Life and Bread....

Sourdough Savory Pancake

2020-04-23T13:33:00.005-07:00

Using discard is always better if you wait till the sourdough is deflated, unless you are wanting to make bread. I pulled this out of the fridge and it wasn't fully deflated and the gluten was really strong still. It made the savory pancake stiffer to work with.

This is all that I left in my jar to feed later. Not much, but if you leave more the sourdough can't live without being fed much more often. I use mine about once a week and store it in the fridge once it has doubled on the counter.

I poured it directly from the jar onto the frying pan, but since it was so strong it didn't flow like a regular pancake. Maybe next time I will add it to a bowl, and put extra water, salt, and seasoning to the batter. Instead I simply salted on top of it, then added toppings to cook into it.

Pink sea salt, sesame seeds, oil for the pan, and chives from the garden.

Nummy, half done.

Flipped to soon, would have been better cooked longer or at a higher temp.

Flipped over to cook a little bit longer.

Tasted pretty good, tender and sour. I will do it again, but with a few changes lol!

Sourdough Pancakes

2020-04-23T12:55:00.002-07:00

First of all, no I don't have exact amounts because sourdough is a little bit of chaos. I will try though!

Pancakes
100 grams of discarded sourdough usually has been in the fridge for a week and the gluten in it is broken down. This makes it ideal for any recipe that calls for baking powder.

2 eggs (if I want a lot of pancakes I use more)
milk, enough to make a batter
1 tsp salt
1 Tablespoon of sweetener of your choice (I have even used a couple packets of splenda or a tablespoon of monk fruit sweetener)
1 Tablespoon Baking Powder (usually I just sprinkle it in according to how much flour I have added)
Flour (enough to make the amount of pancakes you want. The batter usually looks like the batter below.)

Take the sourdough out of the fridge, your jar should have about 120 grams of sourdough in it. Take 100 grams and put it into a bowl to make pancakes. That should leave about two tablespoons or about 20 grams which will be the seed that needs fed. Let the discard in the bowl warm up for an hour to make mixing easier, this is not absolutely necessary.

Mix the liquid and discarded sourdough together. This includes the eggs and milk into the discarded sourdough. Mix it till it's evenly distributed then add the sugar and salt. If you are making waffles you can add oil or melted butter to it now.

Add the flour if needed and the baking powder. This is also the time to add blueberries, raspberries, chocolate chips, or any other things you want. Remember after you add the baking powder you should not be mixing it a lot or it might not rise as well. Let the mix rest for about ten minutes.

Fry pancakes in a hot skillet, set to about 2 or 3. I think it translates to about medium low, and sometimes I have to turn it down so they don't burn.

Day 2 of 100% Whole Wheat Bread

2020-04-23T11:51:00.001-07:00

Ingredients
All soaker
All mother starter
60 grams whole wheat flour (grind a little extra for cutting board)
5 grams salt
45 grams honey, agave nectar, sugar, brown sugar
40 grams unsalted butter, melted, or vegetable oil

On left is the soaker built on the 21st, and on the right is the starter mother. Flavor will be so much more intense the longer you let it rest in the fridge, but gluten structure will be less the longer it stays in the fridge.

I use Kosher salt, but sea salt is fine. Just don't use iodized salt. The honey is from a local supplier in Silverdale Washington. If you only have butter with salt you will need to reduce the salt in the recipe by a couple of grams. I don't always put sweetener into my recipes though it helps with rise.

Lightly flour board or counter. Just to stop sticking.

I use a Pastry scraper for cutting the dough into pieces, and a plastic dough scraper to get it out of the bowl.

The mother starter should be flattened onto the flour on the board. It does not matter if you put the soaker on the board first or the mother starter.

Flatten the soaker and starter mother on top of each other and just lightly tap some flour on top to help when cutting.

I cut in strips then into squares.

Here are the squares!

