Sourdough Camping

Note (9/3/10): This post is not to be confused with the "Sourdough Camping" video that Wardeh is offering for an incentive for her e-course members over on the GNOWFGLINS forums. The title is a coincidence.

I had fun over the weekend taking my sourdough along on an overnight church camp-out.  I planned ahead pretty carefully and took along my crockpot liner full of already mixed and refrigerated dough, plus a cup of starter. I fed my main starter jar and left it at home in the frig.

I made sourdough English muffins on Saturday night, and put a big pan of them with a jar of honey out to share. Only one was left when I went to bed.

I was pretty proud of those muffins -- I had made them before, at home, but it was the first time on a propane stove -- and the first time since my early 20s to cook on propane at all -- and the first time I ever set up and lit a new stove by myself.

I also took some bratwurst along -- I had my first batch of home-made sauerkraut, and I had a serious craving for bratwurst and kraut.

In bread.

So I took some of the English muffin dough, as I was cooking, and shaped it into long 8-inch rolls and pressed them flat and cooked them on my cast iron griddle just like the muffins...but longer and flatter. I used these as "buns" for eating my bratwurst and kraut. This meal was so satisfying -- just as good as my fantasy of it -- that I had no trouble at all passing up all the chips, candy, cookies, and roasted marshmallows that were being handed around the campfire, though I did sample the salmon and roast pork. I was surprised that I just didn't want the sugary stuff at all.

Before I went to bed...okay, before the sun went down... I took my cup of sourdough starter (fed before leaving home in the morning) mixed it with freshly ground flour (brought from home, not ground on the spot) and milk. I left it overnight to soak in one of those 2-quart pyrex mixing/measuring cups with a lid.

In the morning I added the rest of the ingredients and made sourdough pancakes to share, then made myself a cheese omelet and sliced avocado to go along with the pancakes for myself.

Most people had their own breakfast plans and breakfast foods, so the pancakes were harder to share than the muffins -- but I did find a few takers, and one big fan. Those that weren't eaten made me a good Monday morning breakfast at home.

The only sad part of the weekend -- I couldn't get my son to go with me. He stayed over with a friend instead. I suspect he thought a camping trip sounded too much like, well, like work. Guess who would have made all those trips downstairs laden with sourdough and flour and milk and propane if he had come along? Not me!

This post is entered in Tuesday Twister and Real Food Wednesday.

Clark County Food & Farm

Here's a great blog for the Clark County area -- lots of links to local farms, CSAs, farmers markets, classes and extension programs. It looks more focused (i.e., less personal and better-maintained) than The Cowlitz Locavorian.  If you live in Clark County, this looks like a good place to start looking for local food!

Unfortunately, it looks like a good place to look even if you live in Cowlitz County! There are some resources down there that Cowlitz County just doesn't have. Yet.

Clark County Food & Farm

Winding up a personal challenge

I started taking an e-course on the fundamentals of cooking nourishing food at the beginning of the summer. The course is the Fundamentals E-course at GNOWFGLINS. I set out to learn how to prepare grains properly so they don't interfere with nutrients, and how to make traditional foods such as home-made cream cheese, sourdough breads, lacto-fermented vegetables such as sauerkraut, and rich nourishing bone broths.

These foods are some of the key elements in the healthy way of eating recommended by the Weston A Price Foundation.

I was kind of skeptical, but I tried one thing at a time, and I kept reading, and one day even found myself buying raw milk at a local health food store. (WAPF calls this Real Milk instead of raw milk.)

I drank it.

I liked it.

I lived.

By the end of the summer, when my son went off to visit his dad for three weeks, I had sampled some of the basics, one meal and one recipe at a time, and I was ready to try more.

So I gave myself a challenge. While he was gone, I would do all my own cooking, and stick as closely to the WAPF principles for healthy eating as my skills and my budget would allow.

I loved it. I ate avocado and cheddar cheese omelets and didn't worry about the fat. I made cream cheese from raw milk that was deliberately left out to sour.  I made broth that had a full 24-hours to simmer, extracting all kinds of nutrients from the bones, instead just the few hours that it takes to cook meat until is tender. In the last week, I finally made bright purple sauerkraut, which is still souring on top of my refrigerator.

Cheating: I did finish off the ice cream in the frig (but saved the rest of the chocolate syrup for my son). When I had an all-day training to attend, I bought two chicken tamales (a traditional food -- and pretty sure this store makes them with real lard instead of vegetable shortening) for my lunch, and I said yes one day when someone offered to buy me lunch.  I had about a week of struggling with sugar and salt cravings (and I found a bag of powdered sugar in the back of one of my cupboards. You don't really want to know all the ways I have of making a bag of sugar disappear.)

I had already cut back on caffeine and during these three weeks I went from a small pot of 90% decaf to no caffeine at all.  My blood pressure had been going down steadily ever since I started cutting back...my doctor took me off blood pressure medication when it went below 140/90, and at my last visit it was 132/88.

I learned to make kombucha, but I'm using decaf tea bags.

One day I went through the refrigerator and threw out everything that had high fructose corn syrup on the label.

Then the next day I had to figure out how to make tuna salad without my sweet pickle relish and mayo! I ended up making open-face tuna melt sandwiches on sourdough English muffins, with yogurt, mustard, and black Greek olives in the tuna instead of pickle relish, mayo and mustard.

Frankly, they were a triumph.

What it all boils down to: I now feel really committed to this way of eating, which is so wonderful I really don't feel restricted at all. I'm not bringing processed packaged foods into my home again. At least not for myself.

Converting my 17-year old son may take a little longer.

Blog Hops: This post is entered in Simple Lives Thursday at GNOWFGLINS   and Fight Back Friday at Food Renegade.

Savory Bread Pudding

This was an impromptu meal tonight, using some rather flat sourdough bread:

about 2-3 cups chewy sourdough bread torn into chunks
about 1/2 cup plain yogurt
about 1/2 cup whole milk
about 1 cup of diced cheddar cheese
2 T diced celery leaves
2 T diced white onion

Stir together and let soak for several minutes. Pour into a buttered square 8x8 pan and bake at 350 until pudding is set and cheese is melted, about 20-30 minutes.

Great additions to this would be: diced vegetables, parsley, other herbs, a little browned sausage meat, turkey or ham.

This post is entered in the Two for Tuesday Blog Hop and The Pennywise Platter. 

Giveaway from Kelly the Kitchen Kop

Kelly the Kitchen Kop - a real food blog that I have been following for a little while - does great research on real food topic - Real Milk, preparing grains for maximum nutrition, the link between diet and health. Her "Real Food for Rookies" course actually has a little video endorsement on the course page from Sally Fallon (author of Nourishing Traditions). I have been learning to prepare real nourishing foods all summer, and I would love to win this course!

You can enter to to win on the blog "A Moderate Life."