I just made the best chicken.  Oh my, so tender!

I love pickled herring, but I don't like to eat the onions.  I took the left over onions in brine and marinated 2 chicken legs and a thigh with some other stuff and bingo... delicious.  Here is the recipe:

• brine and onions from a jar (or two) of pickled herring.
• 3 tbsp white wine vinigar
• 4 tbsp olive oil
• 3 clove garlic (smashed and diced)
• sprinkle of paprika
• salt and pepper to taste (please don't taste the raw chicken)
• pat of butter (save for when the chicken is hot)

Let the chicken soak in the marinade for at least a couple hours inside the refrigerator.

Bake in the oven skin down for 30 min at 350°F.

Turn chicken skin side up and melt a bit of butter on top.  Bake for 30 min at 375° F or until juices run clear.

I think the vinagar make the chicken extra tender and juicy.

 This is a more European style sourdough - dense and flavor-rich.  It takes a couple days.

Ingredients:

• ½ cup Bulgar wheat
• 2 cup water (90°F-110°F)
• 1 cup starter
• 2 cup wheat flour
• 2 cup bread flour
• ½ cup oat bran
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• ½ tsp salt

First day:

1. Soak the bulgar wheat in 1 cup of luke warm water for about 20 min in a big bowl.
2. Add the starter, 1 more cup of luke warm water, and 2 cups wheat flour - stir thoroughly.
3. Cover with cheese cloth and place somewhere warm.

Second day (8-12 hours later):

1. Stir in oat bran, salt, and olive oil.
2. Slowly stir in the bread flour until the dough is too thick for stirring.
3. Knead the dough on a clean dry surface adding flour as needed until the dough is nice and elastic (this will take around 20 min) - it will spring back if you press your thumb in!
4. Clean, dry, and oil the big bowl.
5. Place the dough ball in the oiled bowl and turn it to cover it with oil.
6. Cover with an oiled plastic bag and let rise in a warm place - dough will double in size.

Second day part 2:

1. Pre-heat oven to 400° F.
2. Fill small oven safe dish with a cup of water and place in oven - for a humid baking environment.
3. Punch down dough.
4. Knead a bit more and roll into desired loaf form.
5. Place in loaf pan, on cookie sheet, or on pizza stone.
6. Bake for around an hour or until the bread is golden brown and sounds hollow when you thump on it.

This sourdough bread is delicious when served warm with butter and honey!  It stays super delicious for only a day on the counter - refrigerated it will last longer.  It is also extremely filling!

I recommend taking the day-old bread and making melba or crostini!

You will want a copy of Photovoltaics: Design and Installation Manual to do this properly. It is also just a cool book to have.

We’ve had several failed attempts at making sauerkraut over the years. 

Nothing so horrifying as the mind might come up with when contemplating room-temperature open-air cabbage fermentation, but failures all the same: the first attempt was waaay too salty, salty to make you gag; second try resulted in a cloudy jar of brown shreds that my survival instinct strictly vetoed any sampling of; and most recently we almost had it, but still on the salty side and without that living fermented sour tang of real ‘kraut.  It was like a whale had barfed up a bunch of half-digested sea cabbage: not as bad as you’d expect, but definitely not good.