I returned to Barcelona after a trip to Paris, including a side trip to Marie-Anne Cantin, a Parisian "Murrays Cheese". 5J spanish ham adds to the event

Yesterday's dinner!

I used Pain la Ancienne formula for the dough ( a simple overnight retarded flour, water, yeast, salt dough), baked in a 550F oven for 8-9 minutes on tiles.

A 'Mikey special', this one is ( in order of construction), crushed tomatoes, italian spices, fresh garlic, mozarella cheese, gorgonzola cheese, feta cheese, 3 types of olives ( oil cured, green, and black), mushrooms, red onions, and some more mozzarella to hold it all together. This was great, sometimes my specials are a bit wet and thick but this one came out just perfect since I used a restraint with the amount of each ingredient for a change.

Cheese

Nothing special here, just crushed tomatoes, italian spices, garlic powder, mozzarella, romano, parmesan. So good though :-)

Mike in New Jersey

It has been driving me crazy to just throw away the leftovers after feeding our wild yeast starter. Especially as it seems to be in perfectly good condition. I know it's just a couple of tablespoons of flour but still it just seems wrong even to compost it. So now, every time I feed the starter, I have been adding whatever is left over to biscuits or muffins or even bread that is made with commercial yeast.

Three Breads. One Day.

Loaf 1: ~5lb Sourdough High Extraction Miche Type loaf

Loaf 2: Garlic Explosion (Garlixplosion?) W/ Cheese

Loaf 3: Spinach and Feta Cheese with Caramelized Onions.

They were all around 65-70% hydration doughs, all with a small amount of sourdough culture thrown in as a preferment/leavening. The miche was leavened solely by the sourdough, I added some active dry yeast to the other two.

PICTURES!!!

This is the first try at a massively garlic bread with cheddar cheese. I got the motivation to try this from Mike Avery who teased me with talk of wonderful flavor.

Garlic Tea Ring: This is a Garlic Tea Ring Bread mixed with sweet ham, and topped with cheese and rosemary. =)