Making Sourdough Bread from Scratch

It’s easy when you know how, but when you first start out it feels like a really complicated mix of flour, water and salt.

Making your sourdough starter

It starts with the starter! This is a mix of flour and water, but it’s alive and it needs to be fed and looked after everyday.

You can use any organic, good quality flour, but for a quicker ferment you can use spelt or rye flour. In a glass jar combine a cup of flour with a cup of water and mix it thoroughly together, loosely cover with jar lid or a muslin cloth and elastic band, store it somewhere warm in your house. The following day, you need to feed you sourdough starter, to do this discard half of the contents in the jar and add 1/2 cup of water and 1/2 cup of lukewarm water.

Repeat this feeding process everyday until you see bubbles throughout your mixture, this could take 3-6 days depending on the temperature of your home. When you’re not planning on using your sourdough starter for a little while you can keep it in your fridge and reduce feeding to once per week.

There are lots of recipes that require you to be exact with your ingredients and with your temperatures, but you can still make really nice sourdough bread without being too particular, here’s how:

You need to build up the amount of sourdough starter you have in your jar so that you can use 200g of it without using all of your sourdough starter.

Making your bread

Add 1kg of flour to your bowl, this can be a good quality bread flour, or a mix of white and wholemeal/spelt /rye. (You can get more and more adventurous as you get used to how your sourdough works)

To this add 600ml of lukewarm water and mix with your hands creating a dry-ish ball of dough in your bowl. Poke holes in your ball of dough and add 200g of your sourdough starter along with a good sprinkling of salt, mix through creating a ball again, it may be a little sticky but you should still be able to make a smooth ball. Cover and allow it to sit in a warm area in your home for 3-4 hours. Every half hour stretch the sides of your dough and pull over the top moving around the entire ball of dough.

Once the 3-4 hours is up and your dough is looking a little larger than before with a few bubbles inside, scrape out onto your bench. At this stage you can cut your dough in half if you’d like to make two loaves or you can make one large loaf. I often add dried fruit and mixed spice into one of my loaves at this point so that I have one plain loaf and one fruit loaf. Gently pull your rounds towards you sliding your hands and the dough along the bench, turn your dough and repeat by pulling your dough towards you. Repeat this until you have a nicely shaped dough ball (or 2). Cover your balls with large bowls that fit over your dough, leave these for 15 minutes.

Remove the bowls, flip your dough stretch and pull the sides gently and bring them toward the middle, stretch and pull the top and bottom, bringing both ends towards the middle. flip your dough back over and pull your dough towards you again using your hands to slide the ball along the bench, turning dough and repeating creating a nice tight cob loaf looking dough ball.

These balls are to be flipped upside down and placed in bannetons sprinkled with rice flour (if you don’t have a banneton you can use a bowl lined with a tea towel sprinkled with rice flour). Cover your bowls so that your dough doesn’t dry out, you can either place in the fridge overnight (about 14 hours) or cover and leave out in a warm area for 6 hours or more. You know your dough is ready when it has risen. Preheat your oven to 240 degrees C, preheating your dutch oven as well. Remove your dutch oven (don’t touch the lid) sprinkle the inside with flour place your loaf of bread up the right way in your dutch oven, you can score your bread with a knife here if you like. Pop the lid on your oven and cook for 25 minutes. Remove the lid and cook for a further 20 minutes, turn the oven down to 220 degrees C, until your bread is a nice golden brown. allow your bread to cool slightly before cutting a piece and smothering it in butter!

5 easy ways to reduce your environmental impact everyday

We are so passionate about doing the best we can for our planet, and the reason we exist is because you do too! Here are 5 tips and tricks we use everyday to help reduce our footprints:

1- REUSE JARS AND CONTAINERS

At Jo’s Pantry, you can refill all your old jars and containers, we have most pantry staples available in bulk! Need more peanut butter? No worries, clean your old jar and we will refill it for you. From nuts and seeds, Herbs and spices to flour, chocolate and laundry detergent we can refill it, or provide you with a paper bag to refill it when you get home. Although having uneven and unmatching jars in your pantry isn’t everyones cup of tea, we think it makes for a pantry full of stories and character!

