Changing Up My Goop

After waking up and stirring my goop I decided that it smelled too much like a barn for me to continue with it in its current form.  Time to change up my goop. 

My goop is now:
• A cup of water
• A cup of white flour
• Half a cup of old goop

Hopefully I saved enough to keep the bubbles but got rid of enough of the rye, barley, and oat flours so that it doesnt smell so bad.

Its Alive!

I got back from the airport and decided to check my starter, err, goop.  Im already starting to get bubbles!  Now it smells like barn AND bad beer!  Since it was such a good little starter I fed it some more and gave it a nice stir.  I also took it for a nice walk back to its spot beside my coffee pot.  Hopefully it doesnt learn to play dead while I get some sleep.

My Second Day With Goop

So its after work on Monday and I've got to drive the mother in law to the airport. But while she is waking up I'm going to play with my goop.

Goop maintenance is probably essential so always be sure to take care of your goop. I gave my goop a nice stir and dumped some of it out.  I fed my goop some more flour (I got lazy and just used whole wheat today) and some more water (damn out of old tea water, I guess tap is going to have to work). I stirred my goop up and put it back in my office beside the coffee machine (MM nice warm comfy office).

I'll play with my goop some more after a good days sleep.

Making the Goop

Somewhere half way through a Magic Bullet infomercial when I stopped being amazed at how damn well the things will juice vegetables I don’t own it struck me that maybe I could be doing something more productive with my time. Thus the Bread From Goop idea was born.

I’ve been reading online that people make these magic jars of goop called sourdough starters and thus save themselves the $2.50 that jars of yeast would otherwise cost them. I figured this I must have. Now due to the fact that I was reading about this a few weeks ago when my "Hey I should make bread" urges first struck I didn’t really remember too much about this magic goop but I figured how hard can goop be.

So here we go:

(My method for making sourdough starter may kill you....read somewhere else if you are a hippy....otherwise...you know...carry on)

I remembered that this goop was made by gold farmers or something and it struck me that people in Korea may not know about hygiene so I went with the non sterilized method here myself. For those of you who like life you may want to think about cleaning your equipment up some before you start. I figure some guy 5000 years ago probably didn’t worry about it when he was making bread, so I won’t either.

You're going to need:
• A large mason jar (Get a pickle jar or something if you are addicted to 10 dollar meals.)
• Some water
• Some flour like substance
• A mixy thing
• Some cheese cloth
• The outside lid part of your mason jar (or an elastic if you are a fan of the 10 dollar meals)

To Start:
• My jar was nice and clean from when I washed it a week ago and put it damp into my spice cupboard, but you may want to give yours a spit shine (especially if there is still pickles in it...pickles are bad here).
• Pour in your water (I used the water that was sitting in my tea pot from 2 days ago....). You want to put a cup or so into the jar.
• Pour in your flour.

For the flour I went with:
• 3 Tbs of bleached white flour
• 3 Tbs of whole wheat flour
• 3 Tbs of rye flour
• 3 Tbs of barley flour
• 3 Tbs of 7 grain mix
• 3 Tbs of whole oats
• I'd imagine if you can make bread with it you can throw it in the goop. I got a nice pancakey substance that smelled a lot like a barn.

Now:
• Stir your sourdough starter till its goop (I read someplace that goop doesn’t like metal so I used some wood chop sticks)
• Put your cheese cloth over your jar
• Put your outside lid dealy on to secure the cloth (Or ... elastic...twine...hair....whatever)
• Now this next part is going to take a lot of TV. Stir your goop every 12 hours or whenever you decide "Hey, I wanna stir me some goop". Feed your goop every 24 hours or whenever you decide "Hey, I wanna feed me some goop".

Feeding the goop:
• Throw half of it into your neighbor’s yard.
• Follow original goop recipe again into the same jar.

As I’m writing this I just got done the stir your goop every 12 hours stage so we'll see if I'm alive in a few weeks. I'll keep ya posted. Or maybe this blog will just end here. I guess then you'll know.

Lets Start With Some Homemade Bread

Its 6:30 Sunday morning and I just got off work. My wife is coming home after a weekend with her parents and bringing the mother in-law with her. I figure, lets make some bread. So I start with my basic bread recipe.  You can pretty much make any bread you want with this as the base.  It won't be artisan bread to the snooty but it works for me and it tastes good.

Get some:
• Water
• Flour
• Yeast
• Something to spice up your bread
• A big metal bowl, a sifter, a whisk and 3 hours on a Sunday morning with nothing better to do since there is crap on TV.

In your bowl:
• Add water. I'd guess 3 cups. I just fill a plastic liquid measuring cup with warm water. The markings came off in the dishwasher so it's anyones guess.
• Add yeast. I just shake some out of the jar, I'd imagine its a teaspoon or two.
• Stir, or don't.
• Go watch some TV till there’s some commercials.
• Add some flour. I just fill my sifter, I'd guess its about 4 cups. This morning I'm going with bleached white flour. Sift it all in to the bowl while whisking it. Now I usually plop in a cup or so of something else to make it less boring. Today, some 7 whole grain mix from the bulk barn.
• Turn your oven on for a minute or so, turn it off, then put your bowl in there.
• Go watch some TV. An hour or so of the cooking network will do you.
• Kneed the dough into something that resembles bread dough. I use my hands because I hate cleaning bread machines.
• I add flour as I go while I kneed it because I don’t really like to measure and I generally don’t care that much. You want to end up with something that’s just a little bit too sticky for your liking.
• Rip it in half

To one half I added: 1 Tsp of Montreal steak spice 1Tsp of Tandoori spice 1 Tsp of paprika 1 Tsp of garlic powder 1 Tsp of onion powder 1 Tsp of salt

The other half got: 1 pinch of salt

• Flatten your half ball of dough out and add the spices on top. Roll it up and kneed it some more. I read somewhere that you want to let the dough ferment then add the spices after. I’ve never noticed a difference but this morning I’m feeling fancy and I want 2 different loaves of bread. Add seasoning to the flour at the start if you want.
• Kneed the bread for 10 to 15 minutes then put it in your oven. I have a ceramic pizza stone in my oven full time that I plop it on.
• Go watch another slap chop infomercial. This morning it was Magic Bullet. I suppose the type of infomercial isn't that important.
• Take your dough out and punch it around some. It was saying bad things about your mom after all.
• Punch the halves into a flat sheet then roll them up into a tube shape. Tuck your ends under and pinch them in. Put them into 2 oiled and floured bread molds.
• Put the dough back into your oven. Turn it on for another minute if its cooled down because you are an idiot and left it open while you were working.
• By this time you may get some sub par cooking show like 10 dollar meals. Yes! An episode or 2 and you are good to go.
• You can paint a coating on to your bread at this point if you like. Egg white will make it nice and brown. Oil is a good choice. If you want a nice hard French crust paint on some ice water. Whatever turns your crank, I've even gone with vodka. Today I went with olive oil. I also cut some nice fancy slits into the top of my bread so that it was nice and photogenic for its cameo.
• Turn the oven on at 350. Let the oven heat first if you want crunchier bread otherwise be lazy and just leave the bread in there while it heats for a softer crust. I preheat my oven because all the snooty folk seem to go that way.
• Another 40 minutes of cooking network and I had myself some nice looking bread shaped things.
• Pop the loaves out of their mould and on to a cooling rack.
• Go to sleep and let the wife and her mom figure out if it’s edible in a few hours when they get home.
• When I woke up they were still alive so I had some.

Mmmmmmmmm