I can almost hear you saying, “What is yuca?” (pronounced YOU-kuh). It is a very interesting root found in many tropical countries, from Africa to the Carribbean, Central and South America, many South Pacific islands, and parts of Asia. I learned to like it when my husband introduced me to it while we were living in Texas.

It is a very starchy, fibrous root with a kind of bark-like skin and white flesh. It cooks similar to a potato, but it is a bit drier and has a rather bland flavor. You may have heard of its other name, cassava, as it is called in many English speaking countries, such as Jamaca. It is also the root from which tapioca is made.

The other night, my husband found this site that talks about many of the properties of yuca, and we were surprised to find that it is a good source of calcium, as well as anti-inflammatory.

My son is allergic to potatoes, which makes buying gluten-free mixes and products virtually impossible. However, tapioca flour and starch can substitute very well for potato flour and starch in GF recipes, and he is not allergic to it at all.

In Texas, we used to buy it for about $1 a pound. Not terribly cheap, but still affordable. We had to remove the skin and the ends, and I learned the hard way to chop it open in the store to check for pure white flesh (instead of flesh with gray lines in it). Sometimes I would find a lot that was good, and then I would skin it all and freeze whatever we didn’t plan on using in the next few days. It could be taken from the freezer and put directly into hot water to cook, and it tasted almost the same as fresh.

Then we moved to Oregon, and the yuca here is almost $3 a pound. So we never buy it. Not to mention that I doubt it will be good quality up here. But my husband found frozen shredded yuca at a Philippino market for about $1.25 per 1 lb bag. He used about two pounds to make a yuca casserole for Christmas dinner (yuca on top and bottom with seasoned veggie burger filling), but it’s a bit expensive to use for the family on a regular basis, and takes a bit of work. However, we discovered that if we took some of the yuca (which is so finely shredded that it is more like a thick batter than anything else), added some salt, and pan fried it in small patties, Manny would devour them. He’s been known to eat more than half a pound of it at one sitting!

Lately poor Manny, who is definitely allergic to eggs, milk, and all nuts and seeds except flax and hemp, has become more and more sensitive to beans. I can’t just feed him grains–most of them aren’t a complete protein, and even if they were, the quality of protein isn’t enough for a growing child. He won’t eat greens (and with the limited amount of food he can eat, it’s next to impossible to hide greens in anything), so using greens to supplement his protein isn’t really a viable option. So we decided to try a little turkey. Daddy bought some at the health food store today. He chopped it fine, mixed it with the yuca, made the patties, and cooked them with a little palm oil (which oxidizes slower than olive oil, is flavorless, and healthier than canola oil). We started with about 2 ounces of turkey and half a pound of yuca. I’m not sure how many patties he ate, but there were only 2 two-inch patties left when he was full.

Turkey isn’t something we’ll give him every day. What we bought today cost over $2, and I’m not positive it was organic  or free range (it didn’t say it was; he bought it pre-cooked and sliced in the deli, not raw). I can buy similar turkey from Azure Standard, only it IS organic and free-range, and costs over $6 for each 6-oz package (just under $6 each if I buy a 10-pack). I figure buying it pre-cooked is better, so I don’t have to deal with raw meat in my kitchen (a friend made that suggestion, and I totally agree with her!).

As a third-generation vegetarian, feeding meat to one of my kids is something I really hesitate to do. But we don’t seem to have a lot of options right now. I really hope that he will outgrow many of his allergies eventually, and in the mean time he really needs to avoid anything that makes him more itchy. If giving him a little turkey now and again will make that easier, then so be it.

Now if we could just move to a tropical country where yuca and other non-potato roots are staples in the diet… Hey, there’s no law that says I can’t wish, is there?

Okay, this is going to be a random post full of random details about my life.

Unless you haven’t read anything on my blog lately, I am pregnant. Working on month 4 now. I’ve been bad and haven’t had any prenatal check-ups yet. But I figure at this point, I’m not too worried. It will be easier to deal with that after we move next month. That, and I’m procrastinating trying to find someone who is covered by my insurance who will do the prenatal care knowing that I am planning a home birth with a midwife. The one place I tried said they wouldn’t do it. They referred me to a birth center, and I haven’t asked my insurance if they cover that. But I’ll do it. Soon. I promise.

