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Well friends, I have had this appliance for a month or so now and LOVE it! Vacuum sealing food in plastic keeps it fresher, longer, saves space in my freezer and compared to double zip locked bags, I can actually see what is sealed and frozen.

My soft pull apart dinner rolls have stayed baking day fresh, shrink wrapped and frozen. You just need to stop the vacuum motor before it squishes the rolls, breads etc. What sold me on the product was the idea, I could re-heat my slow smoked BBQ pulled pork butt sous vide style. I comes out just like day one pulled pork.

40% W.W. English muffins

Hello friends, the aim for today’s experiment, will be to modify an existing recipe, (http://www.cooksrecipes.com/bread/english-muffins-recipe.html,) to create a formula for 40% W.W. English muffins.

Formula:

The Will Falzon method, 40% W.W. English muffins

Ingredients:

So, like an Icarus who flew too high too fast, long before he learned how to build an airplane, last weekend I got too cocky thinking that I could do variations of my own, without having to research proper recipes.  The result was two utterly lifeless loaves, which, albeit still edible, definitely wished they have never been baked at all. 

My starter is at day five, Slow-Moe2 is looking active and smelling delish! However, still far from a stable strong starter. I needed to bake something, quick bread was just the ticket! One spur of the moment Irish soda bread. http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/food-products/a42756/irish-soda-bread-recipe/

Photo #1 - Good housekeeping recipe, Irish Soda bread.

Photo #2 - Slow-Moe2 at day five after 40g/40g/40g feeding. Such a happy little guy! 

I've made exciting progress on my 100% whole grain loaf (pain integral). This particular loaf is made from home-milled whole wheat (77%) and whole rye (23%), and 85% hydration (I also dusted it with some white flour). It's been my ambition since I started to bake naturally fermented bread to make whole grain loaves like this (with good oven spring, open crumb, pleasing taste, and hardy crust). I still have a lot of improvements I want to make but I know it's just a matter of time now :)

For as long as I've been an attendee at TFL University I continually see postings galore for both the Vermont SD and the Norwich SD.  Which, in an odd way, had me keep my distance from them both.  Until today.  Mr. Hamelman's Vermont SD is the first, foundational entry in his book's entire section of levain based breads, preceding even the venerable Pain au Levain entries.  I'd skipped over it before.  

This is the last bake that I am making for sale until I am back to being retired so I am super happy how it turned out in spite of a few hiccups. I am not sure how much bread I will be making for us so it might also be a while for that too. We will see. Might have to stick to one day recipes...

Anyhow, this is the recipe:

1. Soak 30 g each of cranberries, raisins & chopped dates in 100 g Earl Grey tea. Cool and add 30 g of kefir. 

2. I didn't do this but the plan was to toast 25 g each of walnuts, pecans and pumpkin seeds. 

It started out innocently enough. There I was, looking at my starter, and I thought, "Hey, I know. I'll just go ahead and reboot the starter into a straight NMNF batch, really dilute the last of the whole wheat out of it, get it up to 95%+ rye. That's what I'll do." And so I did. Pulled 8 grams out, washed out the jar, put the 8 grams back in and added flour and water, set the timer.

these are my first attempt at making English muffins and I must admit, I'm really really pleased with them. The recipe is from tartine by chad robertson.

For those of you who don't own that book, the recipe is a baguette dough that you flatten out on a baking sheet and then let rise like that, I used a 3 inch cookie cutter to cut them out, and then fried them in a little clarified butter for a couple of minutes on each side.

Even my daughter likes them...success!!

Thanks to alfanso and dabrownman and isand66 and Toad.de.b I was inspired and encouraged to take another shot at that whole grain durum, and to push a bit with playing with formulae for results that are more and more *mine*...