I always appreciate a little spiritual reading during Lent.  If  you haven’t incorporated this discipline into your devotions this season, it’s not too late.  Here is a book with bite-sized thoughts to not overwhelm.

Who wouldn’t benefit from a visit from the Holy Father each morning as they eat their eggs? Breakfast with Benedict is the perfect simple devotional to help the faithful get to know their vicar. The daily readings can be devoured in a minute, yet chewed upon all day long.Excerpts are from a vast array of Pope Benedict XVI’s work, including his encyclicals God is Love and Called to Hope, addresses before the Angelus and general audiences at the Vatican, and messages for World Days for Youth, Peace, and more.

The topics are equally as varied, from why the Holy Father chose the name Benedict to the reality of sin in the world; reflections on faith, hope and charity to warnings of the new idolatry of success, fame, money and material goods.

I can’t imagine being worthy of critiquing Pope Benedict. One can only say that what the Holy Father writes, we in the pews ought to read. The editor of Breakfast with Benedict has done a marvelous job of making our leader’s words accessible and digestible.

A busy mother or a career-minded executive will equally appreciate the ease with which a lay person can read one page per day and gain so much knowledge about God. Any Christian who wishes to grow in faith should desire to learn from the best, and I highly recommend Pope Benedict XVI’s daily readings as a great place to take baby steps.

These 120 nuggets of thought could be read daily for about four months, but the book could also serve as a text for Lent or Advent. Once you read one page, it is hard to see the title of the next without seeing what it contains as well.

Some of my favorites include: “Caring for Creation” from a meeting with the U.S. Bishops; “St. Lawrence and the Church Treasures” from Deus Caritas Est; and “The Characteristics of an Apostle” from a September 2008 general audience.

As the one responsible for the care of the poor in Rome, Lawrence had been given a period of time, after the capture of the Pope and of Lawrence’s fellow deacons, to collect the treasures of the Church and hand them over to the civil authorities. He distributed to the poor whatever funds were available and then presented to the authorities the poor themselves as the real treasure of the Church. Whatever historical reliability one attributes to these details, Lawrence has always remained present in the Church’s memory as a great exponent of ecclesial charity. (Deus Caritas Est, 23)

The opportunity to peek into so many parts of the Holy Father’s thinking and speaking is extraordinary and not one to pass up.

You can purchase this book here or here or at your local library.

I wrote this review of Breakfast with Benedict: Daily Readings for the Tiber River Blogger Review program, created by Aquinas and More Catholic Goods, your source for First Communion Gifts. For more information and to purchase, please visit Aquinas and More Catholic Goods.

Tiber River is the first Catholic book review site, started in 2000 to help you make informed decisions about Catholic book purchases.

I receive free product samples as compensation for writing reviews for Tiber River (but I got this one from the library).  I am an affiliate of Amazon.com.

Lenten Book Review: Breakfast with Benedict is a post from: Kitchen Stewardship

Hungry for More? Related posts:

1. Review: Chaplet of Divine Mercy & Stations of the Cross CD
2. Mary and Martha Moment: On Lenten Sacrifices
3. Mary and Martha Moment: Entering Holy Week

Patience.

Patience is key when baking sourdough bread.

You have to wait for your starter to mature.  You have to wait for the dough to rise.  Sometimes you have to wait longer than the recipe says and beg a little.  Sometimes you even have to wait to make loaf number one into croutons and then try again!

If you are mentally and starterly ready to bake bread, here’s my friend Sarah’s recipe for Honey Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread.  She is truly the sourdough guru.  I will give you some sloppy tips today, but if you really want to tend a sourdough, you must check out her Definitive Guide to Sourdough.

On Keeping Your Starter Happy

I think sourdough starters are kind of like…toddlers. I never really know what they’re going to do, but I keep feeding them and watching them.

Basic Sourdough Feeding Tips

• Feed your starter every day if it’s at room temperature or higher, with any grain and sometimes water.
• Stir well, scraping all the way down to the bottom of the jar/pot/bowl.
• Keep your starter warm by leaving it on the stovetop when you cook. I generally get great bubble action when I do this, which sometimes results in this.
• Store your starter in the fridge if you don’t bake often.  You still need to feed it once a week if it’s in there long term.  I usually let it sit out to ferment at room temp when I feed it, then refrigerate again.
• Be sure to feed your starter every time you take some out for baking. How much?  Most recipes say to replace what you took out – like if you use a cup of starter, mix in a cup of flour and a cup of water.  Depending on your plans for your starter, you can add more or less and be just fine.  As long as you have some starter left to continue your culture, nearly anything goes.  Katz of Wild Fermentation claims that the starter clinging to the sides of the jar is enough to keep it going.
• Some recipes say to “discard” half your starter every time you feed it, so that’s where the lingo in this week’s recipes comes from.  I don’t.  I just feed and feed and feed – so if I’m getting too close to the top of my jar, I better use some!  You can just use any starter for this week’s recipes.  Once you take some out and give it a bigger feeding, it will be even more ready for bread baking, in my experience.

