A Discussion that Reeks of Disillusionment

I was talking to someone today, praising the work of her relative who is a man who is en route to be a naval flight officer. I said it's a good job for a man to have. The reply was that women have faster reflexes. In turn I say,  yes, but there's more to the job than that. She went on to say it'd be interesting to see the reports or statistics, as if to imply there are reasons it is a job a woman should/can have... 

I dropped the conversation because there's no reasoning with women who still think so lowly of the roles traditionally assigned to women. Women who think that only "male jobs matter" are clueless to true reality. They can't see that just because you "can" doesn't mean you "should". Plus, what is wrong with there being things each sex is better equipped to do? It's not a problem for each of us to be better at certain things... I feel like women who can only be satisfied if girls get to do all the things the boys do are only perpetuating the erroneous thinking that some jobs (MAN jobs) matter most. It's this idea that has so many females pushing to be in all the boy things. We can't have boy-only sports or groups because stupid women have jumped into the perceived "male stuff is better", leaving their girl-only groups. This only adds more credence to that notion that what the men do and think must be better, so let's all run over there. I say, why not embrace and love what God designed women to excel with? I find it small minded to compete with men for roles that require physical strength and hard mental stamina. Women are gifted differently and beautifully. Why not find value in that? I sure do. 

Divine Design book

This stems back to the Garden of Eden. The woman wants to rule OVER the man, not be equal. But nothing will change the REALITY. God made us DIFFERENT yet equal, and the husband is the one to rule over his wife. To lovingly lead her and give the guidance she needs. 

Eve in Exile book

Women, who are wives like this one I talked to today, are so unhappy in their marriages compared to the ladies I know who think very differently, including myself. 

Wear the pants, do the extremely stressful full time work... how satisfied are you at 50 years old with what you poured into your home and children? How's your health and marriage? 

Baby Cacti

These were started as seeds last summer! 15 started and now we're looking at 9. For a while I thought all had died. Not sure if I'm doing something wrong, but they sure grow slow!

Productive Days

Some people make lists and work off them for weeks and weeks, sometimes even months. I've certainly made lists when there are specific tasks I'm knocking out and need to prioritize, but often there are long tasks in my mind that only I can do, and which only really matter to me. They are the hard things that aren't going to happen incidentally or bit by bit. Multiple rooms in the house will be impacted simultaneously while I clean out, organize and restructure spaces. 

Today was such a day of productivity. 

Epic things have happened in this house since May with kitchen cleaning out and reorganization, armoires being reorganized and items consolidated or tossed, and we're using one desk in the living room that finally has all my stuff in or near it, organized. I've done a major culling of my clothing and have seriously tackled my husband's clothes, piling up categories for him to go through when he gets the mind to do it. 

The impetus was packing up my daughter's items from college and then packing all of her items for moving out. Suddenly the volume of what one person can have hit me hard, and I needed to take a solid look at my own clothes hoarding. No longer do my drawers have clothes crammed in them, and I've taken lots out that I simply never wore. It is so freeing. Shoes that didn't work are gone. Why hold on to them? 

This is just the start, and I hope to free up more space in this house before 2026, but at least we're off to a good start. 

The garage needs work yet again, but that can't happen until the desk we removed from the house sells and my daughter's stuff is in her apartment. Meanwhile, I've got more than a few old computers to deal with. That is a project I can't wait to be done with! ♥

No Refined Sugar Sourdough Discard Blueberry Bread

With all the baking, I'm working toward less sugar in the recipes. 

These are this week's Sunday bake.

Sourdough Journey

Calzone... Sourdough pizza dough

Freshly milled flour sourdough loaves

Chocolate chip sourdough discard bake 

Banana bread, sourdough discard 

Sourdough discard coffee cake

Bread

Did my first batch Sourdough bread making! 3 were underfermented and 4 were not...

The Other FMF Sourdough Bread Pan Attempt

The Pantry Mama, How to Bake Sourdough in a Loaf Pan was my other attempt at FMF. I opted for half KA Bread flour and half hard white/hard wheat. I'm going to get a stronger starter going with just white flour the night before and feed in the AM and plan to mix/bake that same day. I did not have enough hydration so sprayed the dough while it rose in the pan...next time I'll hydrate more before the first bulk rise and really watch the autolyse. I think I went too long. It tasted great and had a nice texture, but isn't as tall or as springy as I wanted. Might add 20 g honey too this recipe also. 

