Sourdough Discard Pretzel Bites & Beer Cheese Dip

Long time readers may know that The Hubs and I played trivia weekly at a bar downtown for about 6 years before Lil' Man was born.  We seek out pub quiz and trivia nights at breweries when we travel.  A few months ago, we started up a new team with some of our HomeBrew Zoo friends for a bi-monthly trivia night at a local brewery that doesn't have onsite food.  One night, we saw another group bring in a cake and some snacks for a party, and it occurred to us...why don't we just bring food and eat here?  And thus, Trivia Potluck was born.  

Crockpot in a Brewery...not the weirdest thing you've ever seen.

Recently, The Hubs was craving cheese dip, so I decided to make some sourdough pretzel bites to go with it, using this discard recipe from Pantry Mama.  I stayed true to recipe so if you're interested in making the pretzel bites, just click on that link.  But if you're interested in our cheese dip recipe, it's below!

Note: I accidentally doubled the amount of salt in the pretzel bites recipe...flavor was fine, but I think it impeded fermentation a bit. I would also recommend using warm water to let the yeast bloom for a little while before adding everything else in.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 lb brick of lower sodium Velveeta-type melting cheese
• 1 lb spicy italian sausage, browned & drained
• 14 oz can of low sodium Rotel tomato-chiles blend (DO NOT DRAIN)
• 1 Tbsp taco seasoning
• 1/2 cup homebrew or other beer (we used a pilsner)

DIRECTIONS;

1. Brown sausage, drain, and set aside.
2. Cube up the melting cheese, place in a small crockpot, and add the Rotel & taco seasoning.  Let melt/blend for 2 hours on Low, or 1 hour on High, stirring frequently.
3. Once it starts to melt & come together, add the sausage and beer, and stir.  
4. Serve warm with chips, pretzel bites, whatever else you feel like dunking in delicious cheese...and of course, with lots of friends!

I only put Everything Bagel seasoning on part of them, since I wasn't sure if it would clash with the cheese dip.

Good times with great friends!

Sourdough Jalapeno Cheddar Loaf

With the madness of the holidays finally over, I had some time to bake full fermented loaves again.  The Hubs wanted something savory, so we settled on this recipe from SueBee Homemaker.  

I didn't stray from her recipe much, so click the link if you're interested in trying this one.  We used slightly less pickled sliced jalapenos than what the original recipe called for because it was all we had on-hand, so I chopped them up to make sure the jalapeno flavor was distributed throughout the loaf. We shredded up some extra sharp cheddar.  The jalapeno was mild enough that even our "Everything's Too Spicy" 8 year old enjoyed eating it.

I tend to prefer using a loaf pan to more free-form, oblong loaves...mainly because I don't have an oblong pan (like this Challenger bread pan) to cook them in, so they would have to be just baked on our pizza stone, which doesn't allow for trapping in steam during the initial part of the bake, which is where you get a lot of really nice rise from.  At least with the loaf pans, there's some structure to help them rise UP rather than just out in every direction.  They're also a lot easier to slice using my new slicing guide.

We made this when it was still pretty chilly outside, so we served this alongside some hearty beef stew and chili.

I rubbed butter on the top of the loaf before baking, which added some flavor but not a lot of shine like egg wash would have.

Lemon-Blueberry Sourdough Donuts (Belated Valentine's)

Putting Mardi Gras and Valentine's next to each other just about did me in this year.  First, I volunteered to make a sourdough King Cake and shrimp boil for the office Mardi Gras potluck.  And I had every intention of waking up early on Valentine's Day to make fresh donuts for my two favorite men.  BUT...then I got knocked out by a whopper of a cold. I spent half of Valentines snoozing and the other half sneezing.  

By Saturday I was on the mend, so I finally made discard donuts for breakfast.  Lil' Man wanted chocolate chips rather than blueberry, so I obliged with part of the batch. I also wanted to bring in some pink for Valentine's Day, so I made part of the batch with halved maraschino cherries, and a pink glaze. The below recipe is a variation off Farmhouse on Boone's base recipe. You'll need silicone donut molds to bake these in the oven.

INGREDIENTS: (makes twelve 3-inch donuts, or eight 4-inch donuts

• 1/2 cup sourdough discard
• 3/4 cup buttermilk (I keep buttermilk powder in the fridge for when I need it)
• 1/2 stick (4 Tbsp) unsalted butter, melted
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 egg
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 2 Tbsp lemon juice (about half a lemon's worth)
• zest of half a lemon
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 tsp baking powder

Fillings:

• Frozen or fresh blueberries
• maraschino cherries
• chocolate chips

For the Glaze:

• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1-2 tsp milk (depending on your preferred thickness)
• red food coloring (to make pink glaze)

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 350F, and grease your donut molds.
2. Whisk together the starter & buttermilk until smooth, then add the butter, vanilla, egg, sugar, lemon juice, and lemon zest, and stir until combined.
3. Add the salt, flour, and baking powder and mix until just combined.
4. Transfer the batter into a gallon-size zip lock or piping bag, and cut a hole in the corner/tip about 1/2 inch wide.
5. Use the bag to pipe the batter into the donut molds, dividing equally between the molds (I used one 4-inch pan and one 3-inch pan).  
6. Press the fillings into the donut batter (I put about 6-8 blueberries in each of the 4-inch molds, about 6 cherry halves in the 3-inch donuts). Press the fillings down into the batter to partially or fully submerge them.
7. Bake for 17-20 minutes, or until tops are brown.
8. Allow to cool in the pans for about 15 minutes, then transfer onto a cooling rack.
9. While the donuts cool, make your glaze. I used the plain glaze on my blueberry donuts, and then added a couple drops of food coloring to make pink for the cherry & chocolate chip versions.
10. You can optionally add some sprinkles--we had some heart shaped ones on-hand.

The lemon flavor in the batter & glaze worked well with all three variations.  It enhances the blueberry well, but is subtle enough to almost be unnoticed with the chocolate chip.  I had hoped it would create a sort of "cherry lemonade" flavor, but the cherries are too sweet and overpowered the other flavors. So if you wanted to do just a batch of the cherry donuts, I would recommend doubling the lemon juice and zest, and cut the sugar back to 1/2 cup.