2- RETHINK BEFORE BUYING NEW

If you’re unable to buy something second hand or reuse what you already have, think about the sustainability of a product before buying it. Can its packaging be reused, recycled or composted? Will it breakdown in the future? What impact will it have on the earth for future generations? When choosing toiletries like toothbrushes, hairbrushes, floss, deodorant try to go for a more sustainable option. Bamboo toothbrushes last up to 3 months, but rather than lasting for hundreds of years in land fill they break down in your compost. Could you replace disposable face wipes with a reusable, washable ones? Can you cover your food with beeswax wraps or silicone covers, rather than cling wrap? Could you invest in reusable nappies that can be washed rather than disposable ones? We have so many everyday items in store that can help reduce your footprint.

3- LOWER YOUR FOOD MILES

The closer to home something is grown the less it is handled and the less it has to travel to get to your plate. Every week we get in loads of local options, whether it be fresh fruit and vegetables, preserves, honey, nuts and seeds! The closer it’s grown, the fresher and more nutritious it is for you. We pride ourselves on having an array of fresh and local produce!

4-COMPOST

Compost all your food scraps and compostable packaging. Worms are so easy to look after and only need a small amount of space and attention to save you sending your food scraps to landfill where they wreak alot more havoc. You will notice the amount of rubbish you make reduce as soon as you start composting, not only this, but your soil will also become healthier than ever!

5- MAKE MORE FOOD FROM SCRATCH

Whilst this isn’t an option for everyone for every meal, each meal or snack you make from scratch means there is less packaging and you know exactly what’s in it. Having less hidden ingredients in your food makes a healthier you, and gives you a chance to make the most of local ingredients.

Getting the Balance

We totally understand that everyone leads very busy lifestyles these days, and eating right is not always the top priority in your life, so we’ve tried to make our recipes as simple as possible. 

Not only is it food that matters, but also the way we balance our lifestyles. Being over worked and stressed and eating on the go is not good for your digestive system. The root cause of illness and disease is not dealing with stress and having an unbalanced lifestyle. The first question you need to be asking is am I happy? And what changes need to be made so that your answer is yes. 

A lot of people say to me, you’re so lucky you have such a great metabolism, you never get sick, you never get period pain. This isn’t a strike of luck, it is because I eat well, look after my body and know when I need a rest.

Of course I am very grateful that this all comes second nature to me because of the way I was raised, but I also take the time eat right for me.

Being a personal trainer has also helped me see that a lot of people aren’t aware of what foods are good and bad for them, and that holding onto stresses on the inside can also cause you to hold onto that weight you want to lose.

Being obsessed with eating well puts stress on your mind. Eating with balance allows you to eat everything, in moderation of course. Enjoying food is important, rather than seeing it as a chore to cook and eat, you need to see it as an opportunity to nourish your body. 

Activity is important to get your metabolism going, its invigorating and always makes you feel better. Tell me a time you’ve ever regretted getting up to go for a walk, or to a yoga class or to the gym? I’ve only ever regretted not going.

Our Coffee

It’s so good because we make each coffee knowing that it might be your one coffee for the day, or for the week. We want you to enjoy every sip so we put loads of effort into each and every coffee that we make.

Not only is it the love we put into each cup but also the ingredients. For all of our cow’s milk coffees we use Schulz Organic Dairy milk. Not only is it organic, unhomogenised and best practices used, it is also local to us in Timboon.

We use organic coffee beans grown sustainably and each individual part of our coffee beans journey is treated fairly and ethically.

We offer a huge range of plant-based milks to help with different dietary requirements and tastebuds.

Ask us for what we have to offer if cow’s milk isn’t your thang.

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Ingredients

 The most important thing when it comes to making amazing and healthy dishes is the ingredients you use.

The dream is to be able grow and make everything from scratch. This is the most sustainable way of living, but obviously not possible for everyone to do with todays fast paced lifestyle. This is why we’ve tried to bring as much locally grown and made products into Jo’s Pantry. 

Organic ingredients are important where you can. A lot of mess and destruction has been caused by chemicals in agriculture. Many of today’s allergies could have something to do with the amount of chemicals that are put on our food when it’s growing, or after to clean it.

