Leila Marie Lawler's Blog, page 5

Auntie Leila’s Facebook (you can just follow)

The boards of the others: Rosie’s Pinterest. Sukie’s Pinterest. Deirdre’s Pinterest. Habou’s Pinterest

Here is my affiliate link to my Amazon page — the only affiliate thing that goes on here on LMLD, which is why the blog loads quickly and you don’t have to keep closing pop-ups etc! It opens up an Amazon tab and anything you purchase using that tab for 24 hours sends a bit over my way without cost to you. Thank you for opening it and shopping if you are so minded — as some have asked me. If not, don’t worry one bit!

Sickness is part of life – don't freak out!

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Published on October 26, 2024 10:29

Maintaining your no-discard starter

I'm laboring under a barely functional blog situation here: only some of my pictures are loading. The whole blog needs an overhaul — a fall cleaning if you will!

Since what I had in mind last week (and now this week) was to touch base about the sourdough starter with some visuals to go along with that topic, we're in a bit of a pickle.

But here goes, with the few pics that would load:

My method for maintaining going forward from that first stage of getting the starter up to speed is to take the starter — the one we've been working on according to the method in the previous posts — out of the fridge.

I put some of it into whatever bowl I will be mixing dough in.

In this case, I was making pizza for just the two of us, so I am using a glass bowl; usually I would use my mixing bowl for the Kitchenaid.

I began with about 2/3 cup of starter in my jar.

Your amount may vary; just use enough in the bowl to leave some (2T to 1/4 cup) in your jar.

I put about 1/2 cup in the bowl and left the rest in the jar.

Then I fed each one, separately. What's in the bowl gets fed at about a 1:1:1 ratio or even slightly more water. I try to use some whole wheat flour at this point to give it a boost of nutrients.

What's in the jar gets fed to be a bit stiffer. One part starter, one part flour, 2/3 part water.

I had a nice picture showing you, as well as I think can be shown, the stiffness; it will sort of hold its shape when you move it around with a spoon or knife and not just spread out in the jar in a liquid fashion, almost like oatmeal cookie batter and not like pancake batter.

Then I let each one ferment.

I put both bowl and jar in the oven with the light on. It actually got pretty warm, so after about an hour I turned the light off and that was enough warmth.

The bowl starter will look like this:

The jar starter will look like this:

You notice that what's in the jar does not have big bubbles such as the ones you might see in pictures elsewhere. That's because it's quite stiff! But it's very active and very strong, and yours should be too. Those little bubbles are excellent signs of a good starter.

At this point, I let what's in the jar rise just a tad more, until it's domed and has a nice lively smell, and then popped it in the fridge. Because it's so stiff, it is forgiving. It's not likely to rise quickly and collapse.

I then proceeded with the contents of the bowl (and it was really under 3 hours to get to this point — I began in the morning), adding a few cups of flour, some salt, and a bit of olive oil to make my pizza dough.

You should continue to make the sourdough sandwich bread; by now you can leave the yeast out entirely! You can mix what they call the levain (the first part of the recipe) and within 3 hours, if it's warm enough, you should be able to proceed with the recipe.

This is my procedure!

Let me know if you're not quite getting it, or if you're having good success!

bits & pieces

Time in the medieval monastery (and it can be this way, a little, in the home today, if we keep things calm and not over-scheduled)

Ten Gregorian Chants everyone should know! We found if we wanted the children to learn and memorize something, if we included it at a time of daily prayer (for instance when we said the Angelus at noon or at night prayer before bed), they would be proficient within a week. Our children learned the Salve Regina before we did! And we didn't have these lovely youtubes to listen to — lucky you!

I wanted to be sure you saw this article from Leila Miller: Heart of the Abandoned Spouse (a remedy against reflexive annulment). She has good advice for those suffering from abandonment.

from the archives

Encourage your children to have good conversational habits

liturgical living

Blessed Carlo Acutis

follow us everywhere!

Here is all the info:

Visit me at The School for Housewives and recommend it to your young friends!

My “random thoughts no pictures” blog, Happy Despite Them has moved over to Substack! — receive it by email if you like, or bookmark, so you don’t miss a thing! The old one is still up if you want to look at the comments on past posts. It will take me a while to get things organized, but you'll be patient, I know!

There you will find the weekly podcast done by Phil and me, called On the Home Front. Do let us know what you think!

My book, The Summa Domestica: Order and Wonder in Family Life is available from Sophia Press! Also in paperback now! All the thoughts from this blog collected into three volumes, beautifully presented with illustrations from Deirdre, an index in each volume, and ribbons!

My podcast, The Home Truths Society, can be found on the Restoration of Christian Culture website (and you can find it where you listen to such things) — be sure to check out the other offerings there!

Stay abreast of the posts here at LMLD, when they happen:

Consider subscribing to this blog by email. We would love to pop into your inbox! The subscription box is on this page on the sidebar!

We share pretty pictures: Auntie Leila’s Instagram, Rosie’s Instagram, Deirdre’s Instagram. Bridget’s Instagram.

Auntie Leila’s Facebook (you can just follow)

The boards of the others: Rosie’s Pinterest. Sukie’s Pinterest. Deirdre’s Pinterest. Habou’s Pinterest

Here is my affiliate link to my Amazon page — the only affiliate thing that goes on here on LMLD, which is why the blog loads quickly and you don’t have to keep closing pop-ups etc! It opens up an Amazon tab and anything you purchase using that tab for 24 hours sends a bit over my way without cost to you. Thank you for opening it and shopping if you are so minded — as some have asked me. If not, don’t worry one bit!

The post Maintaining your no-discard starter appeared first on Like Mother, Like Daughter.

You don't have to play with your kids!

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Published on October 12, 2024 10:39

Ask Auntie: Why reference the King James Version?

Ask Auntie Leila Corner

Dear Auntie Leila,

I'm curious/mad/disappointed that you use the King James Version in your book, The Summa Domestica. Why would you, when there is the Douay-Rheims?

Respectfully [but Nonetheless Irked],

Many Readers

Dear Readers!

We are the lucky, blessed, and favored heirs of the richest language and most profound treasury of literature, poetry, and song of any culture.

The source of this textured, subtle, and brilliant expression of man's creativity comes for the most part (not completely of course, but in broad terms) from two springs: Shakespeare and the King James Version of the Bible. For centuries, many of our greatest writers and poets only had these two works at hand, or learned on them before encountering others, which in turn took nourishment from them.

This is a historical fact. If you want your children to have a chance at the eloquence of Abraham Lincoln, consider making them read Shakespeare and the KJV by firelight only. Living in a log cabin and having no shoes might also help!

But seriously, we are trying to educate our children, which means to pass along to them, in as intact form as we can manage, our faith and culture and this particular aspect of our culture, its poetic beauty. It's ours. We actually have a duty to it, as well as to our children and making them able to apprehend it.

In my books, contrary to what my critics assert, I generally reference and use three translations: the Douay-Rheims (which is often identical to the King James Version, in which case that's the one I mention), the King James Version, and the Revised Standard Version.

We need to understand that no translation achieves perfection. Some are better for studying, and that is why we would turn to the RSV. Some are better for prayer, e.g. the Douay-Rheims or RSV or perhaps Knox (with whom I have quibbles), and I would argue, the King James Version, for sheer beauty and forming a deep connection to our heritage on a visceral level. By the way, did you know there is a Catholic King James Version (affiliate link)? Because the main objection to it is just that it leaves out canonical books, which this edition restores. I address the other objection below.

But let me put it this way:

Surely we all know the beginning of Psalm 23 as “the Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want” (KJV) and not “A psalm for David. The Lord ruleth me: and I shall want nothing.” (D-R).

We want our children to know it the first way too, I would think! And meet it with recognition and warm joy in hymn and poem.

The reasons might be subtle, but they are real.

First, the rhythm of the KJV fits its meaning. It is childlike and simple, easily memorized or rather, just slipping into the memory. Its poetry will cause it to come back easily when the soul needs it.

Second, the lack of a direct object in the second clause offers a deep meaning. “I shall want nothing” is a bit too negative — the word “nothing” isn't helpful in this context — and although the meaning is that nothing will be lacking, that idea is conveyed better by simply leaving out the predicate. “I shall not want” emphasizes the existential fulfillment of the person, the child, the “I”, the subject, the sheep. I will not be in a state of having any needs, because I will be perfectly taken care of by the good Shepherd.