Morning sickness is almost gone. I still get queasy moments, but I don’t have to eat before breakfast anymore, and I haven’t thrown up for at least a week, so I know the queasiness will disappear soon.

I bought some wheat grass recently. It was on sale, and I figured that it would be good for the baby and me. I need all the nutrition I can get. (Speaking of which, did I take my second dose of prenatal vitamins today? I don’t remember.) For two days, my son loved it. I’d put it in his milk, and he would drink it as if it were chocolate milk! Then he decided he didn’t like it anymore. And I haven’t found a way to disguise it yet. His meals are too plain for that. Oh well… It was nice while it lasted! I, on the other hand, love the stuff. In juice or a smoothie. Especially a smoothie. Tonight I had it with a banana and blueberries. Mmmmm! That was bliss!

I wish it would stop raining. We are supposed to be out of this house by February 20. Since that’s a Monday and a holiday, we are having things picked up from here on the 17th. They have done some work, but it’s been raining so much that the contractor hasn’t been able to get as much done as would be ideal. That, and the other contractor who said he could do the septic, well, it turns out he isn’t licensed to do septic systems, and he didn’t know what he was doing, which meant he stalled and wasted two weeks. Because he isn’t licensed, we were able to void the contract, and Rafael got his money back last night. Thankfully the guy has an account at the same bank we do, so he was able to verify that there were funds for the check and the money was transferred instantly. This is good, because he needs to write a check tomorrow to the new contractor!

The long and short of it is that we may end up taking a neighbor of ours up on his offer to sleep in his tiny camp trailer. We spent a couple of weekends there this last summer. Rafael will take the bus to work (it’s cheaper than gas and will give him time to study that isn’t being interrupted by noisy children) and I will have the kids and the car. We have our freezer at his place already, but I hope we don’t have to stay there long, because the fridge in the camper is super tiny and Manny’s special diet requires that we cook double. But it will be nice to be back in the country, where the kids can run wild and explore and play outside. They are tired of our back yard here. It’s just grass, nothing else, unless you count the puddles from all the rain, and they just don’t seem interested in it anymore.

We are also filing suit against some of the people involved in the purchase of our home. I won’t go into details now, because the suit is just about to be filed, but let’s just say, I hope we win at least part of it, because we really need the money. Extra, unexpected costs, such as a more expensive septic system, have drained every last bit of money we have, except our $1,000 emergency fund (which is almost nothing for a family of almost 5). We even had to use the money we got to replace damaged goods like furniture and clothing to pay contractors. Which means we won’t have anything to replace those things with. Which means we can’t afford to buy them. Which means we lose the depreciation. We have lost so much money on this place, because we didn’t know a few things that we just didn’t know about knowing, being first-time home buyers. If we had known even one or two of them, we wouldn’t have made an offer! And I haven’t even begun to talk about how the stress has affected our family, and especially my husband…

But on the bright side, we do have a good lawyer. Honest lawyers are hard to find, but this one really seems to be. She bent over backwards to help us on the first part of things, getting a reasonable amount from the insurance company, for less than pretty much any lawyer would accept. So even if not for us, I hope we win something out of this lawsuit! I mean, 3 or 4 times she came to our home on her way home from work (she lives near us) to discuss details of this or that related to what we were doing, thus saving us the trouble of finding a babysitter and making a trip to her office (about 20 minutes away). And she’s always been on top of things, very prompt and assertive in dealing with each aspect of things. I can’t recommend Sandy Webb enough!

Something else I’ve been trying to do lately is be a bit more organized. Flylady has been helping me with that. If you’ve never heard of her, you should go check her out.

Which reminds me… it’s late and I need to go shine my sink and then go to bed. Manny was congested last night and didn’t sleep well, resulting in Mom and Dad not sleeping enough. So I need to go to bed earlier than I did last night and pray he sleeps peacefully all night!

Good night!

So I am just ending the first trimester of pregnancy, and with it goes the misery of morning sickness. And this time around, I have found some unconventional things that helped it.

