Life-Altering Bread!

Okay, maybe it's not that dramatic, but I just made this bread last night, and the following recipe really changed the way I think about homemade bread. Of course, I love homemade bread, but after a day or two, it starts to get dry and crumbly, and that makes it hard to compete with soft-for-weeks store-bought bread. Believe me, I try to fight those thoughts, but they come unbidden!

Well, this bread had such an amazing, fine crumb, and is so soft... I can cut it and the slice doesn't fall apart. It's beautiful!! Try this bread out. I think the secret is the egg.

Rich Honey Egg Bread


1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups (or more) of unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4 cup honey
1 1/2 tsp. of salt
2 1/4 tsp. yeast (1 packet)
3/4 cup very warm water
2 Tbsp. oil
1 large egg
Butter, if desired

1. Mix the whole wheat flour, the salt and yeast in a large bowl. Add the honey to the warm water and stir until mostly dissolved. Add the water/honey mixture to the bowl with the flour. Beat with electric mixer on low speed 1 minute, scraping bowl frequently. Beat on medium speed 1 minute, scraping bowl frequently. Add egg; beat until smooth. Mix in the all-purpose flour and more, if needed, to make dough easy to handle.

2. Place dough on lightly floured surface. Knead about 10 minutes or until dough is smooth and springy. Place dough in a large, greased bowl, turning dough to grease all sides. Cover bowl loosely and let rise in warm place about 1 hour or until double. Dough is ready if indentation remains when touched.

3. Grease bottom and sides of a regular-sized bread loaf pan. Gently push fist into dough to deflate and knead a couple strokes. Pull dough into a tight log shape and place in the loaf pan. Cover loosely and let rise in warm place about 1 hour or until double.

4. Move oven rack to low position so that top of pan will be in center of oven. Heat oven to 375º. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until the internal temperature reaches 190º and crust is a deep golden brown. Remove from pan to wire rack and brush loaf with butter; cool. AND EAT! Mmmmm!!!

*Adapted from a Betty Crocker recipe.

Volunteering & A Soap Box

I just spent a couple hours at the Days End Horse Rescue farm this morning. Today I curried a beautiful chestnut horse and learned how to push him around (to get to his other side), and I mucked out two stalls. I really enjoyed these chores, lost in my own thoughts and enjoying the feel of my hand running across the horse's coarse hair as I brushed him. I even enjoyed the heft of the shovel, heavy with wet sawdust and dumped it into my cart. It's a good exercise, living in suburbia, to get a taste of outdoor work and taking care of animals. It gives me a glimpse into what I might want on our own homestead in the near future.

For a long time, it's been hard to look at houses for sale. It's this tortuous thing that my husband and I do every now and then. It's like we can't even help ourselves. After awhile I would get sick of that longing ache and tell my husband we had to stop. It's so hard to look at something that you can't have!

Well, the other day something changed in my thinking. Instead of focusing on what we don't have, what we can't do, I realized that right now is the time to be doing the research, to be finding out what we do and do not want in a home and land. At the Mother Earth News fair, I talked to one of the workshop teachers and her husband after her class ("Why Homegrown and Homemade"), and they warned me to be careful about buying land in the "country". Her husband said that a lot of times, farmers sell off bits of their farmland in parcels of 5 acres or so to people who want to live in "the country". But what you need to know is that a lot of these farmers have sprayed their fields with who knows what for who knows how long and when you buy that parcel of land neighboring a used field, who knows what they will continue to spray on it! I had never thought of that before and I am so glad they told me that. It's one more thing to add to our list of what to look out for as we're looking for a place to settle.