Honey Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups whole wheat sourdough starter
2 cups whole milk (or even water)
1/4 cup mild honey
2 large eggs
6 cups (divided) whole wheat flour, plus extra for kneading
2 teaspoons sea salt
6 Tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature (or coconut oil)

Method:

The night before you are going to bake bread, make a sponge by mixing the starter with the milk and 3 cups of flour. Cover and leave at room temperature overnight, or better yet, in the oven with the light on.  I always turn the oven on to 350 degrees for one minute exactly when I’m trying to get my sourdough yeast to be most active.  (I use a KitchenAid mixer to accomplish my bread – I could NOT do it without that tool! However, Sarah does, so visit her if you don’t have a KitchenAid with a dough hook.) Lots of rising action here already, even in the sponge.  If I don’t see this, I might need to offer extra time on the rising for the loaves.

The next morning, stir the sponge before beginning. Then, add in the honey and eggs, stirring until incorporated. Add the remaining flour, salt and butter and use your dough hook to fully mix, then knead for 5-7 minutes, adding more flour as necessary.  Here’s where we radically depart from conventional yeast bread.  Don’t add too much flour.  That’s how you get a doorstop loaf, aka “straight to crouton,” or worse yet, a brick, aka “straight to breadcrumbs.”  I add just barely enough to get the dough pulling away from the sides ever so slightly.  It looks like this: Does that look like any self-respecting bread dough?  No way.  That is why I couldn’t do this with my hands!  When trying to figure out if you’ve kneaded enough or added enough flour, keep in mind that developing gluten, the substance in grains that enables a rise, is your goal.  “Developed” gluten is sticky and allows you to stretch the bread dough.  Elasticity would be a word to keep in mind.  This bread dough, for example, does not have developed gluten.  I didn’t get that part.  We’re still eating the croutons from November! Cover the dough with a towel and put it back in the oven with the light on, 350 degrees for exactly one minute and then off. Sourdough takes longer to rise than commercial yeast, so expect anywhere from two to four hours, depending on the strength of the starter and the heat in your kitchen. I almost always leave it for four to six, or longer if necessary!  Have patience.  I knead the dough at breakfast and shoot to get it in the loaf pans around 3:00 to bake for dinner.

Butter two 9×5-inch loaf pans. (Want to win my favorites? I feel that they are integral to my consistent, successful sourdough rise!)

Once the dough has doubled in size, pour it into the loaf pans.  I’m serious.  Pour it.  Again, for the normal directions, check out Sarah’s version where she tells you how to make a nice loaf.  I pour.

Cover the pans again and put them in the oven – you know the drill by now – with the light on, 350 for a minute and off.  This is a great time to baby your starter, too, so keep it in that nice warm oven.  When the dough has risen at least to the top of the pans or a half-inch above, which takes an hour and a half to three hours, position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. (Yes, take the loaves out first, please.) When my starter was less mature or is less active, I could leave my loaves forever (it seemed) without consequence.  Some days the rising action is just working so well that I actually have to keep an eye on things or risk overrising the dough!  If this happens to you, just bake with a cookie sheet underneath to catch the dough that will fall down.  The bread is still good, if odd-shaped!

Slash loaves*, then immediately bake until they are honey brown and sound hollow when tapped on the top, 35-40 minutes. Be careful not to overbake this bread or it will be dry. Carefully remove the loaves from the pans and let cool completely on wire racks before slicing.  See Sarah’s version for the fancy crusty crust method and adaptation for rolls.

*What is slashing loaves? This took me a while to figure out, but it’s basically the chef’s way of telling the bread where to expand, like here:

instead of here: 

You can use a sharp serrated knife and make a quick sawing motion or a small sharp knife to cut about 1/2 inch in.  This sticky dough is a big difficult to slash –you have to convince it to stay.

Cook’s notes:

• I added a half cup starter to this recipe because I was worried I wouldn’t get it to rise.  Now that I’ve had success, I’m afraid to take it back out, but doing so would probably reduce the overall sourness of the finished product and not really affect the rise.  I also added a cup of flour to the sponge, taking it from the next day’s dough.  My intent was simply to get more flour soaking overnight for more total phytate reduction.
• I use half and half traditional (red) whole wheat and white whole wheat, red for the gluten content and white for the lighter flavor.  Sometimes I also use part spelt or rye flour (remember that rye is highest in phytase, so a great flour to use with sourdough).  The recipe is very versatile!
• In my research on the health benefits of sourdough bread, I came across a source that said that any sponge that includes milk would inhibit the fermentation process.  I tried this recipe with water 100% instead of the milk, and it was equally as good! The milk and eggs both will serve to make the final loaf softer, so if you’re nervous about good results, go ahead and use the milk.  Once you’re confident with the bread, give water a try.  It’s more frugal, too! (I have not tried it without the eggs.)
• I also forget to set the butter on the counter sometimes and have replaced it with coconut oil in a pinch with fine results.

Storage:

To keep the fresh-baked crusty and crunchy crust, just store the entire loaf out in the air. Once cut, you can put the heel back on the end to keep it fresh, or just give up on crunchy crusts and put it all in a bag or other airtight storage.  I always at least let the loaves sit out overnight on the rack. Sarah’s recipe states that the bread keeps for a week in the fridge, but in my experience, you can’t hardly convince this stuff to mold.  I’ve read elsewhere that because sourdough is a fermented food, it does have the added longevity you would expect from a ferment.  You don’t have to refrigerate it for quite some time, but you could freeze it for the future if you like. If you freeze it, give it a day after baking before storing to increase the nutrient density even further, believe it or not.

How does it taste?

