SOURDOUGH BREAD AND ITS BUDDIES

 

 

After various tries, I finally made a successful batch of sourdough starter. I followed all the guidelines before, but sourdough is its own little person and can be persnickety once in a while. I had to get it right to my house temperature, my flour and my timing. Then I made my first sourdough loaf of bread and it was love at first bite.

Sourdough peaked my interest because it is usually tolerated better than regular yeast breads for those of us with stomach issues. It is actually touted as the healthiest bread because of the fermentation process which produces probiotics to keep the gut happy. 

It draws its rising power from wild yeast and lactobacillus rather than commercial yeast. This yeast neutralizes the phytic acid which is found in the bran part of the wheat. The lower phytate levels make it more digestible and nutritious and less likely to spike blood sugar levels. The downside is that the wild yeast requires a longer rising time, However, this in turn starts breaking down the bran of the grain, making it more digestible.

The trouble is that, every time you “feed” the starter, you discard part of it or it would literally take over your kitchen. This seemed such a waste. So, I started doing a little investigating and found that sourdough isn’t just for bread. There are sourdough pancakes, waffles, cookies, pizza crust, dumplings, gravy, white sauces, batter for root vegetables and fish, flatbreads, soft tortillas, cakes, muffins and more!

So, move over bread, and let us try some of your buddies like:

 

SOURDOUGH PANCAKES

 

4 oz sourdough starter (can be the discard)

1 ½ cups buttermilk

1 ½ cups flour

1 T honey

2 eggs

4 T melted butter

1 tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

Mix the first four ingredients and let it set in fridge overnight. Add the rest of the ingredients and then drop by ½ cup fulls on hot griddle.

 

PIZZA CRUST

 

1 ½ cups flour

½ cup sourdough starter

½ cup water

2 T olive oil

1 tsp salt

1 T honey or sugar

Mix the flour and salt then add the rest for a rough dough. Knead 5 to 7 minutes then place in an oiled bowl, turn once to coat all sides. Cover with a clean kitchen towel and let set for at least 6 hours and up to 10.

Preheat oven to 450* then turn dough out on stone or pan. Flatten to a disc, taking care not to deflate all the gases. Keep pressing outward until desired size. Oiling hands helps it not to stick. Top with your favorites and bake 10 to 15 minutes.

 

SOURDOUGH ENGLISH MUFFINS

 

2 ½ cups flour

1 ¾ cups warm whole milk

1 cup sourdough starter

2 T honey

2 ½ cups bread flour

¼ cup softened butter

1 ½ tsp salt

Cornmeal for dusting

 

Mix the all purpose flour, starter, milk, honey and butter. Cover with a cloth and let stand 30 minutes.

Add bread flour and salt and work dough until completely combined then knead 5 to 8 minutes. Grab a small bit and pull on it, if the fibers tear quickly, keep kneading but if it stretches and pulls smoothly the dough is ready. Form the dough into a smooth ball, cover it and let it rise at room temperature for 3 to 4 hours until it puffs up soft and spongy. After this rise, it can be put in the fridge overnight or cooked immediately.

Sprinkle a clean surface with cornmeal, roll dough to ½ inch thick. Use a biscuit cutter or a wide mouth Mason jar ring to cut rounds. Set on parchment-lined baking sheet, cover and let rise 1 to 2 hours.

Cook 7 to 9 minutes on each side in a hot griddle sprinkled with cornmeal. A thermometer should read 180* in the center when they are cooked through.

 

SOURDOUGH DOUGHNUTS

 

2 cups all purpose flour

¼ cup sugar

1 tsp salt

 

¼ tsp nutmeg

½ cup milk

¼ cup canola oil

1 egg

½ cup starter

 

GLAZE

 ¼ cup milk

2 cups confectioners sugar

2 tsp vanilla

Combine all doughnut ingredients, knead 2 to 3 minutes until dough is soft and supple, not sticky. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rest 30 minutes to an hour. Refrigerate for up to 24 hours or make immediately.

Roll dough to ½ inch thick, cut doughnuts and lay on tray covered with parchment paper. Cover with a towel and let rise 1 to 1 ½ hours. Pour 2 inches of oil in a 3-quart pan. Heat to 350*. Drop 2 or 3 doughnuts at a time in. They will sink to the bottom then float to the top. Cook a couple minutes on either side.

For glaze, heat the milk until simmering, whisk in the confectioners sugar then add the vanilla. Dip the doughnuts in the glaze or roll in your favorite sugar.

 

SOURDOUGH IMPOSSIBLE PIE

 

1 ½ cups starter

3 eggs

Salt to taste

Mix all and pour over any casserole filling such as stew, pot pie filling or others. Bake at 350*, pie crust will rise to top of dish and the filling will stay moist under it.

