Lisa, this is my favourite starter. It is a pure starter, made from just rye flour and water. Nothing else. Once you get it going and it is easy to keep. YOu just have to feed it occasionally. Once you get your starter active, you use it to make a biga or a levain and that is what you add to the French baguette recipe rather than yeast. For the Biga, I just add 2 ounces of starter to 1 1/2 cups of flour and a cup of water and let it develop overnight. Home Cookin Chapter: Recipes From Thibeault's Table Sourdough starter - Amy's bread =============================== copied from: http://countrylife.net/pages/recipes/672.html Amy Scherber's Sourdough Starter RYE STARTER From AMY'S BREAD, copyrighted. Amy's bread This starter is begun with rye flour because rye just LOVES to ferment and is an easier starter to get going than a wheat starter. When I first made it, it had a bubble or two within a couple hours. The procedure is to start it with rye flour, then transform it by changing what you feed it. The original rye will dilute to nothing over time and you'll end up with a white flour (or whatever other grain you choose, it could be whole wheat or pumpermickel, or you could leave it as a rye starter) and water based starter, but it had the advantage of beginning it's life from highly fermentable rye flour. Start it with organic rye flour and spring water. Once you have it going well you can switch to all-purpose white (or other) flour as you choose. The use of spring water is recommended for maintenance, however, as tap water may contain elements (such as chlorine) which may be detrimental to the health of your starter. I also recommend that you use a container that you can mark the volume levels of starter each time, so that you will know when it has doubled. Use a marking pen or tape or any other means to indicate on the container the starter levels each time you feed. Phase 1 - Combine 2 oz organic rye flour (room temp) with 4 oz spring water in a clear container. The batter should be about the consistency of very thick pancake batter, add more water or flour if necessary. Cover & let it sit for 36 - 48 hours at 75 - 77 degrees (a little cooler is okay but over 80 you will incubate the wrong kind of bacteria and your culture will have an unpleasant bitter taste). You should start to see tiny bubbles forming after about 24 hours. By the time it has doubled, there will be a noticeable network of small bubbles throughout the batter & it will be foaming & bubbling on top. (If the batter has not doubled within 48 hours, feed with 2 oz water & 2 oz flour (add more of either if necessary for the consistency) and let it sit another 24 hours or until you see some definite activity.) Phase 2 - Stir the culture down, notice how soupy it's become. The batter should have a noticeable sour smell & a mildly tangy taste at this point. Add 2 oz water & 2 oz flour and stir vigorously until well-combined. Let it sit for 12 hours. It should be showing a fair amount of activity at this point. You should see lots of foaming & bubbling through the sides as well as on the top. Don't be concerned if the culture deflates & loses volume. This means the yeast has exhausted its food supply, but it will continue to increase in acidity. Don't worry if your culture isn't dramatically active yet. As long as there is some noticeable activity going on and the mixture smells & tastes sour, you're on the right track. Phase 3 - The culture should now have a pronounced, sour, fruity taste and smell, it should not taste musty or bitter (if it does, discard and start again, paying close attention to the temp of the culture at all times). Now you can start "transforming" it into a white (or other) flour based starter. Use 6 oz of the starter, add 3 oz water & 3 oz flour, stir vigorously. Let it sit for 12 hrs at 75 - 77 degrees F. Refresh it again, setting up a maintenance level of 12 oz of starter. This will be your "mother" starter that you use to build the sourdough starters/sponges needed in individual recipes. Each time you take part of the mother out to build a starter, you must refresh it with equal weights of flour and water to bring it back up to its maintenance level. To maintain - Use 6 oz of the mother culture (discard the rest), add 3 oz water & 3 oz flour, stir vigorously, let it sit at room temp until doubled in volume. A strong mother will double in 8-12 hours. If yours doesn't do that, let it continue to sit out until it has a nice tangy taste and smell; discard all but 6 oz and repeat this procedure. Repeat this procedure as many times as necessary until the mother doubles within 8-12 hrs. It may take several days. Don't get discouraged, it's worth the effort. To use for recipes - Combine 1/2 c (5 oz) Mother from the refrigerator, add 3 oz flour and 2.5 oz warm water (85 - 90 degrees). The mixture will be stiffer than the mother. Let it sit, covered, until doubled in volume (if it doesn't do so go back to maintenance procedure). When the starter has doubled, it is ready to use in a recipe. Measure the amount needed and discard any that remains.

