There was a time years ago when I was hooked on baking sourdough bread. I had the requisite starter you need to infuse the bread with flavor and leavening, and I baked it religiously every week. At some point it became too much for me and I gave up both baking the bread and keeping the starter. But then my friend Joanne Sherif, a baker who owns Cardamom Bakery & Cafe, gave me some of her discard starter and I was off and running to find ways to use the starter that didn’t tie me to baking just bread. Over the past year I’ve made chocolate cake and double chocolate banana bread—with my discarded starter. And I’ve made everything from English muffins to popovers to even granola. In my latest piece for The San Diego Union-Tribune I explain how to use discarded sourdough starter and offer a few recipes to start with.