Country Life The Retirees: Sourdough Starter

I decided I wanted to learn to make sourdough bread. This is not the first time I have made this decision. I've tried several times in the past without success. After searching the web for recipes I finally decided on one in a bread cookbook lurking on a shelf in my kitchen... Fleischmann's Yeast Best-Ever Breads. It is a simple sourdough starter recipe to follow. I mixed up all the ingredients and did just as it said, "put it in a container with a tight lid". The recipe did not instruct me to put it in a much larger container than the actual starter. I mixed up the goo and put it into a plastic container with a snug lid and placeed it in a drawer with my glass bakeware. I was really excited when my husband returned from chopping wood a couple of hours later, to show him the starter and where I had stashed it. He loves sourdough bread so I was doing this for him. I didn't want him to come upon it by accident, open it and have a spill. As soon as I opened the drawer I exploded in laughter. The sourdough starter had become very active within two hours and had grown very large causing the "snug" lid to pop off and the starter was oozing out of the container and flowing like a volcano all over the dishes contained within. Oh my it was a mess. My immediate reaction was to clean up this mess which is exactly what I did before thinking to take a picture. I transferred the remaining dough to a large cooking pot and placed it in my pantry where it is now bubbling happily!

From this sourdough starter I have made so many different types of breads, below is a sourdough flat bread.

A sourdough loaf bread

A sourdough flat bread topped with sesame seeds and loaded with Italian herbs

A rustic whole wheat sourdough baked in a cast iron dutch oven

Italian wedding soup served with sourdough Italian Herb bread

And this I am most proud of - Whole wheat sourdough hamburger buns.

An awesome burger made from the buns above

The recipes for all this bread is one basic recipe taken from http://www.breadworld.com/ I just substituted white flour for whole wheat flour and then add whatever I want to the dough! Last night we made a flat bread and filled it with chopped up hatch peppers and Italian seasoning. It was like eating pizza. Below is a picture of it after cutting. I didn't think to take a picture of it fresh from the oven.

Now that the days are getting longer our chickens are laying again. Apparently the black chicken who lays white eggs wanted to start the laying season off with a bang! I'm pretty certain this one has a double yoke!