a wild reply-reply appears

good you guys, don't omit the cheese, i almost did because i was like who wants cheese in this, me! i do!, oh gosh, about the author

via https://ift.tt/37GRQp7

chamerionwrites https://chamerionwrites.tumblr.com/ replied to your post about pirozhki https://bomberqueen17.tumblr.com/post/636795705962397696/today-i-made-king-arthur-flours-pirozhki-recipe

                                         They look so good! Is your

starter 1:1 flour and water? This sounds like a brilliant use for discard

Ha, I’m reply-replying a new post so I can explain here that despite all of the wonderful resources out there about sourdough, I have never actually managed to follow An Direction in my life, and so I have just muddled through until I have A Method Wherein It Looks About Right. (I’m going to go on because I know other readers are less experienced with sourdough; please do not think I am attempting to teach you anything, chamerionwrites https://tmblr.co/mcolYJCtXqeMwJpPtsYcbNQ!)

I think I have an approximately 1:1 starter. I like it to be sort of gummy; if it’s too dry it doesn’t get super bubbly, if it’s too wet it doesn’t seem substantial enough, and my sister early on gave me some lecture about different types of microbes that made a big impression on me against super-wet starters but I do not remember any of the concrete information, so this is thoroughly irrational prejudice on my part. But I don’t really use any kind of measuring thing– using the same scoop for flour and for water seems like a great and clever idea until you consider that you can’t then put the wet scoop back in your flour (and also, flour mounds and water doesn’t like to fill a tablespoon without hitting you in the face, so honestly using the same scoop isn’t going to ensure equal amounts unless you’re real good at lab procedures which I am Not). So I don’t measure the water. I just use the scoop that lives in the little container of flour on the countertop (it is a little bigger than a tablespoon? it was my grandmother’s and lived in her coffee canister i think), and then I mix with a butter knife (because it reaches the bottom of the jar easily), and then I decide if it needs more water and add it straight from the tap and mix it until it’s wet enough and if it’s too wet then I go back and add a little more flour.

I don’t discard much either, now that I’m not in a household where anyone minds sour in their bread (MM’s son is kind of a supertaster so I was pretty rigorous about my active starter being real fresh when I used it)– once in a while when I think the jar’s getting too full I do, and I keep that secondary jar in the fridge, and use it for English muffins or whatever, and the secret to it is that it can pile up for a long time because I don’t put a ton of flour in for my maintenance feedings, so I don’t have to empty the jar a lot. It did build up a lot of discard while I was traveling to the farm a lot, because the “active” starter and the discard wound up living together in the fridge and when I was in town I’d discard the majority of the “active” one and put in a whole bunch of new flour and water to let it revitalize.

If I really want it to get excited I use a little bit of whole wheat flour. I’d love to have it always be whole wheat but VegMan explained to me, actually, that whole wheat flour has more enzymes, so the starter loves it and eats it and burns through it a lot faster and is more active for a shorter time. So if you’re a Benign Neglecter with some supply chain issues, you’ll probably want to stick with white. (My sister uses whole wheat but she only feeds her starter once or twice a week, to bake with it predictably once a week, and she never ever discards any of it, and it lives in the fridge otherwise, so that’s an approach but it requires you Having Your Shit Way More Together Than I Do. I like to keep my starter alive enough that I can bake on like four hours’ notice, not two days’, and that means keeping it out of the fridge.) I do like having there be a bit of whole wheat chaff in the discard, to keep it from being gray and gluey. I know all the things say to be consistent and always do it the same but I am constitutionally incapable of that, and so instead I’m trying to just Know What It Ought To Look Like And Try To Aim For That.

My problem with the King Arthur Flour recipes is that while they’re rigorously tested and extremely clear (except, uhh, that the instructions on forming the pirozhki just said “make them look like dumplings” which is spectacularly unhelpful if you’ve never seen one before), they also universally recommend you add fresh yeast every time you use sourdough, and I get that they’re trying to be foolproof but it’s sort of annoying to have this pants-and-suspenders method built in when you’re trying to test a new recipe and also are low on fresh yeast and that’s why you’re using sourdough! So I almost always 1) don’t add the yeast, and 2) give it twice as long to rise, and that’s worked well. I’ve never overproofed bread, though– probably because it’s usually not warm in my kitchen– so likely someday my hubris will punish me for this.

(I did their sourdough baguette recipe on Saturday night, and I just let the dough rise the whole night on the cold counter instead of adding fresh yeast and giving it 90 minutes, and it would have worked brilliantly if my oven would stay lit. As it is I have, uhhh some very hard baguettes. They really do need to bake at a high temperature, and having the oven fucking turn off in the middle did not do them any favors. I got a good crust on the outside but unfortunately it goes straight through almost to the middle. Alas. Maybe I’ll make bread pudding or croutons…)

I used up and washed out my discard jar this weekend, having finally caught up from the summer/autumn’s overabundance of discard, so now I think I’m going to have to actually feed up my starter for a bit if I want to do more baking.

Though, I’m starting to run low on flour. We were trying to avoid the grocery store for as long as possible during this Horrifying Covid Spike but being home and having time to cook means you do tend to run through supplies…

poem: 2020

via https://ift.tt/3gnbiep

salamanderinspace https://salamanderinspace.tumblr.com/post/636777832853422080/poem-2020:

When this is all over I’m going to Wal * Mart. I’m going to the sporting good section Where I will lift each of the little dumbells, comparing their weights. I will jump the jump rope And ride the bicycles Gripping the handle bars. Adjusting the seat height. Touching everywhere that others have touched.

When this is all over I’m going to Wal * Mart To smell all the scented candles And to sound all the windchimes. I will breathe in the plant-rich air in the garden center. I will inhale the scent of laundry soap in the aisle Where all the cleaning products pool in their bottles, ageless as rivers.

When this is all over I’m going to try on clothes And admire myself in floor-length mirrors. I’m going to wear ten pairs of shoes in ten minutes. I’m going to casually forget my purse in a dressing room And go back for it three minutes later.

When this is all over I won’t need flowers anymore Or trees or frozen turtle-ponds, or other places for walking. I will walk over cool, glossy white tiles, Dance the linoleum hallways. I will track in mud from places I won’t need to go anymore When this is all over.

When this is all over I will buy the GOOD pizza poppers Not the medicore pizza poppers they have at the grocery store Which are branded something like “lean gourmet” - though they are neither of these things. I will spend six dollars on a DVD of a movie I always meant to watch but never will.

When this is all over I’ll look the cashier in the eye And know that she risked her life for her job. We will talk of airplanes and zoos and diamond mines And other places that we can only go When this is all over.

tiny wip snippet

ribbing, how do you cope when your dad's a himbo

via https://ift.tt/3lVZ4L9

idk if i’ll keep this but i was amused when i wrote it

“I was thinking you should ask Keira about it,” Ciri said.

“Mm,” Geralt said thoughtfully.

“Don’t fuck her again though!” Ciri said. “The last thing this situation needs is your– input,” and then she had to giggle. Geralt groaned and rolled his eyes.

“Don’t talk about my input,” he said. “No, not only would Yennefer kill me, justifiably, but I don’t think Keira would go for it, at this point.”

“You had better not try it,” Ciri warned.