Well, I’ve gone and done it. I’m down so far in the rabbit hole I don’t know that I’ll ever get back out.

It all started with gardening. What can I say? It was COVID. Things were a mess. Buying dirt and wood seemed like the only solution.

Gardening led to canning, of course. People who have more than five tomato plants in Mississippi are inevitably going to have too many tomatoes.

So I canned. And I pickled.

Then there were a few garden expansions. A small greenhouse.

It’s a blur, really.

Julia got a swarm of bees. The first couple colonies absconded. But the latest? They’re thriving in boxes in the backyard.

More recently, we purchased half a cow. (It was deceased, of course. We don’t have a beef farm. Yet.)

And with half a cow – deceased – comes the possibility of suet. Don’t know what suet is?

Congratulations. You’re not down the rabbit hole as far as I am.

(If you are wondering, though, suet is the fat that surrounds the kidneys. It can be rendered down to make tallow. Tallow, in turn, can be used to make balms and soaps. There. Now you are just as far down the rabbit hole as I can shove you in 200 words.)

And now… there’s sourdough.

My sister, Beth, gave me some starter over Thanksgiving. I neglected it for weeks, allowing it to languish in the back of the fridge.
I was able to resuscitate it over Christmas break with several feedings.

After that success, I decided to try my hand at making my own starter. I figured if I could bring one back to life, surely I could figure out how to create one.

The starter my sister gave me yields a traditional chewy, tangy loaf.

The starter I began is a potato flake starter. It yields a soft, dense, sweet loaf.

I like both. Currently, I am baking three loaves of bread (one giant one and two regular-sized ones) weekly.

It’s fine. Everything’s fine. I’m fine.

POTATO FLAKE STARTER

Ingredients
1 cup warm water (use distilled or spring, not tap)
1/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons yeast
3 Tablespoons instant potato flakes

Directions
■ Mix all ingredients in a quart-sized glass jar. Stir thoroughly with a wooden spoon or silicon spatula. Cover with a top that is not air-tight. You can use a paper towel and a rubber band, but I use a plastic screw-on jar lid with the gasket removed and did not tighten it down all the way. Leave the mixture on the counter for four days. It will bubble up for the first day and fall back down again. Do not panic. Just keep it on the counter. Stir the starter daily. On the fifth day, feed with feed described below.

POTATO FLAKE FEED

Ingredients
1 cup warm water
1/4 cup sugar
3 Tablespoons potato flakes

Directions
■ Mix feed ingredients into about 1 cup starter. Allow to sit at room temperature for 8 hours. Starter should be bubbly.
■ Use one cup of starter to make bread (see recipe below). Refrigerate remainder. Try to feed starter and bake with the activated (bubbly) starter about once a week. If you don’t have time to bake, discard any extra starter before feeding about 1 cup of it.

SOURDOUGH POTATO BREAD

Ingredients
1 stick softened butter (113 g)
1/2 cup sugar (96 g)
1 Tablespoon salt (17 g)
1 cup starter (active and bubbly) (275 g)
2 1/4 cups water (bottled, not tap) (531 g)
8 cups all-purpose flour (1200 g)

Directions
■ Mix all ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer. Mix until all ingredients are incorporated and dough pulls away from the sides. If possible, turn off mixer and allow to rest a few minutes. Using the dough hook, mix for another 10 minutes or so. Place in a large bowl. Cover with a tea towel or plastic wrap and allow to rise about 12 hours.
■ Divide into two loaf pans (about 9 1/2 inches) and allow to rise again for 2-4 hours. Avoid pressing out all the bubbles when you divide the dough; handle it as little as possible. Bake for 45 minutes in a 375-degree oven. Allow to cool at least 1 hour before slicing.

Tip: If you work full-time, a schedule that may work for you is to remove the starter Thursday evening before bed and feed it. Let it sit on the counter until Friday morning. Mix one cup of starter with the other bread dough ingredients and place the remaining starter in the fridge. Cover the dough and allow it to rise on the counter while you’re at work. On Friday evening, split the dough into two parts and place in loaf pans. Cover the pans. Allow loaves to rise while you have dinner and bake them before going to bed.

Amelia Plair is a mom and high school teacher in Starkville. Email reaches her at [email protected].

Amelia Plair is a Starkville resident who writes occasional food columns.