You’ve probably heard of the typical soda crackers and eating frequent, small meals, especially immediately upon rising or before even getting out of bed. Well, soda crackers never helped with my first two pregnancies, and since I’m allergic to wheat, I didn’t feel like getting any. I tried rye crackers, but found them too bland.

Then the secretary at the chiropractor’s office mentioned that she had a friend who found that protein helped her more than anything else. After some trial and error, I discovered that if I nibbled on almonds while I sipped my morning glass of water right after getting up, I’d be able to get breakfast and eat it without any problems–or at least, get away with keeping my breakfast in my stomach, even if I was plagued by a little nausea after eating. Sometimes a cheese sandwich would help, or a little tofu.

There were times when I couldn’t think of anything I wanted to eat, and lunch or supper was almost ready. Juice wouldn’t really help, but I discovered to my great surprise that Melaleuca’s Sustain Sport electrolyte drink would actually help calm my stomach for 15-30 minutes. One might expect this would be from the sugar, temporarily bringing the blood sugar up (because when blood sugar drops, then the nausea tends to get worse), but it is sweetened with sucralose, not sugar, so I think it really was the electrolytes. I am not sure how Gator-aid would compare, since Sustain Sport has twice the electrolytes and is naturally flavored. Not to mention, it tastes good–not salty.

Every pregnancy has been different so far. The first time, that first trimester is rather fuzzy–I don’t remember much of it. I do remember not knowing when or if I might lose a meal and have to eat again. I also remember that eating fruit would help–I’d eat a little container of applesauce or fruit–those individually wrapped ones–before getting out of bed. Second time, anything sweet nauseated me. Apples would make me throw up about an hour after eating them. Bananas were instantaneous–I didn’t even have to swallow them! Cake lost its appeal (and I have a huge sweet tooth). This time, the worst trigger has been water. If I drink more than 2 or 3 swallows at a time, I’d better be in the bathroom! So I’ve gotten rather dehydrated. Thankfully, that is going away with the disappearing morning sickness, so I plan on drinking as much as I can soon!

So I don’t have a ton of ideas, but add them to the ideas of others, and something is bound to help. And don’t be afraid to throw up–you’ll most likely feel better afterwards.

What have you found helps you during morning sickness? Please share!

Since I am currently pregnant with our third child, I found this article to be very insightful–and comforting!

Did you ever wonder if you become a bit dumber once you have children? Many women are concerned about losing their “intelligence” after having a baby as a result of being surrounded by milk bottles and diapers all the time. You must have heard stories about women putting nipple cream on their toothbrush and just being forgetful about many things. Childbearing does take a toll on your body and some feel on the mind as well. However, this is far from true. In fact, there is now evidence that suggests that giving birth does nothing but boost your brainpower so that you end up getting smarter post pregnancy.

What does this actually mean?

The “smartness” experienced by women post-pregnancy can be broken up into five categories, with each category supported by animal and, in some cases, human studies. The first category, which is perception, deals with the five senses and studies have shown that pregnant women have more advanced sense of smell and sight. What this means is that they are able to notice more things and are capable of sensing any unfavorable smells, both of which help them in protecting their baby.

Studies have also shown pregnant women to experience a boost in three other categories, resilience, motivation, and efficiency. Pregnant women are more fearless, get better at multitasking, and can also handle stress better. In fact, the hormone oxytocin, which is important for labor and breastfeeding, also boosts your ability to learn and memorize many new things.

The fifth category, emotional intelligence, is where mothers benefit the most. They gain the ability to see the world from someone else’s eyes. To be a good mother and understand your child better you automatically learn to broaden your mind and your perspective.

When you become a mother, you also learn to strategize and prioritize. You may have noticed new mothers exchanging information while their babies played. What they are actually doing is collecting each other’s experiences to make things easier for their own baby. This may include anything from teething troubles, bedwetting, the best school, the best daycare, and so on.

Things to do yourself to boost your brainpower

Even though there are many changes that automatically take place in your body to make you smarter during your pregnancy, there are some things you need to be careful about and consciously do to improve your brain power post pregnancy. Don’t be lazy to breastfeed your baby as the oxytocin hormone released during breastfeeding helps to calm you and bond better your baby. You are bound to be sleep-deprived, but make a time table or a schedule and ask your husband to help you out and share some of the sleepless nights with you. Getting adequate sleep will help in keeping your brain sharp and alert.

