It started with a starter...

I have been trying to cook as many things from scratch as possible... mainly just as an experiment to see how much it is possible to make these things from home... what exactly are we paying for when we buy things pre-made etc. But also because I like to be able to control the ingredients, especially because of the boy's allergy to dairy protein, but also because I want them to have the best, purest ingredients if at all possible.

I have so far discovered that Mayonnaise is INSANELY easy to make and it is much better for you when you make your own if only for the fact that when you make it yourself you become aware of just how much oil is involved and it makes you want to eat less... that was my experience anyway! I think partly it is also due to the fact that the store-bought mayo is so highly processed and not made with fresh eggs that it doesn't really break down like real fresh may does. The fresh stuff sort of looks oily when you leave it out of the fridge (like, the residue on the knife etc.). Anyway, it was an educational experience. But I am not sure that it is worth making my own may this time of year because it does take a little bit of time and it only keeps for a couple days. This time of year with no salad greens or potato salads to use it on, we don't need very much of it, so it is maybe not worth the time right now. I think I will endeavor to make my own through the summer though and hopefully I can perfect my recipes.

Anyway, we have also been making pretty much all of our bread at home. We started with the bread machine, but I also go quite a bit of practice making it by hand too. Asher loves to help and it is somewhat cathartic to knead the dough. So, I like to use as natural ingredients as possible - as un-processed as possible. (I threw the ingredients for a loaf into the bread machine last night and I said to Mr Joyful that it is quicker to do that than walk to the end of the block and buy a loaf from the Macs store!) In the bread recipe I knew the origins of all my ingredients except for the yeast. Then I read in The Omnivores Dilemma that it was entirely possible to harvest yeast from the air, to nurture it and eventually to use it to make bread. I was fascinated by the concept but presumed the work involved would be too time-consuming and beyond my meager culinary skills, not to mention non-existent agricultural skills... I'm no farmer! So I didn't think much about it until a friend from Metro gave me a Amish bread starter. I was mesmerized with the concept of tending to this little bag of gooey goodness until it was ready to deliver a beautiful loaf. However, though I was able to bring the bread to fruition, I was unable to partake in the goodness because the starter had milk in it :( So I set about trying to find a recipe for starter that didn't include milk. I found plenty - the vast majority of which called for yeast. Then whilst reading about starters in my Joy of Cooking I came across a recipe for natural starter where the yeast spores are harvested from the air and flour! Seeing the process mapped out in black and white convinced me that it was a challenging but not-too-daunting task and I decided to try it.

Success! It works and it is amazing! After three days of carefully "feeding" a flour/water mix (you feed it more flour and water) it bubbles up with the activity of live yeast and is ready to leaven a loaf or two of bread. I was thoroughly fascinated to watch the goo transform before my eyes and even more thrilled to watch my bread dough rising with the leavening action of just the yeast that was naturally present in the air and flour! Amazing, truly amazing! The only down side of it is that the recipe in JOC calls for twice-daily feeding and daily bakings in order to maintain the starter and the actual rise-time for a natural yeast dough is quite long (we're talking 12-14 hours, compared with 2-3 for a regular loaf), so you need to be organized a while ahead of when you want your loaf. You can put the starter in the fridge and just feed it once a week, but this involves straining off some sort of gray watery stuff which just sounded a bit gross to me, so I was too scared to try it. So sadly, I think I have killed my starter through neglect. But I will start another one again soon (the last one lived for over a month!). I discovered that I actually only needed to feed it once a day to maintain it and next time I will try the fridge method too. There is something very wholesome and peaceful about taking days to make a loaf of bread - a simple reminder in this crazy-hectic world that some things are worth waiting for.