And of course, the image of Shepherd, so central to this Psalm, is left out of the D-R verse entirely.

So in my book, when I talk about, say, building writing skills by doing copy work from the Bible, I suggest usually using the KJV or at least weighing the different translations before choosing one. Personally, I usually find the KJV more satisfying.

And I often use a KJV quote in my writing precisely as a sort of object lesson or ready demonstration of how powerful it is in conjuring up all sorts of connections in your, the reader's, own mind, in the hopes that you will wish to pass that intellectual (at a minimum) superpower on to your child.

Copying out, say, the KJV Psalm 23 imprints it on the child's mind. He internalizes its meter and will recognize it, if only subliminally, in future readings of other works. He himself will become more familiar with expressing things this way. Those of us who are sure to pass along these venerable passages can attest to our children coming up with charming and funny expressions, like my four-year-old son's “Oh, I am as tired as a gazelle falling down!”

Fr. Paul Mankowski, translator extraordinaire, expert in Semitic languages, and priest of sterling orthodoxy, referenced the KJV and other old translations easily, without self-consciousness let alone compunction, as all educated Catholics do. He once commented in an email to me,

Another issue, that also hinges on lexical distribution of reference distinctions, has to do with the Deus/homo antithesis, especially where it's implicit. In the KJV, Isaiah 53:3 reads (cue the Händel): “He was despised, and rejected of men.” In our Lectionary that became, “He was spurned and avoided by persons.” Try Händeling that. The point is that a word can't drop out of a language unless another word pushes it out by doing the same job better, and obviously no word can do the job of English “men,” no matter how many professorial fingers are wagged at us.

He's making a point about inclusive language, but notice the embedded point that we would lose a major master-work of our patrimony, Handel's Messiah, and our deep resonance with it, if we did not preserve its wording, or if we used a different translation in our literature and music classes.

If we insisted on “Despised, and the most abject of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with infirmity” (Douay-Rheims) we lose the punch of that un-Latinized word grief in the KJV: “He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” (Getting back to why the NAB is so bad, not really the subject here, the biblical connection of the movie and soundtrack of O Brother Where Art Thou would be lost on us entirely if we existed on a diet of technical scriptures. We might think it's only a retelling of The Odyssey and wonder why “I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow” is a featured song.)

It's very difficult to teach later on what should have become second-nature from the start. The child who hears the KJV from infancy in at least some contexts is far better positioned than the one who has to assimilate it later for the purpose, perhaps, of appreciating some work of art that depends on it.

If we, in some doctrinaire fashion, ban what we perceive as the “Protestant” essence of the KJV, and then later, when our mature children are reading some great work, try to explain the genesis of its allusions, diction, and especially cadences, we will find it hard going and I can tell you from experience, often unavailing. The explanations might fall on the barren ground of basic disconnect.

It works the other way too. If the child doesn't know these favored passages (favored for good reason!) by heart in his own mother tongue, he won't recognize them in worship. I've been struck so often how the current lectionary in the Novus Ordo effects the separation from the past quite efficiently, if tragically:

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen~ KJV: Pithy, straight to the point in a matter not easily explained, namely, what is faith.

Now faith is the substance of things to be hoped for, the evidence of things that appear not ~ D-R: Good, not as pithy, and “things that appear not” is a tad ambiguous.

Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen ~ NABRE (the edition used at Mass in the US): More words, the most important of which is not a clear improvement (realization for substance).

Can a child take this to heart is my question. Will it come back to him in moments of trouble? Less crucially, but still importantly, will he catch the reference in the title of some novel?

If attending the Traditional Latin Mass, the faithful will hear the readings in Latin and then a translation may be offered. For the child to learn his Bible, extra effort needs to be made to offer good translations in our everyday speaking and reading that offer more than just information.

Fr. Mankowski writes, “Further, a biblical text is not so much read as heard, and not so much heard as re-heard, often hundreds of times in a single lifetime.” He is opposing Ronald Knox's theory of translation as applied to Scripture. Traditional Catholics should read his argument in this article; the Campion Missal, for one, uses the Knox translation for Low Masses.

Tony Esolen skewers the issue of clunky translations (not that I'm saying the D-R is that) in his article What We've Lost in Translation:*

One of the thieves crucified at the side of Christ is mocking him, and the other thief feels a pang of conscience. “We are receiving the due reward of our deeds,” he says, “but this man has done nothing wrong” (RSV); “And we indeed justly, for we are receiving what our deeds deserved; but this man has done nothing wrong” (Douay-Rheims-Challoner). I suppose that if you are hanging on a cross, you will come straight to the point. Now the NAB: “And indeed, we have been condemned justly, for the sentence we received corresponds to our crimes, but this man has done nothing criminal.” Corresponds? Nothing criminal? Who talks this way? A lawyer arguing before an appellate court, maybe. A professor, probably. A thief on a cross? The translators cannot have considered the drama of the specific situation.

The KJV has “And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss.” Even more direct, more dying-on-a-cross-like.

For the issue of translating from the Latin Vulgate and how decisive that is for the question of eliminating the KJV, I recommend this article by Jimmy Akin: Uncomfortable Facts about the Douay-Rheims. I appreciate that he points out Douay-Onlyism as a counterpart to KJV-Onlyism!

While translator bias is a fact to be contended with, Douay-Rheims Onlyists often accuse contemporary translations of being tainted by Protestant translations.

But there’s another side to that story. Just as the original Douay came to influence the KJV, the KJV itself came to influence the Douay. Ward notes: “In nearly every case Challoner’s changes took the form of approximating to the Authorized [i.e., King James] Version.”

The fact is that Bible versions on both sides of the confessional divide influence each other. This is because serious translators don’t read only works done by one side. Sometimes the other guys come up with a way of better capturing what’s written in the original language, and when that happens the serious translator wants to know about it, not to hide his head in the sand.

All of this is not to say that the Douay-Rheims is a bad translation, or that it is not to be read, or that individuals may not prefer using it to other translations. It is only to indicate that the Douay-Rheims ought not be put on a pedestal.

The truth is, I found after my conversion that unbeknownst to me, many Bible verses and patterns of diction were embedded in my mind and heart because they had been transmitted in the culture — in books I had read, poetry I had heard, and hymns I had sung (because my mother, as a former Methodist, sang them, or because they were Christmas carols we also learned at school) — all in the KJV. My experience has convinced me that we are charged to transmit such things to our children, that they not be cut off from the land — the land of knowledge and collective memory.

Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. ~ 1 Thessalonians 5:19-22*Fr. Mankowski, by the way, and just to underline how delicate the issue of translation is, said of this article, “[Esolen] is absolutely right about the English, about its cadences and levels of diction and so forth. And he's not only right but he nailed the folly dead center. In other places where he's criticized the NAB he gets himself into trouble by making claims about the Hebrew and Greek originals that aren't true; [he]… sometimes is out in front of his skates.”bits & piecesA podcast episode about the Library of Congress from Katie MarquetteA Light for Our Times: Blessed Karl Conference in Washington, DC — Phil will be speaking at this conference, our good friend Paul Jernberg has composed the Mass, and I'll be there too! Be sure to register!In the spirit of things you need to know before you can know other things, I loved this reading list for gearing up for the Lord of the Rings. It's a list of wonderful childhood books and stories for children to read before they get to LOTR, very much in the Library Project mode. You know it bothers me that people just jump right into introducing their children to mature things they themselves love. Yes, you love Star Wars, but is it appropriate for a 6-year-old? You love Jane Austen, but should your 10-year-old be reading it? There are just things you need to read and know about before you can get the many levels of the other things, before you can get the most out of them! I have the Lindgren book on hold at the library!

Knitters! Does the long-tail cast-on give you PTSD? Me too. Here's a LTCO calculator!!Lost GK Chesterton essay about detective stories published for first time!from the archivesI wrote a little about translations in general here.

I feel the burden of educating my children — how setting goals helps lift the burden (we talked about that this year here and here).

liturgical living

St. Wenceslaus and St. Lawrence Ruiz and his companions

Tomorrow is Michaelmas — tonight or tomorrow night would be good for a bonfire and/or procession!

follow us everywhere!

Here is my affiliate link to my Amazon page — the only affiliate thing that goes on here on LMLD, which is why the blog loads quickly and you don’t have to keep closing pop-ups etc! It opens up an Amazon tab and anything you purchase using that tab for 24 hours sends a bit over my way without cost to you. Thank you for opening it and shopping if you are so minded — as some have asked me. If not, don’t worry one bit!

