View From the Other Side of the Table

Before I was a farmer's market vendor, I was a farmer's market customer, checking out booth after booth and sometimes balking at the prices of things. Imagine charging that much for homemade bread, chocolate, salsa, wine or produce! Not having yet been a vendor, it was impossible for me to know how much time, energy and resources went into the crafting of the product that seemed so pricey.

Now that I've been on the other side of the table, I really get it!! High quality ingredients, hand made beautiful products, long hours making the products and on market day (after working at a frenzied pace in the days before, then packing the car the night before)...up at 5 am, out the door carrying lunch, drinks, coffee (or in my case, vitamin powder drink), set up the tent, tables and products by opening bell.

It can be challenging to have a smile on one's face at that opening bell especially if it's cold and drizzly or burning hot or even if it's a nice day because the long week of preparations has left us with some real fatigue.

Yet we keep on keepin' on to build our businesses, try out new products, and best of all, to take part in the community spirit!

Market day is a happy day. Everyone is out with babies, kids, and dogs looking for beautiful food and crafts and connection.

My friend, Peggy, who helped me at the market a few times, pointed out the changes in people's faces upon trying my products. Of course, not everyone likes my products but most people did. When someone tried the Sprouted Almond Cookies or a Pumpernickel Muffin Top I watched their face move from neutral to pure joy and delight.


Comments like "these cookies are delicious and are not too sweet!" and "I haven't had pumpernickel in sooooooo long! Thank you!!" remind me that I am on the right path, bringing healthy delicious food to people like myself with food restrictions.

Peggy suggested that sometime we set up a video camera to document the facial changes. I think it's an interesting idea!

I learned so much from my first vendor year at the market. I didn't figure out everything, though. Some days I sold out of one product. The next week I'd bring lots more of that product but it would just sit there while something else would sell out. Baffling.

I felt a lot of solidarity and support with and from the other vendors. We shared business tips and supported each other through the season.

We have one last market, the Pre-Thanksgiving Market which will be indoors so no tent to set up. I'll be presenting  my newly perfected Chocolate Bread as well as my Ginger Bread. Hopefully, my new Cocktail breads, which need another week or so of testing, will also be ready.

               
        Ginger Bread                               Chocolate Bread

Being a farmer's market vendor was a fabulous experience and I hope to do it again, next year!!

Click here to learn more about and order products!

Gluten-Free Sourdough Starter Recipe

How to Make Gluten Free
Sourdough Starter (Excerpt from The Art of Gluten-Free Sourdough Baking)

(Also free of milk, eggs, yeast, soy, gums & chemical leavener
The steps below might seem daunting just to make bread but with practice it becomes easy.

Here are the basic steps for Gluten Free Sourdough Starter:

• Make Water Kefir (made from a culture)
• Make Brown Rice Starter
• Boost Brown Rice Starter with Water Kefir
• Feed Brown Rice Starter with brown rice flour and water, 2-3 times a day
• Use for pancakes, breads, muffins and pizza dough

Info about Water Kefir:

• Water Kefir is a tasty and potent fermented drink, full of natural probiotics and enzymes. (If you try drinking it start with a small amount at first! It’s really potent)
• Made from a culture and takes 2 minutes to put together
• Ferments in 1-2 days
• Stores in refrigerator for one month
• With care these cultures can be used repeatedly and live indefinitely


Making pancakes will help you get the “feel” of working with a sourdough starter. They take a fraction of the time needed for a bread recipe and
produce tasty pancakes.




Water Kefir Recipe

Ready for use in 1-2 days

Ingredients:
Water
Sugar
Raisins
Lemon
Water Kefir Culture * (purchase from Cultures for Health)

Equipment:
Glass quart jar
Spoon
Paper towel or cloth
Rubber band

Day 1

• Fill a quart jar with water leaving 2 inches of space at the top of the jar.
• Add 2 tablespoons sugar, stirring to dissolve.
• Add 20 raisins.
• Add a slice of lemon.
• Add water kefir culture into the quart jar.
• Cover with paper towel or cloth and secure with a rubber band.

