The weekly “little of this, little of that” feature here at Like Mother, Like Daughter!
(This will all look and work better if you click on the actual post and do not remain on the main page.)
I'm on the road again — in Portland, getting ready to speak tonight at Holy Rosary Church at 7pm tonight. I hope you can make it! I will be speaking on Living the Liturgical Year in the Home — which, spoiler, means living the fullness of faith in God's own rhythm — and selling books as well. I hope I have a chance at least to say hello to you. Remind me who you are when we meet!
Meanwhile, before I left, I baked some bread with my starter and with Suki's starter, which she gave me when I was visiting her last week. (The lighter breads on the left are from hers — her starter is made with King Arthur all-purpose flour and mine is Hodgson Mill whole wheat and also their rye.)
I tried to make this as controlled an experiment as I could, but the truth is that I forgot the salt in mine and added it a bit later on in the process. Otherwise they are made exactly the same way.
I baked the little ones together on a big cookie sheet with my pizza stone underneath, and the big ones one at a time directly on the pizza stone.
The doughs are approximately 72% hydration (meaning proportion of water to flour is a bit more than 7/10), both made with KA all-purpose flour (other than the other flours in my starter), both handled the same way. I used 20% starter in each dough.
My oven is malfunctioning again (!), so I tried to keep cycling it up to a high temperature — wasn't super successful. I start for 15-18 minutes with a pan of boiling water on the shelf below the baking bread, then take that out for 18 minutes or so of further baking (and fiddling with the oven setting, grrr… ).
Why do I do this? It's simple — I love to eat good bread! All my cooking and baking is driven by a desire to eat amazing things. I'm probably just a little too fixated on eating good things, to tell the truth!
I don't live anywhere where I could buy a loaf of freshly baked sourdough bread, and if I did, I wouldn't shell out $8-12 for one, even recognizing that it would be worth the effort that goes into such a thing. I'm just too cheap.
So baking it is!
On to our links!
- If you are rattling around a bit, having trouble getting your teeth into Lent, let Fr. Hardon help with Seven Rules of Penance. Don't get overwhelmed — after you look it over, maybe take one “rule” each day to prayer. It will be like a week-long Lenten retreat. Above all, remember, as he says, “It was no mere pious sentiment that St. Paul gave us when he said, ‘Where sin abounded, grace has even more abounded.'”
- Another helpful post for Lent: Twelve traditional practices. I really appreciate this simple reminder: “Stop taking the Salvation of The World on your Shoulders. Jesus is the savior of the world. We are just to help those with whom we have influence. And let us not forget, salvation starts with our own souls and family.”
- For a more discursive meditation on what the goal is in this season of penance: Modern Blindness: Failure to see what is real and true. The author says, “Pieper suggests that we should practice art. By producing artworks of our own, we sharpen our ability to see.” I add that we must recover the medieval sense of art as simply “a job of work” as Fr. John Saward puts it in The Beauty of Holiness, and the Holiness of Beauty (a book I highly recommend — affiliate link). For them, art meant, simply, not nature — so everything that man did is in this sense, art! The more fitting and orderly and beautiful any work is (beautiful in the sense of “radiating the truth” — in this case, of the thing in question), the more it is art. Puts a different spin on making a casserole, siting a beehive, or hoeing that row of beans, doesn't it?
- One of the best articles I have read about “legalism” in faith and how we get it wrong.
- A newly discovered work of art — the only surviving sculpture of Leonardo da Vinci: Virgin and Laughing Child.
- A Jacobean “traveling library” — like the Kindle, only older. And made of paper.
- One of the very best articles I've ever read on the doomed public policy idea of universal taxpayer funded day care: Children Don't Need “Day Care for All,” They Need Their Mothers. The common good requires us to work with nature, not against it, and marriage is the institution that supports our life together.
From the archives:
- Recently I posted about ways to treat a UTI without antibiotics. I just came across this study, that propolis (a substance bees produce in taking care of their hives) can help prevent adhesion of the bacteria that cause UTIs, and will add it to what I wrote.
- I actually find it a nice change and somewhat inspiring in an unexpected way, to make our meals simpler during Lent (I have help with it too now, with Deirdre sharing the cooking, also a nice change!). Lenten Soups for supper!
This Catholic Culture page that I link to every week has a Lenten meditation in addition to the saints of the days.
While you’re sharing our links with your friends, why not tell them about Like Mother, Like Daughter too!
We’d like to be clear that, when we direct you to a site via one of our links, we’re not necessarily endorsing the whole site, but rather just referring you to the individual post in question (unless we state otherwise).
