Day 3 dawns and I finally get to engage a bit more with my Sourdough starter.
It’s been sitting for two days. Like a child, it must now have a morning and evening feeding – twelve hours apart.
I raised the lid on the glass container and there were bubbles, loads and loads of them.
Maybe too many?
Mary from Mary’s Nest said a wide glass jar allowed for better fermentation. I did place it on the benchtop near the, oh so warm, slow cooker all of yesterday, and it WAS a warm day weather-wise. Perhaps it was too hot for the yeast?
Have I killed this sourdough baby before it has even had a chance to grow?
Would there be bubbles and fermentation if I had indeed, killed it?
The mix smelt really yeasty, but perhaps too yeasty. I did a quick image search on Google. It didn’t look like mould but maybe it smelt like it? I decided to feed it and see if it would grow. If it was dead, it wouldn’t grow, would it?
As nothing much is happening on Day 2 apart from stirring the sourdough. The little yeast organisms can does their job fermenting on the benchtop.
Meanwhile, I thought I would share some abridged snippets of useful information.
Preservative and Chemical Free Bread
Sourdough is free from other types of breads that have oils, sugar, preservatives, and other chemicals in their ingredient list.
Besides affecting the flavour of the bread, chemicals and additional ingredients are often added to other breads because they can’t stay fresh as long as sourdough can or fend off mould as well. The presence of bacteria, due to sourdough’s unique fermentation process, improves sourdough’s nutritional profile. This allows for better nutrient absorption, improved gut health, and some studies have even shown fermentation alters the structure of carbohydrates in the dough for better blood sugar control and a lower score on the glycemic index.
Bread for Gut Health
Sourdough’s fermentation means it is gentler on our digestive tract and may be tolerated by those with a sensitive tummy. This is possibly attributed to the breaking down of a carbohydrate in wheat called fructans which can mimic gluten intolerances. Phytic acid, also present in bread and wheat products, causes digestive issues and sourdough bread neutralizes the effect of phytic acid on the body.
As varieties of wheat have changed over the years, it is possible the changes in composition of the grains, may be the reason some people assume they are gluten intolerant.
Shortcut to Making Your Own Sourdough
This Whole-Wheat Bread recipe recipe only takes 12 hours, compared to almost a week. Probiotic-rich yogurt and vinegar mimic the tangy flavor of sourdough without the need for a starter.
At the moment, fresh food is in short supply and it looks like we will have to find alternate methods of ensuring we have access to the wonderful array and choices of food that we have all grown accustomed to having in our pantry. Such as basics like bread, pasta and toilet paper…
D.i.Y is on the rise! Hopefully not with toilet paper but D.I.Y bread is very popular.
I have an idea to make my own bread, but I never had much luck with using dried Yeast.
Many years ago, I use to cook my own bread -it was a blend of whole wheat and white bread, something that you could not obtain in the shops in the 1980’s. It was delicious, albeit with large airholes in the bread but the taste was fantastic when it was just out of the oven!
I made this bread using compressed yeast. This method worked really well and I often made whole wheat fruit buns and fruit loaves and they all turned out fine. They looked a bit like this.
I don’t have any photos of mine to show. Clearly I wasn’t the shutterbug that I am now!
It seems you can no longer get compressed yeast – trust me I have asked around. Even the Bakers themselves, do not seem to use it any longer, so a sourdough starter maybe an alternative bread raising agent.
Plus sourdough is good for your gut biome as the information below indicates. (I know M-R will totally disagree if she reads this!)
Vitamin and Mineral-Rich
Sourdough is a great source of several minerals such as iron and selenium. Iron and selenium helps protect our immune system, cells, and tissue. Sourdough is also a great source of many B vitamins, which assist in proper nervous system function and help regulate our metabolisms.
Prebiotics are a type of indigestible fibre that keep your gut healthy by feeding the good bacteria, called probiotics, that live there. The presence of prebiotics in sourdough is thought to make it easier to digest than many other breads and the presence of probiotic cultures have shown to increase vitamin and mineral absorption. The probiotics themselves don’t survive the baking process, but the lactic acid bacteria produced during fermentation remains and provides the benefits. The presence of lactic acid bacteria in sourdough has shown to also contain antioxidant benefits, safeguarding your body against illness.
Kalesvara Mudra: For peace of mind, calming the mind and strengthening of memory – for treatment of tension, worry, anxiety and stress.
A quick and basic form of meditation is a simple way to ease the mind.
This can be practised at home, parked in your car or anytime when you can find a spare 15- 45 minutes. It can be used to relax and refresh the mind and spirit.
As an additional benefit, choose the meditation and accompanying hand posture in order to benefit a particular part or physiological process in the body.
Following the specific breathing technique for maximum benefit.
Daily Mudras is a free app with a timer to remind you when time is up. (Just in case you fall asleep).
Sit in a constant chair, on a floor mat or even lying in bed.
Choose your meditation music and desired time frame. (Select between 15 and 45 minutes).