We love this bread!  It’s not a perfect sandwich bread, but I think it makes good grilled cheese, and my kids will eat it as sandwiches.  It slices so evenly that my mother-in-law couldn’t believe it wasn’t storebought.  We love it best toasted with butter and honey – I think my kids could eat a slice at every meal and snack and be thrilled.  We like it so much I’m almost afraid to branch out, although my husband does think this multigrain sourdough bread is even better.  If I have a cup of leftover oatmeal, I’ll make that one, but it’s a compromise because it has a few cups of white flour.

Other Sourdough Posts elsewhere:

• Sourdough Home – layers of information, including a starter primer and 100% whole wheat recipe.
• Breadtopia also has a whole grain sourdough recipe and is often recommended by readers, along with their no-knead bread method.
• Keeper of the Home’s troubleshooting – like me, Stephanie advocates a longer rise time if you don’t get what you want.  Just keep waiting and don’t bake until you have reached a good-looking loaf! Her sourdough bread recipe is really simple.
• Here too is the Nourishing Gourmet’s Everyday Sourdough Bread.
• Bake at 350 has the most drool-worthy pictures of her bread.  If only white flour was better for me!

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I’d love to see more of you!  Sign up for a free email subscription or grab my reader feed. You can also follow me on Twitter or get KS for Kindle.

If you missed the last Monday Mission, click here.

Kitchen Stewardship is dedicated to balancing God’s gifts of time, health, earth and money.  If you feel called to such a mission, read more at Mission, Method, and Mary and Martha Moments.

I’m participating in:

• Grocery Cart Challenge Recipe Swap
• Friday Feasts at MomTrends
• Foodie Friday at Designs by Gollum
• Finer Things Friday at The Finer Things in Life
• Yeastspotting

Sourdough Recipes Galore: Honey Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread is a post from: Kitchen Stewardship

Hungry for More? Related posts:

1. Sourdough Recipes Galore: Whole Wheat Crackers
2. Sourdough Recipes Galore: Variations on Sourdough Muffins
3. Sourdough Recipes Galore: Pizza Dough

As promised, I’ll feed you a little soaking grains research as I can unravel it.  I have so many more journal articles to read, but I think I can at least define phytase and explain its definite and potential roles in phytate reduction.

What is phytase?

Phytase is an enzyme.  An enzyme is a protein in a living thing that causes action. Scientists call them catalysts; I’d just call them doers. They make life happen.  Enzymes are not always in an active state, but can be dormant and need certain conditions to be activated.

Imagine a vehicle sitting in your driveway. Unless you have the key, it’s just a large object blocking your path.  Once you have the key, however, it becomes a mode of transportation and quite useful. Phytase is the key to starting the engine within the grain. Making the phytates move out of the way is not possible without the “key” of phytase. (Am I the Charlie Epps of nutrition?  Maybe I’ll have a TV show someday.)

How does phytase work?

The action we want phytase to complete, if you remember our discussion of phytates and phytic acid, is to separate the phytates and phytic acid from one another, thus releasing phosphorus and other minerals trapped in that bond.  When activated, phytase attaches to the phytate to help release the phosphorus (phytic acid).

Because it’s an enzyme, phytase must be alive in order to have the opportunity to be activated.  Heat would damage or destroy the enzyme, so do realize that we’re only talking about raw foods here.  Anything that has been cooked, baked, steamed (rolled oats???) will not have active enzymes.

Where is phytase found?

Phytase is in plants, including grains, as well as in the form of microbial phytase in yeast and sourdough leaven.

Various plants have differing amounts of the enzyme phytase.  For example, wheat, rye, and barley have considerable amounts of phytase, whereas corn, oats, sorghum, and millet have little or no phytase activity.  Baker’s yeast also contains phytase.

There is even some evidence of phytase in the digestive system, so some researchers think phytates are broken down to a certain extent by normal digestion.  However, very few studies have been done on human digestion seeking phytase specifically.

Here is a key quote from one of them: “Studies in humans showed that 37–66% of dietary phytate is degraded during digestion in the stomach and small intestine when the diet is rich in plant food phytases.”(3)   Note: remember that only raw plants, grains, etc count.  The American diet includes much cooked food, therefore as a whole we are very low in phytases.

How is phytase activated?

There’s the rub.  I have more to learn on this subject, but it’s key to understanding our issue of soaking grains. If phytates are going to be broken away from phytic acid, you’re going to need phytase.  How to get it to leave its dormant state and work on the tough bonds is up for discussion to a certain extent, and I will come back to this topic again later.

One fact I know so far: phytase is activated through germination.  That’s why we’re sprouting things this week here at KS. I like to focus on where the research findings are clear and well-documented, similar to last week’s challenge to start some sourdough because that is the most effective way to reduce the phytates in bread.

For cracked grains and milled flour, there are various perspectives on possibility, pH, temperature, and method for activating phytase.  More to come!

Phytase in freshly ground grain

Enzymes degrade over time, and once the hull of a grain is broken, they’re more open to the processes that will break them down. Once a whole grain is milled into flour, the phytase content immediately begins to decrease.  Therefore, to have the best chance of dissolving phytates and releasing minerals, one would want the highest phytase levels possible.  Freshly ground flour is the optimal choice.

