Nice work! I bet your friends love you!

Right now I have a sourdough yeast mix with flour and water bubbling in my kitchen. Its been going since last Saturday. I scooped out some to put back in the fridge yesterday. Smeared a little on to some plastic wrap to dry and freeze later and then added more flour and water to the rest of the culture where it really bubbled up a second time. Tomorrow I will be making some crusty bread like french bagets, and use some of te baked bread for my meatball subs, and some bread for dipping into a mix of balsamic vinegar, olive oil, fresh garlic, and spices, including some fresh thyme from my plants out back. Started to also use some of my very old tomato sauces with herbs dated 2002, which are still really good and thick.

Cant beat the price of that that yeast package! Put the rest into an air tight jar and place in the freezer. It lasts longer that way.
Enjoy the leftovers if there are any!!

Ken, It's been awhile since I had sourdough starter and was thinking about making/getting some. Tell me more about drying/freezing the culture. - kim
PS I did have collards and a homemade hard roll for lunch. Adult son living at home while going to collage made off with the ribs, potatoes and cake.

That's such a wonderful feeling isn't it..My husband always asks if what he is eating is from my garden and I love it when he does. He isn't a gardener but his grandfather was and he recalls seeing him working in his garden. Last year after I started chemo, he took over watering my garden and picking my produce...I may make a gardener out of him because he liked doing that.

Congrats on a job that you obviously did well in order to shop in your own pantry. love it love it love it!

Easy to do. King Arthur flour sells a packaged French sour dough culture that looks like regular granulated yeast. To make a batch for bread and storage, you start off with a working culture or a new packet of sour dough wild yeast. Mix with bread flour and just enough water to give you a very thick paste, I make a big batch with about 3-4 cups of flour. Its OK if its lumpy. Never add anything to the starter, no salt, sugar, milk, or anything else. I like to start mine (a totally new batch) with whole wheat white flour and once it works for about two days in a temp at about 75 to 85 degrees, you can spoon out a little onto plastic wrap, spread it out, and allow it to air dry out a few days. Also, a cup of the starter paste should be stored in the fridge in an air tight container. I mix a bit of both types with a couple of cups of bread flour and use filtered water without any chlorine or minerals. Its allowed to work for a couple of days. I like my breads to be mostly the sour dough mixture, so I usually make a bigger batch so only a little more flour is needed for it to become a bread dough. The dried starter culture is stored wrapped in plastic in the freezer. After a few months, the one in the fridge will have a strong booze smell (hooch) and it needs to me mixed with flour and some warm water to get it working again. Sometimes the alcohol will kill off the yeast, but if you pour off the floating hooch and use the paste below it, that should start working soon. If it doesn't start bubbling within 24 hours, add a bit of the dried/frozen flakes. As a really sour taste, add sour cream to the dough and that will give it a bit of fat and a LOT more sour taste!