simple, everyday sourdough

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 cityhippyfarmgirl

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I’m often asked for a basic sourdough recipe and for some reason I have never done a post that is just simply that. A simple, every day sourdough bread recipe.

Bit of an over sight really as so much of this blog is designated to bread. After three years, I still find making sourdough an incredibly enjoyable experience.

I like to make it, I like to eat it and I like seeing other people start on their own sourdough journey. The contagious excitement of when a first bubble appears of a newly made starter. The shared joy of an exceptionally tasty freshly baked loaf. The jump up and down happy feeling of a new mixer arriving. The relief and happiness of hearing that one of your recipes have been used and loved and now in turn as been passed on to someone else.

I tell you, it’s true bread nerd stuff, but I love it, I really do.

For anyone that has vaguely considered making their own bread and they would like to give sourdough a crack, this recipe might be helpful to start off with.

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If you don’t have a starter here is post on how to make one.

Or if sourdough seems far too daunting at the moment and you would really just rather try making some regular bread, this post here.

Basic Sourdough Bread

400g starter (100% hydration, refreshed and bubbling)

750g flour

500mls water (approx- depends on your starter and flour)

2 tsp salt (or to taste)

Mix your starter, flour and water together either in a mixer or in a bowl with a spoon. Mixing for about 6 minutes. The dough will be kind of rough and shaggy.

Now leave it. Go find something else to do for about 40 minutes. (Bread magic is beginning…or autolysing but bread magic sounds better. You are developing the gluten here.)

Add your salt and mix again for about another 6 minutes or if by hand until you get a smooth dough.

Put it back in the bowl and leave it for about an hour.

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Now you need to do a three way fold. It will take about twenty seconds, (and you are not kneading.) Dough out on to the bench. Flatten a little with your finger tips and fold a third into the middle, then the other third. Swing it round 90 degrees and three way fold the other way.

Back in the bowl for another hour or so, another three way fold, and then back into the bowl again for another hour or so.

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Divide your dough up and shape it. Laying it on lined trays, banetton baskets or tins, cover it with a plastic bag and into the fridge for an over night nap (around 12 hours.) Bring it back to room temperature. (Depends on the household temperature 1-4 hours generally.)

Bake at 230C with steam, (I use a cheap spray bottle of water inserted in to a crack of the oven door when first putting the loaves in.)

Bread is baked when tapped and sounds hollow. Allow to cool on a wire rack.

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Now there 100 types of different ways to make sourdough and each baker will always have there own little tricks and ways to do things. Sourdough is an amazingly versatile beast, that can work in far more ways than regular commercial yeast made bread. There is never a right way or wrong way in my mind. If the end result is an edible loaf of bread that people are enjoying eating, well your way works. Taste buds and preferences can always be catered for as it’s your bread and you can do what you want. As long as you start off with three keys things- flour, water and salt- combine that with time, a little love and you’re in business…the sourdough world awaits.

Happy baking.

Ginger Pear Cake and a mug of peacefulness

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cityhippyfarmgirl

cityhippyfarmgirl

Looking up at the man I couldn’t help but have a quiet inward chuckle.

There he stood, poised, peaceful and completely in the moment. Sipping from his steaming mug, looking out over the morning sun lit park. Not once did he glance over to the hurrying mother of three, storming up the hill in an effort to get to school on time. Why would he? Bringing the cup slowly up to his lips with two gentle hands on either side, he was very much there, in his moment. His moment of stillness and quiet enjoyment. 

Why did this man on the balcony strike me so much on a sunny day at the end of the week?

Because he was in complete contrast to my morning, actually my whole week. It had been a busy one and on this day, it had been my cup of tea that had paid the price. The first was inhaled at 5.35am, the ambitious second cup was then microwaved for an uninspiring four times.

You don’t microwave tea! I hear you exclaim. I know, but I did. I do sometimes. As far too often that beautifully made up pot of tea, has been poured and left on the bench as something more pressing needs my attention. Four times that cup had been microwaved, and when it needed a fifth go, I gave up. We had to leave anyway, and that’s when I saw that man on his balcony.

With his steaming mug of solitude and peacefulness.

***************

I have a far more complicated (similar) recipe in my head for this cake, however on days where you find yourself microwaving your tea… simple cooking is called for and a blender cake fits the bill. 