The soil these days has been depleted due to years of chemicals and livestock ruining the top soil. This causes our produce to have less nutrients than it used to. 

We source our fresh produce from farmers who really care about their land, they avoid chemicals and sprays and most of it is picked the morning of delivery. The fresher the better.

There are so many different ingredients available to us with the import/export system getting bigger and bigger. As much as we’d like to, we can’t avoid imported food as it’s just not all available from Australia and there are things that people need/want that are grown in other parts of the world, such as India for spices, Sri Lanka for coconut goods, and Peru for cacao products. Although this is the case, for best health practices it would be wise to eat within a 100km radius of where you live, it makes sense to eat things that grow in your surrounding climate as that is where you are growing.

We’ve tried to keep our recipes simple and efficient, for those a little short of time, but still wanting to eat well and nourish themselves and their families.

Preparation is absolutely key. There are many ways that you can prepare food that will help your body to absorb the nutrients more efficiently.

Activating nuts, seeds, legumes and grains prior to eating them aids with digestion. This can be easily done by soaking them for at least 6 hours or even overnight they can then be dehydrated either in a dehydrator or in a really low oven, only just turned on and with the door slightly open. may take 10-12 hours for them to dehydrate without cooking them. They taste a lot better and your belly will thank you. 

When it comes to cleansing and nourishing, raw foods cleanse and detox your body, whereas cooked foods nourish and feed you. This is the case whether you are vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian, eat a ketogenic diet, a paleo diet or you are an intermittent faster. 

A mixture of both raw and cooked foods are beneficial to your body, it keeps us balanced and clean on the inside. We must keep in mind that everyone is different and we all react differently to things, if someone you know eats all raw food and looks and feels incredible and you try the same without getting the same results, then this is not for you. It’s so easy to get sucked into other peoples habits and ideas hoping for the same results as they get, but we all function differently. Trial and error is the key to finding what works for you. Although sometimes frustrating, at least it is a way to create a lifestyle of eating in a way that is perfect for you.

A Little Word on Gut Health

Of course in this section we could write a whole book just on gut health, thankfully it is the buzz words at the moment. Aristotle was right when he said “all disease begins in the gut” if everything in your gut is balanced you should be at your optimum health as well. There are many, many factors that can contribute to your gut being out of whack, which can make it tricky.

Every body is totally different and different eating patterns affect people differently. Our gut consists of a lining, every time we eat something that doesn’t agree with our gut lining a layer of the lining can be demolished, but as your body is constantly making new cells it has the ability to heal itself. If this keeps happening day after day, meal after meal, eventually your gut lining is going to weaken as the the damage cannot be repaired in time before the next hit of damage.

This in turn, can cause something called leaky gut. As the gut lining has been disrupted so many times it can eventually wear the lining out beyond repair if there is no change of diet. When the gut is leaking, nutrients can escape into the bloodstream. This causes the body to turn on its immune response function as there are foreign bodies where they are not supposed to be. 

The immune response sends a variety of immune cells to fight these ‘pathogens’ in the body. In doing this the cells send signals to warn nearby cells of infection that could arise, and signal infected cells to undergo apoptosis (die off). Inflammation is encouraged to increase blood flow which allows more immune cells to reach the area. Whilst this immune response is wonderful for the body to attempt to save itself and get rid of a foreign object that has entered the skin, this is not so good inside the body. 

So now your body has called on the immune system to react to the foreign object that has escaped from your gut, and is causing an inflammatory response. If you’ve heard anything about inflammation on the inside you’ll know its not good. 

During inflammation, there can be collateral damage to healthy tissue as a result of the toxic products produced by the immune response. In addition, in some cases the immune response can be directed toward your own tissues resulting in autoimmune disease.

You may have heard that blueberries, turmeric, coconut oil, flaxseeds and ginger are all anti-inflammatory foods. Of course this is going to help with your inflammation issues, but it’s not going to fix the problem at hand if you don’t stop eating the foods that are causing your gut to leak in the first place. 

In order to keep your gut in good stead a variety of unprocessed, unpackaged, organic foods are key. Taking pre and probiotics is an added bonus, but if you’re eating the way mother nature intended you should be getting it all from a good diet of raw, cooked and fermented foods, produced and grown as locally to you as possible.