Hi! Welcome to My Life in Food! I have to give credit up front to my good friend, Eve, creator and owner of militaryhandbag.com, for inspiring this blog. We have spent many happy hours in the kitchen together, and she suggested that I start writing about my culinary adventures. I used to enjoy writing, back in my school days and even in my working (outside of the home) life, but that was before kids. And we all know that any life before kids becomes a foggy haze!!
So, enough about me, on to the food! Today I will start with bread. I'm going through a sourdough phase. My dad was "thinking" about starting some last fall, and when life slowed down in January, I started hinting that he could go ahead and do it. So with some of his starter, I have been making two or three things every week, including whole wheat sandwich bread, soft pretzels that were out of this world, buttery soft whole wheat dinner rolls, waffles and pancakes. I also made a multigrain bread that was ULTRA healthy, but not for the faint of heart. I saved some potato water (water from boiling potatoes), and I plan to get another starter going with that, to see how it tastes. I can't decide if I want to try capturing some wild yeast for that, or just go with some packaged yeast...I haven't made anything this week, but I have some homemade meatballs in the freezer that would make good sandwiches, so my next project will be sandwich rolls.
I LOVE IT!!!!!!!! Can we have recipe? Especially the Soft Pretzel... You made me cry... Thanks Lora!
ReplyDeleteI have some "Friendship Bread starter" in the freezer because I ran out of recipes and friends to share it with. I would love some your recipes, especially ones I can use in my bread machine
ReplyDeleteOk, here's the Soft Pretzel Recipe, I'll warn you, they're addictive! Friendship Bread starter will definitely work with this, but the result will probably be a little sweeter (not that that's a bad thing lol, you just might want to omit the sugar in the recipe).
ReplyDeleteSourdough Soft Pretzels
3/4 cup warm water (not hot)
1 cup unfed sourdough starter
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup nonfat dry milk
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon canola (or vegetable) oil
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 packet instant yeast
sea salt or pretzel salt
Place all ingredients except the sea salt in a mixer. Mix on medium speed until well blended. Cover and let rest at room temperature for one hour. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Gently press the dough to deflate it. I use my scale to weigh out 2 ounce portions, and I usually get about 15 pretzels. Roll each piece into a rope, about 18" long. To twist into a pretzel shape, first make a U. Then cross the ends over two times, and bring down to form pretzel shape. Hmm...it's hard to describe, I'll see if I can get pictures. I use parchment paper on a baking sheet. Brush the pretzels with water, then sprinkle with sea salt. Bake 25-30 minutes or until a light golden color.