Add it to mixer with dough hook, then add the rest of the ingredients except the flour. Mix for about 4 minutes in then add the 60 grams of flour and knead until it cleans the sides of the bowl. Then roll out onto a floured board and shape into a ball.

Shaped into a ball ready for a rise.

I used avocado oil for my bowl, about a tablespoon just so it would not stick as it rises.

In bowl in a warm place, my oven has a proof setting but you can also just turn on the light in your oven and put it there. I set a timer for 4 hours to check on it. I will then do a final shape and put into a bread pan to rise.

Don't forget a timer to remind you lol! :)

Take dough and carefully put onto floured surface, then shape into your final shape according to your baking pan.

I have a long clay baker that has a lid. I let it rise till the finger poke test showed it was ready to bake. This took about 2 1/2 hours.

Looks perfect for baking so I put the lid on and placed it in my oven, then turned it on according to the directions from my clay baker to 425* for 40 minutes. Then it says to remove the lid for the last five minutes.

Absolutely perfect....

Waited 2 hours for it to complete cooking and cool, crumb shot is awesome!

Amazing flavor as always, honey on one butter on the other. I can't believe I have waited so long to bake this one again! 💖

Day 1 - 100% Whole wheat sourdough bread

2020-04-21T20:47:00.001-07:00

If you include building my starter to be ready for baking the next day, this bread actually takes 4 days. I fed the starter on the 20th, did every in the post titled Day 1 on the 21st, on the 22nd I put everything into the fridge, and on the 23rd I did everything on the post Day 2 including baking. Sourdough is all about it fitting your schedule.

100% starter made with whole wheat flour

Looking very active

Hard red wheat berries, hard white wheat berries, Fairlife milk, kosher salt, active sourdough starter, and filtered water.

This is a mix of the two kinds of wheat berries and I will also add 50 grams of berries for feeding the starter afterwards.

I grind my own flour using a fine grind and high speed setting. I always grind fresh so it doesn't turn bitter.

I use a small bowl for a soaker, basically this is just allowing the flavor to develop in the flour and any other grains you add to the mix. The large bowl is for the mother starter, basically a bigger sized version of starter sometimes using a different hydration level. This needs the larger bowl so it can rise to double, and will be put into the fridge.

Soaker 227 grams flour, 4 grams salt, and 198 grams scalded milk, pasteurized milk, yogurt, rice milk, or almond milk. Mix till all flour is incorporated into liquid.

Both starter and soaker will look about like this when mixed in each bowl, just cover it with plastic wrap.

Mother starter is made from 227 grams ww flour, 170 grams filtered water, and 25 grams of active sourdough starter.

Starter/mother goes in fridge. Soaker stays on counter for 12 to 24 hours.

Feeding sourdough

2020-04-21T20:32:00.000-07:00

Add 50 grams whole wheat flour to liquid and starter, stir and cover loosely allowing it to grow till almost double and then put in fridge for up to a week.

Doubled and ready for fridge.

Atman

2019-10-31T17:30:00.002-07:00

My grandkitty, Atman, went to heaven this week. He was an awesome kitten who came into my daughters life at just the right time. I'm going to miss him so much.

Canning beef & chili!

2019-10-31T11:36:00.001-07:00

My new choice of footwear for extra style while canning. I chose this after my doctor said I needed to relax more and stay off my foot. Funny how the mention of surgery and relearning how to walk changes how we do things! 💖

Andy and I canned 8 pounds of round steak using several seasoning blends and a

little kitchen bouquet for flavor. One jar broke while under pressure, but the rest seems great! This was right after pulling from the canner.

This is the next morning, after it's cooled. Small amount of fat in each, but it looks great! I put a slice of onion in each jar. I think we paid $2.48 a pound for this round roast. This is 15 pint jars. The other half is preparing

to be jerky!

