october meeting: natural yeast class, grains and whole food treats

my very first taste of my very first loaf of "natural yeast" bread. i am salivating just looking at this picture. i'm setting up some more dough tonight for a few loaves tomorrow. sigh.
my starter, sarah.

rising

melissa "the bread geek" and her danish dough hook. what a fantastic class. thank you, thank you melissa!
i was so happy one of my long time best friends (try 20 years) who has been following along on her own at home, was able to join our group, in person.

a few of our awesome ladies--getting ready for our little potluck. it was so super yummy (soup, pizza, breadsticks, granola, raw chocolate and almond butter cookies, raw lemon doodles, raw peppermint and orange chocolate, fall pumpkin smoothie, fresh garden salads, bread, morning millet cereal and more). and we had about 16 people last night. awesome. thanks again for hosting ellen!

a copy of the group email invitation i sent out for melissa's class.

ellen invited me to one of caleb warnock's classes (held in his garden in alpine). i was so thrilled that the first hour was about pioneer or "natural yeast." it is a subject i have been interested in for over a year--but seemed really intimidating;). the self-proclaimed "bread geek" melissa taught the class. i knew that she was possibly the cutest baker ever when she said that she had named her starts. . .Peeta and Gale. for those who are not familiar with those names. . .please, please pick up a copy of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins as soon as possible;). melissa is a young mom who bakes using a natural or wild yeast starter. i purchased her instruction booklet, with a few basic recipes and happily took my starter home. i really wanted to name mine peeta as well:), but i decided on "Sarah Agnes Prine" (and you must pick up a copy of These is My Words by Nancy Turner while you are picking up The Hunger Games). Sarah is a pioneer who at one point in the tale brings a starter to her friends. well, i "fed" sarah last week and followed melissa's instructions and ta-dah made two loaves of beautiful bread. when it came out perfectly i think i may have actually shed a few tears and took a few pictures. last night our family had "dinner crepes" made with natural yeast. yum, yum.

not only was it doable, and super yummy but as you know there are tons of benefits of using natural yeast over commercial yeast.