My book, The Summa Domestica: Order and Wonder in Family Life is available from Sophia Press! Also in paperback now! All the thoughts from this blog collected into three volumes, beautifully presented with illustrations from Deirdre, an index in each volume, and ribbons!

My “random thoughts no pictures” blog, Happy Despite Them has moved over to Substack! — receive it by email if you like, or bookmark, so you don’t miss a thing! The old one is still up if you want to look at the comments on past posts. It will take me a while to get things organized, but you'll be patient, I know!

There you will find the weekly podcast done by Phil and me, called On the Home Front. Do let us know what you think!

Visit me at The School for Housewives and recommend it to your young friends!

My podcast, The Home Truths Society, can be found on the Restoration of Christian Culture website (and you can find it where you listen to such things) — be sure to check out the other offerings there!

Stay abreast of the posts here at LMLD, when they happen:

Consider subscribing to this blog by email. We would love to pop into your inbox! The subscription box is on this page on the sidebar!

We share pretty pictures: Auntie Leila’s Instagram, Rosie’s Instagram, Deirdre’s Instagram. Bridget’s Instagram.

Auntie Leila’s Facebook (you can just follow)

The boards of the others: Rosie’s Pinterest. Sukie’s Pinterest. Deirdre’s Pinterest. Habou’s Pinterest

The post Ask Auntie: Why reference the King James Version? appeared first on Like Mother, Like Daughter.

Peter Kwasniewski on the great good of social dancing

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Published on September 28, 2024 10:34

Freeze a lovely pork loin roast; I made the sourdough sandwich bread; links!

Current mood: Autumn is coming…

We were going to have Deirdre and family over for Sunday dinner but they got sick. I didn't know this until my pork was all roasted!

So I thought I'd take the opportunity tell you, if you didn't already know, that a roasted pork loin can be sliced and frozen and it will appear another day, all moist and tasty!

The way to roast it so it's moist in the first place is described here. Somehow I figured out that this seasoned crust is the secret to the loin, which is pretty lean, coming out tasty and not at all dry, quite the opposite!

I have taken a roast pork meal to a family in need many times and I always get compliments on how beautifully cooked it is — and yet, it could not be easier!

The main thing is to coat it with the paste and roast it at a relatively low temperature.

When it's done, if you want to freeze it or a portion of it, let it cool completely and slice it. Arrange a pan with heavy-duty aluminum foil, place the slices on there, pour the pan drippings over them, wrap it up well, and pop it into the freezer.

If you are using a pan you don't want to lose to the depths of the freezer, place the package in a plastic bag once it's all frozen. I used a disposable aluminum pan, lined with foil, topped with wax paper, and well wrapped with more foil.

When you are ready to reheat it, just remove the plastic (if you used it), let it thaw for a few hours, and reheat in a 350° oven for about 20 minutes or until everything is thoroughly warmed up. Take the foil on top off for the last 10 minutes.

Sourdough Practice Corner

This week I decided to make the sandwich loaves from King Arthur along with you.

To demonstrate how incapable I am of following a recipe or even reading it, I will tell you that someone in the Substack chat had to point out to me that the recipe calls for yeast in addition to the starter!

But actually, I think this turns out to be a good thing for our project.

Make the recipe again, and this time use half the amount of yeast. Make it a third time (I am assuming that you have all the demand where you are for sandwich bread, especially this tasty one that toasts up beautifully as well) — and leave the yeast out completely.

It's pretty hard to show you the steps of the recipe in photos — the blobs of dough in the bowl don't amount to much! — but I basically just took half my starter out of the jar, put it in the bowl and added the flour and water called for in the recipe, and then fed the starter in my jar.

Some people like to feed what's in the jar and then take out the amount called for in the recipe (it will say something like “one cup/200g mature starter”). But I prefer to do it in two parts for two reasons (and don't worry, we'll go over this again):

It prevents me from accidentally using everything in my starter jar — i.e. using all my starter in the recipe! This is a tragedy that occurs more often than you would expect! If I leave a small amount in my jar, feeding the two amounts separately, the tragedy will be averted.I would need a bigger jar. There isn't room enough for feeding it enough to provide the levain for the recipe and leave some behind. But I like using this size jar. It's roomy enough for my small amount of starter to be fed and rise, and even for me to do that twice if I'm wanting to build it up, but not so big it takes up space in my fridge.*

*Some people keep an even smaller amount in the fridge and some have a big crock on the counter. We will talk about all that later. You insisted I tell you how I do it so this is it!

Here's what my levain looked like when I mixed it:

And here's what it looked like just three hours after (not 12 as it says in the recipe):

Here's all the ingredients in the mixer. Not going to lie, I probably did something wrong even though I was following the recipe, I promise you because the dough was pretty dry, so I did add more milk. By the way, I used milk, not dry milk powder, because we're always trying to use up our milk around here with just the two of us (virtual non-milk-drinkers).

And I also didn't do the sugar — I did 2 tablespoons of honey instead. Honey does somewhat suppress the leavening action, so there's that.

But what I want to say now is this:

As you make this recipe, note how full your mixer bowl (or whatever you are mixing in) looks. Note the level of the levain and the level of the flour in the bowl.

Personally, I would make this recipe with a bit more volume, as I think the two pans could be more full with dough. But the important thing is to train your eye as to the levels of ingredients, because someday soon you are going to learn to just put a certain amount of flour in the bowl without measuring out cups or grams — you'll do it by eye!

At least, that's how I do it! But you have to follow the recipe a bunch of times first.

Here's how it looked when it was risen:

You can see I have plenty of room in there for twice as much risen dough.

At this point, I put the whole bowl in the fridge, covered with a wet dish towel, because it was time for me to go to bed.

Here's how it looked when I took it out the next day and turned it out on the island:

I gently divided it in half (this is the one part I get OCD about and have to measure precisely, even though it actually baked up looking like one is bigger and one smaller).

Gently shape and put dough in the pans. I let the dough rise and then I put it in the fridge.

I think with the yeast these loaves probably rise more and so in the recipe, the volume is correct for the pan. Yeast loaves are just more airy overall. I might increase the flour and milk a bit next time.

It's very delicious and buttery with a great texture!

How did yours turn out? If you want to show me, you can post on Instagram and tag me!

Remember this week to try the recipe with half or no yeast! And if you are feeling “advanced,” try doubling the recipe!

Tell me how it's going!

bits & piecesA beautiful reflection from Fr. John Naugle on the death of his mother and the coming of another challenge.

Taylor Swift Does Not Belong in Your Christian Era —I agree that our daughters deserve better role models, and I would add that whoever they are, they should not come from pop culture.

Book Summary: The Rape of the Mind by Joost Meerloo — I believe that this book is one recommended by, among others, Stella Morabito. If you can't read the whole book, this summary is a good one, with important points about how to resist mobs and totalitarian mind control.

from the archivesWhen kids do dishes, they open up I had more about goldenrod in this post, plus there is a handful of Qs & As, Auntie-Leila style. I'm behind right now on answering emails, speaking of that! Sorry — I'll try to get caught up soon!

liturgical living

Feast of St. Matthew

The meditation for the Ember Saturday in that link is well worth reading!

follow us everywhere!

Here is my affiliate link to my Amazon page — the only affiliate thing that goes on here on LMLD, which is why the blog loads quickly and you don’t have to keep closing pop-ups etc! It opens up an Amazon tab and anything you purchase using that tab for 24 hours sends a bit over my way without cost to you. Thank you for opening it and shopping if you are so minded — as some have asked me. If not, don’t worry one bit!

My book, The Summa Domestica: Order and Wonder in Family Life is available from Sophia Press! Also in paperback now! All the thoughts from this blog collected into three volumes, beautifully presented with illustrations from Deirdre, an index in each volume, and ribbons!

My “random thoughts no pictures” blog, Happy Despite Them has moved over to Substack! — receive it by email if you like, or bookmark, so you don’t miss a thing! The old one is still up if you want to look at the comments on past posts. It will take me a while to get things organized, but you'll be patient, I know!

There you will find the weekly podcast done by Phil and me, called On the Home Front. Do let us know what you think!

Visit me at The School for Housewives and recommend it to your young friends!