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Ginger Pear Cake

150g softened butter

150g brown sugar

2 tsp vanilla

2 tsp powdered ginger

2 eggs

2 peeled and cored soft pears*

75g glace ginger, roughly chopped

225g self raising flour

In a blender mix all ingredients together except flour and glace ginger. Pour wet mixture out into a bowl and fold through flour and roughly chopped ginger. Pop into a greased and lined cake tin and bake at 180C for about 40-50 minutes.

When cooled, dust with icing sugar and have with a mug of hot tea.

* In season at the moment if you live in Australia

clean and green

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green cleaning solutions- cityhippyfarmgirl

There is only one cleaning “product” in our household. A made up bottle of eucalyptus oil, washing up liquid, white vinegar and bicarbonate soda.

Cheap, easy on the environment and works a treat for pretty much anything you throw at it.

So how do you make it?

In an old litre bottle container add

about  5-10mls eucalyptus oil

about 100mls dishwashing liquid

and about 750mls of white vinegar

That’s it. GIve it a little shake up and use with a generous sprinkling of bicarbonate soda for cleaning bathrooms, (toilets, tiles, grout.) Use a squirt or two in bucket of warm water for mopping floors. Use undiluted for spot cleaning on carpet. Use as a paste mixed with bicarb soda and rub into stains. Squirt a bit into hot water for soaking really dirty clothes. Or with a small amount, wipe down sticky benches and stove tops.

Easy, cheap and no need what so ever for 127 other varied and excessively packaged “cleaning” products.

love on a long weekend

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tea

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This past weekend was a long one. There is a lot to love about long weekends.

I loved two consecutive hot cups of tea. Instead of the usual tepid first one and and stone cold second. (Throwing caution to the wind, I did try for a third…with tepid results.)

I also loved finally turning a corner with the mixy-matchy ‘I’m really not sure about this coming together’ blanket. I’m still not sure, but not as not sure as before.

We explored, and visited and spent time with loved family. Ending in long waves out car windows until they were just specks in the distance.

There were cousins and sunsets, long talks and games.

Not to forget that there was also cake. Scrumptious cakes on long weekends, bought from farmers markets and eaten with loved ones. That’s a pretty good long weekend I think.

cakes

a lemon meringue pie to die for

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lemon meringue pie- cityhippyfarmgirl

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lemon meringue pie- cityhippyfarmgirl

I’m the kind of girl who when reading a menu in a restaurant, goes straight to the dessert list at the back.

I’m also the kind of girl who is happy to squash a nose up against cafe glass in order to see a cake cabinet just that little bit better.

I’m definitely the kind of girl to stare off dreamily, thinking about how I was going to tweak my current Lemon Meringue Pie recipe.

It’s just the sort of girl I am.

Me and Lemon Meringue Pie go way back. Way, way back to the time when as a little girl, I would take just a little longer in the fridge than was necessary, carefully dipping my finger into the lemony mixture of the pie. I’d also watch any baking my mum would be doing using condensed milk, hoping for a quick turn of her back, so I could get into that empty sweet goodness can. As a baby I was known to happily enjoy eating lemon segments in my highchair. You see Lemon Meringue Pie and I, we were always meant to be.

When I first blogged about it with this lemon meringue pie. I thought I had nailed it.

Alas, not so. Not even remotely. How do I know this? I know this as, this is the recipe that I will now take to my grave. Not in a not sharing kind of way, but more, I’d like to be buried with the recipe on me. It’s that kind of love.

Now I know Lemon Meringue Pie is serious business and people generally fall into two categories- you either thinks it ok, or love it to the moon and back, and maybe back again one more time. It’s the latter kind of people who will be scrutinising this recipe and wondering whether this really is the recipe to end all recipes, (and to be buried with.)

I sincerely think it is.

lemon meringue pie

Lemon Meringue Pie

Pastry

180g softened butter

50g icing sugar

2 egg yolks

250g plain flour

In a mixer beat the butter and sugar together until pale, then add the yolks. Gently mix through the flour and a tablespoon or so of cold water to bring it together. Between two baking sheets, roll it out to about .5cm thickness. Into the fridge for about an hour. Grease your pie or tart dish and line the pastry with it. With fork, prick the base all over and bake blind at 180C for about 20 minutes or until light golden.

Lemon Middle

1 can condensed milk

2 egg yolks

125mls lemon juice

zest of one whole lemon

1 tsp cornflour

Whisk in a pot over a medium heat for a couple of minutes. Pour into the pie base and set in the fridge until cold.

