I have been considering how best to answer the actual topic of this challenge, which is how to use the things we might otherwise throw away. Inspired by this, I decided to try an experiment, using the water from boiling potatoes as the liquid in a batch of pizza dough for tomorrow's dinner. This actually utilizes two things that would otherwise go down the drain, the starch-laden water and the heat in that water. So instead of taking plain water and heating it to a good temperature for the yeast, I drained the potato water into a measuring cup and let it cool during dinner. By the time we cleared the table, the potato water had cooled to the perfect temperature for yeast. I used the excellent pizza dough recipe by Evan Kleiman from FC #49, which I will bake tomorrow. I'll report back on the pizza. I could also see using potato water for making stock, but the timing might be difficult-- you do not want to waste a lot of energy cooling down boiling water and then heating it back up, so the stock would have to be ready to simmer as you drained the potatoes.
Results: I baked the dough as pizza the next day and it was a lovely dough-- very easy to handle with good spring. My husband and I agreed that the potato water made the dough a bit more chewy than my usual pizza dough. Whilst this was not a good thing for pizza dough, I think it would be great for a rye bread. Next time!