My podcast, The Home Truths Society, can be found on the Restoration of Christian Culture website (and you can find it where you listen to such things) — be sure to check out the other offerings there!

Stay abreast of the posts here at LMLD, when they happen:

Consider subscribing to this blog by email. We would love to pop into your inbox! The subscription box is on this page on the sidebar!

We share pretty pictures: Auntie Leila’s Instagram, Rosie’s Instagram, Deirdre’s Instagram. Bridget’s Instagram.

Auntie Leila’s Facebook (you can just follow)

The boards of the others: Rosie’s Pinterest. Sukie’s Pinterest. Deirdre’s Pinterest. Habou’s Pinterest

The post Freeze a lovely pork loin roast; I made the sourdough sandwich bread; links! appeared first on Like Mother, Like Daughter.

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Published on September 21, 2024 05:50

Quick announcement: Live chat over at The School for Housewives

Tomorrow (Tuesday) from 2-4 pm (eastern time) I will host a live chat over at The School for Housewives for paid subscribers. (It's just $5 to subscribe for a month and it's fine to just do that. I plan to host a chat once a week or so.)

Of course I'll continue to answer questions here, but you might like to chat about the sourdough starter journey and all things housewife-related over there, where I can be more responsive.

Hopefully you've had a chance to try the sandwich bread loaves I posted about on Saturday. That's the first step to sourdough intuitiveness… using a tested recipe and getting it under your belt. I bet your kids loved it!

Hope to see you there!

The post Quick announcement: Live chat over at The School for Housewives appeared first on Like Mother, Like Daughter.

A beautiful — stunning — reliquary representing the Exaltation of the Cross

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Published on September 16, 2024 18:25

Let’s start the journey to being intuitive with sourdough; goldenrod; and links!

The goldenrod is nicely in flower here in Massachusetts. I highly recommend you get yourself some bunches for drying.

It's a joyful wildflower that brings calm and happiness! If you're further north, you may still find some in protected places where the colder nights haven't nipped it. If you're south of here, keep your eye out! (The grapes are from vines gone wild in my neighbor's yard, spotted at the end of my walk. Usually the birds get them long before I even see them!)

When it is dry, you can store the leaves and flower heads in a jar. Make a tea when anyone needs an immune-system boost, has the warnings of a UTI, seems a bit down, or needs a warm cloth for a wound — soak the cloth in the tea and apply.

Just opening the jar and smelling the goldenrod gives you a boost!

If you're feeling overwhelmed by cherry tomatoes, I find that cutting them in half and drying them for storage is a good way to deal with the surplus.

Little by little, you can fill a few jars — later in winter you will be so happy to be able to toss some in a salad instead of dried cranberries (no added sugar, either), or into sauce or soup for a tomato boost.

If you don't have a dehydrator (mine is from a yard sale, got it for $5), set your oven on its “proofing” setting or however low it will go and dry them that way. When you are drying, you have to stir them around, removing the truly dry ones and letting the others continue. It's not a binary thing like baking.

Sourdough Corner

I hope your starter has… started!

I am an intuitive bread baker.

I could come on here and tell you not to worry about following recipes (especially when you ask me for my recipes, which are… non-existent) but it would be brutally unfair to you — and to me!

Because the truth is that I followed recipes for about 10 years — about 45 years ago. I made loaf after loaf over and over again until the recipes became part of my muscle memory.

I know how to bake bread without a recipe because I spent years in training with recipes tested by people whose job it was to test them.

I paid close attention to each recipe until I realized that flour, water, and salt would produce a rustic, chewy loaf, and the addition of milk especially, but also butter (or oil), sugar (or other sweetener), and even egg would result in a soft, tender loaf.

I pored over charts explaining the function of each ingredient. I learned what the proportion of “extra” ingredients such as cooked cereals (like cornmeal, oats, and coarser wheat grinds) could be added before the gluten of the base flour was compromised.

On many an occasion, I forgot to add the salt and figured out what the salt does. (Don't leave out the salt! In fact, add a bit more than the recipe calls for.)

{My pizza is always ready… when the sun has gone down. Sorry for the bad lighting! This is the best pizza I have ever made, made it last night: sourdough crust, chopped tomatoes from the garden, mozzarella, ricotta, parmesan, sweet yellow peppers and fresh purple basil also from the garden. Cracked the code on my new gas range and got the tenderest, crispiest crust. Trust me, I will work on providing you with the method!}

I made thousands of dinner rolls and countless pizzas. It all got critiqued by my little munchkins and then I strove to match their visions of even softer rolls and even crispier pizza crusts.

So when you got into this sourdough thing with me, you maybe didn't quite realize that I would make you do something like that as well. I went through it, and emerged a good baker, but the intuition means I'm not good at offering recipes!

I can tell you, though, that if, now that you have your starter, you follow some good recipes and try to learn from. your mistakes as I did, I will show you two things:

To maintain your starter without discarding!To make big batches of bread/rolls/pizza or anything else!

So this week, in the project of making you an intuitive baker as well, and assuming you have a nice strong starter, may I suggest that you practice by making this King Arthur recipe for two loaves of sourdough sandwich bread.

I encourage you to make sandwich bread to start with because the extra ingredients — milk, butter, and sugar — mean you don't have to do stretch-and-folds or otherwise baby your dough. Just keep it warm.

TIPS:

See the tips below regarding the starter/levain.You can use milk in place of the water if you don't have milk powder. You can use oil in place of the butter and honey in place of the sugar.After you mix the ingredients together, let the dough rest for 1/2 an hour before proceeding with the rest of the recipe.Go by the rising, not by the timing. LOOK at the dough, not the clock. It should look a bit puffy and not dead-like.When you form your logs, gently pat or roll each piece of dough out to make a flattened, thick rectangle. Then roll it up and seal the seam. (Later in the week when you do it again, you can braid the loaves according to my tutorial.)

Here are more tips for reaching that first goal of not discarding any starter:

I'm going to assume you have about a cup of starter in your jar.

Where it says at the beginning of the recipe to make the levain (which is feeding your starter and getting the quantity needed for the loaves), use the amount of starter that will leave about 1/4 cup of starter in your jar.

In other words, take your measuring cup and put into it whatever amount results in you having a few tablespoons of starter left over.

It doesn't matter if it is or is not the 3 tablespoons called for in the recipe.

It can be a cup or 1/2 cup — if so, add the amount of flour and water necessary to bring it up to around 300 g total (the total given in the recipe when you add up the amounts). If you have a bit more than that, it's fine. If you have a lot more, measure out the amount they say and use the rest for pancakes for tomorrow as I laid out in last week's post.

The main, key learning here is to be left with about 1/4-1/3 cup of starter in your jar (about 100 ml).

The recipe will come out the same whether you have 275, 300, or 325 g of starter.

But you will have too much starter in your jar if you don't pay attention to how much you're leaving, because…

You need to feed the starter in your jar as you make your levain for the bread recipe.

So do that now.

Feed it about 1/3 cup flour (a mix with rye if you can) and 1/4 cup very warm water or whatever ends up being a similar volume of flour to what you have in there plus just enough water to make it into a stiff dough.

Then put the cover on, not tightly, and wash the outside of the jar with hot water (to clean it and warm it up — it's been in the fridge and the glass is cold).

Now leave both out — the levain for the recipe and the starter.

Proceed with the recipe (looking at my first set of tips again) and put the starter back in the fridge when it has doubled in volume but before it loses its nice dome.

By the way, this is my current situation due to all this starter talk:

We'll leave the second goal (making big batches) for when you've mastered your two sandwich loaves!

bits & piecesRob Marco did a long interview with me, being published in three parts. Here is the first part — you can click along to see the second, and I think the third will be published next week. I talk mainly about feminism and its terrible cost to our well being.

Leila Miller was kind enough to say:

Leila Marie Lawler gave the interview that I've been waiting for all my life. If you are a woman, read this. If you have a daughter, read this. If you even know a woman, read this!!!!
(Then, find your courage, and share this! You never know whose life you will be changing, and that will affect generations.)

I'm glad we're going into natural fermentation, because I really think our current bread situation is the contraception of bread — the fake pleasure of a thing without delivering the goods, without achieving its end, which in the case of bread is to nourish, to provide flourishing to the body and to point beyond itself to the Bread of Heaven.

I think I have told you about this Substack that sends you a passage from the Rule of St. Benedict every day, with light commentary. I was reading this entry about what the monks ought to eat.

