A sourdough tutorial - Part 1

Some of you have asked about the sourdough starter, so I thought I'd do a post (well, 2 actually, I'll finish it off tomorrow) about it.

Firstly, Briony, don't worry, sourdough is a very slow process, from start to finish....it'll be a week or so before you see any action from your starter!

It's nothing to be scared of either, sourdough is not difficult to make.  It's not an exact science though and results aren't 100% predictable, it depends on so many things - atmosphere, temperature, type of flour used....and pure luck!  What I do may not be the 'correct' way to do it (like professional bakers do it, for example), but it's what I do and it's been fairly successful for me.  I can't guarantee it will be successful for everyone else though, so please don't shoot me if it doesn't work for you 😉😁

I used to make sourdough years ago and then stopped, I can't remember why.  This time around I'm doing it slightly differently and the first loaf I've made is really successful.  Years ago I used to take out some of the starter and throw it away every day, before adding more flour and water....I was following directions in a professional baker's book.  Now, I don't do that, I'm doing what a fellow blogger, Julie who used to blog as LovelyGrey but now blogs as https://makesmedotdotdot.com/?cat=6 , does.

So, for the starter - I'm using a Kilner jar....it doesn't have to be, you could just use a bowl or jar or plastic container....whatever you use, it needs to be a few inches deep though.  Start off by putting a couple of tablespoons of flour in, and enough water to make a runny paste, sort of double cream thickness, mix it well, although a few small lumps don't matter.  The flour I use is ordinary bread flour and rye flour - you don't have to use rye, I just like the taste of rye bread and happen to have some rye flour in the cupboard.  Leave the lid off the jar, it needs to capture the natural yeasts that are present in the air for it to start working.  Leave the jar out on the worktop, you don't need to keep it in the fridge....in fact, the fridge will slow it down considerably.  

Every morning, stir in a heaped teaspoon of flour, and a little splash of water.  For the first few days it won't appear to be doing anything much, and will just smell like flour.  After a few days though, you'll look at it one morning and it will be bubbling nicely and will start to smell distinctly 'beery' - it smells really nice actually, sort of fresh and fruity.  You may get a layer of golden brown liquid appearing on the top...don't worry about it, it's fine, just stir it back in with the flour.  Once the bubbles start appearing, then you can put a lid on the jar - if it's a Kilner jar then take the rubber seal off so the jar's not airtight when you close the lid.  If it's a plastic Tupperware-type container, don't put the lid on tightly, if no lid for your container or jar, just cover it with a teatowel or piece of muslin.  

After another day or two (or three or four!), your starter will be a mass of bubbles and quite frothy.....this is when it's ready to start making a loaf.  I'll post about that tomorrow.

Years ago I sometimes added yogurt, sugar or even a few raisins or sultanas to my starter....this time around I'm just using flour and water, and it seems to be working just fine.  My starter is now 2 weeks old, and this is what it looks like this morning, after taking some out the other day to make my first loaf, and adding a teaspoon of rye flour this morning:-

Taking some of the starter out kind of upsets the balance of it a bit, and it'll take a few days of daily feeding for it to get back to a frothy state.  It's a living thing and can be a bit temperamental!

Amazing bargains and sourdough success

Husband needed to get a couple of things in the town this afternoon, so we popped into Morrisons whilst we were there to pick up some dog food, there's a particular one Betty really likes.  I managed to get some excellent YS (yellow sticker) bargains....amazing, we don't often find really good bargains as we never seem to be in the shop at the right time.  They'd reduced a lot of fruit and veg, I got a net of satsumas for 30p, 3 punnets of chestnut mushrooms for 20p each....on date but still looking perfect, and a bag of 5 avocados for 60p!  Gobsmacked!

The mushrooms I shall put in an oven dish, dot with butter/oil and parsley and roast, then freeze them.  A couple of the avocados we'll have for lunch tomorrow, I'm thinking of making chocolate brownies with the rest, I vaguely remember seeing a recipe some time ago, will have to google for it.  The satsumas will just be eaten as is.  

My sourdough - oh I'm so pleased with it, considering it's my first one in 2 or 3 years.  The leaven I made with some of the starter mixed up with the flour into a lovely smooth dough, and it rose beautifully - I left it overnight and baked it this morning, after kneading and proving again in my banneton.  It baked well, rising again in the oven, and looks and smells fantastic.  The proof will be in the eating, of course - we'll have some tomorrow for lunch topped with some smashed avocado, bacon and a poached egg.

The dough after proving for a couple of hours in the banneton.

The baked loaf.  It's darker in colour than the photo - colours don't show up very well on my phone.

I've asked husband to buy me a Stanley knife, so I can make better cuts on my breads...he offered to fetch me one of his from the shed, I politely declined 😁

Tonight we're having a beef stirfry, another leftovers meal from the freezer.  I shall add a chopped yellow pepper and small head of broccoli to it, both going soft in the fridge and needing using today.  We'll have it with a ping packet of egg fried rice.  Easy meal as I've been gardening today and my back is murmuring.