Just because you are pregnant does not mean you sit in one place and munch away. Engage yourself in some form of experience, but only after consulting your doctor. Eat fresh vegetables and fruits; studies have shown that these help in preventing decline in brain function. Don’t forget to socialize. Make friends with other new mothers. Join a mother-toddler group and share your experiences with each other. Not only will this help in better brain functioning but also helps in warding off postpartum depression.

Have a positive outlook

Lastly, new mothers or mothers-to-be must realize and appreciate the level to which your brain gets challenged by learning so many new things. Even if you feel exhausted, just concentrating on the amount of learning you are experiencing in such a short span of time, is enough to energize and keep you on your toes.

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About the author: Ellen Spencer is a blogger and writer. She is a health freak and very environmentally aware. These days she is busy in writing an article on Psoriatic arthritis. Beside this she loves reading. She is also a big fan of Baby Strollers.

If you are familiar with the Flylady, you are probably familiar with the phrase, “You can do anything for 15 minutes.” Obviously, there are limits to that. I mean, unless you’re single, you probably can’t–and wouldn’t want to–limit your shopping to 15 minutes per store. But the idea is that if you don’t think you can do something, or simply don’t want to, you can make yourself do it for 15 minutes.

That’s how it was with me this evening. I had an orthodontist appointment in the late morning, but it’s an hour’s drive away and my husband needed to go somewhere else, so he dropped me off half an hour early. So we ate breakfast, packed a lunch for my son, and didn’t clean anything before we left. I ate lunch after the appointment (before the soreness set in) and took the train & bus back home–about a two-hour trip. It was 3:00 pm when we got home. And I was tired.

So instead of tackling the dishes and the laundry and such things, I sat down in a recliner and tried to nap. When my son decided to join me (but wouldn’t sit still), I put in a nice video for him to watch, turned the volume way down, and went to bed.

I got out of bed a little before 5:00, and was feeling rather groggy. Morning sickness had been mostly nil all day, and I still didn’t notice any, but I was tired and sluggish. Then my husband got home about 10 minutes later, and brought a whole bunch of fruit that he had gotten either free or cheap on the way home. I ate one of the oranges, feeling that I needed to eat something, and almost instantly my tummy began to complain. I moved away and sat down, hoping the feeling would go away like it sometimes did, but it just got worse. So I browsed facebook and tried to ignore my stomach for an hour or so, until I just couldn’t ignore it anymore.

I’ll spare you what happened next, but once I did what I needed to do and was feeling better, I ate a granola bar and decided that happy tummy or no (I was still not feeling 100%), I needed to do some shopping or we wouldn’t be able to eat cooked cereal in the morning (I’m hoping it will be gentle on my sore teeth–the orthodontist really tightened things up this time). So off I went to the store around 7:30.

When I got home at 8:30, I was feeling better, but I was also tired and didn’t want to face the kitchen. My husband had been very busy with things related to our house, so he wasn’t able to clean up–at least he had fed Manny while I was feeling so sick, so I didn’t feel it right to complain. But I didn’t want to clean up either. It looked like about a half hour of work to get the kitchen in order.

Then I remembered the Flylady and her favorite saying: “You can do anything for 15 minutes.” Yes, I told myself, I can clean the kitchen for 15 minutes. I’ll set a timer, and whatever is left when it goes off can wait until morning. After all, if we’re just having cooked cereal with nuts and fruit, there won’t be a lot of dishes after breakfast, so adding in a few from the day before won’t be a problem. And having some clean counters and a cleared-off stove will make breakfast so much less stressful.

So I put a cup of water in the microwave, set a timer for 15 minutes, and got busy. When the water was hot, I added a tea bag and left it to steep while I worked (I like to steep my tea a long time).

In 10 minutes, I was well over half way done. I stopped washing and rinsing  to clear and wipe the counters and stove, then washed a few more. When the timer went off, I took and extra 15 seconds to rinse the soapy silverware, and then took a look around. All that was left was my pressure cooker and a frying pan, neither of which I will need first thing in the morning. Everything else was done and the counters cleared and wiped.

