Trad Wife

I don't know what has gotten into me, but I have taken up some new hobbies that are VERY unlike me - I'm making my own sourdough bread {and am starting to explore discard recipes} AND I'm making my own butter. How very 'trad wife' of me! {grin}

This all started with my company making changes to our wellness subsidy - we get money every year to support our well-being. A lot of includes fitness related items (it covers gym memberships, for example), but every year the program gets expanded and kitchen appliances got added this year! I've always wanted a Kitchen Aid mixer, but given I'm not much of a cook, the expense never seemed worth it. BUT when it's free? Heck yeah!

Isn't she so pretty?!

One of my co-workers told me about how easy it is to make your own butter with a KitchenAid, so I had to try!

You can see the buttermilk separating from the butter, yay!

And here's the finished product. It was SUPER easy, and I've continued to make it. I want to see if there are recipes for honey butter, cinnamon butter, stuff like that.

THEN at one of our Girl Scout meetings, we had a dad come teach the girls how to make sourdough, and we all left with a little of his starter. I decided I wanted to keep this starter going and learn how to make bread. {This dad is the dad of Drew's bestie, so we've enjoyed his sourdough many, many times, so I was very excited to get some of his starter.}

I got off to a rocky start with bread that wouldn't rise.

Womp, womp

I did some internet sleuthing and had some help from a friend who makes her own, and I figured out my starter needed some help, and I didn't NEED this, but I decided to use more of my wellness subsidy to buy a bread oven! Who am I?

Growing starter, yay!

Beautiful bread oven

With those tweaks made and following THIS recipe, I finally had some success! I've now made at least 5 loaves and I think I've got it down. I want to do add-ins here as well {jalapeño cheese sourdough bread, anyone?!?}, but I'm so excited about being able to make my own bread and butter.

My first successful loaf

Can't wait to see what tempts me for next year's wellness subsidy, ha.