So. Close.

When you’re trying to use up all the yarn in your stash, the potential for playing yarn chicken is high. Note the nine unbound stitches remaining. NINE. Ugh! I do not want one pattern repeat of yarn left over AGAIN in the stash. 

By some miracle, I had leftover yarn from my Shalom Cardigan (2009) that was a precise match, though not quite the right thickness.

The yarn substitution worked out perfectly, and after a nice wash, I have a cozy, squishy new lap blanket. 

And I can’t tell which corner has the substitute yarn for the last 9 stitches!!

Yarn is hand-spun by Anne Cohee for the 1990 Maryland Wool Show. The sheep was a brown Romney named Helga. I had 10.5 skeins of yarn, which was held double for this project.

So, the sixth Done by Monday blanket, the “Basketweave,” is ready for someone’s lap. Finally cut the ends off today, but the knitting has been complete for a month… 

These blankets have a true and recorded legacy. So fun!

And finally, a few baking projects. These sourdough rolls are wonderful, and I keep losing the recipe. So here is the LINK. I reduce the sugar to 1-2 Tablespoons. 

And for Easter I finally baked the gluten free Hungarian Hazelnut Cake. Prepare to drool and fantasize eating a slice every day! I took some suggestions from the comments and wrapped/refrigerated the baked cake over night. The apricot jam in the middle and whipped cream (with a little added powdered sugar) on top is also very good. I decided to freeze a few slices, and there was not harm done to taste or texture when I ate them a week later. I do think that I will split the layers next time and try the cake with whipped cream in the middle. Other suggestions were to add vanilla to the cake batter and some flavored liquor such as Frangelico to the whipped cream. 

Sourdough Resource

My friend Cindee is putting together a sourdough party for anyone interested in learning how to bake sourdough bread. She graciously invited me to participate, and so I decided to put together a list of resources and recipes that I enjoy. 

As I review the list, it occurs to me that since I am such a "waste not" personality, I mainly use discard sourdough for non-bread recipes. In addition, I come from a tradition of sourdough bakers who also use yeast in the recipe. My mother got her sourdough starter and rye bread recipe from a commercial baker. The combination of using lower-gluten rye flour, a huge recipe that makes up to 8 loaves, and the need to get many loaves out quickly, the recipe needed the yeast for efficiency. Finally, as I battled some crazy OCD in my younger years, one of my strategies for recovery was becoming less precise in some areas of my life. Thus I have no clue what hydration my starter is or any of the pickier details needed to make a reliable pure sourdough bread. My pure sourdough breads did not turn out great, so maybe there are a few tweaks I can make (that won't send me back over the edge) to help my technique. However, the starter discard works fantastic in any of the recipes below.

My favorite way to use sourdough discard are making the King Arthur's Sourdough Waffles. I like to use one cup white and one cup wheat flour. If you don't have buttermilk, you can substitute kefir or half cup yogurt and half cup milk. For pumpkin waffles, substitute one cup of buttermilk with canned pumpkin and add pumpkin pie spice to taste (one teaspoon minimum).

If cake is more your style, try this Sourdough Almond Jam Cake. The sourdough replaces any dairy, which is pleasant for anyone with a milk allergy. You can use any jam you like if you don't have mulberry jam on hand. This recipe is measured in grams and Celsius, but Google easily makes conversions for you.

The cake I made for the party is Sourdough Blueberry Crumb Cake. This cake has dairy, but doesn't contain nuts. 

Pie crust is an interesting way to use discard. When I tasted the crust dough, I thought it needed a savory filling and used THIS recipe for the filling. I don't think I had all of the ingredients for the filling so I substituted something. The dough was super sticky (probably my starter had too much water in it) so I squeezed dough into a pan and dotted the top with clumps like a cobbler. Reheat this potpie in the oven if you are lucky enough to have leftovers. 

Finally, my busy lifestyle takes advantage of my bread maker from time to time. I really like THIS recipe although I use one cup of whole wheat and 2 cups of white. If I plan ahead correctly, I mix all the ingredients together EXCEPT the 1 cup whole wheat, yeast, and salt. I'll put the flour on top of the wet dough, and carefully sprinkle the yeast and salt on top so it doesn't get wet. Then I program the machine for extra time, which gives the sourdough a chance to do its thing for a few hours before the machine starts its cycle. 

The last recipe is also a bread maker recipe, and it uses two cups of discard. You can use the same strategy for mixing everything together and placing the last half cup flour with salt and yeast on top of the wet ingredients and programming the machine for extra time. I will use at least one cup whole wheat in this recipe. You do want to be around when the bread maker starts. I usually need to add some more flour. Again, who knows how much water is in my starter, that I need to do this?!! If your starter is stiffer, you may find yourself adding another tablespoon of water. All of the rising agents make this bread very tall!

In case you are still looking for additional discard recipes, King Arthur has an extensive list that you can find HERE.  I'm getting hungry just looking at the choices!

You can access all my sourdough mentions at THIS link. I don't think there are many, but I'll add the label if I find some old posts that I missed. 