Very soft, nice flavor, good crumb, but I want taller. Baked 1/11/25 very late at night b/c I started too late that morning. 

More Discard! Starting FMF Sandwich Loaves

Made simple discard crackers seasoned a variety of ways on 1/12/25... These are very simple and savory, and would be good with hummus. Easy way to use up extra, I used whole wheat and white starter. They are powerful and have a lot of seeds, and I did feel like my chest was heavy after eating too many without drinking water! Yikes. 

I used Little Spoon Farm's cracker recipe because it is fast, few ingredients, and as always, used a lot of discard! 200 g!

The night prior to making crackers (1/11), I started two different sandwich loaves, trying to start using FMF in my bread and coming up with a loaf for our regular bread. 

Grains in Small Place's recipe, made 2 small bread loaves in normal sized pans. I did not let these rise enough, or over fermented it...not sure. One loaf got weirdly puffy and the other was too flat. Different pans and the one seemed to be part of the problem. Won't use it again, will probably trash it honestly. 

GISP's Sourdough Bread with FMF

Pet-peeve is that she calls fermentolyse, autolyse, which makes me uncomfortable, but I like this recipe b/c you can use olive oil instead of butter and honey instead of sugar... THOUGH, sugar might work better and I'll try it next time since I didn't love my results. I did use all FMF, started 1/11 and baked 1/12. Think I needed more active starter, will take out and feed at night before bed, then feed again early in the morning and get moving on the bread by 8:30 am if possible. Her dough takes 3-4 hrs on first bulk rise and mine took so stinking long I lost track b/c I was also making another sandwich loaf recipe the same day. I did finally put these pans in the fridge at 11:30 pm b/c I had to bake the other recipe. 

I didn't take a picture of these on the table before freezing because they don't look good...definitely need more active starter, will use white, and need more moisture and to watch the 2nd fermentation time. It was getting gassy so I think that was the problem. Maybe I should try one large loaf? The texture was soft though I did rub butter on at the end to help with that. 

3rd Dutch Oven Loaf

I should have started to write this all down sooner, because less than 2 weeks in, I had forgotten this 3rd recipe of DO bread. I used my new banneton and thought the shape would be a rectangle. Shockingly, this is what came out of the DO! We ate this with butter, jams, and ham for dinner one night, oh, it was the pancake Sunday! So much sourdough on Feb 9th! Wish I could remember the recipe but it isn't in my mind. I started out making a few things back to back and then quickly moved to doing multiples at a time b/c of the big time lag. I don't usually have the free time I've had lately, so it was really fun to get to jump in and get rolling. Such a huge thanks to my friend who got me started! 

 

Sourdough Episode 3, Introducing Discard

So in my first post, I referenced discard. After feeding twice/day, leaving the starter out on the counter, I was becoming quickly over-run by discard and couldn't bear to throw it out. Some went in gravy and it was delicious, highly recommend this use. And I made my first batch of discard pancakes using Emilie Raffa's recipe. I'd printed another recipe but it used a lot less discard and had milk in it, and this was solely meant to use up as much discard as possible. It was our lunch on Sunday instead of the usual green smoothie. 

Here's Emilie's recipe. She is The Clever Carrot and these were delicious. I'm pretty sure I used FMF or at least bought WW for these. I'll do again and write it down faster. These froze beautifully and reheated great in the toaster with  a couple iterations. We did cut them in half after the first toasting. Still had a nice crisp texture on the outside like fresh. 

Somehow I missed taking a picture of these but they were pretty thick and fluffy. This recipe can be made and let to sit overnight. 

NEXT UP: SOURDOUGH DISCARD BROWNIES

At this point I felt like I was getting a handle on the use of discard, having used it in the sweet rolls, pancakes and gravy, so I did the usual and went rogue on this recipe by Kathy Cartwright. This produced a fluffy brownie with a nice tang, very good for brownie sundaes! 

