Using up special ingredients: Sourdough Starter discard

I don't like wasting things.  It drives me NUTS to see food thrown away, including leftovers.  Sourdough starter is just flour and water - and not a lot of either one, really.  So it's not a lot of money.... but it still kills me to do it.  So I went looking for recipes to use up starter that is supposed to be discarded.

Thankfully, I'm not the first (or the last) to feel this way.  There were lots of options.

This weekend, we're trying the Sourdough Pancakes from Joy the Baker.

Ingredients:
1 cup sourdough starter (discard)
1.5 cups warm water
2.5 cups flour
1 egg
2/3 cup milk
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 Tbsp brown sugar
2 Tbsp vegetable oil

Instructions:

1. The night before:
• Mix starter, water, and flour in a large bowl.
  
• Cover with plastic wrap and a tea towel.  Leave on the counter overnight.
  
• Note: If, like me, you keep your house cool, you can put the bowl in the oven with the light on (produces just enough heat) or preheat it to the lowest temp, turn it off, put the starter inside.
2. The next morning:
• In a separate bowl, mix together the remaining ingredients.
  
• Slowly combine both bowls and whisk together.
  
• Let stand 5 minutes.
  
• Drop onto a hot, greased/buttered griddle and cook for a few minutes.  Flip once to brown the other side.
  
  
3. Enjoy!
• Serve with butter, real maple syrup, berries, etc.

These were light and quick. I got about 24 pancakes using a 1/3 cup measure.  Packaged them up in little containers and now I have a treat for breakfast at work each day (plus this morning's breakfast, of course)!

Using up special ingredients: Blue Cheese Crackers

Have you ever bought a "special" ingredient for a recipe and not needed it all?  So what do you do with the leftovers?  I'm frugal, so I hate to waste anything - so I go searching for a recipe (or an idea) to use it in a new and creative way.

Last weekend's Bacon and Blue Pierogies required 4 oz of Blue Cheese.  Because I wasn't totally sure about the amounts, I bought an extra wedge as backup.  Which meant that I've had blue cheese sitting in my fridge for a week - calling my name.

I've made these crackers before - they are a play on a savory shortbread.  I love them.  This time I adjusted the size to be more bite-sized.  I think I prefer them smaller!

Blue Cheese Crackers

Ingredients:

4 oz blue cheese, room temperature

4 Tbsp butter, room temperature

3/4 Cup all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp fresh ground black pepper

1/8 tsp cayenne pepper (to taste)

Instructions:

1. Mise en place.
• I've said this before.  Get your stuff together before you start cooking.  This recipe has 5 whole ingredients... I think you can manage.

  

  Look closely.  See something wrong here?

  

  I might have gotten excited to make the recipe... and forgot to take pictures until the end!

2. Cream together the blue cheese and butter
• It is really important that both be room temperature.  They won't combine very well if they're not. Trust me - leave them out on the counter for a few hours before trying to make this.
3. Mix in the flour, black pepper, and cayenne.
• Fresh ground black pepper.  Please please please - use a pepper mill or a spice grinder.  Don't buy ground black pepper in the little tin at the grocery store.  Trust me - the flavor is completely different.
• Cayenne.  Use as much or as little as you can handle.  My husband and I both love spicy things - so I'm generous with it.  But it's totally up to you.  But don't skip it unless you're allergic!

  

  Here's a funny picture of my empty bowl!  It's the best I could do!

  
  
4. Prepare the dough.
• For small crackers: split the dough in 1/2 and put into 2 sandwich-size ziptop bags.
  For large crackers: put the whole batch into 1 sandwich-size ziptop bag.
• Squish it all the way to the bottom and roll to form it into a small log.
• Seal the ziptop bag and put it in the refrigerator for a few hours or the freezer for 1 hour.  You need the dough to be very cold in order to slice nicely.

  

  This is after it's chilled, but you get the idea...

  

  For reference, this is 1/2 the dough making small crackers.
  

  

  To give you a sense of how small the log is...
  

5. Slice the coins and place on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet.
• Cut the log of dough into 1/4" thick coins.
  
• Parchment make this a very easy clean up.
• I got about 20 small crackers from 1/2 the batch.
  
6. Bake at 350° for 15-20 minutes.
• Watch them closely and pull them out when nicely browned.
  

  

  5 minutes
  

  

  10 minutes
  

  

  15 minutes
  

  

  20 minutes

 Tadaaaa!  Used up my leftover blue cheese and now have a nice snack for the weekend!  They are light and crispy and tangy with a nice little bite from the blue cheese and peppers.

Hope you enjoyed this quick little recipe!  Come back and visit next weekend when I spend some more time practicing in my kitchen.