Some have asked if soaking or souring freshly ground flour defeats the purpose: if it’s sitting around soaking for so long, won’t the nutrients begin to fade anyway?  Although I don’t have strong evidence for this, my common sense tells me that when you use freshly ground flour, the high levels of phytase are then activated by the souring (or perhaps, soaking).  Once activated, they aren’t going to degrade.  They’re already doing their job.  That’s my hunch!

The healthiest bread is sourdough – learn how to make a sourdough starter and bake bread, and WIN the best pans I’ve found for homemade bread!

Sources: 1, 2

3 Phytate in foods and significance for humans: Food sources, intake, processing, bioavailability, protective role and analysis by Ulrich Schlemmer, Wenche Frølich, Rafel M. Prieto, and Felix Grases. Mol. Nutr. Food Res. 2009, 53, S330 –S375

4 Phytase activity and degradation of phytic acid during rye bread making by Merete Møller Nielsen, Marianne Linde Damstrup, Agnete Dal Thomsen, Søren Kjærsg˚ rd Rasmussen, Åse Hansen.

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I’d love to see more of you!  Sign up for a free email subscription or grab my reader feed. You can also follow me on Twitter or get KS for Kindle.

If you missed the last Monday Mission, click here.

Kitchen Stewardship is dedicated to balancing God’s gifts of time, health, earth and money.  If you feel called to such a mission, read more at Mission, Method, and Mary and Martha Moments.

I’m entered in Food Renegade’s Fight Back Friday.

Food for Thought: What is the Role of Phytase in Soaking Grains? is a post from: Kitchen Stewardship

Hungry for More? Related posts:

1. Exploring Soaking Grains: What are Phytates and Phytic Acid?
2. Soaking Whole Grains: Why do It?
3. Food for Thought: Is Soaking Grains “Traditional”

Get out your calendars, ladies and gentlemen bloggers, and mark down the dates for a 10-week rotating carnival called Spring Cleaning: Get the Junk Out!

We’re going to spring clean here at Kitchen Stewardship in a unique way.  Instead of focusing on your physical space, we’ll look at a myriad of issues that you may want to get out of your diets, cleaning cupboards, bad habit collections or mental baggage. Each week, a different blog will host a theme that fits their mission and a linky for YOU to link up any pertinent posts.

Related posts for the linky might include a tips post, a recipe, a personal story of getting that issue “out”, or even questions you have about the issue.

Here’s the list of hostesses and weekly themes so you can plan to participate. There will be giveaways for each week, with entries both for linking up at your blog and for leaving comments for all you non-bloggers.  New and old posts welcome!

1. 3/23 Katie @ Kitchen Stewardship: antibacterial soap/bleach
2. 3/30 Amy @ Simply Sugar and Gluten Free: gluten
3. 4/6 Beth @ Fake Plastic Fish: plastic food containers
4. 4/13 Donielle @ Naturally Knocked Up: refined sugar
5. 4/20 Micaela @ Mindful Momma: parabens
6. 4/27 Lenetta @ Nettacow: food additives
7. 5/4 Kelly the Kitchen Kop: CAFOs
8. 5/11 Laura @ Heavenly Homemakers: pesticides
9. 5/18 Mandi @ Organizing Your Way: clutter
10. 5/25 Claire @ Saving Money Plan: debt

The Monday Mission here at KS will correspond with the week’s theme, and you’ll find information here about WHY you might want to “get out” a certain topic…then head on over to the hostess blog every Tuesday for multi-level options to help you make a change. You’ll get ideas to take Baby Steps, Making Strides, or a Leap of Faith to get it all out!

I’m thrilled to have such an incredible panel of participants here and a wide range of topics.  I think we’ll all be challenged and learn something new along the way.

Take a look at the themes: What do you have questions about? What will be the hardest topic for you to tackle?

If you’re in whole hog, feel free to grab a button for your sidebar that will direct your readers back to this post, where the carnivals will remain updated as they happen.

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Be here for all the action!  Sign up for a free email subscription or grab my reader feed. You can also follow me on Twitter or get KS for Kindle.

If you missed the last Monday Mission, click here.

Kitchen Stewardship is dedicated to balancing God’s gifts of time, health, earth and money.  If you feel called to such a mission, read more at Mission, Method, and Mary and Martha Moments.

Carnival button image used with gratitude from Olga Diez and free fonts from Kevin and Amanda.

Announcing the Spring Cleaning: Get the Junk Out! Carnival is a post from: Kitchen Stewardship

Hungry for More? Related posts:

1. Announcing the October Fest Carnival of Super Foods
2. Mental Mission: Your Cleaning Evaluation (& I’m going to be on a talk show!)
3. The “Meals that Hamburger Helper was TRYING to Imitate” Carnival!

Sarah Wood has made my life so much easier this week!  Her recipes have been fabulous, and now I even have a few new things to try.  (Sourdough pizza is planned for Sunday – we gave up seconds for Lent but will enjoy unlimited feasting on the solemnity!)

Here is her last contribution to the cause of helping us all create a sourdough starter without letting it take over our kitchen.  I think Sarah should start her own blog; don’t you think she’s done wonderfully here this week?

Soaked sourdough muffins (for discarded starter)

Adapted from a recipe by Mike Avery

Ingredients:

1 C “discarded” sourdough starter
1 C whole wheat flour (sift flour prior to measuring)
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon (optional) and/or other spices
1/4 C melted coconut oil or melted butter
1/2 C honey
1 tsp baking soda
~1/2 C blueberries (or pumpkin puree or whatever add-in you like!)

