Sourdough bread

Yesterday I posted a pic of the sourdough bread starter I had put together.  Well this is it today......

It has lots of little bubbles and appears to have risen and then sunk.  As far I have read it is supposed to do that.  It smells quite fermenty too - not a word I know - and that is a good thing.

So my next dilemma is what now.  The 'recipe' says to leave it sit for 3 days but other makers of sourdough say it needs to be fed.  The recipe says that too but does not say when or how to feed my starter.

I have pondered this all morning and decided to give it a bit of a feed.  It is only a small starter (1/3 cup flour, 1/3 cup water) and I would like to be able to make a loaf of bread with it on the weekend, so I think it needs a bit of bulking up.  To that end I have added in 1/6 cup flour and 1/6 cup water and given it a good stir.  I will do the same again tomorrow but add in 1/2 cup each water and flour.  That will give me 2 cups of starter which will be enough for a loaf of bread or 2 - I think.

Fruit Trees

Oh how I would love to have the backyard of my childhood!

We had plum trees, apple trees, pear and peach trees, apricots, nectarines and quince.  There was even a loquat tree over one of Dad's chook sheds - this was usually used for climbing in.

Needless to say his backyard was quite large for the suburbs.

My backyard is about 17-20m wide and around 8-10m deep - enough I suppose for fruit trees.  We have 2 sheds at one end, a small wood shed near them, a Lilac and a Birch tree next to the wood shed, a small aviary at the other end of the yard, a clothesline in the middle and another Birch and a large Plum tree next to the clothesline.  We also store 2 trailers and have 3 dogs that go in and out of this area.

The Birch next to the Plum died over winter - not too sure why.  I think maybe that the Plum strangled it or took too much of the water the Birch needed - but who really knows.  So over winter it will be coming out. 

Now the Plum tree is really out of hand.  It is too large to manage and we don't actually eat the fruit from it - it's a type of Green Gage so the fruit is small.  This season the cockatoos had a ball cracking all the fruit open and then the seeds to get to the kernels.  They did this when the fruit was still green - what was left was not enough to bother with.  So as far I am concerned this tree is also to go.  I will miss the shade it provides though - even if it's not on the house.

Hubby has graciously said that once they are chopped down he will square off the bed they are in and I can do what I like with it.  So this means I can put in other fruit trees - dwarf varieties.  I just have to decide which ones.  I am thinking apples and maybe a nectarine.  If I could find a skinny growing type I wouldn't mind putting another one in next to the red rose and something else along the back fence between the sheds and the wood shed.

Something like this....



I am also thinking of pulling out some of the flowering shrubs along the driveway and putting in berries instead.  Blueberries and raspberries would be nice.  I could train them to grow sideways along the fence.

What fruits do you have in your backyard?

Eating our own produce

Not that we have been doing a lot of that.  The odd handful of peas before Christmas, the even less frequent handful of beans since Christmas.

We should do well with the tomatoes though.  The bushes are huge and there is even fruit on them.  Maybe I should have staked them up and even done some tip pruning - but oh well.  Now to wait for the fruit to get bigger and to start to ripen.  I will have to keep a close eye on them as lots are hidden under leaves.

What I have picked though is Rhubarb - my first ever large fistful.  Didn't think to take a photo of it before it got cut up and cooked.  Some of the stems were easily 45cm long.  The variety I have is a green stem variety.  I am thinking I will get 2 more that have red stems.   Here it is all cooked and waiting to be eaten. 

 

I had an order for peach cobbler too.  So it got made with apricots 'cause that's all I had in the cupboard.  Here's the last of it on the left of the plate.  On the right is home-made granola topped with my rhubarb.  A more delicious breakfast I have not had in ages.

 

 

The granola (or muesli if you want to call it that) is a mix of rolled oats, corn flakes, rice puffs, desiccated coconut, chopped peanuts, dried pineapple, dried cranberries and honey.  I put it in the oven for around 20 minutes - minus the fruits - to get the honey to mix up a bit more.  It is quite nice.  Next time I will try to use shredded coconut instead and will crush the corn flakes slightly.

 

 

I am also playing with making my own sourdough bread.  This is my starter that I put together today.  It's 1/3 cup flour, 1/3 cup water, 1/3 tsp sugar and a tiny bit of dried yeast.  This will sit on the bench covered with a tea towel for 3 days before I add some more flour and water to make a loaf of sourdough bread.  I should end up with enough for 1 loaf and a bit more starter.

 

I am using a recipe/method from Linda at Greenhaven - here's hoping it works.