Bread Day

Greetings again!

Well, I took a chance. I've always wanted to bake fresh bread on a regular basis, but I haven't been that ambitious...or dumb. Right after I got my last paycheck I ordered the crock and sourdough starter from King Arthur Flour. It finally arrived in the mail and I had today off because I work this weekend. So I got the ball started with it last night.

I've got to say, my sourdough starter isn't NEARLY that white. I hope it isn't supposed to be. The good news is that it smells like it's supposed to so I think it will be okay. The thing is...this process takes FOREVER!!!! Both of my grandmothers used to make bread from scratch and I loved the results but I never really appreciated the effort so much as I have today. Between feeding and waiting and kneading etc. I mean whoa. I'm on another rising and I still haven't got any bread to show for it.

The other thing is that the recipe from KA says to throw half of each separation away and I couldn't bring myself to do that. I think my kitchen will soon be taken over by sourdough starter! Really. I've got one four cup measuring cup full, an eight cup measuring cup full and I also have the leftover starter in the pictured crock. I could probably make bread for a week and not use this stuff up. Sigh. At least it will allow me some experimentation.

This first batch is going to be an Italian style. I fried onions to a soft brown along with some garlic and that Italian Seasoning stuff I mentioned in a past post. It smells like heaven - but now my hands smell like onions cause I just kneaded the stuff into the dough and it's gonna make two loaves. We'll see how things go - wouldn't it be nice if it looked like the picture of bread to the left? Keep your fingers crossed. And yes, I'm feeling ambitions because I'm thinking that on Sunday I'll use one of the other starter bits to create "plain" sourdough.

Hopefully all this will result in nummy goodness before my house is so filled with bubbling starter it oozes out the front door.

Note: This made some excellent bread - though it took FOREVER to bake (feeding, rising, baking!) I didn't get any plain bread made, but the onion bread was good. I'm going to try again later.