Back to the Sourdough

My favorite use for the sourdough is flapjacks. When we first started and would have leftover batter, I could sometimes add some ingredients and make fine biscuits for lunch. But, the familiy grew, their routines changed drastically and biscuits weren't needed at lunch. And, I got better at estimating how much batter to fix.

For a time, we had a lot of outdoor cats who craved the carbs and I made extra flapjacks for them and the dogs.

Second favorite recipe was the chocolate cake. The texture resembles a cold water cake. When one of the children had a pioneer history day, we sent a chocolate cake so the class could sample some of the sourdough without a flapjack cooking mess.

I find myself wanting lighter bread than I've ever been able to get with sourdough. I have made it, but don't care much for it. I guess I should give it a try at this lower altitude and also expect the heavier texture, but try to like it.

I tried using the sourdough for the basis of those Herman cakes that were so popular in the 90's. I was missing something. Although taking one of those and adding a can of cranberry sauce made an interesting coffee cake.

I've had recipes for banana bread and cornbread that I've not tried to any great extent because I'm lazy. The regular way to make these has been working quite well.

Sourdough isn't very demanding, but neglect will kill it. Using it frequently is the best way to keep a light and tasty starter. I found if I used it even every other day, it didn't require refrigeration, but could sit on the counter. I have gone to keeping it in the refrigerator because I think it stays lighter in the cooler atmosphere.

Giving it a treat of extra sweetener from time to time or adding a can of beer to the batter makes for a perpetually happy sourdough. I like to use chunky things along with flour such as cornmeal, oatmeal, coarsely ground wheat or grain mix. I get a 7 grain mix in both flake and coarse grind at the health food store that I like to add. Bulgar works great. I've used the Hodgson Mills brand of Bulgar which has some additional soy in it to great success.

Old Timey Cooking

The first time I received a starter, the gifters said it was from Alaska and 34 years old. I had difficulty believing anyone could be diligent enough to maintain a starter for 34 years. The end product was interesting, but not something we would request every day.

But, mine has been going since 1971! We started it at a very high altitude and used it for years at that altitude or almost as high. The texture and flavor of flapjacks was devine. Since I had been feeling quite abused by other high altitude baking challenges, I felt pretty smart when my sourdough flapjacks were a success.

Then, we moved to a much lower altitude. Now, my sourdough flapjacks had that same old funny taste and resembled poor crepes. I tried various sweetener changes --- honey, sorghum, granulated sugar, corn syrup -- no deal. I tried various thickness of texture for the batter before adding any ingredients. No deal.

Then, last week, I decided to apply the principals of pancakes made from scratch. I added the soda to inhibit the sour of the sourdough, then I added some baking powder.

Schzam! I have much better texture and taste. I am a 'by guess and by golly' cook, so I'm still experimenting on exactly or close to exactly how much, but we're getting there and very happy about it.

Sipping Coffee and waiting out the storm

Big thunder boomies and rain here all night, but no storm damage. There will no doubt be some flooding in the "hollers", they aren't putting out weather channel warnings yet. People in other areas had the beejeezus scared out of them with high winds, hail and rain. Table Rock Lake and Branson were the worst last night. The TV people pre-empted much of the night with reports, etc. which is good. The rain has really greened stuff up. Forsythia is getting the yellow flowers. The one that got a good hair cut a couple weeks ago even has a few buds on it. Our neighbor and I were discussing how to trim the ones by the road as we don't want to give them a good hair cut. They are closer to the road, so their three big shrubs stop a lot of dust, noise and give them a little privacy screen. We have one right on the road that stops a lot of dust, with big lilacs paced across the grass toward the house. We're thinking that if we take the trimmer with us when we get the mail and whack a little, we can groom them, but not get us too dusty!

The local saying is that we are 2 weeks from a drought. I think we're cool for a few days.

Bird Cake

This winter I've had a chance to feed birds after living where there weren't many winter birds.

I have up to six suet feeders going during the coldest weather and have made several batches of suet cakes. But, with warmer weather, they won't be easy to use. So, we're experimenting with a greasy cornbread, laced with birdseed. The birds love it.

When we got rain this week, the cakes took a big hit, but as long as I left the feeders alone, they managed to hold up and the birds don't care. If they nibble and some saturated birdseed cake falls to the ground, there are more birds waiting to clean it up.

I have a real scavenger batch of birds and they like old bread, pancakes or dried cake. They just eat about everything.