And my reward? A nice cup of raspberry zinger tea. Mmmm!

Okay, it’s time to make the announcement official: I am pregnant. Due sometime in late July–I don’t have an official date yet.

I’ll admit it: I’m procrastinating the whole prenatal check-up thing because most days I don’t feel like even cooking and doing dishes, much less getting out and going somewhere. That, and I want a home birth, but I need to see if I can convince my insurance company to cover it. Otherwise we’ll have to pay the midwife out-of-pocket or do it unassisted–and the latter isn’t really something I want to do. I know I could do it, but I don’t really want to be without a professional, and I know my husband would feel the same way.

But that’s not why I started writing this. I just need to get some thoughts down on “paper.” A conversation I had with my brother brought this up, and I just wanted to get it out.

First off, this will be our third child. We had more or less planned on having more children. We just didn’t intend to have one quite yet. We are still living in the rental house, waiting for our place to be fixed up. The deadline for that is the end of February. So hopefully we will make that deadline, or pretty close to it. But after discussing it, we realized that a summer baby, while my husband is not in school (he’s going after his master’s in social work–just finished his first quarter) would be perfect. We could get into the routine of a new baby before school starts again, and he plans on taking paternity leave for a while to help the transition. We realized that waiting until he was doing his internship would not be a good time to have a baby, and if we had waited much longer, the age gap would be larger than we want. Manny will be 3 1/2 when the new baby is born. I’m 3 years older than my brother, and we always wished we could have been closer. So my husband and I are happy with this surprise pregnancy.

But my mother is not. She thought we should have stopped at two. Of course, because this one was unplanned, there wasn’t a whole lot she could say, other than that she hoped we were done. And honestly, I don’t think we could have timed it better if we had planned. Seems God knows best and overrules sometimes, in spite of what we may do. But she sure ranted and raved about it to my brother.

The typical American family has 2.5 children, supposedly. So congratulations are always in order on a second or third pregnancy. But after that, a lot of people will start asking questions like, “Was this one planned?” “How many are you planning on having, anyway?” And any American family that has a lot of kids gets discussed quite a bit behind their backs. Of course, the Duggars are on the extreme end of things, but I remember how my mom talked about the lady who moved to our town and came to church that had 5 kids. “She shouldn’t have so many. How can she take care of them all?” Hey, she ran a daycare! She knew what she was doing. At least in one sense. And she wanted more. What right did we have to say she shouldn’t?

I am not officially quiver full; I believe God has given us the responsibility to be sensitive to issues such as finances, the health of the mother, etc. But I think there is a lot of truth in the quiver-full philosophy. Children are a blessing. And if my husband and I end up having 5 or 6 or more of them, that should not be an issue that affects my relationship with my family.

Now, I know my dad’s family would be fine with it. My dad’s only sister had 5 kids, and now has at least 8 grandchildren and counting. My dad himself had 6 siblings, and he wanted lots of kids. My husband had 4 siblings, and his parents both came from even larger families. My mom, on the other hand, had two brothers, and I think she was unplanned, considering the age gap between her and her older brothers. It’s fine for her to look at the smaller family and say, “It’s so much easier on the mother, easier on the finances, and we are so close to the end of time, etc,” but she’s done having children. This is our family. We don’t know if we are done or not. I figure we’ll know when we get there. But that’s not something I’ll be able to know for at least two years, if then.

I was reading a post on one of the few blogs I still keep up with called Childrearing As Our Profession. As a young adult, my goal was to be a wife and mother. I’m a wife for as long as we both shall live. But I’m a mother in the profession sense only as long as I have children in the home. Of course, I’ll always be their mother, but I can’t really mother them once they grow up. The more kids I have, the more I’ll have the chance to practice that profession.

And I’ve made some mistakes along the way. I’ve let things slide. I’ve lost my vision of motherhood at times. But this pregnancy has been a wake-up call. Once the morning sickness wears off and I can focus on life again, I need to get my home and children in order. I can’t focus on that right now, because I’m in survival mode, but I know that I must soon. Because having another child won’t make it any easier, but being more organized and in control before that child comes will.

