2008 Food Blog Awards: It's Time for You To Vote! (And Some Sourdough Inspiration)

It's great to hear that many of your 2009 bread baking goals (keep them coming!) involve sourdough. And we promise this really is going to be the year we finally take you step-by-step through the simple process of creating, caring for, and using your very own sourdough starter. I've been wanting to make the German Rye Sourdough in Local Breads since I first flipped through this wonderful book (which you can read more about here). My own rye starter died from neglect several months ago, so now I'm especially motivated. I miss my sourdough onion rye bread!

In the meantime, sourdough novices and experts alike will find plenty of beautiful and delicious inspiration over at Wild Yeast, which has just been nominated for Best Food Blog—Theme in the 2008 Food Blog Awards. Congratulations!

And I'm thrilled that my blog, Farmgirl Fare, has been nominated in the Best Food Blog—Rural category.

The Food Blog Awards are a wonderful way to discover dozens of the best food blogs around. The polls are open to the public and you can vote on all 14 categories here. Voting ends Saturday January 24th at 8pm EST. Have fun!

© Copyright 2009 AYearInBread.com, the bread baking blog where sometimes the hardest step when making a sourdough starter is actually getting around to starting it!

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What Are Your Bread Baking Goals for 2009?

White Pizza Goes Green: Susan's Swiss Chard Artichoke Pizza

The other day my foodie friend Mark Overbay, who works at the awesome Counter Culture Coffee in Durham, North Carolina, shared one of his New Year's resolutions with me. "I’ve vowed to myself to learn how to bake good bread from scratch in 2009," he confided in an e-mail. "My goal is to be able to provide my friends with loaves of delicious bread by next Thanksgiving. I will be referencing A Year in Bread often, I’m sure!"

Of course we think this is a wonderful New Year's goal. And Mark isn't the only one with bread baking plans on the brain. I've been hearing from people all over who really want to start baking their own bread in the coming months.

Is 2009 the year you've decided to get back into a regular bread baking routine? Maybe you're planning to retire the bread machine and try kneading some dough by hand? Or perhaps you've decided you're ready to invite a sourdough starter to live in your fridge? Small steps can be exciting (and good for you), too—using more whole grains, seeking out local and organic ingredients, vowing to figure out what a sponge actually is (besides the thing you clean with) are all worthwhile ambitions.

You can even multi-task your resolutions. Do you aim to eat more healthy greens this year? Just cook them up and spread them on some homemade pizza dough! My easy Swiss Chard and Artichoke Pizza is so good you'll forget how good it is for you.

Here at A Year in Bread our goals for the year are simple:
1. Bake more bread.
2. Expand and share our bread baking experiences and knowledge.
3. Post a lot more often.
4. Finally get around to tackling sourdough starters with you!

So what about you? We'd love to hear your own personal bread baking goals for the year. And hopefully we can help you achieve them. Requests for what you'd like to see us cover on A Year In Bread are always welcome.

Related posts:
Links to All the Sandwich Loaf Recipes on A Year in Bread
Susan: Farmhouse White Sandwich Bread (a great beginner loaf)
Susan: Pizza Dough
Beth: Pizza Dough
Kevin: Pizza Dough
Susan: Arugula Pesto Pizza
Susan: Three Onion and Three Cheese Pizza
Susan: Fresh Tomato and My Favorite Basil Pesto Pizza

© Copyright 2009 AYearInBread.com, the bread baking blog where life is always better when there are Four Hour Parisian Daily Baguettes (so good, yet so easy to make!) and a couple of kinds of homemade pizza in the freezer.

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