ElsieD

Patti, when did you start your starter? Looking forward to reading what you did with it.

It gave my starter a little funeral today. It was deader than a door nail. Too bad as it looked as though I had something going there. Not to be deterred, however, I have started a new one. Will report on how that one goes.

Will do. Thank you. It is almost 7 hours since I fed it and there are small bubbles on top but not much else happening. I will continue to do as you say and we will see what happens. Elsie

This morning it looked as though it had doubled in size and then collapsed on itself. Is this normal? I discarded half of it and mixed in another 50 grams each of flour and water.

Where exactly are you? Several Manchesters come to mind.

So here we are, about 48 hours since I first mixed water and flour together. I have attached a picture from the side of the container and one looking down on it. Not sure what to do next except see what it looks like in the morning and feed it again at which time I will pitch half of it. I guess.

Here is how it looks right now, Thursday morning. Nice and bubbly, so I am about to add another 50 grams each of bread flour and water. I am also moving it to a larger container. We'll see what it looks like tomorrow morning. I'm pretty stoked about this, as I have never tried this before.

I keep fish sauce in the fridge and also cucumbers. Maybe that's not necessary?

So here we are 24 hours later. I moved it to one of those big glass beer mugs and moved it away from the window and on to the counter. It looks as though it has a couple of bubbles in it although that may be wishful thinking. It took a sniff and it smells fine. I guess if tomorrow morning it has a few bubbles in it I will add 50 grams each of flour and water???? Further, I guess by Thursday morning if it has more bubbles in it I will add another 50 grams each of flour and water and after mixing, remove half of it???? Edited to add: The mixture is decidedly looser than it was when I first mixed it together. Mick, you may have to help me out here.

Oooh, that looks good!

Host's note: this topic was split from the topic Baking Bread from Scratch in France. Allrighty then, I thought I would give this a go. This is what it looks like and I will cover this with a paper towel and see what happens. It is in a west facing window. Not sure what to do with it exactly if it works, but I will deal with that when (if) the time comes.

It use a focaccia recipe by Peter Reinhart and add dried cranberries and raisins (have also added dried blueberries) and divvy them into buns in my hamburger pans. No extra sugar as I find the dried fruit sweet enough. Once baked, I love them halved and toasted, spread with a good unsalted butter.

Thank you for this post. I found it very interesting.

That would be the one I have - KitchenAid Compact Food Processor. I have had it for 10+ years so it doesn't owe me anything but I need a new bowl as a piece of plastic on the top of the handle has broken off and it has become fidgety to lock in place. But alas, I can't find a replacement bowl so need a new unit. One thing about this one that I really liked was it came with a reversible blade, one that shredded one side and sliced on the other. I used the shredder a lot. The new "minis" seem to be choppers only.

I'll take three, please.

I came across an interesting thread recently for making bread using the Tang Zhong method. Basically, you make a roux, cool it, and use this as an ingredient in your bread dough. It is said to keep your bread fresher for longer. Never having heard of it I decided to try it today and rather than baking a loaf out of it, I chose to make sandwich buns. It makes quite a wet dough and it is very elastic due to the (I think) long kneading time. Anyone else ever heard of it? Or maybe everyone has, and I've been living under a rock?

Thanks, Shel. That was the one I was referring to when I said the one site I found appears to have gone out of business. The web site looks active until you go to order from it and then it tells you the web site is undergoing maintenance. Further sleuthing revealed that it has been under maintenance for months and that no one is answering the phone, either. That said, I appreciate your looking and if you come up with another site I'm all ears.....er, eyes!

Lots of interesting suggestions and I thank you for them. I did decide to buy some Nittaya curry pastes but the only on-line source I found other than Amazon, which was very expensive, seems to have gone out of business. Does anyone know of an on-line source for this? I am in Canada and I doubt it can be shipped here, but I can have it shipped to a USA address.

Thank you so far for your responses. As mentioned, I find the Mae Ploy unbearably hot so that one is out. I love the flavour of curry pastes but would like less heat than the Mae Ploy but more than the Thai Kitchen brand I am currently using. Part of my original question has to do with the differences between red, green and yellow curry. Is the only difference the colour of chiles used? Or is there a difference in heat levels between them. I would greatly appreciate it if someone could give me the answer to that. Kenneth T, if you are still following this topic, can you express an opinion on the heat level of the Nittaya pastes and how they compare to Mae Ploy? If I think it more suitable for my tastes I will try and chase some down. I did go to a Thai grocery yesterday but they do not carry it although they did have the Maesri. Cheap, too. It was $1.45 a can. Thank you for the Patak suggestions. Those I can find no problem, and will give them a try.

Mine has a red top and is labelled Maggi HOT. It is the Dutch version.

I occasionally cook with curry pastes and while I realize I could make my own, I don't want to, for various reasons. Thus this question of pre-made purchased curry pastes. To date, I have been using the Thai Kitchen brand of red curry paste. However, I see they also have green and yellow pastes. I am wondering how the heat levels and flavour profiles compare? I am also wondering about the different brands and if their heat levels can be compared to the Thai Kitchen ones. For example, I once tried the Mae Ploy brand of red curry paste and found it to be so much hotter than the Thai kitchen red curry paste that I couldn't eat the dish I had made using it. Are there any other curry pastes out there that I should try? Thanks for your help!

Are there pictures?

Incredible. Looks beautiful.

In the mean time we have to put up with loaves like this: semi complet small.jpg a semi-complet from Marc Brion of Biganos

It had posted a couple of questions but that post must have ended up in cyberspace. So here we go again - where do you keep this mixture? Outside, inside, on a counter, in a fridge, in an oven with just the light on? I'm really interested in this and will be following along. Elsie