Photos and a short garden tour

Strawberry bed #1  Waiting for some weeding attention.  ;)

Mark and Ella, working on a puzzle.  I love these two.  

Sourdough bread, the last time I baked it.  But does anyone remember when I was bemoaning my sourdough bread rising problems?  This is that same recipe, right here.  And look at that rise!  I was so proud of myself.  (Now that we're in this trial period of eliminating gluten, I really miss baking bread.  I tried a g-f bread recipe this past week and it was so disappointing. I couldn't even finish one slice.  There's just no comparison.)

Our side yard-- all green and flourishing.  I love this little area, all overgrown with ferns and hosta and bleeding hearts and peonies and other perennials.  One of the reasons I love this area so much is that we did it ourselves (see back to this post), and I remember what a fun family project this was.

Peonies!  Peeking over the picket fence.  These make me so happy.

Tomatoes in the galvanized buckets, strawberries in the planters, a little pot of thyme.

Our strawberries just a week ago, when they were first beginning to ripen.  (For the past few days we've been able to pick a handful of ripe berries per day!)

Strawberry bed #2 (and my toes), as I wonder what happened to that dead section 

in the center of the bed.

Reviving a Sourdough Starter (from the freezer)

A couple of weeks ago I made the decision to take my sourdough starter out of the freezer.

What I didn't fully realize was that in doing so, I was basically adding a part-time job onto my already quite busy schedule.  (It actually takes a bit of work to revive a starter!)  I followed the directions from this post from King Arthur Flour: Putting Your Sourdough Starter on Hold (which also covers "Bringing Your Sourdough Back to Life"  :))

It sat in my oven with the light on for days looking like this:

As I watched it carefully for signs of life (read: bubbles), like this:

So that I could get to do this,

(Helpful resource: this video called How to Make Sourdough Bread, and using the recipe found within the video.)

I've been paying pretty close attention to my starter, trying to study it and figure out the best feeding/rising/baking schedule and system for our lifestyle.  I've baked sourdough three times (6 loaves total) within the past two weeks.  We all LOVE it. 

However, now my starter is in the fridge on an I'll-feed-it-weekly (and maybe bake once a week or once every-other week) schedule, because I don't really have time to babysit it each day.  ;)

I am still bummed that while the sourdough tastes delicious and I think it looks right, it doesn't have the same rise as the other breads I've baked.  I keep tweaking it trying to change my feeding/rise times in order to get a nice rounded loaf top, but... all to no avail.  I intend to perfect it, though.  And I'm open to any tips for those of you who have any!  :)


Other posts on bread and bread-making:
Adventures in Sourdough Bread-Baking (from two years ago)
Fall Deliciousness