Assume the suggested hand postures and press start.
Finding an energy-dense food that is not only rich in fibre and omega-3 fats but also contains higher amounts of antioxidants than most other foods and could improve brain health, sounds like a valuable addition to our diet. If we aren’t allergic, we can gain these benefits by adding walnuts to our diet.
Even though walnuts are rich in calories, studies indicate that they don’t increase obesity risk when replacing other foods in your diet… [and they] are the only nuts that contain significant amounts of Alpha Linoleic Acid or ALA. ALA is considered especially beneficial for heart health. It also helps reduce inflammation and improve the composition of blood fats.
If you don’t like simply snacking on Walnuts, and there is only so much Waldorf Salad you can eat, incorporate walnuts in a sweet baked delight such as Streusel Cake.
Streusal Cake Recipes
113g Butter
198g Sugar
2 Eggs
240g Flour
1 tsp Baking Powder
1/4 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Salt
227g Yogurt
2 tsp Vanilla
Streusel Mix Topping
100g Sugar – I used a mix of brown and fine white sugar
2tsp Cinnamon
Minimum of 1/2 cup of Walnuts, chopped
Prepare a 8 inch bundt pan or 9″x9″ pan and pre-heat oven to 350F – 175 C Cream together room temperature butter with the sugar, eggs and vanilla. Mix together dry ingredients in a separate bowl.
Fold flour mixture into the creamed butter, alternating flour and yogurt until well mixed. Spoon half of the batter into a prepared pan, sprinkle with half of the streusel and cover with remaining batter.
Sprinkle remaining streusel on top. *(I omitted this step) Bake at 350F for 30 to 40 minutes or until cooked through.
Cool in the tin for 10 minutes before turning out.
Variations to the Recipe:
I am going to increase the ratio of brown sugar to white sugar in the streusel topping mix and put in a thin layer in the bundt pan first, before adding the cake batter. That way, the cake will turn out with a streusel topping insitu.
I used a mix of fermented kefir and vanilla yoghurt, and it worked fine, so I am pretty confident any yoghurt, or even sour cream, will work with this recipe.
Here is how my variation turned out. Simply Delicious.
For full enjoyment, break out a gourmet leaf tea to accompany like this Royal Ritz flavour from The Tea Centre.
Thanks to Sandy for her recipe which was originally sourced from King Arthur’s Flour.
As a young child, at times in my teens, and now in semi retirement, I find great joy in sketching. Sketching doesn’t have to be perfect.
Sketching is almost a semi conscious activity. I let the pencil, or pen, do the work and don’t think too much about what I am doing.
In that way I find it is relaxing and therapeutic.
Sometimes it works ans sometimes it doesn’t. It doesn’t matter.
I’ve been making some sketches with a view to decorating a few basic Calico shopping bags.
Re-useable bags are going to be around from now on and they’re a great way to reduce our use of plastics.
I added a little colour to one of them as a gift to a neighbour. Asking her what her favorite colour was and then adding a little dry brushed/watercoloured style gouache, here and there.
They’re healthy, contain a vegetable and decadent with jam and cream:
They are Pumpkin Scones.
For Americans, do you call them Pumpkin biscuits?
The following is not my usual recipe.
But it is a great way to gain some of the benefits of eating pumpkin, particularly if you don’t like it or have children who dislike it.
Pumpkin is a great source of potassium and beta-carotene, which is a carotenoid that converts to vitamin A. It also contains some minerals including calcium and magnesium, as well as vitamins E, C and some B vitamins.
The following recipe comes from a controversial figure – a wife of a highly conservative politician, known for Electoral Gerrymander, who became a conservative Federal Senator herself, Lady Flo Bjelke-Petersen. The recipe is good, but I do prefer my recipe for Pumpkin Scones.
She could make a good pumpkin scone apparently, but the higher oven temperature on the following recipe, is way too high and will result in burnt scones. I would err on the lower recommended temperture rather than the highest.
Tip: I also pat a little milk on the top of each scone so that they brown up nicely. There is nothing worse than a pallid scone – it looks uncooked.
The self imposed reduction in social activities at the Home by the Sea, gives me a great reason to research how to improve my photographic skills. I regularly host Friendly Fridays over at my main blog, Something to Ponder About, and was tempted to join Travel Talk’s challenge which runs each month with a different focus point.
Texture
In examing texture in photography, I varied the light, angle and composition to enhance the subject. As these photos are from my archive, I had to edit them to enhance the texture and composition, by using the cropping function. Further, I increased the clarity in a photo editor to bring out more texture in the mushroom caps and adjust the light source.
Fungi are a great subject for photographers.
I love the structure of these small mushrooms caps. The stalks look as though they would not be able to hold a feather. The caps are so delicate, yet potentially so poisonous.
If anyone knows their scientific know, I would be glad to add that to the photographic file information.
Over at Traveltalk you will find the photographic challenge wherein we are examining textures in our photography.
A Home by the Sea 
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