Sourdough English Muffins

 So easy! From: healthline-store.com/sourdough-english-muffins-recipe/

Notes: this made 13 with my biscuit cutter. I skip the active sourdough ingredients and just use my own that I have activated at half water half flour. I can’t believe how easy these were. 
ACTIVE SOURDOUGH STARTER INGREDIENTS:
1 tablespoon sourdough starter
⅓ cup 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
3 ½ tablespoons water
DOUGH INGREDIENTS:
½ cup active sourdough starter
1 tablespoon honey
1 cup milk
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
¼ cup cornmeal

Steps

Combine the sourdough starter, milk, (I used oat milk), sugar, (I used Honey), and salt in a large mixing bowl.
Mix well.
Gradually add the flour to the sourdough mixture, stirring until a soft dough forms. The dough should have a slight stickiness, but be manageable.
Cover the bowl with a clean kitchen towel and let the dough rise at room temperature until it has doubled in size, about 1 to 2 hours. (Took mine all day to rise) 
Sprinkle a clean surface with flour and cornmeal.
Turn the dough out onto the surface and sprinkle the top with more flour.
Roll the dough out to 1/2 inch thickness.
Cut out circles from the dough using a round cookie cutter or English muffin rings.
Place the cut dough circles on a cornmeal-dusted baking sheet, cover lightly, and let them rise again for about 30 minutes.
Over medium heat, heat a skillet or griddle.
Dust the surface lightly with cornmeal.
Place the dough circles on the skillet and cook for about 5 to 7 minutes on each side until golden brown and cooked through.
Remove the cooked English muffins from the oven and let them cool on a wire rack.
They are best served toasted with butter, jam, or your favorite spread.

Notes

Handling Sticky Dough: If the dough is too sticky to handle, add a little more flour as needed, but try to keep it as light as possible to ensure soft, fluffy muffins. 
Cooking Evenly: Make sure the skillet or griddle is not too hot as the muffins need to cook slowly to allow the insides to cook thoroughly without burning the outside. 

Day 9 - April 8?, 2025

 After the luau, I just fell in the bed and did not get today’s blog done. So now that I’m semi-conscious and ready for a 26 hour day (I think) I’ll talk about yesterday. Gary & Claudia’s cousin Jill and her husband Eric picked us up at the hotel after 9 am, and drove us to a cute little restaurant for breakfast, called The Gazebo. It was a tiny place on the beach, a real gazebo, and we waited in a long line for awhile to get in. Very popular place with the locals. They have umbrellas to keep the sun off of you while you wait. The food was good and plentiful, and for where we are, the prices were good. They had Oma coffee, which I thought was great - much better than Kona. When Claudia went to the bathroom, the little sparrows attacked her leftover macadamia pancakes! We really have to watch the birds as so many restaurants are open-air and the birds like the leftovers.

Rainforest tree with dragon fruit plants.

Breadfruit tree.

At the luau.

Poi on pineapple. The taro that poi is made from is purple. The rolls were purple. And the fried taro I had a different night was purple.

Jill took us to a beach that had a rain forest next to it, and we walked through it. She pointed out trees like the ones our Kona nut necklaces come from, breadfruit trees, Hala trees, the ti plants that hula girls make their skirts from, and the dragon fruit plants that are like orchids growing in other big trees. We saw many mango trees, and papayas - just growing wild. I could get to like this place. We talked about prices and Jill sent me the picture of milk below. After they dropped us off, we went exploring the Whaler’s Village again, and I ate some Tapioca pudding from the ABC market while Claudia shopped some more. I found a cute pair of pants on sale for me - $12.40!! 

Claudia found the trolley for us and we rode back to our room to get ready for the luau. We dressed up as Hawaiian as we could manage and the lei they gave us helped a lot.There was all kinds of Hawaiian food, and I tried poi for the first time, over pineapple. LOTS of pineapple here. I had Kalua pork, P.O.G. chicken, teriyaki beef, noodles, fried rice, a taro roll, some salad, and a Pina colada. No dessert for me, but I didn’t need it. We were entertained by Hawaiian stories, music and dances - some with fire. The cliff-divers dove off the cliff at sunset, and it was a beautiful sunset. All in all, a very good day!

Day 8-April 6, 2025

 Today began with an early and all day long bus ride on the Road to Hana, which stretches from the west side of Maui to the East, and ended with seeing the spume of whales out in the water as we drove back. In between was just beauty upon more beauty. We saw some huge rainbow eucalyptus trees, many beautiful waterfalls, gorgeous and strange flowers, lots of pounding surf in several places, lava tubes (I went in one) and blow-holes (I got drenched by one of those). It rained on us in the rain forest, and on the other side of the island, the sun shone brilliantly. We saw nesting Hawaiian green turtles, and a couple of mongoose. And of course, the ubiquitous chickens. The tour guide who drove our bus was a clone of Joey - looked like him, talked like him - made me think of him all day! Claudia and I ate at the beachfront Monkeypod Restaurant late tonight, and I had saimin (sigh-min) for the first time. It’s a Hawaiian ramen soup that is so popular, it is even on the menu at Mcdonalds. I loved it and now I have to see if I can fix it when I get home. 

