Last night I set up my blog, well tried to. Had all the family including my daughter’s techy boyfriend trying to copy and paste the cover photo. Not nice stuff being technologically inept. Anyway, went to the gym this morning and on the way home bought yeast…along with $137 of groceries and a soy latte. Can’t go into a supermarket without buying toilet paper or pesto really. But I did manage also to get some ingredients I need for the cooking…almond meal, flour, walnuts, exciting. Bit quiet around our house at the moment. My husband came storming into the house barely breathing, calling my name the other night. He had been digging in the garden and a nail jutting out of a piece of wood had caught his leg and ripped it open. So, he entered gripping his leg to hold it together, a massive gash. I tied a towel and an apron around it, the closest thing I could grab and raced him up to the White cross, 14 stiches later and a nice tidy scar to be had, he is taking it quietly at home.
Well back to the cooking, I just made the dough for sourdough. Very interesting. Put in half the quantity of flour, yeast and water and leave for 24 hours on the bench at room temperature covered by a wet tea towel. Sounds like a fun bubbly concoction of biological interactions will be happening in my household overnight. I’m looking forward to all the hard work of kneading and resting and knocking out the air and shaping tomorrow. 
3 hours later…21 hours to go!!!
Yesterday morning I summoned the yeast, water and flour mixture from the bench where it had been fermenting and doing its stuff for 24 hours. As in the recipe it was a greyish gluggy mess.
I proceeded to add the rest of the water and flour and kneaded it, left it to rise again, shaped it and ended up with two beautiful loaves that were delectable to eat.
Kneading and shaping the loaves
The rising loaves
My daughter and I were waiting for my husband to get home to have it for dinner with our crumbed gurnard and salad, but in the end, once the loaves came out of the oven, golden on top and hollow sounding underneath, we couldn’t wait. We hooked in with our accompaniments of butter, camembert, creamy blue cheese and pumpkin hummus to the warm delectable loaf.
Eat me please
It was almost a spiritual experience!! We barely talked, except about the food! And it was such fun to make bread and be successful at it, it gave me a real sense of accomplishment especially when the family kept going back for more and more until it was almost all gone!
