Sourdough Starter Day 5

Whoops, missed a day. But nothing happened, at least nothing of my doing, although I did purchase several delicious bottles of stout that John and I consumed along with delicious Chinese food. But my yeasties aren't growing the way I want and need them to, perhaps because of the rather chilly temperature of our home. Hypothetically, the volume should be doubling itself, and this morning of day 5, it had grown .5 of an inch, if that.

So...change of plans. I will keep the yeasties as warm as can be with feverish and dedicated baking in the next 3 days, in hopes that I can make sourdough bread on Sunday, with soup. And then tonight, we'll try a new bread to garlic up. And tomorrow, another new bread for meatball sandwiches. One can never have too many meatballs, especially with my version of Mom's Swedish meatballs. This will be the third time in three weeks. Yes. And if I can find a damn store that will sell the right cut of lamb, I can use my happy meat grinder and make that recipe in the January Bon Appetit.

Amazing, yes?
http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2010/01/lamb_kofte_with_yogurt_sauce_and_muhammara

And then for next week's meatballs, I want these: http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2010/01/poblano_albondigas_with_ancho_chile_soup. I already bought the ancho chili powder, and next week I'll buy happy poblanos, since the ones currently in the fridge may need to be salvaged for breakfast eggs, as they're growing wrinkly.

I dreamed of bread last night. Oat bread, dark rye, light rye, carroway, dill, millet, whole grain, whole meal, oatmeal, cornmeal, etc. I suppose that's not surprising, considering every new venture or job I have results in this. When I first started working at Bath & Body Works back at Wheaton, I dreamed about the various scents of lotions possible for weeks. At Starbucks in grad school, coffees. At the accounting firm here, putting together tax returns. This dream wasn't anything out of the ordinary except that it was delightful. There was no stress of putting together the wrong gift basket, screwing up the nonfat extra foam half-caff sugar-free vanilla extra-hot latte, or forgetting to put the Oklahoma return summary after the Federal return summary. There was only bread, delicious, round, warm, fragrant and fresh. I hated waking up, not because I was tired or had too much stout & msg the night before and my head & gut both ached, but because the breads were obliterated by the ringing of my alarm.

But the bonus to all that is that I bought semolina flour yesterday! Tonight, fresh homemade noodles. John thinks he's got the sauce all figured out (I think he thinks I put too much oregano & basil in the mix), so he's in charge of that, and we'll make a stellar lasagna (thanks to MO for the recipe, her dad's, I think!) to go with our champagne bubbly. (I have to clarify the 'bubbly,' since the Stocks girls say bubbly for bubbly water. And do I want to look up fun champagne bubbly cocktails, instead of champagne bubbly by itself? That could be memorable.) And there will be bread.

Kitty thinks this is all a great idea. He's already volunteered his help. He loves New Year's Eve. (John just snapped this pic and sent it to me. I've been lecturing Kitty lately to be social kitty, to go hang out downstairs with Daddy & Buddy instead of upstairs by himself all day.)