Spag bol, sourdough loaf and a soapbox moment

Thank you for comments....Eloise, £120 p.w. for two people!!  Blimey!  And Janice and Gemma's P, thank you.  I just enjoy being inventive and experimenting, although haven't always been like that....when I was working full time, we had a lot of ready meals and takeaways.  I've always liked cooking and the odd bit of baking, but it was only really when I was in my 40s and started working part time that I started proper cooking, as it were.

I can only assume that people whose shopping costs that much must have a lot of ready meals or big brand items, or just buy whatever takes their fancy on the day.  I bet they have a lot of waste, too.  On the subject of which, somebody told me something the other day which made me gasp - they said when they have a roast chicken, they only eat the breast and throw the legs - well, all the rest of the bird - away!  I was staggered.  I think we owe it to ourselves, the environment and the animals whose meat we eat (if we are carnivores) to use up all the food we buy and cook.  Throwing perfectly good food away is criminal, the way I see it, as well as being stupidly expensive.

Right, that's me off the soapbox now....each to their own, I guess.

The slow cooker mince yesterday made 6 double portions to freeze, as I expected.  Well, 5 to freeze, we're having one (a smaller portion) as spaghetti Bolognese today.  The others I am sure will do us for 2 meals each, once I do something else with each of them.

A couple of years ago I used to make sourdough bread regularly, I had a starter on the go for several months.  Can't remember why I stopped.  Then recently one of the bloggers I follow, Julie who used to have the LovelyGrey blog but now blogs as https://makesmedotdotdot.com/ mentioned her sourdough starter, which made me want to do it, so a week or so ago I started up a starter again.  The past couple of days it's been bubbling away nicely and having that lovely fresh 'beery' smell, so I'm using some today to make my first new sourdough loaf.  Fingers crossed, I'll let you know how it goes.  Must have a look for my banneton (cane proving basket) in a minute, I think I know where it is...

Fishcakes, savoury mince and cauli cheese

Marlene and Joy, thanks for your comments....yes, I'm actually quite surprised how well we've done with the £100 monthly shopping budget, it's been relatively easy.  That's mainly because we do have a lot of food in the freezers/larder and I've been making a conscious effort to use that, rather than buying more food indiscriminately.  We have friends who've recently said they cannot get their WEEKLY food shop below £100 - admittedly, there are 3 adults in their household, plus a dog, but I'm sure they could spend less if they put their minds to it.  They are quite fussy eaters too, which I suppose makes it more difficult.

Today I'm using the slow cooker to make a large quantity of savoury mince, using 2x500g packs of minced beef, mixed veg (a third of a kilo pack of peas, sweetcorn, diced carrots and green beans), mushrooms and red onion, all from the freezer.  I'll add 2 tins of chopped tomatoes, 2 or 3 handfuls of red lentils, beef stock cubes, splash of Worcestershire sauce, big squirt of tomato puree, water from the rinsed out tomato tins, a spoonful of Vegemite dissolved in hot water, mixed herbs and seasoning and a handful or two of oats to thicken (thanks for reminding me, Joy).  It'll be portioned up when cool and frozen, to be used in the future for cottage pie, spag bol, lasagne, mince & dumplings, or chilli with the addition of kidney beans, smoked paprika and chilli powder.  I'm expecting it to make at least 6 portions for the two of us and, depending on what I do with it, each portion will probably make 2 meals for us.  So the minced beef, bought on special offer from the butcher at £1.69 for 500g (I got 10), will stretch to make numerous extremely economical meals.

I'm making fishcakes for lunch, using leftover mashed potato from Sunday, quite a lot of it (the potatoes were sprouting so needed to be used up).  I was going to use a tin of pink salmon and tin of tuna, but when I went to get the salmon out of the cupboard yesterday, realised I hadn't got any pink left, only a tin of red.  Well, I don't want to use that in fishcakes, as I love red salmon in a sandwich, so instead I'm going to use a couple of jars of cheap salmon paste along with the tuna.  Husband discovered yesterday that my pot of parsley in the garden is growing again, I really thought winter had killed it off completely, so I can use fresh parsley instead of dried in the fishcakes.  We'll have a couple with salad for lunch, I expect there'll be several to freeze as well.

For dinner tonight we're having cauliflower cheese, using a bacon, leek and cheese sauce I'd previously made double of and froze the other half.  We'll have it with sautéed courgettes and yellow peppers.

So from the freezer today:-

2x500g packs minced beef
Mixed veg
Mushrooms
Red onions
Bacon, leek & cheese sauce

But...several mince meals and fishcakes will be going back in!

Another out of the freezer meal, and 3rd shop

We did our 3rd shop from this month's £100 food budget, it came to £21.85.  Running total £77.84, leaving £22.16 for the final week.  I think we're doing alright, I know we won't need much so should stay within budget.  Next week in our Lidl they're giving away a 200g jar of coffee as part of their 6-week opening offer freebies, handy as we'll need coffee by then!

