Hello my lovelies! It’s getting harder to get out of bed lately. Cold rain and grey skies. My body is protesting the health I’m laying on it. Things are looking up though. I was approved for ads. I nailed a recipe from a very old cookbook. My sourdoughs are going from strength to strength.
Winter is truly here. Mornings are hard. Getting out of the shower is effort of will. My body has hit a wall this week. Extra exercise and diet changes are making my body work harder just now. Pushing through and getting extra sleep will get me there. I pulled a muscle in my core on Friday. I whined about it a lot. These are my first world problems.
Dear reader you may have noticed something new today. Unless you use an ad-blocker. I am now allowed to have ads! Thank you to everyone for visiting and making it possible. Now I know ads are annoying. But I’m not some mogul rolling in all the blogging money. I pay rent with contract work. I’m working on other bits and pieces. Every little bit of income helps. So please don’t block my ads. Mamma needs those fractions of a cent. In an odd way it’s a validating little step. Progress. One day I will have better control over sponsors and ads. But this is a start.
I love to make recipes from historical books. I have quite a few including Le Viandier de Taillevent from the 14th century. Which has recipes for peacock. Don’t worry I haven’t tried to make the peacock. I had recommended to me by a couple of different people Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well by Pellegrino Artusi. It is a classic written in the late 1800s. It is modern enough that the recipes are better documented. And they work. After a little interpretation. I made a fantastic kugelhupf. It’s a yeast leavened cake. It tastes and feels just like a sponge cake. With a little note that reminds you it was made with yeast. Delicious. And easy. Modern technology saved me half an hour of wooden spoon beating. Using yeast has another important implication. Sugar is not very structurally important. To get cake texture with much less sugar is an excellent development.
In other yeasty news. My sourdough is going great guns. I have a new favourite loaf. It is part spelt and has grains and seeds. For no extra effort than making a plain one. My starter is extremely active. I might need to move it’s home. It’s getting a bit cosy because of the heat pump. I’m baking from it twice a week so I haven’t been keeping it in the fridge. I am loving making and eating the breads. We both find them much easier to digest. The difference is quite noticeable. It’s more effort but totally worth it.
Spare the peacocks. Experiment. Make bread. Look after each other.
xx
