Sourdough Bread

My mother-in-law Elaine Harvey

The sourdough starter I use was given to my mother-in-law Elaine Harvey 65 years ago by an aunt. She called it "everlasting yeast". Friends and family all loved Elaine's bread, which my sister-in-law Cathy calls "Mama Bread". Elaine passed on, but we’ve kept the yeast and her memory alive. My sister Dianna also received a start of the yeast, and she and I have been baking it for at least 40 years. Dianna was a lifesaver one day when I accidentally mixed up my whole starter into bread and forgot to save back some back. I contacted her in a panic. "Tell me you still have a start of the bread." She assured me she did, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
If you can't get a start of sourdough yeast from someone, you can make your own starter. Pinterest has a plethora of instructions. It takes several days to create the correct sourdough consistency. Many of the recipes talk about feeding and discarding part of it, and leaving it out at room temperature all the time, but I am sharing the process as Elaine taught it to me. I keep my starter in a glass Mason jar and bake weekly.

Sourdough Starter in a Mason Jar

At night:

The night before you want to bake, take your starter from the refrigerator and fill it with water. (Elaine used unsalted potato water, drained from the mashed potatoes she often made, but you can use regular water.) Put it in a big bowl and add about three cups of flour to make a batter, kind of the consistency of pancake batter. Cover and let stand until morning.

Next morning:

Fill the starter jar almost half full of the mixture that has been sitting overnight and add ½ cup sugar. (I actually add about ¼ cup, and if you have given up sugar, you don’t have to add it at all.) Put lid on and set on counter to raise. Don’t stir this – the sugar will go to the bottom and feed the yeast. Let stay at room temperature until evening, then put in the refrigerator until you are ready to bake again. It is best not to let it go too long, though. I bake every week, but it can go two weeks.

To the remaining batter, add 1/3 cup sugar (I add a tablespoon of honey instead), ¼ cup salad or olive oil, and a teaspoon of salt. Mix well, then add flour until dough is no longer sticky This may take 4 or more cups of flower. Turn out on pastry cloth or counter and work more flour in it. Knead the dough until smooth and elastic. (I actually use the dough hook on my Mixmaster instead and run it 3 minutes on 1 and 4 minutes on 2.)

Place in a greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap or a damp kitchen towel and let rise until double in size. (This can take up to three hours.) Make into loaves of bread, rolls, or cinnamon rolls and let rise again. (Another three hours, depending on the temperature, humidity, etc.)

To bake:

            Place in cold oven and set temperature to 325 degrees. Bake large loaves for about an hour, rolls about 45 minutes until lightly brown. I bake little mini-loaves for about 35 minutes. Your house will smell wonderful, and this warm, crusty bread is delicious!

Mini-loaf of bread to share

Kristy’s Scalloped Oysters

   My daughter-in-law Kristy brought scalloped oysters to our last Thanksgiving dinner, and they were delicious! Not a crumb remained. She shared the recipe with me, and I made them a couple of weeks later. It was the first time I had ever made scalloped oysters, but they turned out great. I will be making this dish again. For the two of us, I could cut the recipe in half and cook it in a smaller dish, but we enjoyed the leftovers for lunch.

Ingredients:

2 cups crushed butter-flavored crackers (about 50)

½ cup melted butter

½ teaspoon salt

Dash pepper

1 pint shucked oysters or 2 cans (8 ounces each) whole oysters, drained

1 cup heavy whipping cream

¼ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

Directions:

    Combine cracker crumbs, melted butter, salt and pepper. Sprinkle a third of the mixture into a greased 1 ½ quart baking dish. Arrange half of the oysters over the crumbs. Top with another third of the crumb mixture and the remaining oysters.   

   Combine cream and Worcestershire sauce, pour over oysters. Top with the remaining crumb mixture. Bake uncovered at 350 degrees until golden brown on top, about 30-40 minutes.

Canned Venison

Meat and Memories

            When I was growing up, I loved visiting my Aunt Rosene Swallow. My family only had one car, and my dad worked at the factory, so occasionally, Mom and I would get up early, drop Daddy off at the factory, and drive the winding road through the country southeast of Macon so Mom could spend the day with her sister. The sisters were very close, both in age and emotions. They also looked alike, and when they went to town, they were often greeted by each other’s names by people they did not know. Rosene and her husband Otis (we called him Otie) lived at the end of a dead-end lane where their house perched alone, surrounded by a white picket fence. They did not have running water, but a pump out back provided what they needed. A sidewalk led to an outhouse that was always neat as a pin, and the house was spotless. We arrived in time for breakfast, which was always biscuits and gravy. Then, Rosene would ask me, “What do you want to eat for dinner?” (We weren’t high falutin enough to call our noon meal lunch.)

Left to right: My father, my mother, Uncle Otis and Aunt Rosene

            “Canned meat,” I always requested. She would send me down in her fruit cellar to pick out a quart jar. To be honest, I am not sure what kind of meat it was, but I think it was beef. Then she and Mom talked and laughed, while they worked together to make the noon meal. Mom peeled the potatoes, and Rosene emptied the jar of meat into another sauce pan. When it all was ready, the juice from the meat was thickened with cornstarch for a delicious brown gravy. I tucked into the meal like I was starving.  After our meal, Otis would go into the living room and lie down for a nap, while Rosene pulled out the enamel wash pans and filled them with the hot water from the kettle on the stove, adding a little cold water so we wouldn’t burn our hands. We washed, rinsed, and dried the dishes, all the while talking nonstop. Rosene would refer to her calendar, on which she had written notes of news she wanted to share with Mom. She told a funny story of something that happened at a meeting with her Methodist Church ladies. She said, “I laughed ‘til I cried!” We laughed with her until tears crept out of the corners of our eyes, too.

            Over the years, my husband Blaine and I have worked together to can venison. I always think of my Aunt Rosene, as I open the jar and make the same side dishes she made for me of mashed potatoes and thickened brown gravy. 

Steps to canning venison:

1.     First, cut properly dressed and cooled deer off of the bones. I did not participate in this step.

 2. Cut the meat into desired size chunks. Blaine cut ours in inch or so cubes.

3. Pack loosely into clean canning jars, leaving at least an inch of head space. Add 1 teaspoon of salt. No liquid is added. The juice cooks out of the meat.

    4. Sterilize lids and rings in boiling water.

   
   
5.     Screw the lids on and place in a pressure canner with two quarts of water in the bottom. Do not heat the water until after all the jars are in, because the jars are full of cold meat and would break.

6.     Follow the instructions for operating your canner. Process for 90 minutes at 10 pounds pressure.

7.     Turn off heat and let pressure reduce all the way. Remove jars from the canner and let cool.

    8.     The sealed jars of meat will last for a year.

9.     To prepare the meat for a meal, just heat it up on top of the stove to boiling. Then I remove the meat to a plate and thicken the juice for gravy. I use cornstarch and water, or sometimes I sprinkle in a brown gravy mix for a richer flavor. I make an open-faced hot plate of the meat on bread, mashed potatoes on the side, all covered with the gravy. Add a vegetable of your choice, and you have pure deliciousness. Enjoy!