So there you have it. My thoughts on having more children. My brother asked me if we still are planning on 10 (I used to joke we would have 10 kids). I told him that we don’t know. We’re going to take them one at a time, and when we’re done, we’ll know. And honestly, I don’t care what my mother thinks. If we have 5 and she can’t afford to come to every birthday party, she won’t hurt my feelings. But she’s the only grandmother my children will ever have–my husband’s mother died a few months after Gislaine was born–so I hope she just accepts that this is our family and we are going to decide between us and God what to do with increasing it or not.

There, I’ve said my piece. It’s late and I’m going to bed. Thanks for “listening,” if you got this far.

There are a couple of new posts on My Baby Has Eczema:

1. Probiotic Review and Give-away: the odds are still really good of getting some.
2. Asthma Awareness: since children with eczema are at higher risk of developing asthma (thankfully Manny never has).

So hop on over and take a look. Hopefully I’ll get around to writing an update about Manny’s eczema soon–hopefully within the next couple of weeks. In the mean time, he’s doing very well and has improved tremendously in the last 6 months.

Seems my blog is getting found a bit more. I got an email this morning from a lady who invited me to an interview with Decorator Kelly Edwards. On November 2 early in the morning (for me–I’ll be fixing breakfast) I get 10 minutes to ask her any questions I want! I figured, Sure, why not? I could use some decorating help anyhow! And considering she specializes in budget ideas, I figured it was a win-win.

So I looked around her site and watched a video or two, and I was very impressed. I am going to be thinking of questions to ask her. But I thought, why not get my readers involved? If you could ask a master decorator any question, what would it be? Post your questions in the comments, and I’ll get some answers on November 2. If I get too many questions, I may have to pick only a few of them, but I’ll do the best I can.

I will be getting a link to the video of the interview, so you will be able to watch. I have the second slot, so our questions will be fairly early in the program.

Can’t wait to watch the video! Please help me out with questions!

A few weeks ago I told you that I was going to get P90X and do it. I may not have mentioned it since then, but I have certainly been thinking about it, almost every day, in fact. I’ve also been working hard to get ready for it. Every week I have increased my average workout time by 10-15 minutes, so that this week I am doing 50-60 minute workouts.

There has not been a day in the last 2 1/2 weeks that I have not been sore somewhere. Near the beginning of the month, I got so sore from a half-hour cardio workout that I could barely walk up and down the stairs at church two days later! I haven’t been that sore anywhere since. However, I have been mildly sore in various places–legs, abs, arms, shoulders… the soreness just moves, never leaves. And I’m sure it’s only going to get worse starting next Sunday! LOL!

I’ve been watching some of the P90X videos to get an idea of what they will be doing, and I have learned some things from them and also from the videos I have been using on ExerciseTV.tv. I noticed that the trainers would do circuits. They would pick 3 or more sets of exercises, and do either so many reps or so many seconds (30, 45, 60, etc) depending on the exercise, and whether it were strength training or aerobic. Well, I decided to apply that to my strength training at the gym.

Something else I learned was about working to failure, meaning you lift a weight heavy enough that at either 8-10 reps or 12-15 (depending on whether you want to build bulk or lean muscle respectively), you cannot life it one more time. Then you rest that muscle by doing other exercises, then come back and do it again.

This is the machine I was using.

So I took those two things to the gym last week. The first exercise I did was the machine bench press . I picked that and two other machines and did 1 set on each machine 3 times. Then I picked 3 more machines and did the same thing, for a total of 9 machines last Thursday. I was able to benchpress only 22 pounds with that machine.

Now, not only is 22 pounds a very small amount, but considering that when I started in late May, almost exactly 4 months ago, I started out at barely being able to do the 20-pound minimum, that’s really bad. I mean, gaining only 2 pounds in 4 months… But all summer whenever I would use that machine, I would do as many reps as I could, then rest for a minute, then do as many as I could again (usually about 12-14).

Tonight I went again. I started out at 22 pounds, but it was too easy. I got all the way to 15. So on the second round, I put it up to 24. That was still too easy, so I put it up to 26. I should have put it up to 28, because I still got up to 15 reps! So that’s a 4-6 pound gain in just 5 days! I worked the muscle to the max, let it rest, then did it again, and sure enough, I improved!