Italian Meringue

2 egg whites

175g sugar

60mls water

Whisk egg whites to a soft peak form, while you are doing that, in a pot add the sugar and water. Dissolve over a medium heat, using a small wet pastry brush to brush down any sugar particles on the side. Bring the heat up to 121C (hard ball stage) and with the mixer still going high, pour in the sugar syrup in a steady slow stream. Keep beating until the mixture is thick and glossy (about 10 minutes or so, until it becomes room temperature.)

Pipe it on to your pie base.

Eat with enthusiasm and generous helpings.

a boy and some biscuits

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cityhippyfarmgirl cityhippyfarmgirl cityhippyfarmgirlcityhippyfarmgirl

Mostly the small boy doesn’t like a camera pointed at him.

Mostly he runs in the opposite direction to the apparatus that is making him stay still for a full 30 seconds. He might miss out on something. Something important.

Mostly.

Then some days he just pops up. Just like that. A wriggle under the table and tahdahhh! 

What are you doing mama?…and what’s THIS?

 Oh, and I want to be in your picture.

The longing. The hunger. The puppy dog eyes.

Disappearing only once a biscuit was firmly in hand.

Back to what ever mischief was interrupted before.

****************

These truly were just slapped together, but as four out of five of our family members really enjoyed them I thought I would put them up. As they are super healthy and easy.

No butter, no eggs, no processed sugar, no nuts.

Honey Chia Biscuits

2 cups of whole rolled oats

4 tablespoons of chia

4 tablespoons of sunflower seeds

4 tablespoons of water

5 dessert spoons of honey*

Add water and chia together, (a gel type mass should appear pretty quickly- this helps it bind it together.) Add the rest of the ingredients with an extra 2 or so tablespoons of water and mix well. Put aside for ten or so minutes, letting the water soak in. Squish them into balls and squash them done flat on to a tray.

180C for about 20 minutes and then I turned the oven off, leaving them in.

Eat with enthusiasm and regularity.

*(swap to maple syrup if you want to vegan it up.)

“are you some sort of Greenie or something?”

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cityhippyfarmgirl

My standard response when buying something in any kind of shop is, “No bag thanks.” I often say it with a slight edge to my voice, as take my eyes off the sales person for a mere second or a distraction from a small child and they are stuffing those goodies straight into that bag of plastic. Far too much enthusiasm round these parts for you to be taking home a little souvenir plastic.

Recently, after buying a few items in a shop I blurted out my standard line and was met with…

“What, are you some sort of Greenie or something?”

I looked around me. Everything seemed to look the same as when I had stepped into the shop, everything still looked very 2013 and yet that comment seemed to come straight from 1983.

I was appalled. Is this how far we had come? That only a Greenie would say no to plastic bag?? I indignantly said yes, yes I was and stomped out. (And for the record the shop in question was also a health food shop….a health food shop!)

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So there the comment sat with me, weeks and weeks after. What hope did the planet have if it was still a bloody battle not to get a plastic bag for your purchases? (I had also had another comment in the same week from another salesperson expressing sincere surprise at my lack of plastic enthusiasm as so many of her customers always took multiple bags.)

While my issue with having plastic bags thrust in my hands is small in comparison with all the other environmental issues going on in the world, I can’t help but think it’s still far too easy to put our heads in the sand and pretend nothing is happening.

Too easy to ignore the fact that these seemingly small steps are someone else’s problem.

Too easy to ignore the fact that we are living with a greedy fossil fuel industry, that’s having gaspingly scary consequences.

Too easy to dismiss what will happen in our future as it’s just so unknown… But is it? Is it so easy to dismiss? This is the sort of thing that keeps me up late at night wondering what the hell sort of future I’m passing on to my children.

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This week author and environmentalist activist Bill McKibben is in Australia for his “Do the Math” tour. For tickets, dates and places please see here. More reading on 350.org

He will also be appearing on Q and A tonight (if you are in Australia.)

(this movie is set in the United States but has global maths figures that are and will effect all of us.)

Baked Ricotta- Frugal Friday

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baked ricotta

This is a ridiculously simple dish, where the possibilities are endless of what to team it up with. Add extra different types of cheese, fresh garden herbs, chilli, bacon pieces, shallots… endless I tell you.

A side salad or some roasted vegetables to go with it and a simple Friday night dinner is done. Five minutes tops, to put it all together.

Baked Ricotta

350g ricotta

3 eggs

75g self raising flour

50g melted butter

1 tsp oregano

salt and pepper to taste.

Beat eggs, mix through everything else except flour, and then fold that through too. Pop it into a greased pie dish (or something similar) and bake at 200C until puffed up and golden, (about 35 minutes.)

