Well, another rainy day in Arizona. I'm getting the tiniest bit of cabin fever. Having a rare treat, a glass of shiraz. Not a great wine but it sure tastes good. My husband ran to the store to get it while I was baking a pizza. Pouring down rain and wind. Even my doberman refuses to go take a potty!

I threw together a dough today and it turned out awfully wet. (maybe our humidity?) Anyway, it was a made up recipe and I threw in too much starter so I probably just miscalculated. I was feeding my white starter, being lazy and decided to make a 1-2-3 bread. But instead of being careful, I threw the rest of my starter in so it was probably a 2-2-3 bread. I decided to use a whole durum flour for 50% and white whole wheat for the other 50%, the starter fed on AP. (Have I mentioned I don't like white bread?)

So, I ended up with this gloppy, soft dough. It smelled so nice, but was really wet! I decided to use half for a pizza and put the other half in the oven. The half that I made into a bread was really flat, kind of strange looking but tasted oh, so sweet!

The pizza, one of my better pizzas! I used fennel seed in the sauce, with a lot of wine and canned tomatoes. (I now have decided I like fennel seed, after an unsure beginning) Had some dried porcini mushrooms in my spice box so I soaked those in water, threw the water in the sauce and the mushrooms on the pizza. Some black forest ham, onions, mozarella. And---a fresh habanero from the garden. Now, if you've never had a garden fresh habanero, you have no idea what flowery aroma and taste they can produce. In the winter ours are not that hot. (in comparision I guess) But the flavor they add is a miracle! They smell like flowers! Hot, spicy flowers! Mixed with fennels, wine, mushrooms and the flowery habaneros, this was a meal from above.

Maybe I just have cabin fever, LOL!!

No dessert tonight, maybe just a cup of hot mint tea. A movie with my wonderful husband, some reading and to bed. I've been reading the Julie/Julia project for my bedtime reading. What a wonderful blog. I highly recommend it. I can really relate in my RV situation right now.

Anybody have experience with this? I am temporarily in an RV, waiting on my home to be repaired from a fire. Want to continue my bread making lessons and am trying to figure out how to go about getting set up for it.

1. Work space-Where the heck do I shape/work with this dough without making a royal mess? I'm thinking about pulling up a large folding table but my outdoor table is a rough/plastic surface. What could I use ontop? The giant cutting board got packed and don't want to spend lots of money on a duplicate.

2. Cooking in the gas grill and/or tiny oven. I'm going hunting for Saltillo tiles Friday. Home Depot didn't have them. (in Phoenix of all places!!) Will line grill grates with tiles for baking. Baked a "1st lesson" bread in the tiny oven Monday in the middle of the night because I couldn't sleep in my new "house". The oven worked surprisingly well, although I'd like to check the temp to see how accurate it is. I cooked it in my salad bowel. I need to go hunting for some cheap pans or something as well. Cookie sheet won't fit and don't want to cook outside all the time. Other than my necessary sub of high gluten flour (no AP) the bread would have been wonderful. I wish I had thought to cut the gluten with some whole wheat!

3. Where's a good place to buy some inexpensive bread utensils? My stuff got packed out of my house in such a hurry I didn't have time to even think about what I would really want to keep in my RV. I'm lucky to have a couple of plates and a set of silverware. I also would like to buy a food scale while I'm at it.

Well, thanks from my front yard in Mesa, AZ!!!

Tracy

Hi. I'm writing this from my rental 5th wheel. Our house burned about 1 week ago and we were forced to rent an RV while they rebuild the house due to smoke damage.  Anyway, one of the silly things I was so disappointed about losing is my fairly new sourdough starter that I made all by myself. I just started baking bread (other than a few minor efforts in the distant past and bread machine bread which I don't count) and I made my sourdough starter about 2 months ago. Had to toss it due to smoke damage.

Yesterday, was reading this forum while avoiding packing, enjoying the rainy weather. I ended up digging out my Kitchen Aid blender, decided I couldn't live without it for 3 months. I'm working on trying to figure out grill baking on my gas grill. I went to Home Depot yesterday and was so disappointed that they didn't have Saltillo tiles for me to line my grill with! Anyway, started up a pizza dough at 1am and I'll finish it up Friday. (whole wheat from Peter Reinhart's recipe). Hopefully, I can find some tiles by then. In the meantime, I have to work 3 twelve hour shifts. Tonight I think I'm going to start a new starter with the directions on this forum which are much simpler than my first starter mix.

Looking forward to trying all the wholegrain recipes and techniques that I glean from this forum. This is awesome! The french fold and other techniques for use with wet doughs have already helped me tremendously! Sure wish I knew that the first time I made a rye bread!

Doc Tracy