Day 7 - April 5, 2025

 On today, Mom’s birthday, I think about how she would hav loved to be on this trip with me. I know she is seeing more beauty now than I am, but this place is sure glorious. We are on Maui now, after an early and quick flight. We immediately did a bus tour to Iao Valley State Park to see the Iao Needle, a tall pointy mountain in a group of majestic mountains, It’s in a rainforest that gets 386” of rain per year. We walked up 134 steps to the top of a knoll so we could see the needle better. Beautiful place! There is lava rock everywhere. The airport is built on it. People don’t have to mow their yards! The beaches are black with it. And still flowers and trees grow in it, and the flowers are vibrant colors. The birds here are gorgeous colors, too. On the way to the hotel, we passed the town that got burned so badly last year, Lahaina. There is a whole long memorial fence going into town for the over 100 people that died in the fire. We got to the hotel, and unwound for about an hour before we bussed to our restaurant for the group dinner. As we de-bussed, we saw our first Hawaiian rainbow! Our dinner was good - a restaurant right on the beach and the kitchen was great about fixing me food. I had grilled mahi mahi, and an amazing dessert made out of Breadfruit called Lilikol Pono Pie.  It had macadamia and coconut crust and topped with strawberries and honey. Slurp! And then since the restaurant was on the beach, I walked down and finally saw a beautiful sunset,  This is one of the beaches you could walk on with real sand, instead of lava rock. 

Day 6 - April 4, 2025

 Today began with a tour of a coffee farm. About 25 minutes from here, in Captain Cook, HI, sits one of 600 coffee farms in the Kona Valley, a small strip of land where coffee grows well on a volcanic base. Bay View Farm will ship you their Kona Coffee, but does not sell it in any stores. I got to taste the medium roast, dark roast, and flavored, and I liked the dark roast best. Our guide took us from pruning the trees, to picking the berries, and doing the many iterations of sifting to finally get the beans to the roasting stage. It explained a lot about why coffee is so expensive!

We next visited PU'UHONUA O HONAUNAU National Historical Park. I got another stamp, and a patch. I did not expect this place of refuge to be so beautiful. The park, as is most of this island, is built on lava rock. The beach is mostly rock, fringed with palm trees, breadfruit trees, and beautiful water. It got hot there and we were all sweating.

Next we stopped at the painted church, a little Catholic church perched high on the hill overlooking the bay.

We got back to the motel for a late lunch, and a short rest. I went to a ukulele class, which was fun. We then headed out to town on the bus for a group dinner, which was the least favorite thing of the day for me, since something I ate made me sick. Anyway, all packed up now for the early airport run tomorrow - Maui!

Had to share a pic of the beautiful plumeria. 

Day 5 - April 3, 2025

 I do not deserve the wonders and amazing sites that I’m getting to see. I don’t deserve the new types of food, like taro and breadfruit and Dole Whip that I’m getting to eat and the people who are waiting on me to make sure I can eat it. I don’t deserve the ability to get some things that I want and to buy gifts for people I love in a place that is so different from where I live.

So I praise the God of Heaven Who is giving me the opportunity to do these things, and hope that I am living His light to people I meet in this place. Today we only went shopping, made beautiful leis from orchids, had an excellent Hawaiian meal of shrimp, taro, breadfruit, and purple sweet potatoes, and watched the surf beat and raise high above the lava beach of this resort. I am beyond happy. 

Day 4 - April 2, 2025

 I am marking things off my bucket list that I didn’t know where on it! The world is an incredible and amazing place, and I wonder anew at how great and smart God is to think of all these things and places! Today we flew early from Honolulu to Hilo on Big Island (Hawai’i) and then drove through Hilo to look at Rainbow Falls. It was a beautiful waterfall, but no rainbow today - we actually started out the day with sunshine in a place that gets over 100 inches of rain in a year. Then we rode the bus to Volcanoes National Park, and I got more stamps for my Passport book (and Phil’s). The bucket list was actually seeing a volcano, and seeing one that is active. Kilauea has been active since 1983, so we saw lots of smoke and way off in the distance some fire. This was a huge area and we were able to look down in the crater. We saw steam vents over the land, and miles of volcanic rock fields where not much grows. We got glimpses of Mauna Loa, a huge volcano. The really incredible check off my bucket list was the black sand beach. Although not exactly sand, more like tiny pebbles, it was definitely black, but the most cool things was getting to climb around on the volcanic rock (mostly smooth with pits and holes) and take pictures of the surf crashing into the rocks and on the beach. I was in photography heaven. We were getting some drizzly rain by then, and overcast clouds so the pictures are a study in monochromatic greys and blacks. I know one of them will make it on my wall! I could have stayed there the rest of the day, but we still had 1.5 hrs to the motel. This was a really long day, and we didn’t get to the motel until after dark, so I’ll report more about it tomorrow when I can see.

