Sourdough & Ptarmigan
We woke up to a beautiful sunny Saturday. After a great sourdough pancake breakfast, Bill proceeded to mix up a large quantity of dough from the extra sponge he had put together Friday night. He was all hot to trot to try out a recipe where you cooked the bread in a dutch oven. Here’s a sample of the sponge before it got mixed up for the many menu items to follow.:
The goal for the day was to get Rudy out for a walk, and run down a ptarmigan. The thought was, if we could bag a bird we’d replace Saturday evening’s sourdough chicken/feta cheese pizza with ptarmigan.
We headed for the Valdez Glacier. Everyone else had decided it was a good day to get out as well. Lots of people out walking dogs, skiing, snow machining and hiking, just like us.
We had the advantage of getting off the beaten trail a little having our snow shoes on. It really was a beautiful day!
We proceeded to follow along a ridge of willows and hadn’t travelled far before we heard that distinct clucking sound of a ptarmigan. We quietly located one sitting in the branches of a willow, and two more nearby.
Bill plopped the single easily. The challenge was getting our “retriever” Rudy to go pick him up and bring him back. After several attempts Bill retrieved the bird himself. Then, after much modeling, coaxing, and extenstive praise, Rudy finally fetched the bird up a couple of times.
Hmmmm! Who’s being trained here?!? (Believe it or not, Rudy is tentatively caring the bird in his mouth back to Bill!)
So Saturday night we feasted on Ptarmigan Pizza that was first sauted in garlic and bacon grease, then added to the other toppings. Not bad!
But the sourdough saga is not through. Bill still had more dough to deal with. He ended up making a nice batch of cinnamon rolls for Sunday breakfast. Yum!
Below is the Other batch that he was experimenting with. He had found a recipe in the Minneapolis Star Tribune which did not involve kneading and was cooked in our little 8″ dutch oven. I neglected to get a shot while the bread was still in the pot. (Next time). Not bad for a first attempt we decided. We’ve had more bread in the past 2 days than several weeks! Guess it’s time to get out on those snow shoes again and burn off a few of those calories!
