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Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Thanksgiving is for Spent Grain

I know that Thanksgiving is supposed to celebrate abundance, but I get a kick out of turning things that would otherwise go to waste into something that is fit for a feast! After making the beer, we had two trays of leftover spent grain. I decided that the best way to use the grain would be to dry it, grind it, and use it to add a kick to my baked goods.


The flour tastes sweet and has caramel notes, so to accentuate those features, I made a slow rise bread with blackberry honey and spent grain flour. Bread flour and yeast were thrown in to help it rise since I didn't want to end up with a brick.


For the muffins, I spied a fantastic recipe for Spent Grain Applesauce Muffins from Brooklyn Brew Shop.  For my version, I added 1/2 the sugar, opted to use the butter instead of oil (splurge! it's worth it!), used 1 cup of our spent grain flour, and used apple butter that we canned an embarrassingly long time ago. I had to cook the muffins an extra 10 minutes, for a total of 30 minutes, because my batter was so dense and moist. The resulting muffins are sinful. No one will know that it came about from pantry scraps.

My folks are cooking the Thanksgiving dinner, and although I do love to host my most favorite holiday of the year, they are both fantastic cooks, so I'm content to sit back and enjoy everyone's company. My mom will make her famous turkey jook,  potstickers, and sticky rice stuffing, and my dad will make a juicy turkey and the best gravy ever. What's special and unusual on your Thanskgiving table this year?

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

6 comments:

  1. ohhhh those muffins sound wonderful! and omg your parents dishes for thanksgiving sound wonderful too!! i find jook so comforting!! give the furries a snorgle for me and have a great Thanksgiving!! :)

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  2. Happy thanksgiving! Love the sound of this. I can't bear to throw things out either...

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  3. We have your average midwest Thanksgiving feast - corn pudding, turkey, gravy, stuffing and (ugh. brussel sprouts - I ate 2 this year - traumatic childhood experiences with brussel sprouts makes this difficult for me).

    Happy Thanksgiving . . . belated.

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  4. Mmmm, turkey jook is on the menu for *after* Thanksgiving! Sounds like yours was awesome.

    We had bourbon caramel sauce with out apple pie (whipped cream with pumpkin pie), and bourbon caramel sauce. Rice stuffing with lap cheong and oysters...

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  5. kimchi, thanks! I hope you enjoyed your last Thanksgiving sans the pitter patter of little feet!

    tori, love your blog! If I lived in a bigger place, I'd be afraid of what I could save. As it is, I have an extra freezer downstairs.

    Rani, Brussels sprouts are my favorite, but I can understand not liking them. I've always been fond of bitter vegetables. Your Thanksgiving meal sounds good. Corn pudding? Please share the recipe!

    Michelle, bourbon caramel sauce? Gimme!

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