Equipment:

Stand mixer
Plastic wrap
Medium mixing bowl
Muffin tins

Method:

In a stand mixer, combine sourdough starter and whole wheat flour. Once the two are thoroughly combined, cover the dough with plastic wrap ensuring that none of it is exposed to the air. Let sit at room temperature for at least seven hours.

The dough will rise some while it sits. If any of it has gotten exposed to the air and gotten dry, just remove those bits so you don’t have little dough nuggets in your final product.

When you’re ready to bake, preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Prepare a muffin pan with papers or grease the cups.

In a separate bowl, mix together all other ingredients except for blueberries and baking soda. Add those ingredients to the dough in the mixer’s bowl and mix together. Once all the ingredients are mixed and have come together as a batter, sprinkle the baking soda in the bowl and mix batter again briefly to incorporate. Fold in blueberries and scoop batter into prepared muffin pan.

Bake for 20 min. Makes 8-12 muffins.

I have also made this recipe as pumpkin muffins. Instead of blueberries, mix in 1/2 C pumpkin puree (I add it to the same bowl in which I’m mixing the egg, honey, oil etc.). In addition to the cinnamon, I also added about 1/4 tsp ground cloves, 1/4 tsp ground coriander and 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg. Adjust spices to your liking.

Katie’s note: There’s still baking soda in the muffins, so don’t worry if your starter doesn’t seem like it’s ready to have much lifting power yet!

Papier Mache

Ok, so this one really isn’t a recipe, but I did use discarded starter for papier mache once!  After all, papier mache is just flour and water.  Two parts water to one part flour, so just add some more water to your starter and have fun crafting!

Thank you, Sarah!!

Don’t forget, you can win three awesome bread pans from Urban Homemaker this week!

Why Sourdough? Be amazed at the Health Benefits of Sourdough.

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I’d love to see more of you!  Sign up for a free email subscription or grab my reader feed. You can also follow me on Twitter or get KS for Kindle.

If you missed the last Monday Mission, click here.

Kitchen Stewardship is dedicated to balancing God’s gifts of time, health, earth and money.  If you feel called to such a mission, read more at Mission, Method, and Mary and Martha Moments.

Sourdough Recipes Galore: Variations on Sourdough Muffins is a post from: Kitchen Stewardship

Hungry for More? Related posts:

1. Sourdough Recipes Galore: Sourdough Pancakes
2. Sourdough Recipes Galore: Pizza Dough
3. Sourdough Recipes Galore: Whole Wheat Crackers

Don’t worry, you can bake great bread before your starter turns into the glob that ate Grand Rapids, too, but this is a pretty clear sign of a healthy, mature starter!

I sent Kelly the Kitchen Kop that top photo just to make her jealous once.  It worked!    I also shared my starter with her, in case you thought I was just totally sourdough heartless.

See all the sourdough recipes for this week; bread coming Friday!

Be sure to enter to win my favorite bread pans at the giveaway this week!

Did you see Nina Planck here yesterday?

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I’d love to see more of you!  Sign up for a free email subscription or grab my reader feed. You can also follow me on Twitter.

If you missed the last Monday Mission, click here.

Kitchen Stewardship is dedicated to balancing God’s gifts of time, health, earth and money.  If you feel called to such a mission, read more at Mission, Method, and Mary and Martha Moments.

More Wordless Wednesday at 5 Minutes for Mom.

I love my sourdough starter!

Wordless Wednesday: You Know it’s Time to Bake Sourdough Bread When… is a post from: Kitchen Stewardship

Hungry for More? Related posts:

1. Sourdough Recipes Galore: Variations on Sourdough Muffins
2. Sourdough Recipes Galore: Sourdough Pancakes
3. Wordless Wednesday: August Camping in Michigan

We’re sticking with sourdough recipes that don’t need as much rise for now, in case you’re still nurturing your baby sourdough starter and waiting for the bubbles you really want to see, like this:Look at the beautiful air pockets right through the side of the jar!  This starter is ready to leaven some bread!

I am totally planning sourdough pizza for next week after checking out some options for this post.  Lots of drool all over my keyboard here.  I haven’t tried sourdough pizza dough yet, but Sarah Wood has, and she shares her recipe:

Soaked sourdough pizza crust

Adapted from Mike Avery’s recipe

Ingredients

1.5 C “discarded” sourdough starter
1 T olive oil
1 t salt
1 – 1.5 C whole wheat flour

Equipment

Stand mixer or mixing bowl
Baking sheet and a Silpat type non-stick baking mat OR baking stone
Rolling Pin
Plastic Wrap

Method:

Mix the ingredients together, working in flour until you have a soft dough.  If it gets too dry add more starter or water.

Once kneaded, cover and let rest for half an hour.

After resting, roll out the dough on your Silpat or baking stone.  I then transfer the Silpat with the dough onto the baking sheet.  Cover with plastic wrap to prevent it from drying out and leave at room temperature for at least seven hours.  The crust will rise some as it soaks.

(I make this recipe into one oblong pizza crust that fits on my Silpat in a jelly roll baking pan.  Divide the dough as you desire to suit the baking equipment you have on hand.)