The commentary on the amount of bread:

“A pound of bread” – this sees a very large amount to us today! But medieval bread was usually more rich in protein and nutrients than its modern equivalent and formed a large part of the diet of everyone, not just monks. Of course we don’t really know what a “pound” meant to St Benedict, as he didn’t leave us any detailed measures in his Rule. Dom Delatte, in his commentary on the Rule, tells us that the monks of Monte Cassino did preserve the measure and that it equates to 12 ounces. Be that as it may, I think most monks and nuns today would think eating that much bread per day was quite a lot.

You can see here what he means about “more rich”:

Have you ever tried a bread and water fast? It's really hard, if not impossible, on bread made with yeast. I've been thinking about how the bread of the past must have been different from ours. It's unthinkable to me that active people — men who worked as well as prayed in the monastery — could survive on one meal a day plus bread, if they meant by that what we have.

But naturally fermented bread, when made with whole meal, is incredibly sustaining. My journey into it has revealed to me the difference. A piece of bread that you get in France or Germany from a good bakery or something like what I can now make at home is just not the same as anything you can buy or make with yeast.

I hope that encourages you to keep working at it!

The medieval year — the Ides of September

Next month will be held the conference on Blessed Karl of Austria in Washington, D.C. Phil will be speaking; I will be there! Our dear friend Paul Jernberg has written a Mass for the liturgy on Saturday. I hope you will be able to go!

Finally, some might be wondering why I call my new Substack The School for Housewives and not something like “for domesticity” or what have you, perhaps more appealing to those who are not married.

Partially my impulse is to startle. Who thinks of housewives today? Yet “housewife” is the exact counterpart of “husband” and the life of the married couple centers on their little domestic universe. There's a character in the book I'm currently re-reading (in its uncensored form, which I had not gotten to), In the First Circle by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who refuses to use “latinized” words but insists on only words with Russian roots. His obsession is to use language in the most realistic, elemental way possible as a sort of protest against the “foreign” Marxist tyranny that has actually imprisoned him.

I'm not that fanatical, but somehow “housewife” seems like a good bit of resistance to me.

Anyway, another reason is my delight in the School of Housewives in Iceland, which I learned about from watching this film: The School of Housewives: The Nordic school that creates the perfect housewife. I encourage you to watch it — watch it with your young people!

My thought with my Substack is to have a little something popping in your inbox every day that helps you love your little spot a bit more.

liturgical living

Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross

Next week the Ember Days are on Wednesday and Friday.

Here is my affiliate link to my Amazon page — the only affiliate thing that goes on here on LMLD, which is why the page loads quickly and you don’t have to keep closing pop-ups etc! Thank you for opening it and shopping if you are so minded — as some have asked me. If not, don’t worry one bit!

My book, The Summa Domestica: Order and Wonder in Family Life is available from Sophia Press! Also in paperback now! All the thoughts from this blog collected into three volumes, beautifully presented with illustrations from Deirdre, an index in each volume, and ribbons!

My “random thoughts no pictures” blog, Happy Despite Them has moved over to Substack! — receive it by email if you like, or bookmark, so you don’t miss a thing! The old one is still up if you want to look at the comments on past posts. It will take me a while to get things organized, but you'll be patient, I know!

There you will find the weekly podcast done by Phil and me, called On the Home Front. Do let us know what you think!

Visit me at The School for Housewives and recommend it to your young friends!

My podcast, The Home Truths Society, can be found on the Restoration of Christian Culture website (and you can find it where you listen to such things) — be sure to check out the other offerings there!

Stay abreast of the posts here at LMLD, when they happen:

Consider subscribing to this blog by email. We would love to pop into your inbox! The subscription box is on this page on the sidebar!

We share pretty pictures: Auntie Leila’s Instagram, Rosie’s Instagram, Deirdre’s Instagram. Bridget’s Instagram.

Auntie Leila’s Facebook (you can just follow)

The boards of the others: Rosie’s Pinterest. Sukie’s Pinterest. Deirdre’s Pinterest. Habou’s Pinterest

The post Let’s start the journey to being intuitive with sourdough; goldenrod; and links! appeared first on Like Mother, Like Daughter.

Restore Tradition 2024 Speakers

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Published on September 14, 2024 09:01

Updates! the Starter Project; The School for Housewives; the Link to my CO Talk!

I hope you are starting your starter!

In my last newsletter, I tried to lay out all the steps to make a no-discard starter, very easily. I'm posting today to update on a few things!

I have corrected some steps since publishing, so please refresh if you just have a tab open!

I entered a few things in our local, very popular fair and won three ribbons, including first place for my sourdough loaf!

I confess I was not sanguine, as the other entries looked mighty good!

I also decided to put the steps for the starter one-by-one on a new Substack publication that I'm calling The School for Housewives.

I am hoping this new site can be for those who are already convinced about learning to keep a home being a worthy goal and just want to know how to do it. So it will be short and sweet, hopefully delivering a housewifely thought or direction each day of the week to subscribers' inboxes, starting with breadmaking but eventually including all things homemaking.

Here on LMLD of course we will keep up our chitchat about everything!

The School will also be good for girls, I'm thinking. So if you have some girls and young women who would love to have a tutorial delivered to them often on how to do some aspect of housekeeping, please help them sign up! It will also be very easy to print out, as the posts won't be long. (Maybe I can make each one into a PDF… and I also have plans for an audio, if not video, version). Let me know your thoughts on all that!

My plan is to have a chat over there that is for subscribers only — it will be focused on the practical aspects of whatever we are discussing — sourdough starter for a good long time! I have made the subscription as low as Substack will allow me to, and certainly one could subscribe for one month and then unsubscribe. I think $5 is reasonable to get some in-depth info on whatever is going on with the topic at hand!

For now it's all free and of course I'll continue to answer questions in the comments here and over there. I think, though, that the chat can be more in-depth.

I just wanted to be sure you aren't looking at an older version of the steps! Keep refreshing because I'm sure I'll be able to correct and make more clear all the steps as I post them over at the Substack!

Also — I didn't post links on Saturday, so I didn't have a chance to give you the link to the talks at the Women's Tradition Conference in Littleton CO from a couple of weeks ago. Here it is!

I especially recommend the one from Peter Kwasniewski — he and I focused on beauty and I actually think our talks went well together. I hope you will like mine too! All the talks were great.

Did you also know that the Chief and I have a podcast? Look below for all the ways you can follow and support us:

Here is my affiliate link to my Amazon page — the only affiliate thing that goes on here on LMLD, which is why the page loads quickly and you don’t have to keep closing pop-ups etc! Thank you for opening it and shopping if you are so minded — as some have asked me. If not, don’t worry one bit!

My book, The Summa Domestica: Order and Wonder in Family Life is available from Sophia Press! Also in paperback now! All the thoughts from this blog collected into three volumes, beautifully presented with illustrations from Deirdre, an index in each volume, and ribbons!

My “random thoughts no pictures” blog, Happy Despite Them has moved over to Substack! — receive it by email if you like, or bookmark, so you don’t miss a thing! The old one is still up if you want to look at the comments on past posts. It will take me a while to get things organized, but you'll be patient, I know!

There you will find the weekly podcast done by Phil and me, called On the Home Front. Do let us know what you think!

Visit me at The School for Housewives and recommend it to your young friends!

My podcast, The Home Truths Society, can be found on the Restoration of Christian Culture website (and you can find it where you listen to such things) — be sure to check out the other offerings there!

Stay abreast of the posts here at LMLD, when they happen:

Consider subscribing to this blog by email. We would love to pop into your inbox! The subscription box is on this page on the sidebar!

We share pretty pictures: Auntie Leila’s Instagram, Rosie’s Instagram, Deirdre’s Instagram. Bridget’s Instagram.

Auntie Leila’s Facebook (you can just follow)

The boards of the others: Rosie’s Pinterest. Sukie’s Pinterest. Deirdre’s Pinterest. Habou’s Pinterest

The post Updates! the Starter Project; The School for Housewives; the Link to my CO Talk! appeared first on Like Mother, Like Daughter.

PRINT: Overnight sourdough waffles or pancakes

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Published on September 09, 2024 08:55

Start your sourdough journey here with me! No discard, simple directions!

{I made this bread with the starter I began a couple of weeks ago. If I can do it, so can you!}

My onions and garlic are in the pantry, along with some things going in the dehydrator, and the canner is out!

