So Mom, if you’re reading this… I may have snuck in to your house and stole away with your breadstick recipe. It might still be here, in my purse, ready to give back to you…
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Category: bread
Today’s To-Do List
Monday is my day off and I’m staying super busy! This is more for my purposes but in case you’re interested, here’s what is on my agenda: -Can more green beans (they’re on the stove now)-Bake bread-Call the builder-Call the plumber-Call on prices for an automatic cattle waterer-Balance the checkbook/pay bills-Find the title for a trailer we’re selling-Call the orchard to order peaches (Mmmm!)-Scope out vacation destinations online (this is coming up fast!)-Make the weekly menu plan-Make granola bars if time allows-Finish knitted baby shower gift and make progress on wedding gift The bathroom needs to be painted and the landscape worked on but it is incredibly hot and humid/sticky so I won’t be doing either of those things today. I’m hoping to bust through the rest of the list so I can just knit and work on the bread. I’d love to hear what you’re doing today! 🙂
Continue readingBack 2 Basics and Other Challenges
I’ve decided to start the Back 2 Basics Harvest Keeper Challenge for 2009. Chicken eggs will be the only thing on the list for now but I am excited to see things rack up once spring arrives. This will be very good for me because I kept no records from all of the farming and canning I did last year. Check out my sidebar if you’re interested, and go visit Farm Mom for a better example. Other challenge updates: We haven’t been using our corn burner at all due to it malfunctioning and refusing to keep a fire going. Brian is trying to track down the problem but in the meantime we’re blowing our budget with all the fuel oil we’re burning. So much for keeping track of the corn we use! We do keep the thermostat set low (58-62 F) and I finally found the controls for our dual heated blanket so we use that every night to take the edge off. I covered most of our windows with the clear plastics kits in the fall and although I don’t how much that is helping I do like that I can’t feel a breeze when I walk by the
Continue readingA Local Loaf
Today I picked up another order of local flours from Hampshire Farms (see sidebar for link). I got: 25# 100% whole grain bread flour10# 100% whole grain pastry flour2# cornmeal5# sunflower seeds (dehulled) Randy Hampshire, who filled my order was more than happy to show me around their farm. They have a USDA approved kitchen on site along with the brick oven that Randy built himself. It was very impressive! The farm also boasts a nice warehouse in an old grainery, where all of their flour and wheat is stored. They also have, meandering around the pastures, a family cow. She is a nice looking Jersey and had a few other cattle keeping her company. I have given a lot of thought to having our own family cow and have thought about it more and more seriously lately. I don’t think it is the right time for us, and it would take a lot to convince my husband. He probably has a point – it is a lot easier to find someone to throw in some grain for our animals then to milk twice a day when we want a vacation. In any case, of was jealous of Randy’s family
Continue readingA Twinge of Self-Sufficiency
I like to play this game where I try to stock up enough food and staples that I don’t have to go grocery shopping for a long time. After a lot of practice I finally got to where the only things on the list were dairy products such as milk, cheese slices, cheese sticks, and butter. Apple juice also had a permanent spot on the list. After a few good sales we now have lots of cheese and butter in the freezer and many, many gallons of juice in the pantry. We’re down to picking up a gallon of milk here and there when we stop at the local meat market for lunch meat. Today when I came home from work I walked in to the kitchen and sat my tin I Love Lucy lunch box on the counter as usual. From there I looked over towards the fridge and could see that two lines at the top of the grocery list had writing on them. Darn! I thought, what could we possibly be out of!?! bagelscream cheese Bagels – hmmph! The last package almost got moldy before I pointed that out and my hubby quickly scarfed them down as
Continue readingLiving Like A Pioneer
So in honor of Crunchy Chicken’s Pioneer Week I’m doing things a little different this week. The idea is to live as much like a Pioneer as you can by using local, non-processed goods and giving up some modern conveniences. For me this means no TV this week. I did watch the election coverage last night and I’m not avoiding my husband by leaving the room when he watches TV, but I am keeping my attention on my book (currently reading You Can Farm). I’ve also been baking like crazy. Honestly, I just pulled the last breads out of the oven and now the entire length of the counter is lined with homemade goodies. Today I finally got my first order of locally grown & ground flours from Hampshire Farms. Perfect timing for this challenge! The flour is definitely more coarse than store bought. The whole wheat bread flour didn’t work too well with the dough hooks in my mixer so I kneaded it by hand for the whole 10 minutes. I also got some pastry flour and cornmeal, so I made a pan of cornbread with dinner. I cooked pork chops from our local meat market where most of
Continue readingBreaking Bread
Unfortunately I’m not referring to socializing or dining when I say “breaking bread”. I’ve finally turned out two good batches of homemade bread and plan to stop buying the store bought stuff all together. There are a few problems though. First, my hubby noted that the bread, although soft, is very crumbly and therefore is hard to eat while driving or even while sitting and reading a book as I like to do on my lunch break. We both end up with crumbs all over the place.Second, we tried to use this bread in place of a hot dog bun, which we usually do with store bought bread. I’ve found buns usually go stale before we use them. This bread just broke right in half instead of folding nicely around the hot dog. Now I’m sure I could come up with a recipe for homemade hot dog buns but unless they freeze well, we would never use them in time. The final problem, again related to the bread’s form, was found this morning when I pulled a couple pieces out of the bread bag I had reused. They broke in half just from that. What a mess!As I said, this
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