 

GRANOLA BARS

 

2 cups quick cooking oats

1 cup starter

1 cup dried fruits

1/3 cup pumpkin seeds

1/3 cup walnuts

2/3 cup chocolate chips

1/3 cup maple syrup

Mix all ingredients, pour in medium sized pan and press dough down. Bake at 350* 20 minutes or until lightly browned. Cut into bars.

These are just some of the ways to use discarded starter or regular starter. The discarded can also be refrigerated for a few months or frozen for up to a year. It also makes a great batter for fish or roasted vegetables, just add your own spices to it.

Sourdough anything is healthier for your digestive system than regular yeast. Sometimes it takes a little getting used to that tangy flavor but once you do it will make all those breads, cookies and other baked goods so much better for you.

Sourdough isn’t just for bread. Once you start using it for all these other treats, you may just fall in love with that natural bubbly little pet yeast in a jar sitting in your fridge!

 

 

 

THE DIRTY TRUTH ABOUT DIGGING DOWN UNDER

 

 

There are hobbies and then there are hobbies. Who would have ever thought that finding where poo has been would lead to buried treasure?

That is exactly what outhouse diggers, also known as privy diggers, do. I thought it was crazy and maybe an isolated incident a couple years ago when I heard that a “privy digger” was coming to my hometown to try and find treasure under what used to be an outhouse.

However, since then I have learned that this can be not only big business, but a lucrative one at that, and that there are societies of people around the country who seek buried treasure where outhouses used to be.

Outhouses were the go-to, literally for when anyone had to “go” up until the 1920’s when indoor plumbing began to replace these necessary out buildings. It turns out that there were a lot more things than poo that ended up down in the hole. Old bottles, jugs, coins, tools, guns, tea pots, medicine bottles and many other things are found “down there.”

The most popular treasures are old bottles themselves. Many privy diggers are old bottle collectors whose primary reason for digging is to unearth antique bottles that are buried in centuries-old feces. The real finds are bottles that were handmade before machines began cranking them out. Some of these relics sell for thousands of dollars each.

 

Why would bottles end up under a toilet? To start with, back in their day, the bottles were not anything special. It’s only the years that have added to their value. The outhouse was not only used for doing the duty, but also for disposing of bottles and other items that were considered junk in the day.

 

Before it was considered kosher for women to drink alcohol, many women would sneak their whiskey bottles to the outhouse to have a couple snorts and would dispose of the evidence through the hole.

 

There were also a lot of snake oil salesmen or medicine men that would travel from town to town back in the day and sell miracle cures in unique bottles. These concoctions claimed to be the cure-all for whatever ailed a person. Some of the concoctions contained heroin which would become addictive for those with an unhealthy taste for opiates. Many of these bottles can still be found intact on sites where outhouses used to be, a couple have even been retrieved with some of the contents still in them.

This passion isn’t really as dirty or disgusting as it sounds. Pathogens usually die off after three years so the remains is basically just dirt.

 

Since the outhouses have been long-gone for years, the biggest challenge can be to locate where they once stood. One method is to look for an old woodshed since the privy was usually pretty close nearby. Old pathways lined with rocks often led to the outhouse. Depressions or dips in the ground are often indicators of where they once stood. Most were located between 50 and 150 feet from the houses.

 

Old maps can be useful when trying to find city privies. Many of these communal outhouses are now in open fields.

 

Most outhouse diggers use a probe rod (bottle probe) to check for soft soil or voids underground. These probes are somewhere between six to nine feet long with a bulb at the end. The diggers feel for a wall from a brick liner or cistern. A scratchy crunch that wasn’t anywhere else around can be felt where a privy used to be.

 

They also note the color of dirt that is on the rounded tip of the probe. Most soil is varying shades of brown but historical poop is a dark black color. When they see black, they know they have hit pay dirt…literally!

Metal detectors are also helpful in locating digging spots. Deep seeking ones are the best bet to find large collections of treasures. They can’t detect glass but many of the antique bottles had metal lids or rings which the detectors can pick up. Once something is located, an area of three and a half feet square and five feet deep is scanned.

All in all, it is not a very expensive hobby to get into. All the basic equipment that is needed are a pinpointing probe, headphones, a sturdy-handled digging tool and some good gloves…just because!

Scott Hendrichsen is a UPS driver based out of Texas township in Barry county, Michigan. He keeps an eye out for houses on his route whose architecture suggests that the house is old enough to have had an outhouse. He then asks the homeowner for permission to search. Usually, the landowner is as curious as the privy digger to see what is “down there” and readily agrees. Sometimes they agree to split the found treasure.