Day 2

• When raisins float to the top, around 24 hours later, use a nonmetal spoon to remove raisins and lemon and discard them.


• In cool weather: Re-cover the water kefir drink with the paper towel or cloth and rubber band and ferment for 6 more hours on the counter.

• In warm weather: Put the water kefir drink directly into the refrigerator.

• Cap and store water kefir drink (along with cultures settled at the bottom) in the refrigerator and use as needed taking care not to pour water kefir cultures out of the jar. They will easily just sit on the bottom until you make your next batch.

• Water Kefir drink is now ready to use for Boosted Brown Rice Starter.

Replenishing Your Batch

• When you have used the water kefir liquid down to about an inch in the jar (with cultures still sitting on the bottom) begin a new batch in a new jar adding fresh water, sugar, raisins, and lemon.

• Then pour the remaining water kefir drink and water kefir culture into the new jar.

• Cover and ferment as above for Day.











*Purchase Water Kefir at Cultures For Health






Boosted Brown Rice Starter


Ready for use in 3-4 days


Ingredients:
Brown rice flour
Water
Water Kefir

Equipment:
Ceramic or glass bowl
Whisk
Cloth or paper towel
Rubber band


Step 1

• Put one cup of brown rice flour into a ceramic or glass bowl

• Pour in 3/4 cup of water and whisk smooth

• Add 1-2 tablespoons of water kefir and whisk again

• Cover with a cloth or paper towel and secure with a large rubber band

• Leave it on the counter away from drafts or extreme temperatures

Step 2

The key to a healthy starter is regular feedings
of brown rice flour and water


How to Feed:

• Feed 3 times daily, roughly every 8 hours.
• Feed with ¼- ½ cup of flour and slightly less water, whisking smooth and covering

• If you know you won't be able to feed it after 8 hours, put it in the refrigerator after feeding. You won't have to feed it for another 12 hours

• After two days put the starter in a clean bowl (to keep the dry starter from mixing with the fresh starter) and continue feeding

• At around 48 hours the starter should show signs of viability
If you don’t see any bubbles or “hilling”, (when the flour makes a hill) you can add another tablespoon of water kefir

• By the third and fourth days you may see bubbles of different sizes and hear a hissing sound when stirring


Your starter is now ready for pancakes.





Gluten Free Sourdough Pancakes


Since buckwheat, teff, quinoa or oat flour will give the pancakes some needed density (a pure rice flour starter tends to be on the thin, soupy side) have the last feeding of the starter be 1/4 - 1/2 cup of one of those flours plus a little less water. Let ferment 7 hours.

Yield: 4 pancakes

Ingredients for 4 pancakes
1 cup boosted brown rice starter (including the last feeding of buckwheat or other flour plus slightly less water
1 tablespoon oil, melted butter or fat
A large pinch of salt
1-2 tablespoons freshly ground flax seed (grind in a coffee grinder)

Directions
Mix oil, salt and ground flax seed into starter
Let sit for at least 15 minutes to allow the flax to thicken the batter.
The batter should be like a thick cake batter.
If the batter is too thick whisk in a little water, a tablespoon at a time, until you get the desired consistency
(The batter can sit for up to 24 hours in the refrigerator. The finished pancakes will be thinner and lighter)
Oil pan or griddle and heat to fairly hot
Spoon or ladle out the batter onto the pan
These take longer to cook than wheat pancakes so flip a few minutes after bubbles show up or the edges start to dry out.
Cook another 1-2 minutes and serve.

You can also cool them on a rack and refrigerate in a container for a 3-5 days. Just reheat them in the toaster.



Resources

Purchase The Art of Gluten-Free Sourdough Baking


Other Books Available

Lacto-Fermentation Through The Seasons – Fermented vegetables are a homemade probiotic-rich condiment. A year’s worth of recipes for making your own fermented vegetables starting in spring, moving through summer and into fall.

Intestinal Recovery – Recipes and techniques to slowly and gently help repair the digestive and immune systems.

Highly Digestible Beans – Technique for making the most easily digestible beans possible. 4 recipes included.




