Sourdough biscuits & gravy

Today's breakfast: Sourdough Biscuits with Grit Yeast Gravy
Most of the time, I consider how likely an ingredient or process was to have existed before 1601 when I am cooking for experimentations' sake. The primary reason I took to sourdough baking was to make period bread--active dry yeast was simply not around back in the day. Usually, when I make sourdough bread, I make a loaf and eat it. That hasn't worked well recently because I just haven't been eating much bread, and I have not had time to wait for the rise. It's a process, after all. Feed it the night before, prep it the next morning, spend time as needed for the rise, and then spend time as needed for the bake.

Sadly, I had let my starter languish in the fridge so long that I was wondering if I had killed it. I just had not had time to do a traditional loaf of bread. However, I need that starter to live. On Monday, I pulled it out, poured off the liquid that had accumulated on top (it was tooooo sour for my taste), and began feeding it daily for a week. I planned on doing individual rolls that could just serve me as single servings of bread when needed.

Then I thought about the delicate balance of prepping, timing, and baking all those rolls. Nope. I didn't want to do that. But now I had a crap ton of sour dough to use up. It seemed to be time to try sourdough biscuits again.

Now, the last time I made them, they were okay, but I wasn't wild about them. I used a different recipe this time. I based it on the recipe found here, and when you compare the two, you'll note that my modifications are extremely minimal:

Sour Dough Biscuits:

Mix wet:
2 cups active sourdough starter
1/4 cup olive oil

Mix dry :
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 tbl baking powder
3 tbl white sugar
1 tsp salt

Combine the wet mix with the dry mix. Form into golf-ball sized pieces, and arrange into oiled cast iron pan or oiled clay baking stone to rise for 15-30 minutes. Brush tops with oil or melted butter-substitute. Bake at 400F after the rise, 15 minutes or until golden brown.

I've also a batch made with canola oil in the freezer; I don't expect them to taste significantly different, given that these were perfectly pleasant. Michael found them a little too "crisp" for his taste, but the flavor was fine.

Jodi gave me the recipe for Grit Yeast Gravy last summer, and with so many biscuits, it seemed like a good time to try it. On the whole, I thought it needed to sit for an hour before serving--it's a little too heavy on the soy sauce flavor for me right off the burner. In looking for the recipe online, I noted that Jodi's version was essentially identical to this one, except she left off the vegan worcestershire sauce. Further, I used almond milk rather than soy. It was very good, and it made WAY more gravy than I expected. Michael's judgement? Pretty good for a vegetarian meal.

Praise with some faint damnation, indeed. Well, he liked it, and that's what matters. :-) Why? Because I liked it, which means he's going to have to eat it again. ;-)