Whole Wheat Sourdough Lavash

A stack of warm lavash. Yum!

So, are you one of those people who began baking with a sourdough starter? We’ve read that many people are these days, and that’s a good thing. Making bread from three simple ingredients: flour, salt, water, and a couple of more complex ingredients: time and patience, is just amazing. I like to refer to making bread as the miracle of the prehistoric age. Every time I make sourdough bread (basically once a week for, oh, probably the past ten years), I’m amazed that something that good can come from just three ingredients. Of course, everything has a downside. With sourdough, you need to keep the starter thriving through regular feedings. Week in and week out. Even if you don’t want to or need to bake a lot of bread that week. Over the years, we’ve come up with ways to use that excess starter during the weeks when we don’t want to make three large boules of bread, and today’s post is a new one.

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Cinnamon Honey Scones

Once cool, enjoy!

When people give up part of their day, you want to give them something in return. It’s only fair. So, when people came to attend a short meeting on a Saturday, we sent down a dozen of these scones; that way, they could have a little bite if they were feeling peckish. Since the plate came back nearly empty, we figure they were a success. And, after tasting them, we’re sure that you’ll want to try them out, too.

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Maple-Glazed Pecan Scones

Not too sweet, but just right!

Don’t you love the light, crumbly, flaky bite of a good scone? Along with the taste of nuts, and a bit of sweetness? Not too sweet, because sometimes we like to have more than one. We sure do, which is why we feel fortunate to have the best scone recipe ever. Really. It’s perfect, and it’s super flexible. We’ve used this recipe as the base for at least a half dozen different scones, and all of them tasted great. You can use the same base recipe, too.

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Polpette Casce e Ovo

Perhaps a meatless Monday meal?

Recently I’ve said that the French can make a great tasting dinner from anything, but Italians can make a great tasting dinner from nothing. With today’s recipe, that seems to be true. From the title, you can probably guess that it’s an Italian dish, and, as you’ll see, it’s made from practically nothing. Or at least from just a few staples, and perhaps something that you might otherwise toss into the trash. Well, not you, fellow scratcher; we’re sure, though, that there’s someone out there who throws away food items that might be a bit past their prime. With some creativity, those throw-away bits could make your next great meal.

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Gruyere and Rosemary Scones

gruyere and rosemarty scones
gruyere and rosemarty scones
Savory scones for a treat!

We wanted a little something to bring down to a short meeting the other day. Something that we could bake up quickly in the morning and get it out the door. Something a bit breakfast-like, but more savory than sweet. We figured scones would be fine, especially since we have a flexible recipe that allows you to make and shape the scones ahead of time and just bake them when you need them. That way, if you want, you can have fresh, hot scones every day for a week.

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Sourdough Pizza Bianca alla Romana

pizza bianca alla Romana

pizza bianca alla Romana
Excellent bread! And a way to use up leftover sourdough starter, too!

When we first tried this bread, we made it using commercial yeast, and we said that we’d show you how to make the same bread using a sourdough starter. Today, we will. And, if you’re one of those people who bake with sourdough starters, you know that you need to feed and split your starter regularly, including those times when you don’t feel like baking a full batch of bread. Well, it turns out that this bread is perfect for just those occasions, as you can use the starter that you’d normally discard.

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Jim Lahey’s Pizza Bianca alla Romana

squares of pizza bianca alla romana

squares of pizza bianca alla romana
An easy traveling treat!

This post comes, somewhat, from a baking disaster. Well, not really a disaster; no one was hurt, nothing was damaged, it was just that a particular recipe we were trying had problems in the ingredients list. Instead of something nice to bring down to the fellow volunteers on Monday, we were left with a mess spread across a couple of baking sheets. As luck would have it, we’d happened to see Jim Lahey present the baking of his no-knead breads at the Tucson Festival of Books the day previously, so we switched gears completely and quickly made his Pizza Bianca alla Romana.

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