Donna L. says
Hello Auntie Leila~ Such lovely loaves of bread! I gave up all gluten/breads/noodles and so forth for Lent–but I can still look! Please don’t say you are “cheap”–how about frugal, clever and thrifty? I would never call you cheap…ever! You are much too classy for such an adjective.
I wish Portland was a bit closer to where I live–may you have many smiles and nods during your talk!
A blessed Lent to you and yours,
Donna
Leila says
Donna, you are very kind. I do sometimes just balk at spending an objectively small amount of money… haha…
Helen says
I really liked that childcare article. Lots of food for thought! I have been thinking about this and about paid leave proposals, and I’m not sure what to think. Assuming that it is economically feasible, wouldn’t it be a better idea for these programs to be available to those who need them–single or widowed parents, those incapacitated by poor health, etc.–but not available to everyone? It would certainly help some pretty desperate people.
Anamaria says
I think it would be even easier and not biased to greatly increase the child tax credit for small children and phase it out to current child tax credit as they get older. It’s not biased toward mothers working and would help the desperate people out. It would also help the not so desperate people to make clearer choices as to what’s best for their children. Could be income dependent (higher at lower income, phased out over 100k), or not. Seems simple and something people (especially the author of the two income trap!) could agree on, but it’s not even being discussed in policy…
jadeddrifter says
We have so many different government programs that have expanded and replaced family over time, that now we don’t think much of moving far away from family networks to pursue a job, because, really, if it doesn’t go well there’s a government safety net in every state; people stop talking to parents and siblings frequently (which is sometimes related to divorce scenarios (but sometimes not) and then they feel desperate because they have no family network and need good childcare! And naturally so, but I do think that this sort of program would merely continue to disincentivize people from staying near family and working out their problems. At the end of the day, as Christians, we believe that growing in faith, hope and charity in the family is the solution, not more government money buffering us from our cumulative, cultural sins.
And related to what Annamaria said, I would LOVE a larger child tax credit! We need to have policies that encourage families to care for their own members.
Lisa says
I’m feeling a little unsure of what I make my husband and I for dinner for Friday’s throughout Lent. I have always made a meatless dinner, each week, but never thought about it being penitential. Does it have to be a simple meal like soup….even if it’s the only meal you eat that day? So far we’ve had quinoa salad, coleslaw & a piece of trout for one meal, and the next week we had rice, shrimp & corn on the cob…..are we being awful eating these types of meals on Fridays through Lent???
Thank you.
Leila says
Lisa, we try to keep our Friday meals fairly simple. We almost always have pizza (and it’s always home-made). We have plain cheese or put on veggie toppings and anchovies.
It does need to be hearty so that the kids don’t fade away.
Your meals sound perfect. I like having something I don’t have to think through each time for Friday, and then we do try to have another meatless meal during the week, and mine would probably be something like what you describe, or one of the soups in the post I linked to, with some hearty bread to go with it.
Thrift at Home says
I love to eat good food, too!! And I do have access to good sourdough bread (about $6 a loaf), but it’s made with white flour and we eat whole grains when we can, so that’s why I bake. Plus, the smell of baking bread is one of my favorite things EVER.
Thank you for continuing to drop information about your sourdough – you are more scientific and exact than I am in my approach, but I’m following along and interested in learning 🙂
Leila says
Margo, I will try to be more forthcoming about the bread 😉
I was super scientific this time (other than forgetting the salt, duh), because I do want to know if my starter is good enough.
Usually I do end up making the dough by feel…
So much to learn!
jadeddrifter says
Loved the Modern Blindness piece. Very Charlotte Mason. 😉 And just very classical and true, really.
I’m very cheap too, but I hide behind my son’s food allergies, “Oh, well, there’s no bread he can eat if I don’t do this, except this bread that costs 6x as much per week as making it” (it’s this baguette-style bread sold by a local chain that is okay in a pinch, but the texture is not my favorite). But really, that’s about how much more per week most grocery-store bread costs in general, even when you buy King Arthur flour. I think it’s one of the greatest points of savings in our grocery budget.
All your loaves look equally lovey, so it seems you have some great starter there. I’m going to try to do my own starter again soon (for the fourth time). I’m just so convinced that it’s better for the body, but I’m also too cheap to buy King Arthur’s starter.
Diana says
Thank you for these wonderful articles! I have opened them in a bunch of tabs to read one at a time. You always have the best links.
I wanted to let you know that I just last week got my Christmas plum pudding in the crockpot. Lest you think I’m super-prepared, I should say that this is for Christmas of… 2018. Slightly behind. However, we’ll at least have it before Easter!! 🙂
Thank you always for the blog – whenever you ladies have time to write, I love to read it!