A couple of weeks ago, I started a sourdough starter, thinking that experimenting with home-baked sourdough bread would be another nice way to ensure good bread at a more bearable price than from the HEB bakery. The starter has developed a very rich, sour flavor on a rate of being fed every other day with half a cup of water and half a cup of flour and kept on the kitchen counter. But I haven’t baked a loaf of bread with it yet … and that was because I found another recipe for home-baked crackers made with sourdough discard starter. Unless you constantly bake with the starter, a certain amount has to be routinely discarded, otherwise it would take over. I ran across the recipe for crackers, tinkered with it … and we like the resulting crackers to much that I haven’t yet done a loaf of bread!

Preheat the oven to 320°. Cover the bottom of a 10×15 sheet pan with a piece of parchment paper and lightly spritz with oil. The parchment paper is absolutely key.

Melt ¼ cup butter and mix with 1 ½ cup of starter discard. The starter should be about the consistency of heavy cream or thin cake batter. The butter and starter mixture will cover the bottom of the sheet pan/oiled parchment in a thin layer. Sprinkle evenly with ¼ to 1/3 of a cup of Everything But the Bagel seasoning mixture. (The original recipe called for Italian seasoning, or Herbs de Provence, and a sprinkle of salt, but we liked the Everything But the Bagel season the absolute best.)

Bake for 10-15 minutes, remove from oven and lightly score with a knife into equal squares. The top of the cracker mixture should look a bit dry and not be liquid. Bake for another 15-20 minutes until lightly browned and beginning to separate along the scored divisions. Turn off the oven and allow to cool and dry-crisp the crackers. Absolutely yummy.

We were finally able to replace the big side-by side GE refrigerator-freezer; an appliance which turned out after half a dozen years of use to be a crashing disappointment. The various plastic bins and drawers inside began disintegrating at a rapidly increasing rate, to the point where one was barely held together with epoxy glue and strips of duct tape. The outside finish on the top was scratched heavily and was so thin that the metal underneath began to rust. Then the ice maker stopped working – followed by the door water dispenser. It wasn’t the top of the line appliance, just one of the more budget-friendly models, but I honestly expected it to function for much longer than it did, and have the plastic drawers and all last at least a decade. Anyway, we went straight to Lowes’ and added a new dishwasher to the shopping list. Both were delivered and installed in recent days, although after seeing the mess underneath and behind the old refrigerator, I am only grateful that I don’t know the installers socially. (My daughter says that they probably see worse … much, much worse.) The dishwasher and refrigerator are both stainless steel finish, and a modest upgrade to what they replaced. The refrigerator is a Frigidaire countertop depth, which gives back a little more space in the kitchen – French doors with the freezer below in a deep drawer. I rather like it, because I can reach inside without bending over or moving a few steps, while cooking at the stove. The dishwasher operates near silently and plays few bars of a pretty little chime when it finishes cycling through. I wish it were possible to program it to play something like the Flower Song from Lakme – likely, the top-of-the-line version offers that version. Anyway, that’s my week on the home front – how was yours?