Today we're having leftover cottage pie, previously made and the leftovers frozen 2 or 3 weeks ago.  There's not a huge amount of the cottage pie, enough for a small portion each, but we have loads of veggies to go with it....Savoy cabbage and roasted carrots left from yesterday's dinner, frozen green beans and peas.  We also have mashed potato left from yesterday, I shall make fishcakes with that for tomorrow's dinner, using tinned salmon or tuna (or both).

Tomorrow I'm going to use 2 packs of minced beef from the freezer (500g each) to make a big quantity of savoury mince and veggies in the slow cooker.  It'll be portioned up and frozen for Bolognese, cottage pie and lasagne, and kidney beans/spices added to some for chilli.  With 2 tins of chopped tomatoes and plenty of frozen veggies cooked with it (diced mixed veg, mushrooms and spinach) and some red lentils, it should make a lot of portions.

Backache and bangers

Thanks for the comments on our Valentine's meal.  It is nice to go out for a meal occasionally.

As I'm out of commission at the mo (terrible backache), husband cooked the dinner.  We had sausages, spicy wedges and baked beans with onion sauce out of a packet....you know what, it was blimmin' lovely!  

Sometimes I get so focused on cooking from scratch and coming up with creative meals, it's easy to forget that simple bung-it-in-the-oven type meals taste just as good.  Especially when somebody else cooks it!  
(and he'll even do the washing up.  What a treasure.)

Gemma's P, Marmite is generally on the shelves where the jams (jellies?), marmalade, peanut butter, etc are.  I hope you find some.  And that you like it!  As I said before, it is most definitely a love it or hate it thing.

Valentine's dinner review

I'd been warned by a friend who'd eaten at the pub last year, along with his wife, and didn't like it...in fact his wife was ill afterwards, he said.  I did worry about that before we went...but we'd already paid half in advance, so we were going no matter what.  Well, I'm pleased to say the food was fine, as are we.  One or two things could have been better, though.

My starter was chicken liver pate (they called it parfait...pretentious, it's a local village pub in Somerset, not some minor celebrity chef's place on the banks of the Thames) and plenty of it, with a heap of very colourful salad, homemade red onion marmalade and toast.  The pate was delicious, as was the relish (husband ate my salad).  2 things let it down - the toast was 1 slice of ordinary cheap white sliced bread, and the dish was served on a piece of black slate.  A pet hate of mine - what's wrong with plates?!?!  Husband had 'sautéed scallops served with roasted cauliflower, pancetta lardons and cauliflower puree'.  When it arrived, his face was a picture - 3 small scallops with 3 tiny, I'm talking miniscule, florets of roasted cauli, a teaspoonful of lardons and a few dots, my smallest fingernail sized, of cauli puree.  He liked it all but said there was barely enough to taste, hence why he ate my salad and some of my pate and relish - there was too much of mine!

For my main I had 'serrano wrapped chicken stuffed with mozzarella, pesto and sun blush tomatoes in a tomato and chilli sauce', it came with new potatoes (plenty of them) and a massive amount of French beans.  The chicken, a large breast, was lovely and moist, the stuffing delicious, my only complaint being that the serrano ham was overdone, crispy and dry.  Fortunately, there was plenty of the sauce, which had large pieces of sun blush tomatoes in it and wasn't too spicy, it was really nice.  The potatoes were overcooked though, but the beans were underdone.  

Husband, bless him, had obviously drawn the short straw again with his choice of main course - 'slow roasted pork belly with fondant potato, black pudding, apple crisp and cider sauce'.  He also had French beans, although not as many as me.  The pork belly was 3, I kid you not, 3 one-inch sized cubes, with 2 round brown things which we first thought were miniature pork pies - they turned out to be the fondant potato.  One disc of black pudding, he didn't even notice the apple crisp (if there was one) and a tiny amount of sauce which he said tasted of nothing much.  Again, he ate quite a lot of my main course, there was too much of everything for me.

Oh, I forgot to mention the best bit....after our starters, we had a gin & tonic sorbet served in sherry glasses.  It was absolutely gorgeous, I could happily have eaten a whole big bowlful of it.

For dessert, I had crème brulee with a homemade shortbread biscuit.  Now, I like crème brulee, I've had it several times over the years, it's always been a very smooth, very creamy custard with, of course, the caramelised sugar topping.  This one, although very nice tasting, wasn't smooth or custard like - it was more like rice pudding!  Not smooth at all, a bit lumpy and quite solid, but as I said, it did taste quite nice.  I think the chef must have been distracted when he was making it.  The shortbread biscuit, which was clearly homemade (by a child, by the look of it), tasted of nothing, however.  Husband had cheese and biscuits with grapes - fine, nothing remarkable but nothing to complain about either.

In conclusion, on the whole we both liked the food, with a couple of reservations, husband's gripe being there just wasn't enough of it for him.  However, I do think that I could have cooked it better myself (and cheaper, and enough of it to satisfy husband) at home.  But it's nice to have dinner cooked for us and not have to wash up afterwards, and we enjoyed the evening with our friends, who are good company.

Oh, we also had a complimentary glass of Prosecco with a fresh raspberry in it upon arrival, which was a nice touch.