board77

I think I can make bread this weekend. And pizza tonight.

Awesome! That reminds me that I need to get my starter out of the fridge and feed it and maybe even possibly make some bread and stuff. It's been too long.

There's a recipe in this month's Cooks Illustrated for a yeast pastry with fruit and cream cheese filling, and it looks really good. I'll try to adapt it for sourdough, and if it works out, I'll post the recipe here.

Any pointers for adapting yeast recipes to sourdough?

So far, it's always worked for me. I think the hardest thing is trying to figure out how much of the starter to substitute for the yeast/water/flour blend most yeast recipes call for.

Here are some tips:

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/5569/c ... ter-recipe

(I must admit that I just kind of eyeball it and guess. So far it's worked, but I've not done anything finicky like a pastry dough.)

What do you all think of making stock and letting it simmer on a low heat while I'm at work? Is that safe?

Otherwise I'll probably have to wait until the weekend to make it, but I've got a nice fresh chicken carcass right now...

How about a crockpot? I would be afraid to leave the stove on. You can always freeze the carcass.

Also, I got my starter from the Oregon Trail! I haven't reconstituted it yet, though. But at least I can say it's a legit thing.

Jude wrote:

What do you all think of making stock and letting it simmer on a low heat while I'm at work? Is that safe?

Otherwise I'll probably have to wait until the weekend to make it, but I've got a nice fresh chicken carcass right now...

I do it all the time Jude, just make sure there's plenty of water and its sufficiently low heat. You can reduce later.

Now we'll be waiting anxiously till the end of the day to see what he decided to do.

We'll also know our individual levels of risk tolerance.

I'm with Lali - that's something I'd never do, leave the stove on while I'm away. Probably nothing will go wrong, but .... [insert unlikely scenario of your choice, involving an unexpected inability to get home that night/ electrical fault in stove/ canine nudging pot off stove/ improbable freak accident, etc. ]

<nods head vigorously>

Just add a cat to that scenario. (A cat who has just now pulled another thumbtack out of my cork board and absconded with it! )

I suppose the crockpot has its own inherent risks, but they seem even less likely to occur.

I'm with Lali and Inkling. I don't have pets but I do live in the earthquake country, and I just wouldn't be quite able to relax.

I'm picturing miniature versions of Lali and Alatar on my two shoulders - one urging caution, and the other saying, "Go on, make the stock - you know you want to!"

So what did you do? Or what will you do?

Hey Lali, did you try that Oregon starter yet?

No, just thought of it today and thought of you and knew you'd be asking me soon.

So who else besides me snitches liberally from the cookie or cake dough whenever you make it? Despite the raw eggs, I continue to do it.

And I keep wondering if I'm playing with fire...

I think everyone does it Jude!

Indeed.

My mom used to tell me, "You're going to get worms!" I'm not sure what she meant now, but I've tried to figure this out. I have heard from others that their moms also told them this, so there was some kind of misinformation going out in the 70s about the possible detriments to eating raw dough.

I'm wondering if they meant we'd eat "worms," i.e., meal moth larvae.

I made a large batch of chocolate chip cookie dough and only baked half of it (what could fit on my baking sheet). I refrigerated the rest, intending to bake it later - but I've been snitching from it steadily, and perhaps that second batch won't ever get baked

You're going to get worms!