Let me know if you have questions in the comments, or hop over to our private Facebook page. Enjoy!

Sourdough Side Quest

A few weeks ago I was tasked with baking bread for a large family gathering. I had not fed the sourdough starter for many months, and after its first meal, it gave a decidedly understated one-bubble burp. So I was forced to look up a bread machine recipe that would allow for discard starter while rehabilitating. 

I ended up using THIS recipe and immediately started experimenting. I used one cup of whole wheat and two cups of white flour. The bread turned out well. The second time I used one cup of white, one cup of whole wheat, and one cup of rye flour and also added sunflower and flax seeds when the knead cycle beeped. It turns out I flew too close to the sun. The bread was very dense and moist. Still edible, just not my favorite. The third version I made, I put all of the ingredients except the yeast and salt into the baking pan and stirred it to combine. Then I let the dough rest overnight before adding the last two ingredients and starting the bread maker. The loaf turned out tall and fluffy, but with plenty of structure to handle cold butter. Now, I’ll just see if I can add more whole wheat and some seeds. That loaf is pictured below in the bottom left corner. I also think THIS bread recipe might have some merit as it uses more sourdough starter. 

 

After the starter had refreshed itself, the fourth discard was ready to be used in my mom’s famous recipe. It was the first time I tried making bread with my new KitchenAid, and the size of the bowl was perfect for handling the half recipe. I can use the paddle for the first stirring since it is a very wet dough, and then the dough hook for the second knead. Because I was able to use the machine, the dough was able to “show” me that I needed to add another half cup of flour. I usually bake a very dense and moist loaf using this bread recipe, and this time it turned out much better. After trying the overnight sourdough resting with the bread machine dough, I think I will try the same with this recipe and see if there is a lighter texture as a result. The three loaves were delightful!

Finally, since this is an early spring, I just want to mark the dates the crocus and daffodils first bloomed: March 1 and March 19 respectively. It’s a gorgeous day today, so I’m off into the yard to get some gardening started!

Baking and Food Updates

Hang on, friends, it's going to be a long post! I have so many windows open on my phone and computer, "saving" all the recipes that I have used to make our life delicious at home for the last few months. It's time to close all the browsers and save the info someplace more useful. It's still the pandemic and there is still a baking trend that I am a part of!

I found a new recipe for the Sachertorte. I really like how easy the chocolate shell was to apply and smooth. My comment for improvement would be to add additional apricot jam between the layers of the cake, or split the layers into more layers for more jam to sink in. This cake was moist and delicious and lasted most of a week at room temperature.

The popularity of regular challah bread at our house was lapped by even greater excitement about rye challah! I used Molly Yeh's recipe and promptly needed to purchase more caraway seeds. The nutty texture of the bread is delightful. The only downside of the recipe is that it only makes one loaf. I was smart and froze half immediately before it disappeared.

Some people want me to believe that cream cheese and olives is the best way to enjoy this bread.

The next cake we had to make and eat was pistachio cake with cream cheese frosting. Check the sweetness after adding each cup of sugar in the frosting. I used a lot less than recommended and still thought it was well-sweetened. The cake was outstanding!

Around this same time, we started harvesting our first arugula greens from the garden. 

And also were happy to have some radishes, though they quickly got woody.

I thought I would make a strawberry pie with this sourdough discard pie crust recipe, but it was such an unusual and savory flavor that I made a veggie pot pie instead. I highly recommend warming up the leftovers in the oven to avoid soggy crust syndrome. Super yummy, even if you substitute some veggies for others that you have on hand.

Impulse purchase of plantains? Make some plantain chips with olive oil and salt in the oven for 20 minutes!

Hands down the most delicious food I have ever eaten was this almond torte with strawberry sauce. I skipped the rhubarb because I don't really like it and didn't have any. This will be our birthday cake moving forward. WOW!

I once again had to save the gooseberries before the chipmunks sampled all the unripe ones. Instead of freezing the green berries right away, I stored them in the fridge for a few weeks and they ended up turning red after all!

Instead of making jam, I decided to try a gooseberry chutney instead. It was a nice change to the normal sweet stuff. The type of vinegar you use makes a difference, so I recommend not changing to, for example, apple cider vinegar...

I found the lemon lavender scone recipe my friend won the Indiana State Fair with a few years back. This was to celebrate our 18th wedding anniversary. I used Ponderosa lemon juice and rind from our own lemon tree.

New beets at the farmers market inspired an experiment to duplicate the salt roasted beets at the Purple Pig restaurant in Chicago. 

I cut and roasted the beets for 30-ish minutes with olive oil and salt at 350* in the oven. I mixed them up once or twice during the baking. Then I smeared peanut butter on the bottom of a plate, piled the cooled beets on top, added salt to taste, crumbled chevre and chopped pistachios on top. Oh my YUM!

Not pictured in this culinary wonderland was the peanut butter granola that The Farmer made, the "artisan" sourdough bread that turned out nothing like the video, but tasted amazingly of molasses, and an emergency peach crisp that I had to make when a box of peaches wouldn't ripen but started spoiling. 

Have a delicious day!