Never saw much more than a glimpse of the sun today, and the weekend is supposed to be pretty wet. So it looks like we’re back on an austerity budget with the juice.
End of April, and I’m blessing myself for not having put all the winter stuff into storage. The canvas coat needed washing, which I put off till I was sure things had warmed up, and now I’m wearing it…indoors, at the moment. I’m thinking of hauling in some firewood, and very well might by Sunday.
But that was okay, I thought; cold and windy and maybe wet is a good day for baking bread. So I pushed up my sleeves and got to work – and an hour later the dough ball has hardly risen at all. Hm – that was the last of the yeast in my ‘ready use’ jar, and I didn’t spend much time proving it before I made the dough.
I went up to Ian’s place, where I keep the bulk of my yeast in his freezer…
Stupid! Stupid! I completely forgot. This is over a year old and near the end. I should have replaced this last month! I did exactly the same thing last time.
I keep an eye on flour and bulk goods and canned food and eggs, but always forget the yeast until it’s a crisis. Maybe what’s still in the bag is good, maybe not. I may be able to buy more Monday, if not I got this stuff on Amazon.
In the meantime I have a whole bunch of dough that won’t rise enough for proper bread. Can I still make use of it? Fortunately I was still at Ian’s freezer…
That’s all the meat I could render from one of those obese Brahma hens, separated from the bones and great disgusting globs of fat. Barely enough to fill one one-quart freezer bag, but it’s good stewing meat. Ate one of them earlier in the week, and certainly didn’t intend to start on this one so soon. But meat pies work out pretty well. I’ll sauté some onions, boil some potatoes, and bake them into smaller turnovers this time. Film at eleven.
good idea! Another idea, take the yeast you have from the freezer and proof it in a small amount of water and sugar. If it works, you could work it into the dough ball you have with a little bit more flour and then you could bake bread. Take the left-over dough and make dinner rolls, cinnamon rolls or your meat-pie/bierock/hot pockets.
Don’t put your yeast into plastic bags. They exchange too much air with the outside. Keep your yeast in glass canning jars. I have 1 pound blocks of sealed yeast in original packages that are more than five years old. The yeast works perfectly. Once I open a block, I pour it into two pint canning jars and tighten the lids. One goes into the freezer, and one into the refrigerator. You might do better with smaller half pint jars, since you don’t have a refrigerator. Keep one in kitchen, and the rest in the freezer. And get the instant rising yeast that doesn’t need to be “proofed.” I haven’t done that in 20 years. 🙂
What MamaLiberty said. I do the same with blocks, have one glass jar in refrigerator and the rest frozen. I also use the instant yeast, but I now mostly make the artisan bread in 10 minutes a day recipe or ciabatta bread which is made the same way. I never could get yeast to “proof” like it’s supposed to and was so glad to see the instant yeast.
Any blog readers have a really simple and good recipe for yeasted buckwheat pancakes? I bought some real hand milled organic buckwheat flour because I love the pancakes made from it and now can’t find my recipe. It’s cold and wet and windy where I live and a nice pancake with warm buttered maple syrup breakfast sure sounds good.
Well… I don’t necessarily have YOUR recipe, but I’ll loan you mine. 🙂 Make a regular sour dough starter with milk and yeast. 1/2 tsp of yeast and 1/8 tsp salt to a cup of regular unbleached white flour. Cup of flour to a cup of milk. Let it stand in a warm spot overnight, stir in a cup or two of buckwheat flour and beat in an egg along with a few teaspoons of oil. Add a little more oil if you will make waffles instead of pancakes as I do. You might need to add a little more flour or a little more liquid to get the consistency you want. Write down what you put into it as you go along and you’ll come up with your own recipe too.
Perfect, it”s ten after twelve at night as I catch up on this blog and you guys with your fresh bread recipes are making me hungry and I really should not have any midnight snacks… Drat
MamaLiberty, I think that’s awfully close to what I used to do, thank you. Hoping leftover batter will keep in the refrigerator.
MJR buckwheat pancakes with warm buttered maple syrup are repair food for all of your body parts and cell functions – essential to good health and maximum brain function – so they don’t count as a snack when you eat a big stack at midnight. They may even reverse aging if you eat enough of them and add a pile of bacon.