Cinnamon Peach Swirl Sourdough

 This recipe was born because we wanted strawberry jam.  ...I'll explain:  We only have so much fridge door real estate, which is where jams and other condiments live, of course. And we also have this sort of unwritten rule about not having more than two types of jam/jelly open in the fridge at once (probably because we need to make sure we have plenty of room for the 5-6 types of pickled things that also live in the door).  There was a new, unopened jar of strawberry jam in the pan but first we needed to use up a partial jar of peach jam that had already been in the fridge for a while.

I couldn't find a recipe for exactly what I wanted to do, so I modified a cinnamon raisin swirl bread I'd had some success with in the past.  The peach jam we had (used about half a jar, or 1 cup) was homemade, from my Aunt Betty, and was delicious, but I wanted some other flavor notes in there. So I mixed in some cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg (to taste). I tried to spread the filling as thin as I could, but with chunks of peach in there, it wasn't perfect.

This got rolled up from right to left, taking plenty of time to make sure I was sealing the edges well, so that there wouldn't be much leakage. Then it went into a well-greased metal loaf pan.

One busted seam...not too bad! Used an egg wash to get a nice glossy, golden top.

This was fabulous toasted with a bit of butter, but some of the slices where the filling was thicker were a tad undercooked, and wouldn't hold up well enough to go in a vertical toaster (would be fine in a toaster oven).  My favorite thing we made with it?  Griddled BLTs.  The peach went so well with the smoky bacon and some pepperjack cheese.

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.