When I discovered I had a lot of extra chunks of beef, and had just made Pinto Beans for chili for dinner I added it to the mix and rather than freeze my extra beans I made this! It's Beef chuck roast cut into pieces, a can of corn, 2 cans diced tomato, chili seasoning, onions chopped, garlic chopped, red Bell pepper chopped, enough water to make it more soup like.

2011-07-01T12:20:00.001-07:00

Colombia river.

2011-07-01T12:17:00.001-07:00

mt adams

2011-07-01T11:49:00.001-07:00

Mt adams

Mt jefferson

2011-07-01T11:48:00.001-07:00

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mt hood

2011-07-01T11:46:00.001-07:00

mt hood

2011-07-01T11:44:00.001-07:00

Apple pecan pancakes. Yummy!

2011-06-30T10:07:00.001-07:00

Washington Coast

2011-06-28T08:25:00.000-07:00

Lake Quinault Camping/Picnic area.

This is lake Quinault with the Olympic Mountain range in the background. It had a really nice camping area, and picnic sites that were right on the water. We actually started this trip at my parents home, close to Bremerton. Then traveled to Aberdeen, and drove up the coast a bit to get to this lake. Such beautiful scenery! My Aunt & Uncle, Cousin & her husband, came up from Texas for a cruise to Alaska. They were joined by my cousins daughter, husband, and their two children when they came back. If I am counting right, there were 11 people and 3 cars on this trip. It was such fun, if a little tiring. My Texas family, my mom and sister, all had a great time visiting. It was a memorable trip, with lots of stories from my mom and her sister about their childhood.

Kalaloch Beach taken from path.

This is Kalaloch beach. It has a lot of sand and driftwood, and the ocean for as far as you can see! The kids got their feet wet here, but the undertow was strong so there was no swimming.

Looking back at path to beach.

The path to the beach, with the gazebo at the top. This stop has a lodge, with a gift shop and small cabins we rented when I was young. It's about the halfway point of the drive.

Texas family getting their feet wet in Pacific Ocean.

What fun to watch the kids stick their feet into the ocean. Children are always so fun to have on a trip like this!

Standing by the Lodge at Kalaloch Beach, looking at a small inlet.

Path to Ruby Beach, with ocean in background.

We grow big trees in Washington State.

Path continues down to the beach.

View of ocean through the trees.

Ruby Beach with islands off the coast.

The path to Ruby Beach was longer than the others, and a lot steeper. The views were really awesome though!

I must go for now, many things to catch up on. I will have some pictures from the Hoh Rain Forest, and from Hurricane Ridge in my next post. I wish we had time to stop at Crescent Lake, it's beautiful too! We did drive by it, but it was getting dark and we all were ready for our hotel beds for the night! This was a two day trip, but really should have been done in at the very least 3 days. For more information about this area try the National Park Service website.

It's JUNE! Summertime is here....

2011-06-02T10:48:00.000-07:00

Or is it? I woke up this morning and it just never occurred to me that when you live in the mountains you might wake up to this:

Yes, that is an apple tree with flowers finally starting to bloom, covered in slushy snow.

I sometimes forget about living in the mountains, but occasionally it is made clear to me that living at 3800 feet above sea level is different than where I grew up.

That is slushy snow falling in the background of the picture, the type that chills you right down to the bone. There was so much of it that it made the picture look out of focus.

I think you can just ask the kitties what they think about this snow. They have spent the morning trying to keep warm!

Or the Australian Shepherd who takes his job very seriously and has to monitor the outside kitties when they leave the yard...

That is one sad wet looking puppy dog! He won't leave his post to come dry out on the porch, till all his kitties are back home on the front porch.

Note: This is a blog post, if you want to see the rest of my posts click on this link: http://journeywithbaking.blogspot.com/

2011-06-01T12:15:00.001-07:00

Getting to big for the rocking chair. Spilling out both ends!

2011-06-01T10:52:00.001-07:00

He is so cute!

