Hi from a new member
Now that I've made my inaugural post, I thought I'd introduce myself.
I live in Michigan and have made bread off and on for most of my adult life, although not always good bread. A couple of years ago, I got interested in making artisan and/or sourdough breads and tried making my starter from scratch. Most of my resulting bread wasn't very good because I didn't understand about hydration and wetter doughs. Thanks to this site and a few others, that has changed.
A couple of months ago (January? February?) I got ticked off that the expensive sourdough I was buying kept molding in 4 or 5 days (yeah, I know bread doesn't stay fresh that long, but we're a small family) and started googling how to make bread again. I wandered off and my husband stumbled on the New York Times No Knead Bread recipe. I thought it was some kind of hoax, but obsesive research showed otherwise and I made my first loaf.
All was well and we were pretty happy with the NKB, but I wanted sourdough! I found this site and Mike Avery's site and orderd Carl's Oregon Trail starter. I got it a couple of days before Memorial Day Weekend and have been nurturing it ever since. I try to make a loaf of bread and sourdough pancakes every weekend now.
Also, we're eating dairy and egg free due to my son's allergies and the sourdough pancakes beat the pants off the rice milk ones I was making. I use an egg replacer from the HFS and prior to the sourdough, we got gummy, half passable pancakes. My husband stopped asking for them on the weekend. Now we get tangy, tasty pancakes that are a joy to eat.