I was stashing my jungle harvest (note to self: yes those little plants will get out of control, when will you learn that they laugh your flimsy stakes to scorn) in the freezer. I amassed about 30 lbs (filling my 20 qt.pot with enough left over for a big tray of oven roasted tomatoes) and finally got to work yesterday!

The ziplocks can be re-used for sure! They just have to dry out. Which is good, because I am hopeful there are more tomatoes to come!

Sourdough Corner

I'll put the chitchat at the end — let's get you started with… starter! By the way, if you have starter but don't love it, maybe just start again. It takes about a week in this weather!

No Discard Starter.

While it's fermenting, which should take about a week or so, maybe you can help me figure out the best way to present this tutorial. I realized this week as I was mentally preparing for the Great Sourdough Starting Tutorial that I need help figuring out how to manage this part of the content!

Maybe I should do it on Substack? I have started a new one called The School for Housewives. I will start posting just the actual method over there, in case you don't want the whole week's worth as I have it here. We'll see how it goes…

Week 1: This is going to be very easy and you should be confident. You will literally mix a little flour with a little water and leave it in a warm place.

You need a pint jar with a wide mouth and a lid and later, a quart jar. I used a mason jar but any more or less straight-sided jar will work. If you have one that is rather narrow and tall (I didn't), that will work best at first to be able to observe any bubbly activity, but a normal jar from the recycling is also fine.

You will eventually need bread flour (BF) so put that on the list if you don't have any. You will really want good quality rye flour, because any starter or dough sluggishness at any point in your process will be remedied with rye flour, as it has nutrients not found elsewhere. You will also want some whole wheat flour (WW) because your bread will be healthier with it. I actually mill my own and we will get to that, but when buying it, check the expiration date and try to buy it where it doesn't sit on the shelf for long.

Keep any whole grain flours in the freezer. They get an off flavor very quickly, which is one reason people think they don't like anything but white flour bread. I put the bag in a ziplock before freezing (either decant or not, up to you).

I recommend getting the best flour you can (often the store brand is from one of the good companies — depends on the store). I use King Arthur for my bread flour (I get it at the restaurant supply store where it's called Sir Lancelot, not bread flour). If you can find flour more locally milled, go for it! We'll get into milling your own at another time. At least, do not get bleached flour! Making your own is so much cheaper than buying it, so go for good flour.

Two gadgets I really do use all the time: this thermometer is similar to mine; and a kitchen scale that displays weights in English and metric and can easily be zeroed out (tared) and has a display you can read even when there's a bowl on it. This is similar to the one I have. It's great other than the part about being able to read it when it has a big bowl on it, but it's fine — and I've had it now for 14 years! I certainly didn't pay $67 for it. You'll find one that works well for you and I'll try to get a recommendation for one that is reasonably priced. These are affiliate links! You support me just a little when you order within 24 hours, using a tab you open from these links!

These directions are going to be like reading a knitting pattern.

Pay attention to the abbreviations (look back up here if you need to) and you'll get it.

I'm pretty sure that after this post, the directions will be more succinct! I hope so!

Three teaspoons (tsp) = 1 tablespoon (T)

Where I have said BF I have often used a small proportion of rye and/or whole wheat flour in place of some of it, for instance, 1 T of rye and 7 T of BF to equal 8 T of flour. But for ease of reading, I've left that out. If you can get some rye in there, it will vastly help your fermentation.

Day 1: in a nice clean jar, mix 3 teaspoons (1 tablespoon) of bread flour (you can use all purpose flour for now if that's what you have) with 2 teaspoons of warm water. Stir it up and cover it with the jar lid.

There's so little in here that I am mixing it with a slender knife!

That's all you need to get started. There's no “discard” until the end, and then just that once (maybe twice) — but you'll use it, not throw it away, because by then it will actually be starter!

A note about the lid: there is plenty of room in the jar for any gasses, which won't start right away anyway. So do not fret about this at all. I always put the lid on the jar. Don't tighten it with all your strength, but it's fine.

A note about why people have trouble with starter: Your spot is not warm enough! That is the most common reason for bread-making woes of any sort. I use very few gadgets or special things in my kitchen work, but I highly recommend this thermometer (affiliate link) (well, the one I have seems to be discontinued but this is the closest) and literally use it many times a week for everything, from baking to roasting to smoking…

Stick it into the middle of your little starter mix and if it's not in the high 70s you need a warmer spot. Up on top of your fridge might be a good place. The oven with the light on… but it's a long time to have the light on… you could put a jar of hot water in a cooler and put your starter right in there. Use very warm water to mix. Maybe wrap your jar in a quilted cover or tea cozy?

Keep the temp in the high 70s (82 is not too warm) and under 85.

It will take longer if it's cooler, but if you can wrangle it, make yourself a nice warm spot. This is the key, this is it. Going forward, at all the stages, the thing to remember about your frustration is this: Things are probably not warm enough.

Day 2: Add 3 teaspoons (tsp) BF and 2 tsp warm water, stir well. You may see bubbles by evening — I did! (but my kitchen was very warm!)

A note about quantities: We are not doing 1:1:1 ratios. Stick with me here! A stiffer starter will work better, I find. Later you can land on the ratio that works for you. This stiffer starter is more forgiving.

Day 3: Add 6 tsp (2 T) BF and 2 tsp (1 T) water

Day 3 in the evening, since I noticed a lot of activity — my mix already doubled — that then slowed down. You can do this the next day if yours is not getting going yet — remember, it will ferment but the timing varies. You are looking for bubbling and rising, hopefully double, but this may take another day: 4T BF and 8 tsp (2 T + 2 tsp) water

Above is how it looked after a few hours.

Below is how it looked after I mixed in some more flour and water — note the gluten is developing!

It might help you to write on the jar. I used a black sharpie that I keep in my utensil drawer.

And definitely put a rubber band on outside at the level of your mixture. That way you don't have to guess about how much, if at all, it has risen.

At this point, the mix is small in volume and the jar is quite large, so it will be tricky to tell whether it has risen. But it will soon be much more clear. (This is how a narrower jar would help if you have one.)

Day 4: 8T BF and 3 T +1 tsp water — Mix and let sit in your warm spot.

At this stage you might find it actually slows down a bit, and that's normal, if a little disappointing.

Day 5: 16 T BF and 6 T + 2 tsp water: the total mix is about a cup of starter and will fill 1/3 of a quart jar.

THUS: you need to use a very clean rubber spatula and transfer it to a quart mason jar, the size I normally keep my starter in going forward.

I don't have a picture of this quantity just after mixing, but by evening, it had risen more than double and was filling the jar (see below)! If yours has not shown this activity, make sure it's in a warm place!

On this evening, if you're getting full in the jar, you can make waffles or pancakes for breakfast the next day (or make them and after they cool, put them in the fridge or freezer for another day). I chose this recipe for its ease and intuitiveness.

Making it will use up some of your starter so that you have room in your jar to feed it again. Otherwise, to double the amount of flour, you'll end up needing too large a jar.

I will put the recipe and method for the waffle/pancake mix at the end. If your starter is not very strong (i.e. hasn't doubled), you can add a touch of yeast to the batter (NOT to your starter jar!).

You can certainly look up any sourdough recipe you like and use the excess for that. I recommend something that's not a loaf of bread, just because your starter is not quite strong enough for that. Muffins, quick bread, pancakes… whatever.

The good thing about the waffle/pancake mix is that it sits out all night and doesn't require a lot of brain power while you're trying to grapple with your starter.

After making your batter, either feed your starter again in the same ratio if it was not very bubbly and hadn't risen double, or just put it in the fridge.

Day 6 (you should be back to around 1 cup of starter after making the waffles — I had a scant cup or 210 grams): Add 210 g. flour (or a scant cup) and 180 ml water (or about 2/3 cup).

By now you should notice the thickness of your starter and be able to eyeball the amount of water you need to achieve that thickness. If you add too much or too little, don't worry! Just add a little more flour or a little more water. Do not stress this part! The most important thing is how warm it is, not the quantity!

Now your starter should be bubbling and after some hours, rise double. You can experiment with it or hang in there when we check in next week with some bread baking! If the latter, pop the jar in the fridge. It will keep in there just fine!

As I made this starter, you see I put the notes on the jar(s), but I also jotted them down in the notebook — you might want to do that, but I was really doing it so I'd remember for this post:

(But I made a mistake on Day 3 here — it was 2 tsp. water.)

