Life has been a little grim around here-- we had a crazy storm--earlier in the day it was fairly warm and the following day it was up in the 80s to 90s-- but out of nowhere we had a TON of rain and hail the size of marbles. Soon after while we were admiring the sunset, we heard rushing water and there was a river of rushing burnt smelling mud that just appeared. Fortunately it missed our house completely, but unfortunately for the houses 2 streets over, it just plowed through-- 11 of those houses ended up with mud damage,many of them had basements that just completely filled with mud all the way to the ceilings. Insurance won't cover the damages and there are no financial aid programs. It is very sad. There has been a huge volunteer effort though and most of the houses are cleaned out at this point, but there is a ton of work left to do. It has been unreal. The flash flood of mud was a result of the fire we were evacuated for back in June. This has been a crazy place to live thus far.
But on a brighter note-- I sucessfully baked 2 different kinds of whole wheat bread using pioneer yeast that was not sour, so my picky eater would eat it. Natural yeast is supposed to be much healthier for us and some people with gluten intolerance can eat wheat breads using natural yeast-- so I'm very excited about this.
One of the kinds was from the book, "Healthy Bread in 5 Minutes a Day" which is a no-knead bread-- I doubled the recipe, left out the wheat gluten, added a couple spoonfuls of coconut oil and used about 2 1/2 cups of pioneer yeast starter. I also used warm water I saved from boiling potatoes the night before and I reduced the water it called for by 2 cups. It turned out great.
The next type was a very basic whole wheat bread recipe-- I would have used the potato water again, but I wanted to see if it would work without it. I proofed the yeast with a little honey, regular water and about 1/4 cup of starter, then I mixed 6 cups of whole wheat flour and 4 cups of warm water in my mixer then added the yeast mixture, honey, salt, coconut oil, and the rest of the flour and kneaded it for awhile, then I let it rest til I was afraid it was too sticky and wouldn't work, so after about an hour cause that's how long it takes me to get back to things in between helping different kids with stuff-- I shaped the loaves and put them in an unheated oven to rise for several hours til they were double in size and then I baked them. I am so happy both kinds worked and tasted so good!!
I also made some more peach jam without pectin. I blended 5 cups worth of peaches poured it into a pot with juice from 1 lemon and 3 cups worth of sucanat, brought it to a boil and had the kids take turns stirring it for 20 min. It made great jam. so my house is a bit of a mess- but I may have bread baking solved!! I lost the password to my cooking blog again-- so maybe I'll just give up on that or maybe I'll get around to making another one-- don't know!!
1 comment:
Why won't insurance cover those houses? We had a hail storm in Wichita and insurance covered our roof damage. We only had to put out the $1000 deductible.
I find peaches make a very easy jam too. I have never made peach jam with pectin and it always turns out. But, I have never been able to get strawberry jam to work.
Maybe we should get together and you can show me how you made your natural yeast bread. That sounds interesting.
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