Contact me:
glutenfreesourdoughbaker@gmail.com

Copyright 2012 by Sharon A. Kane

Happy Accident-25 lbs of Teff Flour-Part 2

After last week’s fabulous teff pancakes I continued building the starter even though I sorely needed a break from bread baking. I was busy and thought it would be a good opportunity to practice growing starter in the fridge as this would cut the feedings from 3 times a day to twice.

The starter grew beautifully with a mild aroma. I would take it out for about an hour in the morning, feed it, let it sit another hour or so and put it back in the fridge for 12 hours. I’d repeat the sequence at night before bed. I noticed some thickening and some small bubbles but nothing dramatic.

I had been thinking about creating bread that was mildly sweet without any sweetener beyond 1 teaspoon of stevia powder. I used small amounts of carob and maca (a malty flavored root) and used buckwheat flour for one loaf and shredded coconut for the other. I also used coconut oil for the fat. The batters were rich looking, like cake batter. The aroma in the kitchen was heavenly and the resulting breads were fabulous. Sweet without any added sugars, so no blood sugar spikes. The bread is satisfying and the taste is complex. I found the taste getting sweeter each day.

My daughter, who named Sourdough Bread #1 “Mommybread” said this Teff Carob bread was the best ever and I should make it exclusively. Forever.

Growing Sourdough Starter in the Refrigerator for a Milder Sour

Growing starter in the refrigerator is said to minimize the sour taste of sourdough. It also enables us to reduce the feedings from 3 times a day to twice. I find my starters ferment very quickly these days making me wonder if I have enormous invisible colonies of yeast and bacteria in my kitchen. I also ferment water kefir, milk kefir, and kombucha so I assume there is quite a bit of activity going on.

A friend of mine, Peggy, likes to tinker in the kitchen. She experiments with many recipes and techniques and documents them in great detail. She tried growing a starter in the refrigerator, something I haven’t had time to see all the way through.

Here are her notes:

“I decided to go with a simple loaf of bread using quinoa and sorghum flours.
I had a small amount of rice-sorghum-teff starter left over from making multigrain bread and fed it for four days with alternating and equal amounts of quinoa flour and sorghum flour. I chose to use these because they were what I had on hand. I also was going for a lighter colored bread.

I gave it a little boost with 1 tablespoon of water kefir to perk it up on the second day.

After 24 hours of feedings I put it in the fridge because it was very bubbly and soupy! I didn’t want a strong sourdough flavor this time as I just baked two batches that were strongly fermented.

I continued to feed it 3 times a day continuing to keep it in the fridge.

36 hours later, I removed it from the fridge because it looked flat and dead But four hours later, when I next looked at it, it was furiously bubbling away!!! I had been deceived by the chilled mixture. I fed it and returned it to the fridge.
8 hours later when I took it out to feed it, it was actively bubbling even though it was so cold. I think it liked the fact that I had taken it out that first time for a few hours.”

She said that the finished bread had just enough sour taste to let you know you were eating sourdough. Not overpowering at all!

Water Kefir in the gluten free starter

I recently received this question:

“ In your Gluten-free sourdough starter you use Water Kefir to boost the starter.
Is it possible to start the Water Kefir culture from scratch at home?
Or can I leave out the Water Kefir entirely and still get a successful sour dough starter?”

My answer:
I use water kefir because I had a lot of spoilage in my rice starters before I used it. It acts as a preservative while quickly boosting the bacterial/yeast activity.
After the initial purchase the water kefir culture can live indefinitely with at least monthly feeding and refrigerated storage. You buy it once and use it for all your starters that you begin fresh.

Water Kefir is known in the fermenting community as a living potent drink that gently introduces probiotics, enzymes and vitamins into the digestive tract. This is good news for many people who have taken antibiotics as well as people with unresolving intestinal issues. Making the drink costs pennies and sipping a couple of ounces daily will begin a gentle process of detoxification and repair.

I chose Water Kefir as my booster because it is dairy free, (I’m allergic to all milk products) but one could use Milk kefir, Milk kefir whey or home made active Yogurt.


Order Water Kefir culture at:
Cultures For Health