who'd have thunk a bag of mush would taste so yummy

On Monday Groove showed up in my cubicle with four bags of mush. Don't believe me? Take a look. Okay, so the bag in the photo isn't the same bag of mush he pawned off on me, but it's one of the four bags that came out of the mush making progress.

Let me explain.

Groove's wife received her bag of mush from someone at work. The bag of mush as we call it is actually the starter for what is known as Amish Friendship Bread. After making up her bread and having the requisite four starters left over she didn't know who to pass them on to since it'd been circulating around her workplace for some time. That's how I ended up with them. I in turn passed three of the mush bags on to co-workers and took one home.

It was Day 6 - time to add flour, sugar and milk.

The odor was putrid, but playing with the mush in the bag was sort of fun. Over the next four days I had to expel the air that built up in the bag while it fermented. Let me tell you, there were times I was wishing I had a gas mask. Ewww!

Friday was Day 10. I came home from work planning on making bread - until I actually read the rest of the ingredients of the recipe and realized not only did I not have enough of them to finish making the new mush bags, I most certainly didn't have the ingredients to mix up the final bread batter. I thought about heading out to the store but it was Friday night. So, I decided to leave the bag overnight and deal with it the following day. How could it possibly go bad? I mean who knows how long this starter has been added to over and over again making it's way from person to person. It's already rotten as hell, what's one more day gonna hurt, right?

Yesterday I ventured out for the grocery shopping trip from hell. Not only did we need all the regular stuff we eat, but the pantry needed restocking, I had bread ingredients to buy, Thanksgiving goodies to get, and some stuff for a potluck on Tuesday. Plus I hate grocery shopping - especially on a Saturday. But we got it all. Including the mush bag finishing items.

Last night I set into finishing this crazy project. I added my stuff, poured my four mush bags, and set off to complete the bread making. Behold the gorgeous and yummy bread that came out of a little bag of mush! I was this was going to make bread, not cake. It has the same texture, and similar taste, as pound cake. Very yummy indeed! Great, just what I need to add a little more top to my muffin. Gah!

Now the fun part - passing the bags of mush on to other unsuspecting bakers. Bwahahaha!!!