BBA Lavash Crackers

2011-05-30T17:04:00.000-07:00

This is my version of Lavash crackers, using the formula from Peter Reinhart's book. I adapted it by using 100% white whole wheat, and adding a little extra liquid to get the right consistency. Here is the dough, ready to put into the fridge overnight to give it more flavor.

I pulled the dough from the fridge this morning, and put it into my dehydrator at 80* F temperature setting. Allowing it to warm for 90 minutes, before stretching it out and sprinkling flour on top preparing it to be rolled with a rolling pin.

If I make these again, I will split the dough in half and roll it even thinner than I did this time. The edges were a lot thinner than the middle and when I baked this the edges were thin crispy and crunchy. I liked them a lot better than the slightly thicker portions in the center.

I sprayed the dough with water, then added rosemary, garlic, and Kosher salt. Then I used a pizza cutter to cut them into smallish squares. I wanted crackers you could spread a little bit of cream cheese spread on, and take a couple bites of. Then I gave it time to rise a little bit, about 1/2 an hour while the oven warmed to 350* F.

This is how thin the outer edges were, which was just about right for this cracker.

Here they are all baked and cracked apart into individual crackers. The thicker ones are crunchy, and not hard, but still I think would have been better about half as thick.

This shows you how thick the center ones were.

Links to my fellow baker's in the Bread Baker's Apprentice Challenge, 2011! Here are links to their versions of this cracker. They are all very talented baker's, who have gotten together to share their results from baking the Bread's in Peter Reinhart's book Bread Baker's Apprentice.

Our host Chris at A Ku Indeed
Jim at OvenMinded
Coz at Scratchbaker

Some laps are awesome

2011-05-30T10:20:00.000-07:00

They say a picture is worth a thousand words...

Last summer I had a house filled with family, it seemed all summer long there were people around who spoiled this kitty. He is my Mom-in-Laws kitten, but during the winter she goes to where it is warmer. The older I get, the better that sounds! Smoky though didn't understand when he was so used to having a ton of people around, plus a brother to play with, why suddenly there was only my husband to hang out with. They spent about a month, just the two of them, alone. He felt totally abandoned and really got attached to my husband, and when I came back he would hardly give me the time of day. In fact to this day he follows my husband everywhere he goes. Weird kitty....

Hamelman's Pissaladière Page 275

2011-05-29T16:16:00.000-07:00

I was actually quite skeptical about this one. First I have never had pizza without sauce on it, and second putting fish on my favorite food, well it just sounded rather bad. I decided though that I would give it a try, and I am actually rather surprised that I thought it was pretty good. Anchovies are not my favorite topping, and I will not be in a rush to put this on any of my regular pizza's, but I would definitely eat a pizza that already had them on it.

Here I sliced my onions, soaked my thyme in extra virgin olive oil, and have my can of anchovies ready to slice into thin pieces.

I adapted this recipe to use 100% whole wheat white flour, which means the dough will have lots of flavor and probably won't rise very high. I prefer the White Winter Wheat berries for this type of recipe, so that it gives me flavor but doesn't overwhelm the other flavors of topping etc.

I saved half the dough for hamburger buns, and used a 1 lb chunk for this recipe. While the dough was doing it's 2 hour first rise, I sauteed the onions and sliced the anchovies. Sauteed onions are one of my favorite foods, although normally I just chop some sweet onions and put them on top of my pizza to bake while it bakes. I chose not to use garlic in this recipe, although I do love fresh garlic most of the time.

I stretched the dough out to approximately 12" x 6" rectangle, since I think it helps the dough's crumb to not use a rolling pin. I actually didn't have to flour the surface of this wonderful cooking mat, and didn't use any oil on it either.

Next I moved the dough onto a sheet of parchment paper, which I believe is one of the most awesome inventions of all time. I then placed the onions on the dough, you can see the olive oil and thyme coated the top. I then chose to put both black olives and green olives onto the top. Just so you know, green olives are really good on pizza. I have never thought of trying this, until I was reading how Lutz on Mellow baker's did hers.

