Ann_T

I planned to take a dough out of the fridge last night to bake early this morning, but then I saw the ham I bought the other day and decided instead to make a ham dinner for breakfast. Might as well do something when you get up early. Put the ham in the oven just before 4AM. Served with potato gratin and Southern style simmered green beans. Moe had the ham dinner for breakfast and I'm going to take the same thing to work for lunch.

Moe requested leftover oxtails for breakfast. Served with scrambled eggs and toasted homemade sourdough rye bread.

Last night's dinner. I had Oxtails so I just used my regular osso bucco recipe to prepare them. Served over polenta and rapini.

Breakfast is served. Schwartz's Montreal Smoked Meat on homemade sourdough rye.

Today's bake. Out of the oven at 5:30 AM. Two sourdough rye loaves. Started the dough early yesterday morning using one of the mini bigas. Dough went into the fridge for a 12 hour cold fermentation. Taken out last night at 8:30 and left on the counter until 3:00 AM this morning.

Baked 21 small sourdough rolls this morning. Some to giveaway and some for the freezer. Made Moe a toasted Peameal Bacon and fried egg sandwich on one of the rolls for breakfast.

This batch of dough had been in the fridge since Sunday and taken out last night around 8:30 AM. Baked a number of small sourdough rolls. Moe had been smelling the bread baking since just after 4:00AM and couldn't wait until they had cooled so I cut one just out of the oven with an electric knife and slathered it with butter. That will keep him going until breakfast.

Made Moe French Toast for breakfast and I split open a baguette baked on Sunday, toasted and topped with a tomato from Matt's garden.

Smithy, you can find it here on the blog..........https://thibeaultstable.com/2012/09/12/crispy-pork-stuffed-eggplant/ The seasoned pork is sandwiched between two thin slices of eggplant and then dipped in a tempura type batter.

I made Crispy Pork Stuffed Eggplant for dinner tonight. I made this the first time back in 2012. I guess I must have forgot just how good it is because I hadn't made it since. So good.................

Pulled a mini starter out of the fridge last night and made a dough. Left it on the counter overnight from 8:30PM until 3:00 AM this morning and baked 6 baguettes. At the same time last night I fed the scrapings in the bottom of the jar and fed again with 55g of water and 55g of flour. It had more than doubled by 3:00AM so I decided I might as well make another batch of dough this morning. Just finished the last stretch and fold and the dough is going into the fridge for a cold fermentation. I refed the scrapings left in the jar and will leave it out on the counter today. Will be ready to either go into another batch of dough tonight or into the fridge for a day or two.

His and Her breakfasts. Made Moe peameal bacon with sunnyside up farm fresh eggs from a friends chickens, a Siletz tomato from Matt's tomato garden and toasted baguette. And I had toasted baguette topped with Peameal bacon and another tomato. Not big on breakfast, but if I'm going to have breakfast, this is my favourite.

Yesterday's bake and Moe's breakfast. Mug of homemade potato leek soup and toasted sourdough baguette.

Decided early afternoon that I would make bagels. Added both a sourdough mini biga and yeast to this batch because I wanted a quick rise so I could get them baked in time to have some for dinner. We had bagels with cream cheese and smoked salmon for dinner. Platter for two.

Smithy, I'll answer the rye starter question first. I feed my mother with organic rye and bottled water. I've had this starter going since early 2019. I also spun off a "white" starter using some of the discard and maintained both of them. But since I started using this method I stopped feeding the white starter and I'm just feeding and maintaining the "mother" fed with rye. I'm going to keep feeding the Mother, occasionally, because I grew this one from scratch and I would feel bad killing her. I used "The Economic Strategy to Maintain Your Sourdough Starter" from the Culinary Exploration website. He has a video on his site that explains it better than I could. He apparently uses this "MINI STARTER" In a batch of dough that totals 750g, so I assume he using 95g of the scrapings and added around 375g to 400g of flour and depending on the hydration he is adding between 260 to 280g of water. Plus salt. This gives him one loaf. I weigh out 95g of the Mini biga and add 700 g of flour along with 490g of water for a 70%hydration and salt and that works for me. I have used it in an 800g batch, but for that batch I added a pinch of yeast for insurance. I weighed the scrapings the first time I did this and had 22g. Haven't bothered weighing again since. I just keep feeding the little jar with the scrapings again and once it has doubled or more it goes into another batch of dough or, I will put it in the fridge for one or two days before adding to the next batch of dough. In his video, he puts the jar with the scrapings into the fridge and feeds it after he pulls it out. I like my method because then I don't have to wait for it to double before using it. It is ready to go.