T Stands For Tuesday & Baking Over the Weekend

T Stands for Tuesday is where we share a drink related post about anything with our T Party friends. 
     You are most welcome to join us. The link to our hostess Bleubeard and Elizabeth is in my right hand column.

   It has turned extremely hot and humid again here in my area of the Ozarks in Missouri. We are now into the mid-90's f actual temperatures. 
    This year I am just not doing well at all in this heat. The pollen and mold count are still high here too. When I go outdoors just to do a few chores I come back in the house just soaking wet. I still am not feeling up to my usual self so that could be part of it and I couldn't get into my doctor til the end of this month-ugh  
    Oh well it is what it is I always say.

  The two sourdough starters I have set up for my husband needed to be fed. So I fed the regular wheat starter and then I fed the Austrian Rye Starter and baked with it. I made us a corn beef dinner today with baby potatoes and large fresh brussell sprouts (instead of cabbage) and I wanted to make this bread for Hubs. When it was rising and then came out of the oven-oh my the aromas were amazing I was very tempted to take one small bite.  He said it was perfect. He likes his sourdough breads really sour like they used to be made years ago-so when I fed the first proof I did it for 24 hours instead of the 12.

   I love King Arthur-and last year I bought two of these crocks for Hub's two sourdoughs. I like the crocks because I think the sourdough can breath better than in a tight fitted lid on a canning jar.

Ready to go in the oven-it has an egg wash brushed all over the top for pretty browning

     I decided to get my brown rice sourdough starter out too-I fed it while it was sitting out 3 times a day over the weekend. It's so warm here that even with the a/c running the sourdoughs are rising faster than usual, so I am feeding it an extra time mid day.  
   This morning after saving back some starter I mixed it up into bread  I decided to add in almond flour and the brown rice flour, also added a teaspoon of xanthan gum, a teaspoon of psyllium seed powder, and just a tiny bit of salt-it needed a bit last time  These were to replace the rice starch for structure-I am still just experimenting and taking notes.  I did get a bit too much flour mixed in as the loaves were cracking instead of staying smooth when I formed them.

I love her baking technique. you form the loaves and cover with a cotton towel while heating the oven up to 500 degrees f  with dutch ovens and lid are also heating up.

Once heated to the 500 degrees f take the dutch ovens out spread some flour on the bottom-which I found interesting-and place the loaves inside cover.
   Then bake 20 minutes, take out of oven and remove lids, and then brush loaves with baking soda and water to help with browning the brown rice flour bread-this was a new technique for me too from MaryJane's book Wild Bread

This bread just cooled enough for me to slice it and try it out-take a photo. Just a tad doughy-I can't deal with doughy breads-but it was a bit warm still. Tastes wonderful!  Nice sourdough flavor. I toasted a slice and spread with ghee-yumm I think I can finally make edible gluten free bread-happy dancing.

Hubs and friend Mr L went to a birthday party down by the river near us over the weekend. The brownies are always a big hit-so I made a package of gluten free brownies added dried rannier cherries and baked them up in my cast iron square pan.  I wasn't up to going in the heat.
    I asked how the brownies went-"well they were all gone in less than 5 minutes" ha ha

With this high heat and humidity I have been buying fresh fruits for us-watermelons, blueberries, mangos, honeydew melon, pears, pineapple, apricots and grapes-are stocked in the frig.

I also made up a fresh lemon-key lime beverage

I had mentioned that I purchased the book Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. I have read a couple chapters and I wanted to share I found this to be a very good read.  The author is Native American so there is the history and input about her ancestors and growing up,  her love of plants and earth-and her higher education journey to learn the science of plants. She ended up coming back to her Native American roots to really understand the plants the way she wanted to--her writing style is very beautiful like prose. I have learned allot about the thinking and customs of Native Americans already too-like where the name Indian Giver cam from. I recommend this book

I am anxiously awaiting the rest of my supplies from Grummer paper making so I can make the hemp- cotton rag papers soon.

For my drink share:
   Over the weekend I made us a watermelon-mango margarita-delicious. Finishing up the last glass while I type my post.

At our small Aldi store I found these really nice refreshing drinks. Just sparkling water and real fruit juices no added anything else-very refreshing

and just a note-if you missed my last post-I decided to add back the monitoring of your comments. with the problems of no email notification of comments-it was difficult to find your comments from a few posts back-so I put that back in place.
    I will continue to comment here under your comments since I have no comment to reply back to now-those of you that are set for email communication-which I really like so much better for communicating.

Happy T Day everyone!!

a few wildlife visitors

I just took these next two-this raccoon seems to stop by about this time now