Day 3 - April 1, 2025

 Even though being here in Hawaii is a dream come true, it’s the little things that are making this such a great trip. The great breakfast at this hotel. The chickens running around loose everywhere. The plants in the bathrooms. The people that say, “Aloha!” When you walk into their stores. The tour manager who is so patient with us old people who don’t always listen (wow, that sounds like I’m talking about my previous students!). Not getting run over when we cross the street. The reflections on the mirrored skyscrapers.  The shadows of the monkey pod and banyan trees on the green grass. The new types of food - Musubi - which is spam and rice wrapped up with seaweed. Spam is a big deal here - I think they said Hawaii buys the most Spam than any place in the world. Today we started off in a rain forest that had incredible views. Then we went to the palace of the Hawaiian kings, where I saw one of the queen’s dresses made of peacock feathers - how could we live without a dress like that! And then Claudia and I walked around the hotel and beach where there were gift shops and bought some gifts. So now we have to pack up and head to Big Island in the morning at 6:15 am. Good day.

Day 2 - Pearl Harbor

 I have to say a BIG thank you to Prince Waikiki Hotel for the Amazing Breakfast Buffet they served this morning, The best part was the labels they put on everything that said, “NO DAIRY.” (As well as other allergens.) So I thoroughly enjoyed the fresh fruit, bacon, tater tots and other normal things as well as the Prince Fried Rice and a Chicken Sausage and some kimchee. The coffee was good (server said it was a blend of Kona.) 

We boarded a bus to take a tour of Honolulu and then to Pearl Harbor. Our bus driver, Kimo, was amazing and very entertaining - I believe he could be a stand-up comedian. We got to drive by the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. At Pearl Harbor we looked at the memorial stones of killed and survivors, and a museum filled with things about the attack itself. I got Gary a brown t-shirt in the gift shop and the lady mentioned that the brown color came from Kona berries. I had told her I was going to bring my brother some real Kona coffee beans and she said you can get them at Walmart. When I acted skeptical, she said, Really! They keep it locked up because people steal it. I had to laugh. Phil would not drink it if I bought it at Walmart!! Ha Ha - I think I’ll wait until the coffee farm and see if I can get some there. I also found out today that I can’t get Hershey Kisses with macadamia nuts because they don’t make the anymore. Is that sad, or what? But the bus driver gave us some other kind of chocolate covered macadamias, and Claudia said they were good. I’m saving mine for tonight. After the gift shop, we got to ride a boat out to the Arizona Memorial, which is a cemetery although I never thought of it that way before. Very moving and solemn. Even children were quiet. 

So now we are back in the room taking a nap before our community dinner tonight,. It’s in the same restaurant as breakfast so I’m expecting great things. 

Aloha!

In the museum. Wan’t Uncle Leonard a gunner’s mate?

Yes! Great things for dinner. I had really tender grilled chicken and roasted veggies and some really strange ground-up mushroom stuff that I tasted. Tasted like mushrooms! But the wonderful part was dessert. A strawberry sorbet, I think. So fancy and really tasty!

Day 1 - Wakiki

 After a brutal day of traveling over 5000 miles by bus and air, we made it from LEX through DFW to Honolulu. Warm, lovely, 85 degree weather met us, and I saw many of the familiar flowers that were in my Florida yard. With such a big group (41) it took awhile to get all checked in and our room was not ready. So we tried three different places to try to find something to eat, and ended up at McDonalds. Where pigeons walk around on the floor AND ON THE TABLES!! Yuk. After nearly getting run over because I didn’t know how to read the traffic signals, we made it back to the motel. I came down later to meet with Julie the tour director, who was going to walk us over to Wakiki Beach. You can see Diamondhead Volcano from there, and it is all beautiful. A lot of kids surfing. But the beach is rocky and hard to walk on. Not as nice a Venice! I stuck around and found a food truck selling shave ice, so I got one of those and enjoyed getting all sticky. I sat in the warm sun and watched the water and the surfers, and stayed for the sunset. There was a low cloud, so it didn’t take, although it was still pretty. The view from the 8th floor of our motel is beautiful. Now if Claudia and I can get rid of our leg cramps we’ll be ready for a good night’s sleep.,

Day 14 - March 9, 2025

 A pretty fun last day in Greece. We started out eating our oranges at breakfast, and then headed for a last pocket book shop for Claudia. We could hear church bells all over town this morning and it was a beautiful Sunday. Packed up and checked out right at 11. Lee brought the car around and we were off. We didn’t plan on stopping anywhere special on our way back through Corinth to Athens, but when we stopped for gas we ate some oranges, and then when we got a little lost off the interstate we found a bakery. 

