Sourdough Loaf

I decided to try a different method for the weekly sourdough. For some reason, recent loaves have been a bit dense, even when using all white flour. This time I've tried some different flour and a different method. I used Shipton Mill flour (bought from local artisan bread shop 'The Loaf' when we enjoyed scrumptious pizza's at their weekly pizza night), and Laura Hart's sourdough recipe and method (click here for this). It makes quite a wet dough and is really easy to make. It feels a bit like cheating because you don't actually do any kneading, it's all in the stretch and fold method, which I did in the mixing bowl so there was less washing up. I did have a bit of a hiccough when I came to tip the dough into the 'La Cloche' because it stuck to the basket, so I had to scrape it out and then reshape it and then prove it again for about an hour (in a very well floured basket). This time it plopped easily out of the basket and after a quick slashing across the top, it was bunged in the oven. It did look as if was going to spread out and become a bit flat so I was quite pleased to see that it had risen quite a lot. I'm looking forward to trying it later today when the family come around for tea. Now I just have to make a cake of some sort.....

Cheese and Corn bread

Cheesy corn bread makes an ideal addition to a salad; it adds a  bit of stodge and makes a nice change from bread or baked potatoes. It is also really easy to make, which is an added advantage. The recipe I used was from the River Cottage Everyday book. I've tried a lot of the recipes in this book and have enjoyed many of them. They don't include loads of hard to find ingredients and a lot of it is 'store cupboard' type recipes which are my favourite sort because I'm more of an impromptu type of cook, usually starting with a rummage through the fridge and thinking 'we need to use this up so what can I make from it?'. Having a flour mill helps because it means that I can keep a variety of grains eg spelt, barley, maize, wheat, rye, oat groats, millet, buckwheat, and quinoa in the cupboard and they have a much longer shelf life as grains instead of flour or polenta. The corn bread was made from maize and spelt with the addition of eggs, milk and cheese and bicarb of soda. It's really like a giant scone and made a very tasty bit of stodge, if I say so myself!

On an entirely unrelated subject I am absolutely amazed that my two remaining house plants (after moving house) are actually thriving and both in bloom. I've never had such success with either the Christmas or the Easter cactus, but they must like it here in our bijou temporary home as the Christmas cactus is flowering for the second time this winter.

Mechanical Knitting Mill

As promised a picture of my lovely knitted cord.  The wool used was from my stash and is Riot from King Cole. I bought it initially for a slow burning project I have underway  (ie unfinished) and it was rejected because it was a little thinner than other brands of double knitting wool and I was getting inconsistent results. It has beautifully blended colour changes and and was just too nice to throw out (as if I throw anything out).   It was perfect for the knitting mill as it is not too thick or hairy. I had wanted to use the rug wool to make a cord to use as embellishment for my basket, but it was too hairy and was not releasing cleanly from the needle hooks and so it just became a horrible knotty mess. I've found another ball of Riot but in a slightly different colour blend so will make some more cord later. Oh such fun to be had with a ball of wool!

Winter Wonderland, sourdough and welsh baking stone

January is whooshing past and I have so many things to write about. I think I will start with today and work backwards. Today was another winter wonderland day in Derbyshire. I opened the blind  to a beautiful sunrise and everything white over. I'ts not a photo failure, it really was that pink and purple!  

Yesterday there was a sprinkling of  snow at home with much more forecast so I elected to work from home. Information Technology has it's benefits and being at home meant that I had no travel worries. The main advantage was that I could start at 07:30 (after a lie-in), and then when the working day was done it was only 4:00pm and the rest of the day was my own. I quickly russled up a big pan of chicken risotto and a butternut squash and lentil dahl (all from the fridge, freezer and cupboard - I love impromptu cooking) and then did an hour's yoga before tea. And there was still loads of time left to crochet in front of the telly!

The picture above is my leather footstool aka wool store which also doubles as my work table. Gone are they days where I had a whole bedroom as a playroom, at least for a short while. I'm currently working on using up the rug wool, which has proved to be so successful that I have actually run out before finishing the article in hand.  As you can see my basket is not very deep and is currently being used as a remote control store. Why are there so many remote controls and where are you supposed to keep them? Anyway, I've ordered more wool to make the basket more basket-y. It will probably end up being too big in the end, but hey ho, it keeps me occupied. As a stop gap, I've been planning my entry for this year's Bakewell Show 'Show us yer sheep' competition.  Obviously, it is going to involve some crochet :) and you can see my sample is underway. A lot more work is needed on this one though, so I will have to get on with it so that it doesn't turn into a mad panic at the end. 

