I don’t understand it. My kitchen looks like I’ve cooked a meal for the 101st Airborne when I’m done making….anything. Egg sandwich? Clean the range. Thanksgiving Dinner? Disaster! Bake two loaves of bread, make a double batch of tofu, and a summer pasta salad and I have to run the dishwasher AND wash the dishes and run a load of dishtowels! And clean every surface, the sinks, and the floor. It’s ridiculous! I keep looking for the Kitchen Fairy to come and clean but so far, no luck.
The thing I love about the sourdough recipe from Tartine’s is how foolproof it is. The detail in their cookbook and the abundance of step by step photographs really simplify what sometimes feels like a daunting task. I always wanted to try sourdough, but I was always a little intimidated. It all seemed so incredibly complicated. I especially love how the book teaches you about the dough’s characteristics and how to treat it with care. This is not a dough that you pound and knead. This is something you develop a relationship with.
The dough is very wet. The first step combines nothing but water, fLour, and your leaven (the sourdough starter/flour/water combo. You only stir it with your hands until the flour is moistened. Then you let it rest. You add even more water with salt in it by squeezing the dough around gently. You cover and let rise for thirty minutes. You don’t knead it. You gently lift it up and fold it over on itself, give the bowl a quarter turn, and lift and fold again. In the first two hours of rising, you do this every 30 minutes. You can actually see the character of the dough change with each gentle folding. I love the feel of the dough. You can feel the life in it. I’ve never felt that when baking bread before. This is an experience.
Once you get through all the steps, you can shape the round loaves in a towel lined bowl and pop them in the fridge overnight. I took it out at 8:00 yesterday morning and had two loaves of fresh, hot sourdough by 10:00. Once the loaves cooled, they went in an airtight storage container to soften overnight. Today, it will be a whole lot easier to cut the round loaf in half than it would have been yesterday. I’m taking some over to the former Mrs. FixIt this morning. She sent us three jars of homemade jam last week.
Today is our big trip into town for shopping and errands. Too many errands to count, really. I’m glad yesterday was pretty low key. Tomorrow is PT for Mr. FixIt and a trip to the farm to mow and do laundry. And the beat goes on…
❤️
“Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.”
Ephesians 5:21 NIV
#Homemaking, #Sourdough, #Tofu