I also improved how much I could do with the bicep curl machine by a couple of pounds, so I was very happy.

That’s what P90X seems to be about. Only much more intense!

I can’t wait to get started. I’ll keep you all posted, probably with video posts. And I’ll post my modest before and after pictures (no guys except my husband will ever get to see the immodest ones I took yesterday) once I get them taken. And I’ll try to talk about other things on this blog other than just exercise. It’s just on my mind right now. Including my recipe for a homemade recovery drink. I need to actually make it first, though, and see how it turns out, before I post the recipe!

So are you planning a workout to get ready for the holidays? Why not share it?

Well, about a week ago I decided to make rye sourdough. I found a very simple sourdough starter recipe, and after about a dozen exchanges of emails with the author of that site, I came up with a starter that I had to refrigerate last Thursday because Manny had a doctor’s appointment Friday morning and I knew I wouldn’t have time to work on it.

Without going into all the details of exactly what I did (just read the instructions in the link above if you want to know), I mixed up more flour and water and a little salt with a portion of the starter that I had revived by doubling it, kneeded a bit (which was hard, because it was a VERY stiff dough), then divided it into roughly half. You see, I wanted to compare how it would look and turn out in a round loaf verses a bread pan. Half went into the bread pan and half onto a cookie sheet (I would have used a clay stone or pizza stone if I’d had one).

About 3 hours later it had risen a little, but it was almost 9:00 pm, so I gave up and baked it for half an hour. Knife inserted in the middle came out clean, so I knew it was done inside. The round loaf came off the sheet right away, but the one in the greased glass bread pan didn’t want to come out right away. I had to let it sit a few minutes before it would release without sticking too much (in spite of all the oil I smeared the pan with before putting in the dough).

Oh, you want to see pictures? But of course! This first one shows a bird’s-eye view of the two loaves, plus a portion of the 100% rye bread I made a few days ago (yeast-risen–this recipe). The pan I used to bake both that and the sourdough to the right is on the far right.

Top View - Middle loaf is not sourdough

This picture shows the sides of the three loaves, with the bread pan in the back for size comparison. The funny edges on the top of the middle one are because it overflowed the pan and I had to break those pieces off, so it looks a little funny. It was a 4-cup loaf of bread, but surprisingly rose well–melting butter soaks through because it is so light, comparatively. I’m not exactly sure how much flour went into the other two loaves in cups–it was somewhere around 700 grams, if that means anything.

Side Views - Sorry, but I ate them before I got the camera!

Now, for crumb views. Sorry the flash makes it so bright, but I don’t have optimal lighting nor a fancy camera, and I was too much in a hurry to dig up the tripod. Click on pictures to enlarge.

As you can see, the first two, the sourdoughs, didn’t rise much, but they did rise some. The last one was yeast risen and really rises a lot. It has a very wet dough, too wet to kneed, but very stiff to stir (which is what you are supposed to do with it anyway). I should try baking it in my bread machine pan sometime, just to see how much it will actually rise (because it likes to overflow the glass bread pan, which is much shorter). I couldn’t possibly kneed it in the bread machine, though!

Yes, I didn’t get pictures of the loaves before cutting. Why? I was hungry. I had baked it the night before and taken it out too late to eat any. So as soon as breakfast rolled around, I ate several slices. Yummy! It has a nice sour taste that reminds me of the kefir bread I made over 2 years ago. It’s even better toasted. It’s been a long time in coming, but now that I have a working starter, I can keep working with it, so I can make all the sourdough I want. Yay! Whole grain and wheat free.

Now if I can just get it to rise a bit more… But if not, I can use the yeast rye bread for sandwiches and this for, well, all other bread cravings. Wonder if it would go over well at potluck once I perfect the recipe… which means getting a better scale that weighs in at least 5 gram increments and is more accurate than the one I have (which could be off by as much as 20 grams or more).

Yeah, making bread by weight is a whole new level of breadmaking. But I like it. It means I don’t have to worry about having or doubling a recipe–because weights are accurate–if the scale is.

Okay, enough. Go make a starter. Or come visit and I’ll share a slice with you. If there is any left!