This represents a huge sacrifice on my part for your sakes so I hope you appreciate it!! This is as detailed as it gets, people! I told you to look elsewhere for help! I'm not good at this!!

The chitchat… and waffle recipe

People have their different methods.

This one is mine! Part of me wants to agree with whoever is out there tsk-ing over the thought that I could add anything to the vast stores of sourdough knowledge out there. But — part of me is pretty confident I have a little something to tell you!

Basically, the info I have found out there is divided among the people with big families who seem to be in the kitchen all day, making one or two loaves as needed, happy with giant jars of starter — and the artisan bakery experts who are somewhat fancifully and in a highly technical way, translating their undeniable experience into home-baking one loaf, which obviously is not going to work for us… and then there are the home bakers who have good thoughts but are also making one loaf.

Maybe I convey, despite all my efforts to convince you otherwise, a lot of energy over here, but I am a person who has always gotten rather exhausted if I have to do anything (shop, get people out the door for games or field trips, clean, garden) and spend a bunch of time in the kitchen. If I go grocery shopping, for instance, I schedule a very easy meal for that day and pull bread out of the freezer. I can't do both. It's too much.

And let me say here, regarding the other methods — it makes a huge difference to the hydration of the flour itself if you live in muggy Massachusetts with no AC or Arizona with AC. My flour will have more water content than that Arizona person's. So it really doesn't make a lot of sense to get into individual gram measurements.

You have to get the feel of things. Some direction really helps but the super technical people are overdoing it. Their precision helps them get consistent results but doesn't translate to others elsewhere, necessarily.

I didn't used to make sourdough (I started five years ago), but in my yeast baking days with lots of kids, I never made fewer than 4 loaves at a time.

This corner is for the housewife who wants to — and has to — make a lot of awesome sourdough, beautiful boules and bâtards as well as sandwich loaves, and who loves being in the kitchen but not all day every day. And who doesn't want to — and doesn't have room to — keep a large amount of starter.

When I started sourdough, I followed the directions I found and ended up with way too much starter. There are actually two reasons for that: because I started with too much and it took too long for it to ferment.

That's why I start you with so little and emphasize how warm it needs to be. This is my method!

The waffle/pancake recipe

Overnight sourdough waffles or pancakes, Like Mother, Like Daughter

Makes about 6 Belgian waffles and a platter of pancakes enough for 4 people. You can double the recipe (same amount of starter/yeast) if you want, no problem. Leftovers can be cooled and popped in the freezer or kept in the fridge for a day or two. Reheat in the toaster or oven. Naturally fermented waffles are far superior to the other kind! They are crispier and more substantial, yet also very light.

Directions

This recipe is in two parts. Read both parts to see what ingredients you need!

The evening before:

1 cup (210-250 grams) starter (when your starter is very active and mature, you can use as little as ¼ cup; just add water and flour to make one cup)

NB: [If you don’t have starter or your starter is not very active:

1 tsp. yeast]

2 cups flour (I like to use ½ c. whole wheat flour and 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour)

2 cups milk (or water; you can add dried milk powder the next day with the other ingredients)

Mix well with a whisk. Cover and leave out on the counter. You don’t have to worry: it’s fermenting – nothing will happen to the milk.

The next day:

Mix together in a separate bowl (you can just add directly to the overnight mix but it deflates it less if you premix and then add):

¼ cup melted and cooled butter or oil such as peanut, avocado, coconut, or cooking olive oil

2/3 cup of dry milk powder if you didn’t use milk in the overnight mix (sometimes I don’t want to use up my fresh milk for this)

2 eggs

1 tsp. table salt (more if you’re using flake salt)

1 tsp. baking powder

Add to the overnight mix and whisk gently, folding in.

Allow to stand for about 20 minutes while you prep your other breakfast things, heat up your pan or waffle iron, and tidy up.

Make your pancakes and/or waffles the way you usually do!

We'll check in next week and see how the starter is going!

from the archives

The secret to planning menus

Dating rules for teenagers?

liturgical living

St. Regina

follow us everywhere! share us with your friends!

Here is my affiliate link to my Amazon page — the only affiliate thing that goes on here on LMLD, which is why the page loads quickly and you don’t have to keep closing pop-ups etc! Thank you for opening it and shopping if you are so minded — as some have asked me. If not, don’t worry one bit!

My book, The Summa Domestica: Order and Wonder in Family Life is available from Sophia Press! Also in paperback now! All the thoughts from this blog collected into three volumes, beautifully presented with illustrations from Deirdre, an index in each volume, and ribbons!

My “random thoughts no pictures” blog, Happy Despite Them has moved over to Substack! — receive it by email if you like, or bookmark, so you don’t miss a thing! The old one is still up if you want to look at the comments on past posts. It will take me a while to get things organized, but you'll be patient, I know!

There you will find the weekly podcast done by Phil and me, called On the Home Front. Do let us know what you think!

My podcast, The Home Truths Society, can be found on the Restoration of Christian Culture website (and you can find it where you listen to such things) — be sure to check out the other offerings there!

Stay abreast of the posts here at LMLD, when they happen:

Consider subscribing to this blog by email. We would love to pop into your inbox! The subscription box is on this page on the sidebar!

We share pretty pictures: Auntie Leila’s Instagram, Rosie’s Instagram, Deirdre’s Instagram. Bridget’s Instagram.

Auntie Leila’s Facebook (you can just follow)

The boards of the others: Rosie’s Pinterest. Sukie’s Pinterest. Deirdre’s Pinterest. Habou’s Pinterest

The post Start your sourdough journey here with me! No discard, simple directions! appeared first on Like Mother, Like Daughter.

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Published on September 07, 2024 11:54

The tenth anniversary of the St. Gregory Pockets!

This morning I decided to write a little post on my Substack about the St. Gregory Pockets, as it's his feast day, and I realized it's exactly ten years since we launched them!

So many of our readers have been with us for so long and maybe even do have Pockets (or some sort of similar community), and some of you may just take this for granted, but every other day I get an email from a lonely, isolated mom with little kids, or one who has moved somewhere and doesn't know how to meet like-minded friends.

Please share the St. Gregory Pocket idea with them! It's much easier than trying to describe the concept to them.

The information is at the top of this post in the menu bar. We have so many posts that offer little tips about what to look for as you're starting to get acquainted with people, how to connect with them, what to expect, and how to keep things going over the years.

Maybe you would start one yourself? Maybe you're good at getting the Facebook group going but not get-togethers, but you have a friend who's good at that? Go for it! You're just getting the group started, not necessarily running it. All the info is here.

Here's my Substack post!

NB: Please subscribe to my Substack if you haven't already! It's free, and the posts will arrive in your email if you like!

A blessed feast day to you! St. Gregory, pray for us!

The post The tenth anniversary of the St. Gregory Pockets! appeared first on Like Mother, Like Daughter.

Rob Marco touches on the value of having children, even in a hostile world.

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Published on September 03, 2024 08:44

Be confident! And peek into the bread and garden corners, and read some links!

Last week I was in Colorado to give a speech for the Restore Tradition women's conference, and I got to visit with Suki and family for a few days.

The conference went really well, and I say that as someone who doesn't really love such events for some reason* — it's a lovely, lively gathering of women; lots of babies, and the priests are so supportive, as are the organizers!

It has the virtue of being in a hall next to the church (Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Littleton — do check it out), so the beautiful Masses are right there. I discovered that our friend David Hughes, amazing organist and choir master, is there! The music was heavenly. I hope to soon share the link where the recording of talks is available.

During that time, and pondering the comments on the last couple of posts here, I wanted to just to follow up on my homeschooling advice and give a note about having confidence in general.

We women have, as sort of the darkish underside or obverse of our beautiful nature of nurturing and relating to others, a tendency to doubt ourselves and to seek affirmation from anyone and everyone.

Whether it's thinking about your relationship with your husband or running your household or educating and disciplining your children, I would love for you to remember that everyone is on a path that takes them through the universal three-fold pattern of discovery, figuring things out, and glimpses of wonder, peace, and happiness.

Discovery entails things we would rather not confront: frustration, vexation, sorrow, a sense of desolation even (“I cannot do this! I'm not good enough! I've made so many mistakes!).