Athens itself, however, was a nightmare traffic-wise. Apparently there was a half-marathon going on, and the police had every road that we needed to turn on blocked. Tons of traffic. So we drove around and around until finally they unblocked the road. The Lord was with my son because he stayed calm under pressure. He only blew his horn once! Just like a native anybody. The motel was ready for us and this time we are in a suite with all our beds together. It’s really nice and this one has a shower door that covers the whole shower. Maybe tonight we won’t have a swimming pool in the bathroom floor! 

After disembarking, Lee returned the car and we started our final shopping trek. We ate at Hard Rock Cafe Athens, had a very nice waiter who was dual citizen of Greece and England, so he was easy to understand. Then on the way back we found gelato and I had three scoops of coconut! Yum!

View outside motel balcony this morning. You can see windmills on top of the mountain to the left, and the tiny lighthouse on the spit of land.

Day 13 - March 8, 2025

Frying up fresh loukoumades

Claudia hoofing it uphill. 

The birds next dessert. 

The orange stand in the orange groves. 

Pic above is the temple/hotel/dormitory of Asklepios   The big theatre. 

  At motel breakfast I ate some leftover fava bean spread on pita, some of my oatmeal I brought from home, and some of Lee’s honey he bought in tiny jars to try different kinds. Apparently, thyme honey is popular here and it is pretty good. Today was a car day, and we drove 20 some km to the archaeological site of Mycenae and the museum there This place was a walled city with temples and cemeteries. We saw three cool domed burial chambers that you could walk into and hear your footsteps echoing. 

 Flowers of all colors were blooming; lots of yellow, little purple ones, white ones and red that looked like poppies. This place was high up on a hill that made you feel like you were on top of the world. Lee said Claudia earned her Billy Goat Girl Scout Patch today! The olive trees were loaded, and even though Lee warned me, I picked one and bit into it. While not at all like what you buy in a jar, I could taste the peppery bite and it was very juicy. To get into the city there is a lion gate (you can see two lions on the triangle lintel on top of the open door, and that is the oldest one in Europe - 1250 BC! Still in pretty good shape. Almond trees were blooming too. Just down the hill from here was another tomb - Agamemnon’s, also called the treasury. 

From there we headed through the town of Mykonos looking for anyplace that looked good for lunch. A man was standing outside the Electra, and waved us in, so we went there! I think he and his wife owned it, and she was cooking. We were the only ones in the place, and her food was delicious.Greeks evidently like to give you things complementary, and she gave us Kataifi (said it was ok for me to have). That things was amazing. It’s a Greek spun pastry that tasted like Heaven.

We then drove about 25 miles to Epidavrus, seeing massive amounts of loaded orange trees, windmills, and cute little houses that looked like mailboxes on the way. While also getting lost, we found a small ruin of a theater. Someone there pointed us in the right direction to find the big theatre - the best preserved theatre in Greece that is actually still used, called the Theatre at Epidavrus, or the Theatre of Asklepios. Now that was seriously big and cool and we got to crawl all over it. Greta stood in the center of the stage and emoted Helena’s monologue about Demetrius, and Lee could hear her fair all the way to the top. When I tried to sing Amazing Grace, the docents said no singing allowed. Very strange. Lots of people at this site. We hung around for a long time after looking at all the other ruins there as well. We have certainly seen a lot of ruined stuff. Yes, Julie - it certainly was a fixer-upper!

We stopped by an orange stand on the way back, and bought a bag of around 36 oranges from a guy for 4 euros! So good and sweet. He talked up a storm to us in Greek! We talked back in English! The only words he knew were mandarin, Chicago, America, Putin and Trump. It was funny,

Back to the motel, and then Lee, G and I ventured out to see if the donut shop was open. It was! And they were frying loukoumades right there and we got a dozen fresh ones with walnuts and honey - so good! Then on the way back to pick up Claudia for supper, Lee heard music and found some high school kids singing in a mosque so we stopped for that. Some of the singers had just come in from Choate Prep School in Connecticut, and they did a marvelous job singing Acapella in that domed ceiling space. 

Picked up Claudia and went back to the same place we ate the first night here in Nafpoli - this time trying Calimari, stuffed cabbage, and more fava bean spread. 

Cat count so far - 250.