Here you go Sue. Home Cookin Chapter: Recipes From Thibeault's Table Bread And Butter Pudding With Caramel Sauce =========================================== 5 or 6 slices of bread 1/2 cup butter 1 to 1 1/2 cups sugar 5 eggs 2 cups cream (Or milk) vanilla pinch of salt Caramel Sauce 1 cup butter 1 cup sugar 1 cup brown sugar 1 cup cream pinch of salt 2 teaspoons vanilla NOTE: If you prefer the pudding to have more custard, then use less bread so that all of the custard is not absorbed into the bread when baked. Cut crusts from bread and spread each slice with butter. (Bread slices can be left whole, or cut into halves, quarters or cubes. Place bread buttered side up in a oven proof dish. (may use any shape dish, or glass loaf pan, cutting bread to fit) Beat the sugar and eggs together and then add the cream, vanilla and salt. Pour over bread and allow the bread to absorb. (make be refrigerated at this point and baked later) sprinkle with some white sugar and place dish into a pan of hot water and bake in a 350 oven for 45 to 1 hour, or until pudding is set and golden. To make caramel sauce, bring butter, sugars, cream and salt to a boil and then simmer for 3 or 4 minutes. Remove from heat and add the vanilla. Custard sauce for Chocolate Bread and butter Pudding. The custard sauce was really easy. It was just two cups of milk or cream ( I used coffee cream) heated to a simmer. Mix three tablespoons of flour into 1/2 cup of white sugar and mix into a beaten egg. When the milk is hot, slowly pour the milk into the egg mixture,stirring constantly. Pour the mixture back into the pot and cook over low heat until thickened. Remove from the heat and add the vanilla. Custard should be pouring consistency. Cover the surface directly with plastic wrap and refrigerate.

I made scones today after watching Martha Stewart on PBS, and since I had seen her demonstration, I simply made them the way she did, which is very similar to Ann's. One difference is that she used dried currants soaked in Grand Marnier, and that intrigued me. I used dried cranberries instead and soaked them in half Cointreau and half Triple Sec because Triple Sec has a more intense orange flavor. MS added orange zest to hers, but my oranges were not ripe, and so I omitted that ingredient. I also cut the amount of salt in half, and I think I could have used even less. Next time I will try Ann's recipe, but I had a bit of trouble finding it here, since GW searches are not that helpful. Eventually I did a Google search to find Ann's recipe, but by then I had already made the other recipe. MS uses part cake flour, and I had cake flour that I wanted to use up, which is another reason I went with her recipe. I love scones, and so it's good to have more than one recipe. I did think that the liqueur soaked cranberries was a good variation, and I don't think they needed orange zest. I like Ann's method of freezing the butter and then grating it, which is easier than the MS method of combining butter and half the flour in the food processor - much more to clean that way. Lars Here is a link that might be useful: MS version This post was edited by publickman on Sun, Sep 29, 13 at 20:47

I make Julia Child's potato leek soup and it serves 6 as per the recipe. Way too much for 6 even as a main with apps and a salad. It has 6 cups of broth/stock, another cup of milk/cream, and 4-5 med russets. That recipe would serve easily 10 as a starter or side. I usually half the recipe for 4-6. (also a great base soup for a starter with a seared scallop or a couple shrimp or 3 oysters for a small pan roast. ) My small soup bowls, really cups, are rather tiny but soup is so delicious as a side or starter i find it very filling. Often guests can be a bit famished and tend to over-do the apps and starter soups. For years a friend insisted on bringing a winter squash soup every Thanksgiving. It was good but very rich. I bought 2 dozen DinerWare bowls at a restaurant supply for 50cents each. Still use them today to keep the overeater in check. (not meaning rude, just complaints of being full before the main meal started). She was sensitive and needing compliments so the two cup bowls were way to big and guests felt they needed to finish it.