Seven or more hours later, heat the oven to 450 degrees F.  Bake the crust for 5 minutes.  Then add sauce and desired toppings to pizza.  Put pizza back in oven for about 10 minutes or until the cheese is bubbly and starting to brown.

Note: Save your plastic wrap and reuse it every time you make pizza dough.  I’ve been using the same piece of plastic wrap for months!

You can also freeze the pizza crusts after they have been par-baked and save them for future use.

(Katie back; thanks, Sarah!)  Remember that you can always put your sourdough starter in the refrigerator if you’re not baking often; just feed it once a week.  That way you won’t end up with a ton of starter taking over your house. On the other hand, if you are encouraged to make this awesome pizza because you have too much starter, maybe it’s better to let it take over a bit!

I found a few other tempting pizza dough recipes in my forays through the blogosphere lately.  I have no idea which one to try first!

• King Arthur Flour never seems to fail me with great products and recipes.  Here is their sourdough pizza recipe.
• Pam at Adventures in Homemaking wrote recently of trying my friend Sarah’s sourdough pizza: “This was by far one of the best pizzas I’ve ever put in my mouth.  Remember the scene from "What About Bob?" when he was eating dinner with his therapist’s family?  That’s kind of what we felt like eating this pizza.”  It’s fun to hear others acknowledge Sarah’s mastery of sourdough!
• No one seems to remember to take a photo of their pizzas, though – they must be so tasty they just get eaten!

Sarah Wood has one more “discarded starter” guest post recipe for you tomorrow – muffins – and then (drum roll, please!) it’s bread time on Friday!  Be sure to enter to win my favorite bread pans at the giveaway this week!

Did you see Nina Planck here yesterday?

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I’d love to see more of you!  Sign up for a free email subscription or grab my reader feed. You can also follow me on Twitter.

If you missed the last Monday Mission, click here.

Kitchen Stewardship is dedicated to balancing God’s gifts of time, health, earth and money.  If you feel called to such a mission, read more at Mission, Method, and Mary and Martha Moments.

Sourdough Recipes Galore: Pizza Dough is a post from: Kitchen Stewardship

Hungry for More? Related posts:

1. Sourdough Recipes Galore: Variations on Sourdough Muffins
2. Sourdough Recipes Galore: Whole Wheat Crackers
3. Sourdough Recipes Galore: Sourdough Pancakes

I wasn’t even sure I was going to answer the questions when this whole thing got started, and here I am facing off against Nina Planck, author of Real Food and one of the inspirations for many of us self-titled “Real Food Bloggers.”  I feel very unworthy, both to be facing Nina Planck and to have featured so many wonderful foodies already here at Kitchen Stewardship.

This series has introduced me to some new people and given me a chance to go more in depth with some of my favorites, as well as interview Sally Fallon Morell.

We have learned from those of us who, like me, have rather recently jumped into the Real Food movement with both feet, those who have been fully immersed for a number of years, and others just testing the waters and making changes one baby step at a time.

Thank you to the Real Food Face-Off participants, the men and women, parents and grandparents, human beings trying to do their best with their food…for being willing to share your thoughts with the world.

It’s truly been an honor to host, and I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did.

Visit the Real Food Face-Off Introduction page for a full list of all the participants and links to their face-offs.

The Final Face-Off: Nina vs. Katie

Nina Planck grew up on a farm eating nothing but local, real food, then left all that behind to become a vegetarian world traveler writing speeches for government officials and reporting for TIME Magazine.  She finally came back to butter, cream and eggs and opened the first farmers’ markets in London, launching her next career as a Real Food icon.  She married Rob Kaufelt and happily drinks raw milk and nibbles artisan cheeses in Greenwich Village together with their son, Julian, and still rather new twins, Jacob and Rose, born August 2009.  Her second book, Real Food for Mother and Baby, tries to debunk some of the longstanding nutritional myths surrounding fertility, pregnancy, and feeding babies.

I really should have had someone else write this for me.  Who wants to talk about themselves?  (Bloggers, some might say.  Touché.)  Here’s how I ended up here, in brief: I wanted to write a book called Kitchen Stewardship.  Easier said than done.  I started blogging to have some accountability to keep writing and see if my idea would hold water, and I discovered books like Real Food, Nourishing Traditions, and The Omnivore’s Dilemma.  I began applying my own philosophy to my ever-widening cache of food information and took baby steps, one at a time,  until I started hosting the Real Food Face-Off, which has made me feel guilty for not doing more.

How do you describe the way you eat when someone asks you to define your food?

What was/is your major incentive for living a real food lifestyle? (How did you come to eat the way you do?)

I was raised on real food. Then I went astray with vegan, vegetarian, and low-fat diets. My health faltered. I came back to real food bit by bit. Started with eggs for breakfast. A huge improvement. Dropped non-foods like non-fat frozen yogurt – the lowest form of milk.

I believe God gave me the gift of my human body and the earth we live on.  I am called to be a good steward of those gifts and care for both well.  As a mother, He has blessed me with the immense responsibility of feeding and growing two children, and that impacts my food choices even more than concern for my own health.  I’m also a bit of a rebel inside, so I have to admit I’m drawn to traditional foods because they’re countercultural, and that makes me happy in its own right.

If you only had energy for ONE make-from-scratch food, what would it be? Is your preference for taste or health?

What food was your favorite that you no longer eat (or shouldn’t eat)?

What’s your favorite real/traditional food?

