Better Success with Gluten Free Sourdough Bread

Wow we have been blessed.
    I am so thankful that we finally after about 6 weeks plus we got a real break in the weather.
    No humidity to speak of for two days, yesterday mid 80s today we woke up to high 50s although it is at least 90 f right now. Ends tonight though.

    I had things I wanted to do over the weekend-bake outdoors in the dutch ovens, gather plant materials for eco dyeing and I just had to hand water everything since we did not get any of the promised rain. It took me 2 hours tonight.

   I am down to 4 nice looking indigo plants-last time I grew these-two years ago I couldn't tell when they were ready to harvest-so I need to get online and research that out again.

   I did pick up my roaster pan from Wal mart early yesterday morning-I am so thrilled as this is what I had in mind that I wanted, and it was $18.00-perfect. It will fit a 12" square tile so there is lots of room here for a couple smaller tiles or things wrapped around copper pipes etc-I need to ask Hubs if he has some scraps of that around.

  I also now have dried mimosa leaves (for natural yellow dyeing) and they are off the stems-I am letting it air dry more since we have been so humid here.

     So I ran out of time this weekend to gather plant materials for eco dye-if nothing comes up hopefully tomorrow morning early I will take a walk and collect leaves and such

   I helped Hubs this morning with a project we have been working on and in the meantime I had worked with another sourdough bread gluten free-so was getting coals ready at the same time
    I posted a couple photos on my Facebook page so brought over what I had written already.

     Better success today with gluten free sourdough bread.

I had started a gluten free starter with brown rice flour. My last attempt was so so-good but not real good-still too doughy inside even at the recommended internal baking temperature of 206 f to be baked. I think I am going to increase that to 210 f next time and see what happens.

I took out my sourdough and fed it twice for several days, then took half of it and put back in the frig. for later. I fed what was left for several more days twice to build up to 3 cups of sourdough.

I combined the technique of MaryJane Farms new book Wild Bread with another recipe I found online

. I am looking more into baking now with almond flour since it is more nutritious with less carbs then all of these gluten free flour ingredients-which I am learning are loaded with carbs and not much nutrition either.
     So instead of adding in more brown rice flour for my batter I added a cup of golden flax seed meal and two cups of almond flour, and a pinch of salt.
    Going back to MaryJane's baking technique for a very hot 500 f degrees oven-baked in dutch ovens in small loaves-I instead baked outdoors in two dutch ovens with the temp 500 to 525 f
   Next time I will know I need lots of coals to start with to get to this temperature it took me forever-over an hour or more.
However this is the best gluten free loaf yet-the sourdough flavor is so perfect, still a bit too dense for my liking but after toasting in the toaster twice-it was perfect. And not toasted it is much better than my last attempt-not gummy so it's pretty good if I do say so myself  smiles
    I decided to slice it all and wrap single slices and freeze-otherwise this bread just will not keep 

So I am pleased after all of my efforts and I love love the sourdough flavor
Miss Calico likes to hang out with me when i am working outdoors-with the sun out pretty hot-even though we were in the 80s this morning instead of the 90s by noon So she crawled under my fire pit where it is cozy and cooler lol

I have one more thing to do tonight-and that's to refill the hummingbird feeders. So I am off to do that

   Have an awesome new week ahead everyone

T Stands for Tuesday & Flowers and Journal Page

Hello Everyone,  
   Another T Stands For Tuesday is upon us. Hosted by Bleubeard and Elizabeth (link in my right hand column) where we share a drink related post. You are most welcome to join us just show us a photo of your beverage in your post.

   Saturday morning early, I went out in the garden to do a thorough watering and pull a few weeds. I ended up working til noon. My main veggie garden is just  dying. Don't know if it is the intense heat we are having daily or if there is something off in the garden soil again-probably a bit of both. Sadly I have lost most of my indigo plants and what is growing is really small. I think I am going to need to get a bale of peat moss and mix it in the soil again to loosen it up more. It does have lots of compost and such in it but the base here is heavy clay and rock. We have lived here since the end of '03 but I always forget that this soil needs lime added every year-it must just leach out through the rocky soil or something. I remembered early winter and put some on it then so perhaps didn't have enough time before spring-although I did plant late this year. anyways the main garden will be a bust-hopefully I will get a few cucumbers, perhaps a cabbage, and some beans I may try a fall garden this year.
   The zinnia area is beginning to bloom and the perennial sunflower is beginning to bloom too-so far the deer have not bothered it or found it-(smiles) It is stunted from the freezes last April- only half the height it should be. I have flowers though this year-happy dance. The deer love love sunflowers

Trumpet Vines just beginning to bloom

Our mimosa trees are blooming---so time to harvest the leaves for the most clear yellows I have found from a natural dye stuff. I learned about this from the natural dye book by Liles- I have a pretty large library of natural dye books and this in my opinion is the best one out there.  So many natural dye books have lovely photos but are very very vague with the information you need. This one is detailed.

 

Once dry just strip the little leaves off the stems

      Sunday I decided to take the day off and work on my wool pages- fabric art journal. My muse must have been with me as my ceiling florescent light turned on this morning in my craft room. (I have my art journal posts labeled as fabric art journal-so if you want to see more you can search under that label)

   I made a little video of my April page so far.

  
I was browsing online to learn a bit about tea bag art over the weekend-as I have been amazed with the art that many of you have created and shared. I thought perhaps I could do something with them for the atc swap with Elizabeth. Found this artist and thought the works were just so amazing and inspirational and I love it too that the tea bag tags were left on allot of them   Ruby Silivous.  I am no painter though. Are any of you familiar with this artist's work?

  I have been drinking more waters this past week-citrus waters, fruit juice and sparkling waters, water with fresh mint leaves, also a coke zero once in awhile-I rarely drink any soft drinks except in the summer  Thought I would try this one since there is no caffeine in it and compared to others low in sodium no sugar. Pretty nice for a treat over ice and I think a scoop of vanilla ice cream would be good too.😃

  This Monday morning as I finish up my T post I am enjoying a cup of roasted dandelion-chicory root naturally decaf beverage with cream in my favorite Yellowstone National Park cup

I am hoping Mother Nature is being kind where you live. Oh and I almost forgot I wanted to mention those of you that only visit on Tuesdays and wish to see my hemp handmade papers-I posted three blog posts find the first one here and then just continue to the next two posts-I am very happy with them-and learned mostly I needed to cut the hemp fibers as small as I can possibly get them

Happy T Stands for Tuesday