Figuring things out in the sense of pondering them in order to internalize understanding can feel like work we'd rather avoid, though it is accompanied by hope (“maybe I can do it! Now I see!”).

The glimpses of joy and wonder and their possession are gifts. You can't force them. They will come! You can't hold onto them…

Wisdom is realizing that this pattern repeats and will repeat for as long as we live and we have to take responsibility for it. It's the universal pattern of life.

The spiritual masters called it Purgation, Illumination, and Union. Sometimes we can get the idea that it's a once-and-for all three-step mastery program, but no.

It's just a recurring, hopefully upwards spiraling (but not always), rhythm of life. It's how we learn and grow — and pick ourselves up after a setback — and it's everywhere and in everything in this world of ours. It's God's plan to bring us, ultimately, to Him!

Anyway, if you can understand this pattern, I hope you will find confidence.

A wife and mother is truly the queen of her realm, the household. She doesn't automatically know everything. She works hard and thinks very hard about things so she can figure out what she needs to do and how she can meet others' needs. She does philosophize, even if it's at the kitchen sink or late at night while feeding the baby, and not in an ivory tower (but remember, the Blessed Virgin is called “Tower of Ivory” though she was a mere mother in her home).

She has confidence in her grace of state — in other words, that the “office” of “queen” brings a supernatural power (grace) that meets her effort and raises it.

You can have confidence in the rightness of your vocation and its ultimate goal, keeping a home and helping those in it to be virtuous and loving; the rest will fall into place, even in great difficulty and seeming failure.

You don't need someone to tell you every single thing!

Well, sometimes it helps for someone to say, “Try this” or “I wouldn't do that.” Listening is a good skill to have. Absorb the good things and make them your own, rather than try to turn over this inner wisdom to others.

No one can live your life for you, however expert they seem to be. Don't let that defeat you, but see it as the call to true personhood. You have the capacity to live your own life very well!

It's a paradox, because the more confidence you have in your position, the more open you are to improving; contrariwise, the more doubt you have, the less able to make use of help you will be.

If you have confidence that nursing the baby is the right thing to do, you'll find a way to do it and not be swayed by the expectations of those who reject it. You'll absorb others' good advice and learn to do it your own way.

If you have confidence that your husband will provide and protect your family if he knows he has your unconditional affirmation and wise counsel, you won't be discouraged by lean times or apparent failure.

If you have confidence it's your duty to educate your children (in the broad sense, where you delegate part of the task to others, or in the particular sense, where you undertake the bulk of it at home), you will be patient and resourceful in figuring out what your children need and want.

We can learn a lot from what others are doing; many people have fantastic ideas. We need to remember to have the confidence to identify and reject silly or harmful things.

Have the confidence to stay away from what shakes your peace when you have a clear conscience. There's a difference between someone validly making you examine yourself and someone just disturbing you with novel thoughts when you know you're pursuing the good.

Gravitate towards people and “content” — books, articles, and what have you — that build your sense of freedom to follow what you know to be good and true and not discourage you in apparent setbacks, but encourage you in cheerfulness.

Be bold, be confident! Trust God.

*One reason I don't often enjoy conferences has to do with being terminally outgoing and consequently stressed by having so many people to interact with — a sort of inverse of being an introvert, as if I'm so far on the opposite end of the spectrum that I end up meeting up with all the recluses!

Sourdough Bread Corner

Because I care deeply about you and am continually embarrassed by my inability to provide detailed instructions and recipes due to having made bread for more than forty years and so have morphed into this absurdly intuitive baker who is no help at all–

And because I must, for your sake, overcome the thought that myriad experts who do nothing BUT bake bread have offered you detailed instructions all over the internet so why would you come to me for any of it–

And because, truth be told, busy moms with lots of kids simply cannot and should not make one measly loaf of bread at a time, so maybe I do have something to offer–

And even though I got my starter from Suki years ago, so I have not been in the position of answering the burning question of how to get one going–

I have made a new starter from scratch and kept careful notes, or what passes for careful notes for me.

And I baked some bread with it!

I'm not ready to take you through step-by-step (of course I'm not! but in my defense I wanted to talk about Confidence), but if you are thinking you want this sort of info from me, stay tuned.

Get your kids settled into their school routine and mentally prepare yourself to bake sourdough the Like Mother, Like Daughter, Large Batch, Save-A-Step, Low or No Discard, Mostly Foolproof, All Kinds, Hasty Yet Demanding Way.

Gardening Corner

As usual, my garden has gone directly from “mildly photogenic” to “hopeless jungle” but I have a nice tomato harvest!

Every day I bring in this amount, and while I was gone, the Chief did it! — and now my freezer has about 30-40 lbs of cooking tomatoes and the Amish Paste and San Marzanos haven't even really hit their stride.

That's my current method: I chuck the ripe ones into ziplocks and throw them in the freezer. The less-ripe ones I leave to ripen on the counter.

Soon I will make and can some sauce!

How about you? How's the garden coming?

bits & pieces

On the subject of having confidence in your husband, and if you are into watching something a bit edgy, I recommend the Chef's Table episode about Ivan Orkin. The whole time I alternated between feeling sorry for him for his lack of affirmation from his family and disgusted by his jerky behavior, honestly. But wow, he gets it: it's his wife who saved him by dint of her admiration and faith in his ability when things seemed pretty bad. I wonder what her family and friends thought of him in the seemingly endless times of failure and how often they recommended that she just ditch him? I think I'd have been tempted! Can we be as confident as she?

This article, An Incredible Family of Saints and the Secret of Their Homeschooling Program is not about St. Thérèse of Lisieux as you might think at first, but about “eight saints, one of whom is a Doctor of the Church, Basil the Great – all belonging to the same family. As I said from the beginning, it is impossible to know this family of saints without wondering what their “secret” was. This question is crucial, especially for those of us who are parents and grandparents. I will return to this question. For now, I draw attention to an equally astonishing fact. The homeschooling program for educating Basil and Gregory was created by their educator and inspirer, their sister, Saint Macrina.”

Mary Jo Anderson analyzes the 10 battlegrounds in the abortion fight in the states. Now is the time to engage politically if you live in one of them!(Florida is especially acute.)

Robert Keim on why rhetoric matters and must be rooted in truth: “An Art Which Leads the Soul by Words”: Sacred Rhetoric in the Roman Liturgy

from the archives

Three things you need for eating dinner together!

Encourage good conversational habits in children.

To prepare for our sourdough school coming up (see above), get out a trusty cookbook and make yeast sandwich bread as many times as you can. (Or go here or here. You can double the recipe without doubling the yeast, and make two loaves.) But — greatly enhance its slicing ability and sturdiness by braiding that same dough! Here's my tutorial from back in the old days when the pictures were not as good!

liturgical living

Saints Joseph Arimathea and Nicodemus and St. Raymond Nonnatus

follow us everywhere! share us with your friends!

Here is my affiliate link to my Amazon page — the only affiliate thing that goes on here on LMLD, which is why the page loads quickly and you don’t have to keep closing pop-ups etc! Thank you for opening it and shopping if you are so minded — as some have asked me. If not, don’t worry one bit!

My book, The Summa Domestica: Order and Wonder in Family Life is available from Sophia Press! Also in paperback now! All the thoughts from this blog collected into three volumes, beautifully presented with illustrations from Deirdre, an index in each volume, and ribbons!

My “random thoughts no pictures” blog, Happy Despite Them has moved over to Substack! — receive it by email if you like, or bookmark, so you don’t miss a thing! The old one is still up if you want to look at the comments on past posts. It will take me a while to get things organized, but you'll be patient, I know!

There you will find the weekly podcast done by Phil and me, called On the Home Front. Do let us know what you think!

My podcast, The Home Truths Society, can be found on the Restoration of Christian Culture website (and you can find it where you listen to such things) — be sure to check out the other offerings there!

Stay abreast of the posts here at LMLD, when they happen:

Consider subscribing to this blog by email. We would love to pop into your inbox! The subscription box is on this page on the sidebar!

We share pretty pictures: Auntie Leila’s Instagram, Rosie’s Instagram, Deirdre’s Instagram. Bridget’s Instagram.

Auntie Leila’s Facebook (you can just follow)

The boards of the others: Rosie’s Pinterest. Sukie’s Pinterest. Deirdre’s Pinterest. Habou’s Pinterest

The post Be confident! And peek into the bread and garden corners, and read some links! appeared first on Like Mother, Like Daughter.