Schiacciata con l’uva…can you remember it?

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rosemary

schiacciata

Some time a go when I was still a girlfriend, I was introduced to a man. We exchanged names and shook hands. It was a pleasant meeting, he seemed to be a likeable fellow, and being a friend of a friend, maybe we would meet again, maybe not.

A little further down the track and we did meet again. Mr Chocolate remembered him well, and gently pushed his newly wed wife towards the man in an enthusiastic gesture.

“You remember my now wife? he beamed.

“Sure!” said the man just as enthusiastically

I looked confused. Turning towards the man, I held no recognition of his face at all. I looked back towards Mr Chocolate, hoping for another clue. Nope nothing there. Clearly they were both mistaken and we had had never previously met before. (hmmmph!... thinking I must have been mistaken for a previous girlfriend.)

Introductions were made once more, and after a time we left again. Mr Chocolate assured me we had met previously but as I had no memory of him and usually “never forget a face!” I sincerely doubted him.

So when a third time meeting occurred another year or so down the track, Mr Chocolate (probably a little cautiously) said “Brydie you remember *Ben don’t you!” With his eyebrows up a little higher than normal and perhaps a slight edge to his voice.

“Of course I do babe. Ben…how are YOU?!” Smiling and giving the guy a big hug. I sucked up my complete and utter confused-stranger-alert face I wanted to put on, and instead put on my so-happy-to-see you my old friend face on.

Pleasantries passed between us, a lunch was had and again we left. No awkward moments for Mr Chocolate this time as I had remembered the man I met several times before.

Although I hadn’t. I still had no recollection of this man what so ever. Not one little scrap of face recognition did I have. All I knew was this was the man whom I was expected to remember due to having met him several times before.

Mr Chocolate and I laugh about it now, and refer to him as the man who I can’t remember. Certainly not for a lack of personality, as he is lovely (so Mr Chocolate tells me.) Just for some reason he had refused to jump into the recesses of my memory bank.

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Now what does this have to do with bread? Well schiacciata is another word that refuses to stay in my memory bank.

Grape and Rosemary Flatbread? Don’t worry, I’m all over it. Starts with an S I’ll say. Italian regional flat bread…delicious…dead easy to make. Sounds a little like sciatica, also ends with an ‘a’. But remembering the name Schiacciata?

Probably as much chance of remembering that as I do dear *Ben.

* And no, I still can’t remember what his real name is.

Schiacciata con l’uva

(Grape and Rosemary Flatbread)

the bread…

400g starter

750g flour

500mls water (approx)

2 tsp salt

MIx in your usual sourdough fashion and roll out on to a large tray. Last proof and add your remaining ingredients just before you pop it in to the oven.

or

if you have no starter use this how to make bread recipe

600g flour (4 cups- I use strong bakers flour)

2 tsp dried yeast

400mls tepid water

 3 tbls olive oil

2 tsp salt

for the top…

add all of this after the last proof and just before you pop it into the oven

couple of sprigs of my potted rosemary

extra salt (I use Murray River Salt)

some great local olive oil

dark grapes

Baked at 230C for about 20 minutes with a little steam.

*************

This post submitted to the always drool worthy yeastspotting

loving….words and pictures

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sydney writers festival

Head On

cityhippyfarmgirl

“Often life’s pleasures pass us by simply because we don’t take a moment to focus on them… Make a point of noticing everyday something that uplifts your spirit or tickles your heart… Stop to breathe in the joy of this moment and then tell someone about it. Share your joy and revel in it. When your joy is savoured, and then shared, it is magnified…” ROBIN GRILLE

Sydney Writers Festival I adore you. You are nothing but inspiring and on weekends like this I love every. single. inch, of this fair city. Truly inspired…loving that.

Head On photographic exhibition…so many stunning pictures. So many, talented people out there wielding a camera.… loved every single one of them.

Watching a little blanket grow. It started with some really unlikely colours, using what I had on hand and not a hint of an idea or plan, but I think (with fingers and toes crossed) it’s coming together, (in a rustic mixy matchy kind of way)….and I’m loving that.

Stories of tea. Getting to read all your beautiful stories of tea. I was incredibly touched that so many of you took the time to share a tea story with me. There were so many lovely stories I decided to change it to three winners.

Amber @Quinces and Cumquats

Anne

Rose @Greening the Rose

Thank you to everyone, I wish I could have given you all some tea.

What are some of those moments that have tickled your heart lately?