This morning on the radio I heard this advertisement for Monsanto (a big {evil} agricultural company) and
 it said "Monsanto - working with farmers in the U.S. and internationally towards sustainability". I yelled at the radio, "Yeah, RIGHT!" Monsanto is one of those big bullying ag companies that created the GMO crops out there - crops that aren't reliable, crops that cannot be planted from their own seed, crops that spread their contaminated pollen into unsuspecting farmer's fields that have saved their seeds for generations. I am all for GMO foods required by law to be labeled. Do you know why there's such a big fight against it? I think it's because 80% of what's in the stores would need to put "contains GMO food products" on their packaging. It's so scary and it is so sad that it's getting harder and harder to have pure foods. - Another reason to look for land away from farmer's fields so that my own plants won't be affected.

Okay... I'm off my soap box now.

Happy October!

Happy October everyone! I'm a few days late, but that's okay! October 1st for us was cold and cloud-covered - the perfect autumn weather! Just today on the radio I heard that in Sweden it's National Cinnamon Roll day. Hello! That's a day I'd like to celebrate. :-)

Speaking of bread, I'll be posting an amazing bread recipe I just found in a bit. But right now, I'm off to the Days End Horse Rescue farm!

Made From Scratch Heaven!

I stumbled on this site when I was looking for corn syrup alternatives in recipes and they have a lot of "DIY " recipes. I am totally stoked! I can't wait to give a few of them a try. The site is called The Kitchn. Here's the link:
http://www.thekitchn.com/thekitchn/recipe-roundup/diy-recipes-from-the-kitchn-076706

And here's an article called "To Bake or Not to Bake".

Have fun!

Appalled!

I am totally appalled that tomato season completely passed me by and I didn't even notice. I didn't hear anything about it, I was just clueless. Maybe it was because my own tomatoes were sad failures. I really have no idea I could be so out there that I could forget about tomatoes. And now, I am frantic about what to do!

For the past 2 years I've canned my own salsa. I don't even want to go back to the store-bought! I might throw a tantrum if I'm forced to. Home canned salsa is so amazing. It's so flavorful and delicious, even more so knowing that I canned it myself. (Even if I didn't add as much salt as I was supposed to and every time we opened a jar we had to add a teaspoon of salt. haha!)

Seriously, we're down to ONE jar. In my family, that is just not acceptable. My husband can go through an entire quart jar all by himself in one sitting. No joke.

But wait! I just realized... I have 2 cases of canned organic diced tomatoes... I know I didn't pick the tomatoes myself, I didn't meet the plant they were picked from, but they're already peeled and and diced for me... Yes! Redemption! My jalapenos did very well this year and all I need are some peppers and onions and I am set! Woo! That's makin' do, folks! Yesirree! I can breathe again knowing that we'll have a stock of salsa to last us another year. And hopefully I won't forget about the tomatoes next year.

P.S. Here's my salsa recipe.

Mother Earth News Fair 2011

We got back late Saturday night from this year's Mother Earth News Fair in PA. We left our kids with some friends, which was a very good decision. Everyone was much happier all around that way! This was actually kind of an early anniversary trip for my hubby and me. We were married in December, but it's hard to go anywhere if you don't like skiing. (I do want to go snow shoeing this year though...) We had a great time at the fair. (And it sure helped to bring our own lunch. Lines were crazy...) If you're curious, advance tickets to the fair were only $15. That's pretty darn reasonable!

I just have to say that the fair was fabulous! There were a lot of great improvements over last year's fair. For one, the book store section was 6 times the size it was before, in the center of the room, and they sent 25% off coupons with our tickets! Hooray for coupons! I got some awesome books. I even read one I got already called Maple Sugar: From Sap to Syrup - The History, Lore, and How-To Behind This Sweet Treat. The book was awesome! (I really just love Storey Publishing. Their books rock.)

