Cooking Cheap

[update 3/21/05]
It’s been on the to-do list for a long time - the sourdough starter in the fridge. Two of them and they’ve been there for a year, unused. One was fed all purpose flour, one was fed bread flour. Neither one really has the taste I want. Time to go. It would also be a fine opportunity to learn about recharging an old starter. If it works, I learn something. If it doesn’t, I learn something. The bread flour starter gets a temporary stay of execution. The AP has met the death of gallons of hot water and the municipal sewer system (where it may live and flourish for all I know). For the other sample, I stirred the hooch back in until smooth and removed a cup of goo (roughly half of the stuff) Added a cup of bread flour and a cup of water and it’s sitting on the counter until tomorrow evening when I’ll take another cup or so out and replace it with I cup flour and I cup water.

Assuming that it survives, I’ll dry a portion, just in case, and I’ll bake something with it. Then it too is likely to meet the sewer system. There’s no real point except curiosity for keeping a starter you don’t like that much. What might be interesting is creating my own starter from wild yeast. My thought is to do that with some rye flour mixed in with the bread flour. It’s takes a different mix of yeast strains to eat rye or so I’ve read. And the rye flour I have is so old, I might as well do a science experiment with it.

– 3/19/05 –
Turns out the starter is inactive, so I must have killed it from lack of attention. Even if it did perk up after another 24 hours, I really won’t miss it. (Obviously, since that’s how it died). It’s for the better. The two of them were hiding a lot of stuff in the fridge that also has to go.

– 3/20/05 –
The starter kind of foamed a tiny bit overnight so there’s something in there that’s still alive, but it smells like flour and water and not sourdough. But what the hey, remove a cup, add a cup. Maybe tomorrow.

– 3/21/05 –
Nope. I put the mess in the bit bucket.