Warring Pro Waffler

I posted a review on Amazon.com of the greatest waffler ever. I think the review is pretty funny:
http://www.amazon.com/review/R1MG8UYGGMN329/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm

Borscht with light rye bread

Last night I made borscht. I'd never had borscht before so I wasn't too sure what to expect. My mom said my German ex-Mennonite grandma used to make borscht all the time but quit because none of her kids would eat it. I wish I had her recipe, but since I don't I used one from this generic soup recipe book of Sean's. The recipe was for a cold borscht, but we ate it hot last night and tried it cold tonight. I think it tasted much more beety cold, but maybe that was due to the soup improving with age factor and all.

Making the borscht was really easy. It called for a bunch of veggies--cabbage, beets, leeks, onions, a parsnip, and a can of diced tomatoes. I didn't follow the recipe exactly but threw in as much of each veggie as we had in the fridge. It was supposed to simmer for an hour and a half but I accidentally let it boil pretty hard for a long time. Once done, it seemed way too thick so I thinned it with chicken broth. We pureed it using our new stick blender which was so awesome. Never again will I mess around with trying to pour hot soup in and out of a regular blender, getting burned and ending up with half the soup on the floor. Anyway, it was thick and smooth and pretty good I think, and Sean's light rye bread was super delicious to eat with it. We garnished it with garlic infused Greek style yogurt and dried dill. If I don't get my grandma's recipe, the next time I make it I'm trying the New Basics version that includes a shortrib. Yum!

Sean's light rye bread was our first adventure using our super fancy new Japanese bread machine, ZOjirushi. It has a picture of a happy elephant on it and is nice and quiet when it kneads. The recipe came out of the recipe book that came with the machine. The bread turned out perfectly with a nice texture and crust, and it looked like a real loaf of bread, not those odd footballs that your traditional bread machine makes. In less than 24 hours we've almost finished the loaf, it was that good. 

Bread and Soup1: Grant Loaves and Bean Soup and later olive loaf.

It's Fall. We love fall foods so this year we are starting a bread and soup project. So far it looks like Becky will make the soups and I will make the breads. We will try to pair them together, and we work hard to find stuff at the farmer's market to plan the soups around.

Last week Becky made bean soup using the Trader Joe's bean mix and the recipe on the bag. The bean soup also had carrots, canned tomatoes, celery, onions and I think garlic. The soup was pretty good. It took a long time to cook, next time we will soak the beans ahead.

With the soup I made Grant loaves, a no knead wheat bread. I got the bread recipe from the complete book of bread and bread machines, but it originally came from . The bread was super good and really easy. I think it would have been good with a seed top.

We had soup left over and I mad an italian olive bread, also from bread and bread machines. On this I used only green pimento stuffed olives. I also added pine-nuts. It was rad! Becky said she loved it but would prefer to not have the pine nuts next time. It didn't take too long to make and was pretty easy. Next time I think I will do a better job of draining the olives before kneading them into the dough. It got a little sticky. The olive oil basted top gave it a very nice crust. It was also pretty. I should have taken a picture to post here, but I didn't know we would start a bread and soup blog.