My first flop...

Ok, so it wasn't exactly a flop, but it wasn't what I expected.  It had been a week since I used my sourdough starter, so it was time to use more (or throw away some of it).  I decided to try making a sourdough loaf in the machine.  I enjoy sourdough occasionally and I hated to throw away some of my starter, so I decided to see what kind of loaf it would produce.  I added some sunflower seeds and raisins to a basic whole-wheat sourdough recipe.  For comparison, here's my first loaf of bread:

And here's the sourdough one:

No, I didn't cut the top off.  Needless to say, it's quite dense, but actually tastes pretty good.  I still don't think it's something I'm going to want often, which means I'll either stop keeping up with my starter or throw some away most weeks (probably the former).  It was a good experiment, but not exactly what I expected.

Fortunately I had other successes this weekend.  It's been raining (or pouring, rather) since Friday afternoon, so I've spent most of the weekend cooking, reading, and watching movies.  Yesterday I made a good stir fry with lots of leftover things I had (brown rice, chicken, peppers, and mushrooms), and today I baked some tomatoes that I had stuffed with ground beef, brown rice, and a bunch of spices.  I enjoyed both, especially along with veggies (which consisted of more sauteed squash, steamed spinach, and steamed carrots).