Sourdough

The sourdough saga. Keepin it real.

It's so so easy for us to scroll through perfect Facebook, pinterest and Instagram pictures and think gosh I just dont measure up. Their life looks soooo perfect. They are the perfect mom. The perfect wife. The perfect family....I could go on forever. It is so easy to compare our lives to a picture. We can get caught up in the game of comparison so easily. I know I've be guilty of that many times..... let me just burst that bubble for you.

NO ONE IS PERFECT!

Nope. Not a single one of us. Not one of us has it all together all the time. We can post all the beautiful perfect pictures we want but it will never tell the background story.... it will never show what's really going on. It is only one picture from a whole day of living life...

I've been told by so many people - especially moms - oh my gosh your life must be perfect! Wow you have it all together! I wish I could do half of what you do! You are soooo inspiring how do you do it all?! I could never do that! How do you get your kids to eat all their food?!

First of all thank you so much to all of you who have said these things to me. I hope I do inspire. But also let me say I'm sorry if I've portrayed a well put together life. I want to be real. Honest. Open. I so dont have it all together. I might able to preserve a ton of food one week but guess what the floors are a mess, the sink needs wiped out.... oh and that porch that every single visitor sees... yep its filthy like 90% of the time. Then the next week the house is spotless but homeschool was a flop and woops I forgot about those veggies in the fridge and I had my husband pick up pizza for dinner. Lol!!!

To really drive my point home here is a little story for you... a story of total failure...

Sourdough.... yep at this point I’d been trying since the beginning of summer 2019 to make one loaf turn out right. I had watched tutorials, called and texted several friends over and over and over again.... and still something would go wrong every single time. Somewhere along my journey I just had to learn to laugh because I think I'd managed to fail almost every way possible. To hard. Not cooked through. To flat. Can’t get the dough to rise. Killed my starter…again and again and again. Stuck to the bottom of the pan…shesh!

Another occasion after rising the dough for 24hours I thought I finally had it! The dough folded correctly just like my friends video! The texture was correct. I turned on my oven to 550°F just like the video said to. (later I learned this was a misstatement in the video - it was meant to say 500degrees F) This was gonna be it. I just knew it. When the time came I pulled off the lid of the scorching hot Dutch oven and revealed a beautiful loaf... it was huge and glorious! I was so excited. I finished the cook time and pulled the pan from the oven. I finished up the sausage and sauerkraut dinner. Then I went to place the loaf of bread on the cooling rack.... it was stuck fast to the bottom of the pan! Ugh!!!!! I tried with all my might to free it but I could not. I called for backup... even my husband couldn’t get it out. He kept trying and finally he freed the loaf from the pan. The kids were all eagarly awaiting "haeven bread" as they call it. (My sons believe my friend makes the best bread in the whole world.... They also tell me frequently how beautiful she is.... first crush. So adorable.) I left it to cool, served dinner and then went to slice this beautiful masterpiece. The first cut delivered a disappointing blow..... I forgot to account for the fact that I doubled the recipe.... it was still doughy in the middle. unfortunately we did not get to eat sourdough with dinner that night. All I could do was laugh. Failed. Again.

Stuck. Stuck. Stuck.

This story isn't over. At some point I did succeed in making sourdough .... and now I am very good at figuring out what goes wrong - when it does. Simply from failing so often. Failure is such a good teacher. I have made many batches since sometimes the dough will rise.... sometimes it won't . I feed my starter.... and sometimes wake up to a whole new problem…my starter will be so active it runs all over the table…. will the next loaf turn out? Who can tell?

whoops

I tell you this to encourage you. We are all in different places in life. We have all experienced struggles and hardships, pain and loss. You are good at things that I will never be good at. You are a piece to God's great puzzle and so am I. Without every single one of us the puzzle would not be complete. I will never fit in your space and you will never fit in mine. So live on. Fail often.... and laugh when you do.... because no one is perfect. Never give up no matter how many times you fail!

Here is a picture of my very first beautiful, enormous, light and fluffy sourdough bread!!!!!! Isn’t It just lovely?!

Two years later and I can now make a beautiful loaf of sourdough just about any time my family desires. Sure I occasionally forget to pull the starter out of the refrigerator and we have to eat a different kind of bread with our dinner, but at least when I do make sourdough it does turn out wonderfully.

Next see how I turn my 100 year old wet sourdough starter into a dry starter. Why? Stay tuned to find out! Also follow my journey in learning how to use my new banneton baskets! Lets take my bread making skills up a few notches.