January 2023 Q&A
Ask Anything!
What are you working on right now, and how can I help?
This month, I’m working on perfecting my sourdough recipes, and trying to include more slow-fermented, highly digestible grains in our diets. I know plenty of people give up bread/gluten/grains for new years, but instead, I’m hoping to simply shift to more natural, homemade, slow ferments to nourish (without giving anything up).
These past few weeks have been filled with all manner of unexpected repairs, snow storms, power outages, and breakdowns of seemingly everything here on the homestead, and I’m hoping to get back to crafting up some cozy nourishment in the kitchen. (Instead of clearing downed trees or laying on the ice draining hydraulic fluid from the tractor…I’ll tell y’all about both of those soon.)
If you have any questions about nourishing foods for winter, now’s a good time to ask.
But otherwise, ask anything!
How can I help you this month? What are you working on? What are you learning, doing, and otherwise playing with in your own corner of the world?
Until Next Time,
-Ashley at Practical Self Reliance
No questions this time around, but wanted to say how much I enjoy your website and emails! I'm probably not your target demographic -- gay, urban/suburban, male, millennial -- but everything you write is super accessible and non-judgemental and I really appreciate that. (Some of the other sites I've seen can get a little end-of-worldy or judgy about readers not doing enough and it creates an unwelcome environment for folks like me.) Through your site I learned canning and pressure canning and that's given me the kick in the pants to learn other projects -- I recently taught myself how to make a sourdough starter and am currently working on tinkering with the sourdough recipe so it fits with our not-so-good-for-sourdough climate (Winnipeg, Canada; cold and dry). So... thanks again!
How much do you feed your sourdough starter when you want to bake some bread, and when do you feed it before baking? I am using whole wheat starter to make all whole wheat bread. Is it the equal proportions of starter, flour and water or do you put larger amount of flour and water than starter? Thanks, love your posts!