What was the hardest transition to make to real food?

What’s something you remain afraid to try?

What’s next on your list of changes to make?

List your top 3 baby steps to move from a Standard American Diet to Real Food.

What is the worst food (or “food”) a person could possibly put into their systems?

If you had only $20 to spend in a week on real food, what would you buy and what would you make?

What does “eating healthy” mean to you?

Name the top food scoring highest on both the nutritional and budget scale? (i.e., best health benefits for the lowest cost)

Biggest drawback of real food lifestyle?

What’s the most creative thing you do to make life easier in the kitchen?

How important is organic food?

What do you refuse to buy at a grocery store that you do eat from its source?

When eating out, how do make your menu decision (fav “out” food, anything you avoid)?

Best book recommendations?

Number one tip you tell your blog readers about eating healthy foods:

Follow Nina on Twitter @ninaplanck.         Follow Katie @kitchenstew .

This has been the last Real Food Face-Off!  Don’t despair; there’s always more to do at KS.  We’re talking sourdough recipes all this week and learning to sprout things, and Thursday I have an announcement of the next li’l ol’ series around here.

You can win THREE TINWARE BREAD PANS, my sourdough success gadget, here at KS through Sunday.

Sign up for a free email subscription or grab my reader feed to make sure you don’t miss a thing.  You can also follow me on Twitter.

Special thanks to Jo-Lynne from DCR Design for the fabulous Face-Off logos.  Please visit her if you are a blogger looking for design improvements!

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Kitchen Stewardship is dedicated to balancing God’s gifts of time, health, earth and money.  If you feel called to such a mission, read more at Mission, Method, and Mary and Martha Moments.

Any links to Amazon are affiliate links, which means I get a small kickback if you purchase by starting here.  I appreciate you doing so if you’re buying online anyway, but I’d also recommend trying your local library first!  Of course, if you’re going to shop at Amazon, you may as well try Swagbucks.  I’m liking the gift cards to Amazon that are rolling in!

The image is from Nina Planck’s website.

See Real Food Wednesday for more real food inspiration!

Real Food Face-Off: Nina Planck vs. Kitchen Stewardship is a post from: Kitchen Stewardship

Hungry for More? Related posts:

1. Real Food Face-Off: Nourished Kitchen vs. Find Your Balance
2. Real Food Face-Off: Kelly the Kitchen Kop vs. Catholic Mommy Brain
3. Announcing: Real Food Bloggers’ Face-Off

As we poke along through the less intensive sourdough recipes this week, we’re moving toward the grand finale on Friday: the whole wheat bread.  Whole wheat bread is notorious for being dense, flat, and difficult to work with.  Sourdough adds the complication of a very slow rise.

I will tell you everything I’ve learned about sourdough bread baking soon, but I just have to share with you my absolute favorite new bread gadget.  I got some bread pans from Urban Homemaker for Christmas that have revolutionized my whole wheat sourdough.

I suppose I can’t claim that these pans are magical, but I’m telling you: the first time I used them was my first success with a good sourdough rise, and I’m not going to try anything else from now on!

The pans are 1/2-inch deeper than a regular pan, and I have the shortest length at 8”, so there’s just more room for your bread dough to rise UP and less room for flatness.  It works!  Tinware is a safe material, which was a step up from the Teflon surface I was using before my awesome mother got them for me for Christmas.  My mom did the safety research on this one, and I’m just trusting her judgment.  You can trust her, too!  The pans are interesting – you don’t use water to clean them at all, just wipe them out with a clean towel and you’re done. 

Look at the beautiful rise on these loaves!

Sometimes the bread even OVERrises before I can catch it!

The material is folded to make the shape, and water would certainly get inside the folds and cause problems. You know me – I just like skipping dishes!  You just need to be aware that you wouldn’t use these pans for a quick bread, because the batter would also get in between the layers of tin on the walls of the pan.

See how narrow the loaves are at the bottom? This wasn't a perfect rise, but I could have waited longer if I wanted to.

The pans leave funny indentations all over, adding character to your bread in my opinion!

When you do get a perfect rise, you get this great shape at the top, just like store bread!

Urban Homemaker helps homemakers master the “timeless arts of cooking, baking, canning and homekeeping in the spirit of Titus Two.” You simply must browse through the left sidebar; everything they sell just rocks on and fits with the KS mission as well.

I am thrilled that they are willing to give one lucky reader THREE tinware bread pans! (value $24)

How to Enter

Mandatory: Click over to Urban Homemaker with this link and enter using the form there. Come on back here and tell me you did it so I can keep track. (While you’re over there, check out the free bread-baking eBook in the right sidebar!)

(If you receive KS via email, you will need to click over to the site to leave a comment.) If you’d like more chances, obtain extra entries by doing the following.  Please leave all your entries in separate comments so it’s easier for me to count.

1. Mandatory entry: Click over to Urban Homemaker and tell me here that you did it.
2. Subscribe in a reader or via email to Kitchen Stewardship (or tell me if you already do).
3. If you have a blog or website, post about this giveaway linking back to this post.
4. Follow me on Twitter AND Tweet about the giveaway (just click the button at the top of this post).
5. Stumble or Digg this post (you can use the Share This icon at the bottom of the post).  (What is Stumble?)
6. Email 5 friends (who don’t already read Kitchen Stewardship) about the giveaway.
7. Stumble or Digg your favorite post or recipe at Kitchen Stewardship.
8. What has been your favorite series or carnival here at KS?  Just tell me in the comment for an extra entry.

