Okay, it is Monday and I have the day off from my regular job. My boss says I put in too many hours and he is trying to be tight fisted with the owners money. Commendable but not good for my pocket book. So, it is good the I am looking for alternative ways to supplement my income.
I talked to my mother yesterday and we discussed sourdough bread cultures. I was sure that she had made one when I was a child but she said I was mistaken but did say that she had a wonderful recipe for a starter from my Grandmother and that she would be forwarding to me. I can't wait. I'm tempted to try several different recipes to find one that I prefer. One of the blogs I follow, Wild Yeast, has a sourdough starter recipe that uses either pineapple or orange juice as the liquid base. I thought that would produce a very distinct flavor. In a hour I am leaving to go pay rent and go shopping and will pick up some orange juice and some pineapple juice as well as some King Arthur bread flour to do a few trials on the starter. It will take a few days to see if I can culture some wild yeast so maybe by Saturday I will be baking! I am very excited and hope to report that at least one of my sourdough starters started!
Monday, January 3, 2011
Saturday, January 1, 2011
New Year's Resolutions
A new year and new promises, well that's what they are, aren't they? Promises to do better, promises to achieve greater things or status, promises to quit, loose or even find something. I made a mental list while driving to work on New Year's Eve, of course I forgot most of it the moment I shut off the truck's engine. My mind was flooded with concerns of the moment, my cooking to do list and if I was going to be employed in the coming year. My resolutions flew right out of my mind, good intentions all of them. My mother once said that the road to Hell was paved with good intentions. If that is the case I am well on my way to Hell and back again! My life is full of good intentions. Every day my list of good intentions is longer than my list of accomplishments. Is this normal?
My desire to build and use a wood-fired oven is growing in intensity, but I don't want it to become another item on my good intentions list, another New Year's resolution to be given and just as quickly forgotten. An ambitious smart phone app designing company is hip to this resolution problem, they have developed and are promoting an application for your phone that is supposed to keep you on track. The local newscasters are likening it to a wife, a nag. Ha! I don't need a wife to keep me on track, what I need is just a little bit of encouragement, a pat on the back once in a while, even just someone to point out a new recipe. My current has jumped on and off the band wagon already. Any project where I will do most of the work is number one on his list. In fact he is ever eager to find new work for me to do and heap it on me with a huge smile. Such as he will get this idea to purchase a food truck and quickly make that mouse sound, you know it, "we can do this" or "we can do that." The "we, we, we" noise. It always means a ton of work for me and a ton of glory for him. Oops, I just broke a resolution, that of being less critical of others. Oh well, the year is only one day old. I have 364 more to go!
Which brings me to what I really want to accomplish: baking wood-fired oven bread. One of the many decisions to make has been what kind to start with. I do know that I want to bake with wild yeasts, i.e. sourdough. I love sourdough bread. While in Sparks I was lucky enough to be given a jar of sourdough starter that was purported to be over 100 years old. Unfortunately I lost it while moving two years ago. It dropped on my new kitchen floor and the jar broke and thus had to be disposed of. I guess I could start my own tradition with a new starter. There are any number of recipes out there, including one using wine leavings. Not living in wine making country anymore kinda rules that recipe out. But that is just one of the items I will need to procure. Having narrowed down the list of types of bread to bake has made my recipe search easier. The types I will start with are the Batard and the Baguette. Simple enough and related.
The most difficult task on my list is building my oven. I have yet to decide on the location for my future oven so deciding on the look and the construction of my oven will come after that, but that doesn't prevent me from looking around and getting ideas. Wow, I never realized how many different designs for such a simple thing as a wood-fired oven there was. I Googled wood-fired oven images and got at least 40 pages of pictures. They range from simple little half domes on spindly legs to huge room filling behemoths! One of the many blogs I follow contained a photo of a neat oven (all covered in snow at this time of year!) with "YUM" in huge letters over the oven's opening. It was beautiful. I hope one day that mine will look as appealing. Oh, and the photo of the bread that he had baked in that oven was just as yummy looking!
Well, it is already 2:30 in the afternoon and the sun is starting to make its way to the horizon and I have been just a lazy slug, accomplishing absolutely nothing. What a great way to spend New Year's Day, don't you think?
My desire to build and use a wood-fired oven is growing in intensity, but I don't want it to become another item on my good intentions list, another New Year's resolution to be given and just as quickly forgotten. An ambitious smart phone app designing company is hip to this resolution problem, they have developed and are promoting an application for your phone that is supposed to keep you on track. The local newscasters are likening it to a wife, a nag. Ha! I don't need a wife to keep me on track, what I need is just a little bit of encouragement, a pat on the back once in a while, even just someone to point out a new recipe. My current has jumped on and off the band wagon already. Any project where I will do most of the work is number one on his list. In fact he is ever eager to find new work for me to do and heap it on me with a huge smile. Such as he will get this idea to purchase a food truck and quickly make that mouse sound, you know it, "we can do this" or "we can do that." The "we, we, we" noise. It always means a ton of work for me and a ton of glory for him. Oops, I just broke a resolution, that of being less critical of others. Oh well, the year is only one day old. I have 364 more to go!
Which brings me to what I really want to accomplish: baking wood-fired oven bread. One of the many decisions to make has been what kind to start with. I do know that I want to bake with wild yeasts, i.e. sourdough. I love sourdough bread. While in Sparks I was lucky enough to be given a jar of sourdough starter that was purported to be over 100 years old. Unfortunately I lost it while moving two years ago. It dropped on my new kitchen floor and the jar broke and thus had to be disposed of. I guess I could start my own tradition with a new starter. There are any number of recipes out there, including one using wine leavings. Not living in wine making country anymore kinda rules that recipe out. But that is just one of the items I will need to procure. Having narrowed down the list of types of bread to bake has made my recipe search easier. The types I will start with are the Batard and the Baguette. Simple enough and related.
The most difficult task on my list is building my oven. I have yet to decide on the location for my future oven so deciding on the look and the construction of my oven will come after that, but that doesn't prevent me from looking around and getting ideas. Wow, I never realized how many different designs for such a simple thing as a wood-fired oven there was. I Googled wood-fired oven images and got at least 40 pages of pictures. They range from simple little half domes on spindly legs to huge room filling behemoths! One of the many blogs I follow contained a photo of a neat oven (all covered in snow at this time of year!) with "YUM" in huge letters over the oven's opening. It was beautiful. I hope one day that mine will look as appealing. Oh, and the photo of the bread that he had baked in that oven was just as yummy looking!
Well, it is already 2:30 in the afternoon and the sun is starting to make its way to the horizon and I have been just a lazy slug, accomplishing absolutely nothing. What a great way to spend New Year's Day, don't you think?
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