A carbohydrate love story

Of late we have been studying the Saga of Figgins and though the literary results are questionable, I am quite happy to report that the gastronomical side has been a resounding success.  But I see the epic is still incomplete, we have covered muffins and pancakes but have spoken nary a word about actual bread!  Dear me, how absolutely dreadful!  My most obsequious apologies are due you, I am sure!

I have found Figgins to be a superb addition to my bread baking repertoire, and no I will not give you a tutorial, there are far better books, videos, and sites for that than this.  The bread is softer, richer, and has a hint of sweetness (yes this is sourdough, strangely enough), which make it nice for light or sweet recipes, not so good for heavy or more sour ones.  I use a basic french recipe (water, salt, yeast, sugar, flour) and add 2/3 cup starter and 1/4 tsp baking soda for each 4 cups of flour and have had good results (you may need to adjust the liquid or flour a tad to account for the starter and get the right dough consistency).  I also added it to a honey oatmeal bread and it was a nice touch.  If you have a sweet tooth and like white/sweet bread, this is definitely a keeper.  If you are of a more 'serious' taste, you may want to stick with a traditional sourdough culture rather than Figgins.

A Dark Day in the Annals of Dessert

Yes, it was an unavoidable tragedy but there was nothing else to be done.  One cannot hope to ingest onion ice cream, even with cookies in it, nay even with chocolate syrup!  So it was that nearly two quarts of cookie ice cream were unceremoniously disposed of in the nearest refuse container.

What happened you may well ask?  Here then is all the sad tale:

We were the happy recipients of twenty pounds of onions, and not wishing to let them go to waste, I immediately chopped them up and froze them, little knowing the grief that was to come.  Though my freezer smells like onions, it did not seem to affect the other food therein, until we tried the ice cream the other night.  In a plastic pail it would have been safe, but alas the cardboard cube was little protection from the all permeating essence of onion.  It tasted just fine, but we were burping onion with every other spoonful; it was dreadful, at least we were not serving it to company!  A note to commercial ice cream makers: onion is not a recommended flavor!  I would avoid sauerkraut as well...

Old lies and new insights

Before I had a kid in my life (or a husband for that matter) I always thought they were annoying, ill-behaved, loud, expensive, messy creatures whose sole purpose was to destroy your life.  I did have rather bad baby sitting experiences growing up, so maybe this prejudiced me from the start.  What I also lacked was a real, loving family dynamic from which to judge objectively what a family is really like; we were more like roommates than a family.  Having kids was a duty, it was expected, a responsibility, not something one enjoyed.  From my selfish and myopic point of view, kids were the antithesis of the autonomous lifestyle.  They are.  They also reveal how small and lonely is that lifestyle if sought as the highest good in and of itself (there are those who would love nothing more than to have a family and for whatever reason, at the moment that life seems beyond reach, this is not directed at you!).  Rather it is directed at our culture in general which says 'you' are the highest good, the most important being on the planet.  And our 'feel good' theology tells us the same: you deserve to be happy and happiness is having whatever we want when we want it.  A lie as old as the world: ye can be gods!

But we aren't happy and we don't even know it.  That is why I appreciate those demanding, importuning individuals in my life: my husband and son, who remind me daily that I am not the center of the universe and my responsibilities to them far outweigh my desperate need to finish that book I'm reading.  They repay tenfold in love, joy, and fun whatever I lose of 'myself.'  They teach me humility and what it is to be loved and to love.  They remind me that there is a whole, huge, brilliant world out there to enjoy and explore and that if my whole world is myself, it is rather small indeed.  Only in dying to self can we become who we truly are.  I always thought parents were to teach their children, but each day I find, more and more, that it is my child who is teaching me more about life and myself than I ever imagined possible!

Figgins does Muffins (chocolate chip of course!)

I have a cookbook I have never used, it is more of a relic or an antiquity rather than a useful part of society.  I have used its younger, hipper sister many a time, but this darling still advises donning high heels and pearls before the hubbie gets home after you've spent a full day of cleaning and cooking.  It is a 1950 Better Homes cookbook and while it is fun to look back at the 'way things used to be,' I haven't found it all that helpful in real life.  Until now.  I don't mind the muffin recipe in the modern version, but I haven't been all that excited about it nor have I found one online that has really struck my fancy (after all, life is not worth living without an excellent muffin recipe right?).  So in desperation I dug out my elderly Better Homes and found 'Best-ever Muffins' which I have adapted to using with a sweet sourdough starter and chocolate chips.  The results were actually pretty good.  If you want the original recipe, omit the sourdough starter and milk and use 3/4 cup buttermilk instead, I used chocolate chips but this recipe is infinitely adaptable to blueberries or whatever.

Chocolate Chip Sourdough Muffins:

1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 Tbsp sugar

1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup sweet sourdough starter (amish friendship bread or Herman)
2 eggs
1/4 cup melted butter or margarine

1/2 cup chocolate chips

Mix dry ingredients and form a well in the center, set aside.  Mix moist ingredients thoroughly and then add to dry.  Stir just until moistened, adding chocolate chips after a stroke or three.  Fill 12 greased or paper lined muffin cups 2/3 full and bake in a 400 degree oven until golden and poofy.