This is the dough after it has done it's last proof, which I actually chose to do a full hour rather than the 20 minutes that was suggested in the book. I actually needed to give my baking stone a chance to heat for 45 minutes, or it wouldn't have worked well for that initial rise and crisp crust.

I love how thick and poofy the dough looks here, and this is where I figured out that this not only doesn't have sauce, but it doesn't have cheese on it either! This is also the point I almost stopped, disregarded all instructions and put the cheese on. I had a mental debate, inside my head, something like this: Pizza has cheese. You should be willing to try new things. But pizza has cheese, and sauce. You can't decide you don't like something without trying it. Bbbbbbbbut... !!!!!!

From HamelmansPissaladiere

If you look at the picture you will notice, it does NOT have cheese. My DH and I each had two small pieces, and actually enjoyed them!!! I then however, could not stop myself and put a mix of parmesan, mozzarella, monterey jack, and cheddar on the top and guess what! We actually enjoyed our pizza. I will say it is not our favorite, and we would both choose pepperoni over anchovies, but it was actually ok.

I am working with a group of baker's which call themselves Mellow Baker's and we are baking from a book called, Bread: A Baker's Book of Techniques and Recipes by Jeffrey Hamelman. Come check the forum out, it's a pretty laid back group who bakes what they can when they can with no time pressure's on them. There are a few recipes that are suggested for each month, and we simply bake the ones that we want to.

Death from above...

2011-05-26T15:27:00.000-07:00

I think I need to find a new place for my bird feeder! I am thinking that the bird is going to lose in this situation.

What do indoor kitty's do all day?

2011-05-26T12:08:00.000-07:00

Well, first they eat and sleep a lot, but occasionally they find a pastime that is a lot more amusing for them.

Sylvester says something is happening outside!

Yes, there is definitely something going on.

See that faint shadow in the tree?

He's not sure exactly what that things is, but he knows he would like to play with it.

Black Headed Grosbeak Grosbeak info

This is going to be a long day for Sylvester, camping out just hoping it comes inside.

As I was taking these pictures, my daughter sent me this link to a cartoon. I thought it really fit what Sylvester was going through, so I included it for you all to see!

Predatory Friend

Now wasn't that funny?

It's froggy this morning...

2011-05-26T07:08:00.000-07:00

Did you know there are two 5 o'clocks in one day? This morning I discovered this. I actually knew the other one existed, and even occasionally see it, but after the kids left home I rarely get up before about 7 am much less actually leave the house and venture outside. Most of you wouldn't believe I actually went outside at that time in the morning, so I will just confess right now and say that my honey took these pictures. This is what our mountain looked like as the sun was rising, covered in fog from the massive amounts of rain we received yesterday.

We also had a layer of frost everywhere, as you can see on the trees above us. It's hard to see it lower down, but our cars were covered with it.

Today looks promising, with blue sky, but I am told that it is not supposed to be a warm day. Maybe I should go back to bed and sleep some more....

My honey's birthday...

2011-05-25T14:22:00.000-07:00

Note: If you want to see the pictures in their online album click the center of the slideshow or picture. If you want to control the slideshow, click towards the bottom of it and controls will appear.

It was a really low key day, due to the fact that he ended up working for 10 1/2 hours and had planned on taking the day off. Otherwise, it was a beautiful days, filled with flowers...

Spring growth on our trees, new sprouts in our container gardens, and dandelions in our fields....

And a sexy man at the BBQ, showing me exactly how to make the meat juicy and tender. BBQ Pork Ribs, marinated in BBQ sauce w/wine & BBQ Mushrooms marinated in olive oil & balsamic vinegar, He might be a year older, but definitely getting better....

PS: He really does cook meat a lot better than I do, but even if he didn't I would never tell him and risk having to cook my own meal!