor base, scrape all the cheese away from the central stem of the bowl, put the blade in, and add the eggs and coconut flour.  Pulse until well combined, scraping the sides as needed.
3. Scrape the dough into a generally-ball-like-shape and then plop onto a lined or greased cookie sheet (or pizza stone), and then place in the fridge for about 10-15 minutes. It'll make it easier to work with.
4. After that, place a piece of parchment over the ball (because it WILL be sticky), and then roll it out using a rolling pin, to about 1/3 inch thick.  Don't worry if it's not perfectly square or round.  Poke a lot of holes into it with a toothpick, and then place in the oven.  Bake for 6 minutes, then check the dough, and poke more holes if needed. Then bake until golden brown (took about 4 more minutes for ours.
   
5. Then add your sauce (alfredo & spinach for us), toppings, and then cover with cheese!  
   
6. Place back in the oven, and turn temp down to 350F, and bake for 5-7 minutes until cheese is melty and delicious.
7. Remove from oven and let cool before serving.

Blueberry (No So) Waffles & Blueberry Lemon Syrup

So the other day I tried to do the “Blueberry Muffin Mix Waffle” thing I’ve seen on Pinterest:

I was also making a homemade blueberry lemon syrup to go with them.

WELLL…the waffles didn’t exactly turn out so well…

However, the syrup was FANTASTIC.

INGREDIENTS:

• 8 oz fresh or frozen blueberries
• Juice from 1 lemon
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 2 Tbsp water
• 1/2-1 tsp cornstarch (as needed)

DIRECTIONS:

In a small saucepan, combine all of the ingredients except the cornstarch over medium heat for 10-15 minutes.  Lightly smash the blueberries with a potato masher or large spoon.  If needed, add the cornstarch to thicken to your preferred consistency.

Serve warm over (preferably successful) waffles…or the next day over some truly tasty pecan pancakes.

NUTRIFACTS: (about four 1/4 cup servings)

Calories 74.2

  Total Fat 0.3 g

  Saturated Fat 0.1 g

  Polyunsaturated Fat 0.1 g

  Monounsaturated Fat 0.0 g

  Cholesterol 0.0 mg

  Sodium 0.5 mg

  Potassium 36.5 mg

  Total Carbohydrate 18.9 g

  Dietary Fiber 1.2 g

  Sugars 16.1 g

  Protein 0.2 g

Bacon & Gouda Waffles

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know that I started using a FitBit in January to start helping me to be more accountable for my health.  And so far, it’s my little miracle machine, and I’ve lost 15 lbs so far this year!. I wear it everywhere and check it throughout the day, making sure I’m hitting my goals for steps, miles, calories burned, etc.  I’ve also been *pretty* good about logging my calories, and the Food Journal shows you the ratio of Fat to Carbs to Protein in your summary:

So this breakdown lead me to wonder:  What’s the ideal ratio for each of these categories?  My research all seemed to point towards the 40/30/30 ratio: 40% Carbs, 30% fat, & 30% protein.  But I’m a carb-fiend, so I’ve been finding it difficult to hit that mark each day. I almost ALWAYS end up high on the carb side. 
Then I thought—if I can find recipes or meal ideas that focus on this 40/30/30 ratio, then it should be a lot easier to hit that target.  I spent a few minutes searching for “40/30/30” on Pinterest (NOTE: this is NOT a helpful search—the search function pulls these numbers individually, so you get results like “40 recipes that cook in under 30 minutes!” and “Bake the 40 shrimp at 350F for 30 minutes”), then went over to Google.  Where I learned that the “40/30/30” ratio is also referred to as The Zone Diet (just goes to show how out of the dieting loop I am).  And fortunately, the Zone Diet people are nice enough to have a full database of recipes on their website—for free!
I pinned a few recipes that sounded tasty, including one for “Bed & Breakfast Waffles” that included Chicken Sausage in the ingredient list.  I thought, “ooh, savory waffles!  That sounds fun!”  I talked up these savory waffles to the Hubs & he was on board.  But then…I actually read the directions, and it just said to make the sausage & serve it on the side.  BORING.
So…I took the base for the waffle batter, and then decided to add some bacon into the waffles (since we didn’t actually HAVE any sausage to try to integrate into it)…and then…I saw the block of smoked gouda. 

INGREDIENTS: (makes two servings)
1/4 cup low-fat cottage cheese
2 large eggs
1.5 tsp olive oil
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup rolled oats
1/3 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp agave syrup
2 slices bacon, cooked & crumbled
1/2 cup shredded gouda
DIRECTIONS:
Combine all of the wet ingredients and blend until smooth(ish).  Then add in the dry ingredients, and finally the bacon & gouda & mix well.
Heat your waffle iron & spray both plates with olive oil.  Then spoon about 1/2 cup of batter into the waffle iron and cook until crisp & golden (on my Cuisinart iron, I use the “4” or “5” setting).
Serve topped with fresh fruit & drizzle with real maple syrup.  These things were SERIOUSLY good, guys.  The salt & savory-ness from the bacon & cheese balanced perfectly with the syrup & slightly sweet cake.  And the use of eggs & cottage cheese in the batter helps boost the protein level in this normally carb-rich dish.

NUTRIFACTS:
Calories: 335
Fat: 18g
Fiber: 2.6g
Carbs: 21g
Sodium: 400mg
Protein: 20.2g