Be sure to tell me everything you did in your comments, a separate comment for each.  There are a possible 8 entries!

I will use random.org’s integer generator to choose the winner.  The giveaway is open to U.S. and Canadian residents (I think – pending email from Urban Homemaker contact).  Entries will be accepted until 11:59 p.m. EST on Sunday, March 14th, and I’ll post the winners by the following Monday.

If you missed the last Monday Mission, click here.

Kitchen Stewardship is dedicated to balancing God’s gifts of time, health, earth and money.  If you feel called to such a mission, read more at Mission, Method, and Mary and Martha Moments.

Disclosure:  I did not receive anything to run this giveaway.  I just asked for something for you guys because I love these pans and wanted to share! See my full advertising disclosure here.

GIVEAWAY: Urban Homemaker’s Magical Tinware Bread Pans is a post from: Kitchen Stewardship

Hungry for More? Related posts:

1. Whole Wheat Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day Review…and Soaked?
2. Monday Mission: Bake Homemade Bread (or Grind Your Own Wheat)
3. How to Read a Bread Bag: Searching for Whole Grains

My very first attempt at baking anything with my new sourdough starter last fall was Sarah’s sourdough focaccia with her Best Ever Minestrone.  It really doesn’t need to rise at all, which is good, because I don’t think mine did.  I thought I’d died and gone to Heaven in an Italian restaurant, though, when we ate dinner.  I couldn’t have been more pleased with the result!

The first time we made sourdough pancakes, however, we decided they just weren’t for us.  I tried Sarah’s Apple Cinnamon Sourdough Pancakes, and they were so sour mixed with the sweet.  Don’t give up on these, though, because I’ve since learned my lesson: it’s all about the sourness of the starter.  I’m so glad I tried again!

I’ve taken to making pancakes the day after I take a bunch of starter out to make bread, because then I can mix lots of new flour and water, make the starter the perfect consistency for pancake batter, and it’s all ready to go the next morning and not too sour.

Donielle also has a good sourdough pancake recipe, which is basically the same as Sarah’s without the fancy add-ins. Both recipes include adding baking soda to the mixture right at the end.  Do this with kiddos nearby to watch that batter swell twice its size in about a minute!  Cool science!

More Sourdough Pancakes

Here is another recipe from Sarah, who doesn’t like to throw away her sourdough starter when it gets too much! (She shared crackers yesterday.)

Ingredients:

Approx 1 C sourdough starter
1 C whole wheat flour
½ – ¾  C milk, depending on how thick you like your pancakes.
¼ t salt
1 T baking powder
2 beaten eggs
2 T melted butter
1 t vanilla (optional)
½ t cinnamon (optional) or other spices

Equipment:

• Large mixing bowl with lid
• Additional bowl for beating eggs
• Wire whisk
• Griddle
• ¼ c measuring cup for scooping batter (optional)

Method:

The night before you want to make pancakes, combine the starter, flour and milk in a bowl. Cover and let it soak at room temperature for at least seven hours.

In the morning, preheat your griddle.  Then stir the flour/starter/milk mixture.  Beat two eggs in a separate bowl then add them to the batter. Then add the salt, baking powder and optional vanilla and/or spices.  Gently mix in the melted butter and let the batter rest for five minutes.

Grease your griddle with coconut oil or butter.  Scoop pancake batter onto preheated griddle and allow the first side to cook until you see bubbles forming and the edges getting dry or until the first side is golden brown.  Flip pancakes and cook until the second side is golden brown.

Makes over a dozen ¼ C pancakes.  (about 14-17)

Katie’s note: because sourdough pancake batter is always a bit bubbly, watch for the dry edges over the bubbles on top:

Our Family’s Favorite:

Like I said above, this may all be dependent on your starter and how sour it is, but just remember you may not have the same pancakes twice – ever – with sourdough.  Here’s one more quick recipe from the comments at Heavenly Homemakers:

Mix 1 cup flour, 1 cup starter and 1 cup milk.  Let rest overnight.

Add 2 beaten eggs, 1 Tbs honey or maple syrup, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp baking soda, and 3 Tbs melted coconut oil or butter.  Mix and cook!

The bottom line: No matter what your starter is doing, you cannot mess these up. Okay, you could get them too sour.  But you don’t have to worry about the rising time…yet!  Come on back tomorrow for some pizza dough options from Sarah!

Get ready to bake bread on Friday by checking out Urban Homemaker’s bread pans. You can win three of them HERE.

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I’d love to see more of you!  Sign up for a free email subscription or grab my reader feed. You can also follow me on Twitter.

If you missed the last Monday Mission, click here.

Kitchen Stewardship is dedicated to balancing God’s gifts of time, health, earth and money.  If you feel called to such a mission, read more at Mission, Method, and Mary and Martha Moments.

Find more recipes at Tempt my Tummy Tuesday and Tasty Tuesday.

Sourdough Recipes Galore: Sourdough Pancakes is a post from: Kitchen Stewardship

Hungry for More? Related posts:

1. Sourdough Recipes Galore: Variations on Sourdough Muffins
2. Sourdough Recipes Galore: Honey Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread
3. Sourdough Recipes Galore: Whole Wheat Crackers