50before50: #31 make a sourdough loaf

Even though I am a huge fan of baking, I’ve never made bread before, so adding this project to the list was a no-brainer. I really, really adore sourdough and I like to make things challenging, so I settled on a sourdough loaf, which of course requires a starter.

There are about 200 million very different methods of creating a starter floating about on the InformationSuperhighway, which was both daunting and off-putting.

After a lot of reading, I decided to go with this one from theperfectloaf.com. Primarily because it does not add yeast (for a more hardcore starter experience), it uses some rye flour (which I’ve read makes for a better, more vigorous starter), it doesn’t call for loads of flour to start and the method is laid out incredibly clearly – if I can’t follow this there is seriously no hope for me! Plus the bread on that site looks utterly incredible.

We grabbed some organic white flour this morning and topped up the rye stash (which I’ve been using in rye & wholemeal chapatis as an accompaniment for tikka masala lentils – almost the best 5:2 meal ever) when we went grocery shopping this morning. Yep still, haven’t kicked the horrible weekend grocery shopping habit.

After I’d actioned a few items and run out to grab some bottled water, this afternoon I took a deep breath and kicked it off.

The starter requires really simple ingredients:

The two medium sized bowls held 400g each of rye and white organic flour. The big bowl contains them mixed together, I’d started mixing before I realised I should be documenting.

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Despite that huge bowl of mixed flour, we only use 40g of the flour mix and 40g of the water to start:

The rest of the flour will be used for feeding over the coming days.

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After mixing together:

The result was a little drier than I was expecting, but I’m going to roll with it.

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My starter-creature is contained in this unsealed (it needs to breathe) medium-sized jar on a warm shelf:

Now we wait 24 hours and hope that it has doubled in size, before adding more flour and water.

I’ll report back on progress.

50before50: #46 watch those films which have passed me by (1-3/16)

This list item was inspired by the fact that Kill Bill 2 was on television and I realised I had never seen it (or Kill Bill 1 for that matter). This lead me to thinking about all those films I’ve not seen, that I probably should – not necessarily important or classic films, more like Zeitgiesty films, if you will. We’re not really talking high art here.

Anyway, I watched Kill Bill 2 and I very much enjoyed it – all rollicking and rompy.

I didn’t really go into the project with a list of films in mind. I chose 16 in total because I thought one every six weeks was probably manageable, and because too much challenge is barely enough I’m going to comment on them in 10 words or less.

By virtue of the fact that they were also on television, I watched:
O brother, where art thou? – I either love or hate Coen Brothers films, loved this.
and
Jackie Brown – Loved. Probably the least violent Tarantino film I’ve ever seen.

Then I sought out Glengarry Glen Ross – Liked. An awful lot of cultural references now make sense.

And then the project sort of lay fallow while the cricket has been on every evening over the summer.

I had it in mind that I wanted to watch American Beauty and Lantana, but hadn’t thought much further than that. Having some idle time on Friday night, Bessie read out a bunch of x films you must see before you … [die/turn25/turn30] lists and I came up with some more. These may not necessarily make it to the final list, but I’m going with them for now:

Being John Malkovich
The Matrix
The Apartment
Blow up
Die Hard (shut up!)
Faster pussycat, kill! kill!
Dr Strangelove
7th Seal
The Ice Storm
The Grifters
The Royal Tenenbaums

Still two more to go to complete the list of 16. Happy for further suggestions if you have them! I’m allergic to all things whimsy and woody allen. [edited almost a year later – holy!goodness! counting fail – this IS a list of 16, oops]

Then I actually have to sit myself down and do the thing.