1/2 c. (1 stick) butter or marg., melted

1 c. sugar (can do white/brown; I did coconut and sucanat)

1 lg egg

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 c. sourdough discard (was nervous not weighing but this was the recipe, I used some white and some ww discard, ROOM TEMP)

1/2 cup AP flour (I did half ww bought and half bought white)

1/4 cocoa pdr, unsweetened

1/2 tsp baking pdr

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 c. choco chips (opt), I just had a few in a bag and sprinkled on top with some turbinado since I didn't use any refined sugar in the recipe. Gave a fun crunch to the top which was nice with the sundae toppings. 

Preheat oven 350 degrees, grease 9x9 in. pan with bakers spray or parchment. Mix wet ingreds, mix dry separately then fold dry into wet gently and gradually. If adding chips, do it here, but you can put this in the pan now and sprinkle chips on top also. After you put batter in pan, smooth it out. Bake 20-25 min till pretty clean probe comes out. Cool before cutting. Important with anything sourdough it seems. 

Very nice tang, will make again

Second Type of Sourdough Bread

I wanted to make 2 smaller rounds so the college kids could get to try this new endeavor. The crumb was much tighter and the exterior, smoother. I used a different recipe, this one started 2/5 and was baked 2/6. It is The Clever Carrot's Sourdough Bread: A Beginner's Guide recipe. As with the first loaf, I went for white fed starter and all KA bread flour. At this point I was actually using KA to feed my starter but realized I should use cheaper flour so switched after this round of baking. I was very happy with this recipe, good flavor, nice even crumb. I used a bowl with a finely woven tea towel covered in GF AP flour, and stored in the fridge overnight covered well this time with plastic/shower cap. Scored and baked right out of the fridge. Success!

Feb 5th got it mixed and to this point, put in fridge to bake the 6th. Started early in the morning.

Used a heated DO to bake (well, two of them), on parchment

I like how this recipe splits nicely into 2 smaller rounds; good for gifting or just to serve at a meal for a group. Could put one on each end of a table. 

The Start of My Sourdough Journey

I thought I'd posted pictures of my beginnings with sourdough, but alas, something happened with my phone I'm seeing because there isn't anything here about this. I want to catalog what I've done for my own records, and maybe it'll be useful to someone who comes along this way. 

My starter was mature and a gift from a friend, 40 grams, and I was feeding a 1:1:1 ratio twice/day. I quickly ended up with a lot of great discard that was being saved in the fridge. It was robust and kept bubbling in the fridge actually. 

I made sweet rolls for the college kids (orange marmalade and cinnamon) and added 100 or 150 g of discard to the orange marmalade dough and while a site I found said you didn't need yeast to use discard, that was dead wrong and when the dough didn't rise, I added in rapid rise yeast in a little water, worked it in, let it sit, and the dough did respond. The tang was really nice from the discard and I'll do it again. 

1/4/25 was the beginning of my sourdough journey and the 5th I started the dough, then it was ready to bake on the 6th. 

The first boule I made was 1/6/25 and the recipe used 125 g starter (white flour), 325 g water, 500 g KA bread flour, and 10 g salt. Mix the water/starter mix, add the flour/salt, mix, sit covered 1 hr. 4 sets stretch and folds every 30 min, sit covered on counter 3-8 hrs, shape and put in floured banneton. I put it in the fridge at this point, and it got hard on the top b/c I don't think I used a shower cap to cover but just a dry towel. Oops. Should have been plastic wrap or a shower cap.

It could sit in the fridge up to 3 days which is perfection if you ask me. I could easily get two batches of this going, do the one in a warmer setting for faster rise and bake the same day, then have the other in a cooler area to rise longer and then pop in the fridge for 3 days. 

To Bake: preheat DO 475 degrees, score dough, place gently on parchment and lower into hot DO, put lid on and bake covered 30 min, uncovered 30 min or until 205-210 degrees. I went 209 degrees and cooled for many many hours. I was worried about gummy bread. It was beautiful and really had nice holes. Feel this is my go-to white bread flour free form boule and I'd like to try with half FMF (freshly milled flour). ***Since I'm working at not having discard, take 20 g out and do a 1:3:3 feed (I've never done this) or 40 g and do 1:1:1 and use when bubbly. Maybe take out small amount night before, feed at night and feed again in the morning...this will only work with a small amount of starter...maybe 10 g? Maybe 5 if doing a triple ratio...