You guys, I finally baked a sourdough that didn’t suck! A few weeks ago, one of my neighbors kindly passed along a jar of starter, and I figured why not? But even on quarantine I don’t have time to bake every day (nor do I want that much bread hanging around), so I’ve been doing the fridge thing, where you only feed it once a week. That part I seem to be handling ok. The actual baking part, however, not so much. Gummy sourdough is not the result I was aiming for. But yesterday I finally got my act together and pulled it off.
For this whole wheat stunner, I used a “quick” recipe from Jim Lahey, the no-knead guy. Quick is a relative term when it comes to sourdough, apparently. Thinking we’d have fresh bread with dinner last night, I fed my starter at 6AM. Alas, I didn’t pull the loaf out of the oven until 7:30PM—and then it had to cool for an hour before we could cut it. So I didn’t exactly have it ready in time for dinner, but now I’ve got sourdough toast for breakfast.
Here’s the plan for next week:
Monday
Shrimp with Herby White Beans and Tomatoes OR Tuscan White Bean Tomato Stew, with rice (or whatever grain you have)
Don’t forget to double whichever of the main recipe you’re cooking tonight! If you’re making the vegetarian stew, note that you can use canned tomatoes in place of fresh. Cook a double batch of rice or any other grain, and refrigerate half for Wednesday.
Tuesday
Photo courtesy King Arthur Flour
Pizza Night
Let’s talk about pizza dough for a minute. If you’ve got some in the fridge or freezer great, but if you don’t you can totally make it yourself. Depending on what kind of leavening you have available, I’ve got three options for you: simple yeasted dough, baking powder dough, or sourdough discard dough. (Note that until last night’s bread, the sourdough discard pizza dough was by far my greatest sourdough success to date. I’d keep my started going just for this!) If you’ve got picky eaters, divide the dough into four pieces and you can each top your own. Those dough recipes also have instructions for making the pizza itself, but here’s my basic method:
Heat your oven to 500°F, 550 if you can. Got a stone? Put it on the bottom rack. Lay a piece of parchment on the counter and if your dough feels sticky, throw down some flour—flour your hands, too. Take the dough and gently stretch it. Once it’s spread out a little I like to hold one end in front of me and pass it back and forth between my hands, turning it in a circle as I go (picture a steering wheel). That lets gravity do most of the work. Here’s a great video tutorial. Once it’s nice and thin—DO NOT WORRY ABOUT MAKING A CIRCLE—add your sauce and whatever toppings and cheese you’re going with. No stone? Slide the parchment and pizza onto a baking sheet and pop it in the oven. Depending on how hot it is, it should be ready in 15-20 minutes. If you do have a stone, overturn a baking sheet to use as a pizza peel, slide the parchment and pizza onto it, open the oven and pull out the rack with the stone, then carefully transfer the parchment from the baking sheet to the hot stone. Your pizza will cook faster, so start checking around the 12-minute mark.
Wednesday
Poor Man’s Burrito Bowls
You’ve already got cooked rice/grains, so all you need to do is prepare the beans—which is literally adding cumin and garlic to canned beans and heating it up. Reheat the rice, add whatever else you’ve got that sounds like it would be good on top of rice and beans, and go. (This is a good one for picky eaters, since you can put out the various elements salad-bar style.) Note that the recipe is intended to serve 6, so you should have roughly two portions of black beans leftover. Refrigerate those for Friday.
Thursday
Photo courtesy MyRecipes
Niçoise Gnocchi Salad
Aside from cooking the gnocchi and green beans, this recipe is more assembling than anything. You don’t need my help!
Friday
Buttermilk Cheddar Corn Cakes with black beans
Again, be sure to double this recipe in order to have enough for everyone. And here’s the trick for making a perfectly fine replacement for buttermilk: Put 1 tablespoon of lemon juice or white vinegar in a measuring cup, and add enough milk to make 1 cup. Stir, and let it sit for 5-10 minutes, until it looks curdled. Don’t worry, it’s perfectly fine! Go ahead with the recipe.
And that’s it, folks. Stay safe, and—you probably know what I’m going to say here—wash your hands.
Debbie