One of the unexpected pleasures of our little rented abode is that we have the most marvelous view. I've just been watching the sunset as I type away and noticed a bright light in the sky which I initially thought was an aircraft. But, it didn't move at all. Aha, I thought, as my mind drifted on,  I bet it's a UFO. However, back to reality, it's not a spaceship, idiot.  I must watch (and read) too much sci-fi.  A quick google and it was revealed to be planet Venus. I watched it a bit more and then thought that it would be nice to take a photo, but by the time that I'd assembled the tripod and set up the camera a great black cloud was looming and it was just too dark to get it. I've left the tripod up in the hope that I can capture it tomorrow. That's guaranteed to make it rain!

Santa was good to me this year. In my secret santa letter, I suggested that it would be really nice to have a Welsh Baking Stone from the Bakery Bits website. The stone is actually a cast iron griddle and not a stone at all, and can be used on the cooker top as well as in the oven. Santa did me proud, and I duly received the baking stone with a few other goodies which included a packet of San Francisco sourdough starter. I already have a sourdough starter which has been up and running for over a year now. I now call it the 'Derbyshire' sourdough starter, although it was called Suzie in it's early days. The extract below is the description from the Bakery Bits website. I didn't really believe that it could be that much different to my Derbyshire starter, but after getting it going and comparing with mine it really is different. It has a sharper, more tangy smell and seems to be much more vigorous than mine, although I have only used it on white bread flour whereas I usually feed it with wholemeal.

BakeryBits is the exclusive stockist outside the US of this world-famous starter. This sachet allows you to quickly create your own sourdough starter, based on the same wild yeast that the early California goldrush settlers of 1849 discovered. We send our own instructions for getting the starter going with each sachet which can also be downloaded here.

Sourdough "starter", "leaven", "levain" or "mother" is a flour-based mix containing wild yeasts that give sourdough bread its distinctive, sophisticated flavour. Sourdough was as much part of the Californian goldrush of 1849 as gold itself. Travelling throughout the West in the back-packs of miners and settlers, it eventually found its home in San Francisco. The air in the Golden Gate region enhanced the bread made there with a wonderfully distinctive taste, thanks to Lactobacillus Sanfrancisco, a unique wild yeast which imparts the much sought-after flavour desired by bread bakers the world over. Once you have your starter, it will, if correctly fed and watered, last indefinitely.

I wasted no time getting the new starter....started, and took it on holiday at New Year.  Not as crazy as it sounds, as at the previous New Year holiday I was just at the beginning of my sourdough journey/obsession and took full advantage of the opportunity to bake a loaf of bread every day and have it taste tested by a load of foodies. So, again, the New Year crowd were subjected to a daily sourdough loaf to supplement the every day supermarket bread. Happily, it worked really well despite the unfamiliar kitchen and equipment which made it a real test of improvisation, and the daily bread was greatly appreciated. Several members of the group were inspired to bake at home and took home a sample of the starter to have a go themselves.  

Now a little about the Welsh Baking Stone. I didn't manage to try this out before the holidays, but had a go as soon as we got home. First of all it needed the protective paint to be scrubbed off and then it was seasoned by rubbing with oil and then baking in the oven for a bit. I was impatient to use it so as soon it was seasoned I made some dough, separated it into several balls, rolled them out into flat discs,  and heated up the griddle. This time I used the griddle on the hot plate so that I could handle the flat breads. It was so exciting seeing the flat discs of dough puff up and move around on the hot plate. Shrieks of excitement ensued -  I'm so easily pleased.  Unfortunately, I was so caught up with the excitement of it all I didn't take any photo's........For my second go with the baking stone, I followed Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's flat bread recipe from the River Cottage Everyday book. This dough didn't have any yeast - it was just flour and water. I really thought that nothing was going to happen and that my flat discs of flour and water dough would just bake into strange biscuits. Again, whoops of delight emanated from the kitchen. It's like a magic trick, it's sooo exciting. And flat breads to accompany our lentil and butternut squash dahl and rice for tea. Mmmm....

