I made sourdough from scratch for the first time this weekend, using an Emeril recipe for the starter. My home smelled like a brewery within a couple hours. This yeasty bread sounded, but ended up way to hard. When recipes call for a fancy kitchen mixer with a bread paddle, I make do with that much more kneading. One day, I’ll have a Kitchenaid (and a kitchen large enough) and a baking stone. It wouldn’t be fun if it came out perfect the first time anyway.
What to do with hard bread?
Have you ever seen 1950-1960s cookbooks with the colorful appetizer platters that are so overdone and usually involve deviled eggs? The presentation cracks me up in part because I would imagine the majority of those recipes were the result of incredibly bored housewives enjoying a bit too much of the sauce mid-afternoon. How else could such nonsense be so entertaining?
Without the pearls or the pressed dress and apron (because it was a weekend, not because I’m opposed), I decided to channel my inner 1960s inspiration with BATS — bacon (turkey), avocado and tomato sandwiches. The bread still made these rather difficult to eat, but the Sunday dinner crowd crunched away merrily.
The cupcakes, however, were Goldilocks-right.
I am struggling a bit this week; I think in part it has to do with the severe change in weather. I spend so much of my free time outside — running, swimming, walking, wandering — that when it’s 100+ degrees out, I wilt. The funny thing is, I’ve lived here nearly my entire life. Yet every May, I go through this period of shock that I’m still in Phoenix being burned by my seatbelt and watching my makeup run off my face between home and work. I need a new plan.
~K