Another January

Finding myself with too much, to say, I say nothing. So, today, I’ll go the other way and say – um – something.

Silence hasn’t meant that anything is wrong, it’s all okay at the Zedery.

Last summer, after I’d turned the Aga off, I was careless and let my sourdough starter die. I could make perfectly good bread in the air fryer I bought to replace the mini oven that barely heated up, but it was no pleasure and Pete on the Thursday market makes lovely bread and, well, I was lazy. But I made naan bread, with yeast, a couple of weeks ago, when Ro and his children came for lunch and it spurred me on to start again. I’d not made a sourdough starter from scratch before, but how hard could it be? I asked myself.

Not too hard, just tricky to know when it was ready to use. But I had a go, last Wednesday and thought I’d failed miserably. I left it overnight and the dough had a lovely texture and was stretchy and easy to handle. I shaped it and left it – coming back several hours later, it was really quite flat and hadn’t risen much. I thought of turning into naan bread again – don’t see why that wouldn’t work with sourdough – but then decided to bake it. And it rose in the oven, more than I expected. The texture is a bit heavier than I’d like, but the starter is certainly yeast and I’ll persevere.

I’ve been cooking a lot, in fact and my freezer is full of little boxes of single servings. I need to stop cooking and start eating. Weeza and co came for lunch today, took quite a lot of leftovers, but I still have 8 or more little boxes in the fridge.

I’m boring myself and can only apologise to you. I’ll go in search of my voice.

One comment on “Another January

  1. dinahmow

    I haven’t made bread since we moved house. 3 times! And this Year of Heatwaves and Floods has been anything but conducive!
    But I will make up another starter. One day…
    Tomorrow, P’s youngest brother and wife arrive. My home base in London on all my little jaunts and jollies, it’s about time I returned the favour!
    I’ll bring you up to date one day…soon!

    Reply

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