New Year

Happy New Year to you all. A little belated, perhaps, but better late than never. It's taken a while to get back into the groove. In fact I didn't pick up a hooky hook until this weekend, although I managed to finish the hearts and flowers garland. More of that later, first a few pretty pictures of our relaxing and restorative holiday in north Devon with a big group of friends over the New Year. It was crisp and clear when we arrived, no snow but lots of frost and brrrrrrr it was cold. We had a lovely local walk on the first day, all sun and frost and a gentle 7.5 mile meander through the countryside, ending in the picturesque village of Chulmleigh - in the pub of course! A roaring fire, some liquid refreshment and a game of darts. Fortunately, the fact that I only ever play darts at New Year doesn't make me stand out as a complete idiot, as most of the rest of the crew usually only plays at New Year as well. On New Years day we went the seaside. Westward Ho! was the choice of seaside venue, mostly because it was big enough to have the chance of having a tea room open. We didn't get onto the beach as the tide was in, but we did see some porpoises in the bay, which was quite exciting. Incidentally, Westward Ho! is the only place name in the UK with an exclamation mark as part of the name. An interesting but useless fact. The final picture shows the wobbly eye competition entries. To explain, we were given a pair of wobbly eyes each and were tasked with coming up with something amusing and original, (or just amusing). My entry was the crochet spider which was a pebble from Westward Ho! dressed up in a woolly crochet coat. I brought it home and now I'm not sure what to do with it. I did pick up a few more pebbles from the beach with an idea of using them in a possible xmas present project although I don't think that they will be spiders......

After the holidays, I finally galvanised myself and finished the hearts and flowers garland. I don't have room to store bits of wool so wanted to use up the left overs from the giant doily rug and our little flat really needed  a bit of brightening up as well. I had finished all the hearts and just needed to join them together.  The finishing touch was some pretty buttons bought in a lovely little shop in Exeter, so I had no more excuses for not getting it finished and up on the wall. I don't know why it is, but I struggle to finish things. I think it might be because I'm already planning the next thing and am raring to get started! Incidentally, the 'next thing' is a basket/bag sort of thing. I'm still using up the rug wool, so am going to keep going round and round until it's all gone. Does that make sense? It will all become clear when I have a picture of it.

Last minute presents

The last few days before Christmas were a bit of a mad frenzy finishing off some presents. The crochet hearts worked so well that I just kept making them. The little bag was made as a funny extra for my secret santa present. The last couple of years we've done a secret santa for the family as they are all older and everyone strives to make it amusing. This year I picked out a request for money towards a sat nav. Money is always welcome but a bit boring as a present so I decided to make a padded bag for the future sat nav and found some fab fabric with road signs.  A perfect choice. Since my sewing machine is being stored at my parents house I went over there with all my sewing stuff and quickly ran up a little padded drawstring bag. One of my sisters arrived and declared that the little bag was absolutely perfect for her sat nav, hint, hint, so I made another as an impromptu little gift. Great timing on her part!

Pappa al pomodoro

Or tomato and bread soup for those of us who are linguistically changed. I'm feeling sorry for myself today. I have the lurgy and spent much of the day snoozing on the sofa under a comfy quilt. I managed to rouse myself to make the soup for tea. I wanted to finish off the last of the sourdough loaf and the soup recipe based on a Jamie Oliver recipe was the perfect (and souper quick) way to go. Hearty and comforting, just what the doctor ordered. Served with a dollop of pesto it was just delicious. Now I need another nap....

Giant doily rug part 2

At last I have declared the giant doily finished. Well, nearly finished. The crochet part is finished and it is on the floor of our little sitting room being tested for sturdiness and practicality. It has already passed the test for aesthetically pleasing as it looks great - all bright loveliness to cheer a gloomy December, but I think it it needs to be stiffer and more robust. I've ordered some navy hessian to use as a backing and I might throw it into the washing machine to see if it shrinks and thickens up a bit. I'll keep you posted. In the meantime I'm using the remaining bits of wool to make coordinating flower and hearts bunting. I'm using patterns found at the very inspiring Attic24 blog. Well done Lucy for providing such a resource. I have books and magazines with patterns but most of my books are in storage so not much use for browsing through and I seem to have very little time for devising my own patterns. 

Last weekend, we spent quite a bit of time at the barns, but I did manage to make a sourdough loaf. It is such a forgiving breadmaking process as it needs plenty of time to prove, which just fits in with the time I have available for making it. For example, for the loaf pictured below I started it on Saturday evening with half the flour (freshly milled in the flour mill), some water and the sourdough starter and left it to slowly digest and bubble. At bedtime I put it in the fridge. The following morning I got it out of the fridge before I had a shower so that it could start to warm up again. Before breakfast I added the rest of the flour and mixed it in the Kendwood Chef for a couple of minutes, leaving it to rest for about 10 mins before adding the salt and mixing again.  While washing up I mixed it a bit more, added some walnuts and dates (I go where the mood takes me for bread flavourings), and then shaped it and placed it in the bread basket to prove. I left it a good 4 or so hours while out at the barns and when I came home it was ready to bake. Easy Peasy and fresh bread for tea!