Some diggers work in crews and travel to different areas, unearthing pieces of the past. What remains underground where there used to be outhouses are time capsules in backyards. Archeologists complain that diggers are tearing up and plundering historical sites. A lot can be learned about our ancestors’ lifestyles by what they left behind or, more correctly, below. Once it is dug up, it is destroyed. It all depends on one’s outlook though; you are either on the side of history or finding buried treasure.

By the way, this little tidbit has nothing to do with digging for treasure, but it is an interesting outhouse fact. Many outhouses have a cut-out moon in the door. This was because, in the time of the outhouse, many folks couldn’t read. So, a moon shape designated a woman’s privy whereas a star stood for men. Eventually, the moon shape, a symbol for women, became the symbol for all outhouses.

I have to say that digging under old privies isn’t exactly something I want to delve into even though it can be very lucrative. Outhouse diggers see it in a different light. Doing the dirty work is a privilege for them.

THE AFTER CHRISTMAS CHRISTMAS TREE

 

 

Perhaps the one day of the year that is the worst for me is the day that Christmas decorations come down and get packed away for yet another year. I, like many others, look forward to the Christmas season for a lot of reasons. One of them is the slower pace, taking time to relax and just enjoying family and friends. Putting Christmas away signals getting back to the normal.

The saddest part of this is disposing of the Christmas tree. If you get a real tree, it’s probably a family tradition to search the tree lots to find that perfect one. Then, you spend hours decorating it, making sure that all the ornaments are placed just so. Then, after Christmas, you toss that beloved tree out the back door, cast away without another thought of it.

Well, that beloved tree can still keep on giving. There are many ways to re-purpose it. It won’t seem like such a waste and it just may make taking it down a little easier. The good news is that all parts of the tree, the trunk, branches and needles can also be transformed into useful articles. Here are some of the ways to preserve that tree:

*Give it to the birds, literally. Instead of just tossing it out the back door, take it a little further and secure it upright. Birds love sheltering in its branches. You can also hang suet cakes and small bird feeders in it to give them a meal and provide you with hours of entertainment.

A fun project for kids, older folks or anyone is to string Fruit Loops, Cheerios, popcorn or anything else edible and then “decorate” the tree again by stringing these strands around the tree. Birds love their snacks. Another advantage of sharing your tree with the birds is that it will keep drying out while they are using it and later in the summer you can repurpose your already repurposed tree and use the dried wood for crafts.

*Discarded trees aren’t just for the birds though. This year a friend asked anyone not wanting their trees to drop them off at her place for their goats. It turns out that goats love to munch on the branches; it’s a treat for them!

*Place your used tree by ponds. Fish love shady hiding spots.

*Needles can be added to the compost pile. As a matter of fact, the whole tree can be used for mulch in the vegetable and flower gardens.

*If you burn wood, the trunk can be cut and used for firewood, after it has dried so creosote won’t be a problem.

*Greenery can be used for wreaths, window boxes, urns and pots to keep a little cheer around throughout the rest of the season.

 

*There are all sorts of things that you can do with the wood itself. However, especially for indoor projects, keep in mind that not long ago it was a living tree which means it still has lots of sap which can be messy and sticky. Also, for indoor projects you will want to de-bug the wood. To keep from getting little critters in your house, line a baking sheet with parchment paper, lay the wood slices on them and bake for three hours at 175*. After this, the wood should be ready to go for all sorts of indoor projects.

*Slabs of wood can be made into wood slab wreaths, coasters and seasonal ornaments. Paint letters on them and string them across a wall to spell out words such as a child’s name in his/her room, welcome signs, etc.

*Tree branches make rustic coat hooks or shelf supports.

*The trunk itself can be cut into various projects. Cut a section, drill holes in it for tea lights. Use its own greenery around the candle holder to add festive accents.

*Make wood stump snowmen. Cut the trunk into different sizes and stand up vertically. Cut a slant on the top and paint a hat, face and buttons on the front to resemble a snowman.

*Make a didgeridoo. It’s a primitive aboriginal wind instrument.

*Many outdoor projects can be fashioned out of the trunk and limbs too. They make unique garden trellises and arbors.

*Log bird feeders can be used over and over.

*Wood slice garden path stepping stones are another use.

Even if you don’t partake in a real Christmas tree every year, artificial trees can be turned into useful décor when their time as a tree is up. Sometimes it’s just time for a new one. Use the branches of the old one for many of the projects listed above. One advantage here is that the wreaths, garland, swags and other items made from the branches of an artificial tree can be stored and used year after year.

It’s nice to know that a tree that was cut down and brought so much joy for the Christmas season can keep on giving all through the year.