It's Alive!

Autumn is by far my favorite season. No matter where I have lived it's always been so and that holds true for my new home in Daly City. It seems that fall is the clearest season for us and right now we are still enjoying a beautiful Indian Summer. When the weather cools down a bit it will be time for baking. I have absolutely no baking skills, that's Joey's department, but I do love making bread...in my bread machine.

Yes, I have a bread machine and I love it. One of my favorite recipes is an easy sour dough recipe. It produces a crispy crust and chewy inside. Just like it should be. You can find the recipe here. It's very easy, but there is one ingredient you need to plan ahead for - the sour dough starter. You can't wing it on this one. It's a must that you take your starter out at least 24 hours ahead of time and feed it. If not, then you aren't going to be making sour dough that day.

I bought my starter from King Arthur's Flour about two years ago. I tried to make my own, but that was a huge failure. It was much easier to get theirs and start feeding it. Having a starter is kind of like having a pet. You need to take care of it. You need to feed it. I was pretty good the first year about feeding my starter every one to two weeks then I moved here and the starter went to the back of the refrigerator not to be rediscovered until about a week ago. After a year on not feeding it, I was pretty sure that my started was dead. I hadn't touched it in over a year. It was this grayish mass. I was about to throw it out, but something told me to just try feeding it and see what happened. It couldn't hurt and all it would cost me is a cup of flour. I added my flour and warm water and let it sit on the stove.

The next day I looked at the starter and there were about three little bubbles in it. The bubbles indicate that it's alive. Three was not many, but it was encouraging. Maybe I could bring this back to life! I stirred in a little more flour and warm water and put it back on the stove.

I went back a day after that and there were still only a few little bubbles. Maybe it was wishful thinking that it was going to come back to life. Oh well, no worries. I will just throw this out and order some more. I put it back on the stove because starter and very sticky and messy and I wasn't in the mood to deal with it at that moment.

I was really procrastinating on throwing this away so I just left it on the stove for a couple more days. Finally, I decided it was time to say good-bye. When I opened the lid to scoop out the starter, to my surprise, it was bubbling! It's alive!!! I brought my little starter back to life.

So, I guess you can revive an old starter. I think the key is to feed it then just leave it be for a few days. That's what I did and guess what Joey and I are having this week?