Okay, enough gushing. Here are the workshops I attended:

1. Chick Days: First steps to a backyard flock - Jenna Woginrich

2. A Year in the Life of a Micro Farm - Andy McCallister (how awesome that he put his power point online!! - click on the title of the workshop for his power point link)

3. Food Sovereignty: Get Big Ag and the goverment out of your kitchen - Robin Mather
If you're tired of the government telling you what you can and can't eat, if you're angered by Big Ag's refusal to label GMO foods, a food sovereignty initiative may be the solution. Learn how tiny Sedgewick, Maine, passed the country's first food sovereignty laws, and get the nuts-and-bolts materials to do the same.
Robin's Blog: http://thefeastnearby.com/

4. The Backyard Rabbitry: Rabbits for Meat - Jenna Woginrich

5. Working Companions: Dogs for small farms and homesteads - Heather Houlahan

6. Why Homegrown and Handmade - Deborah Niemann

7. Keynote Speech: Taking the First Steps to Sustainability - Jenna Woginrich (got my books of hers autographed and got a free unproofed copy of her new book "Barnheart" due out in December! Woohoo! Thanks, Jenna!)

My husband went to other workshops talking about bio-diesel, passive-solar homes, and other geeky technical stuff like that. It was great to divide and conquer!

I took notes at all of the workshops and I'm planning on typing them up. So, if you're interested, just let me know and I can e-mail you the notes.

Books I got: Maple Sugar: From Sap to Syrup, Chick Days, Homegrown and Handmade (I just found out that this book isn't even released yet! Huh!), How to Grow and Preserve Your Own Food (a Mother Earth News Wiser Living Series booklet with a compilation of articles on one similar topic), Guide to Backyard Bees and Honey (Grit Country Skills Series), and my husband got a booklet on straw bale building specifications for builders. We just might have a straw bale structure in our distant future... :-)

The fair was so fun. I can't wait to go again next year! (Sorry no pictures! I was rushing around looking at stuff and forgot I was lugging around my camera. Sheesh.)

Days End Horse Rescue

Whoa, it's been awhile! Sorry about that.

I was able to arrange it to have a babysitter come and watch the kids once a week so that I could get out of the house. (It's nice not to go crazy!) And I wanted to spend the time either volunteering for the park where I'm on the museum committee, at a horse rescue farm, or sitting in a coffee shop working on my writing. (I'm in a writers group! Yay!)

I've passed Days End Horse Rescue farm on the way to pick fruit at Larriland Farms many times. Outside their main fence they've had a sign saying they needed volunteers, so I signed up! I'll probably go there twice a month to work. I look at it as a chance to learn in a realistic setting what it takes to care for large animals (horses in this case) and to gain some valuable experience at a working farm for when we have our own small farm some day. I figure the price of a babysitter every week is like paying for an inexpensive hands-on course in horse care and farm chores. Awesome!

So, I went there last Tuesday and went through a one-on-one orientation with this nice young woman named Jill. She showed me around the farm, explained where they get their rescued horses from (abused and neglected) and how they bring them back to health. All the horses are graded at a certain level of behavior so that beginner volunteers don't wind up working with a Level Red horse who is dangerous and highly unpredictable.

My first day I helped muck out a stall (Yay! I've been looking forward to that. Well, hey, I didn't grow up on a farm so mucking is like a novelty!) and accidentally left the horse's stall door open when I left to dump off the old sawdust from his stall. Doh! Luckily, he was occupied with his food and didn't make a break for it and an employee saw it in time and closed the door. Won't make that mistake again! I also helped move around some donations from another farm into the feed barn and filled up a wheel barrow with fresh sawdust for the stall. And I learned to "catch" and lead a horse as well as how to read a horse's body language. Luckily they gave me a nice, docile horse who was a sweetie and only a tiny stubborn. After only a few hours I was beat! It really showed me how much of a wimp I am - something I'm hoping volunteering at this place will cure. I really have never been around big animals like this much, and it was pretty intimidating! I'm used to cats and gerbils, people! So, obviously, I've got a lot to learn.

And man, it was muddy! I'm gonna have to get me some muck boots...

Oh, and the 2011 Mother Earth News Fair is coming up this weekend! Woohoooo! And I'm very excited that Jenna from Cold Antler Farm is going to be there to speak and hold a couple of workshops. I am really stoked about her meat rabbit workshop. I'll let you know what I learn!