Hi All,
It’s 3.41am on a Sunday and I just made myself some chocolate pudding. I think I need to clarify something here…the intention wasn’t to deliver myself a bowl of breakfast but a drink. I opened the fridge up this morning and took out my non-dairy milk to make myself my first cup of tea. I opened the cap and took a sniff (a wise thing to do when you make your own milks with a much shorter shelf life) and realised that my non-dairy milk was starting to head for the dark side…not in a serious way, but in enough of a “way” to make my tea curdle. Tea is my early morning institution, it’s like some folk consider their bacon and eggs…their morning toast, their newspaper…it is sacred to me and to have it curdle on me wasn’t an option. I would save my first cup of tea till later in the day when I could make a LOT of noise using my Vitamix.
Another lovely autumn sunrise on Serendipity Farm. You can see how chilly it is these days but isn’t it pretty?
What to do with my slightly sour scented almond and oat milk that remained? Turn it into a nice big mug of hot carob! I had a container of carob that was interlaced with a bit of raw cacao that the lady in the health food shop had managed to fandangle me into buying (never shop on an empty stomach folks!) and I figured I would just apply the cocoa techniques to the carob/cacao mix. Easy peasy! I tipped 2 tbsp. of carob/cacao mix into my smallest saucepan and I crushed it to a fine powder. I then added an equal amount of the non-dairy milk and I whisked the mix till it was smooth (who likes lumpy cocoa?!) and slowly added the rest of the non-dairy milk and a few scoops of whole date paste (my sweetener of choice) until the mix was nice and smooth and put it on top of the newly ignited Brunhilda and stirred. After about 5 minutes of stirring (Brunhilda stays slowly slumbering overnight ready to wake up at a moment’s notice) I had a pot of brown unctuousness ready to pour into a large mug and enjoy.
Steve attempting to teach Earl to “stay”…doing good Earl…doing good!
Bezial “pointing” to a wasp
I was smug! I managed to use up something that wasn’t all that good for much and turned it into a win! That was till I started to pour it into my mug and realised that when you use “almond and OAT” milk to make a drink, and you put it on the stove you end up with chocolate porridge. Don’t get me wrong folks…I am NOT going to waste it! I have a silky smooth form of breakfast oats that I never would have tried before that tastes pretty good but a morning “cuppa” it is not. Oh well…looks like Sunday is going to be an interesting day today! I look forward to exploring its eccentricities but for now I had best get me a spoon and eat my “cocoa”…
We were getting tired of the possums using this bench to climb up, eat our plants, knock them over and steal the wren and cuckoo shrikes cheese while we slept so we rearranged the area. So far so good…there was still cheese on the window sill this morning!
Earl teaching me a very valuable lesson…”when we go out…make sure to remember to use the head halter or you aren’t going to be able to walk with Earl and you are going to have to ski down the driveway”…consider this little black duck taught! 😉 In this shot, Earl’s lead is wrapped around the tree in the background so that I didn’t have to suffer the ignominy of being dragged down our steep driveway upside down to Steve’s feet at the bottom of the driveway…I don’t think I would have EVER lived that down! 😉 (and he had his new camera with him so you can bet he would have “documented it for posterity” 😉 )
My “cocoa” was such a success that I have started adding it to my regular breakfast line-up. I throw a handful of rolled oats, a few whole almonds (might get round to soaking them someday but for now they are just out of the freezer in their dry state) and a scoop or two of carob mixed with some raw cacao into my Vitamix and process them for a minute till they are like a fine flour. After that, I put them into a saucepan along with a couple of scoops of homemade date paste and start adding water slowly mixing to ensure I don’t have any lumps. After simmering and constantly stirring on the stove I end up with chocolate pudding porridge that appeals to the need for speed, nutrition hunting, comfort food seeking part of me and satisfies all three with great aplomb.
Maples starting to really colour up and these brachychitons that were almost dead last year appear to be getting a new lease on life after we cleared out the weeds and debris underneath them
The title of today’s post is most fitting because bread was one of my soul foods back in the day. I could eat a whole loaf of fresh white bread slathered with butter, toasted and slathered with butter, made into toasted sandwiches slathered with butter…you get my drift ;). Today I don’t eat bread. I haven’t eaten bread since January when I started using green smoothies to mainline my nutrients and I haven’t ever felt better. Narf7 might love bread but I fear she can’t eat that fluffy white nutritionally defunct version of it anymore. So what can I eat? I can eat homemade good quality whole-wheat or multigrain bread and that’s where Audrey comes into the picture
A shot of the terrible state of our driveway. It’s VERY lucky that we own a 4 x 4 because I dare say we would have to park at the bottom of the driveway and walk up if we had anything less!
I got Audrey from Jess of Rabid Little Hippy blogging fame. I have faithfully maintained Audrey, even though of late, she has only been out of the fridge for her 4 day feeding events (that seem to have stretched to weekly feeding events without much protest on her behalf). She has been incredibly faithful in her efforts and whenever I am ready to bake, she wakes up and rises (literally 😉 ) to the occasion. I have a mission. I have been stalking a most wonderful conglomerate of amazing bakers who get together to share the amazing bread that they have been baking called Yeast spotting. If you would like to check it out for yourself and are at all interested in the yeasty path of righteous baking, here’s a linky…
http://www.wildyeastblog.com/2013/05/05/yeastspotting-5-5-13/
Steve took this “shroom’s eye view” shot of the Auld Kirk Church yesterday…just thought you might like to see it from a shroom’s point of view 😉
Each one of those 3 classifications of bread links will open up a plethora of passionate bread makers who are willing to share their magnificent creations with us all. I fell instantly in love with this blog and have been following a few of the bakers that regularly post. Ian, of the wonderful blog Mookie loves Bread, bakes some of the most amazing bread that I have ever seen. Aside from the amazing bread he loves cats and he finds the time to give his amazing bread the most fantabulous names. Who couldn’t love a blog like that? I have been ruminating about wanting to start baking “real bread” for a while now. I decided that as Brunhilda is going to be pretty much on the go 24/7 for our coming 6 – 7 months of Ice age (CHEERS LINNIE! 😉 ) that I may as well use this opportunity of constantly “on” ovens to learn to bake really good loaves of bread. I have been commenting on Ian’s blog for a while now as I drool over the endless line of gorgeousness that he produces on a regular basis and he has kindly offered to assist me with my baking processes should I run into any problems…who am I kidding! I am GOING to run into problems! 😉 Why start with the basic stuff? If you are narf7, you have a built in perfection valve and Ian appears to have that very same perfection valve because his recipes leave no room for omissions. A great place to start for a beginner and so I have decided to throw myself in at the deep end and attempt to make Ian’s amazing “Kamut-Turkey Whole Wheat Spelt Tomato Sour Dough Bread” as my very first proper loaf of bread. Here’s the link if you would like to check it out…
“Is it for me? is it? Please? Pretty Please?…”
I started preparing this loaf of bread 2 days ago. As someone who isn’t naturally patient (I can hear my children laughing out loud there 😉 ), this 3 day process to churn out a loaf of bread, certainly doesn’t come naturally to me. I think next year I am going to take up the word “patience” and run with it (or maybe “walk slowly with it” is more to the point 😉 ) but for now, good old impatient narf7 is going to have to muster up the serenity to go slow. I have the mashed potato ready for this recipe. I am raring to go and I can’t wait to see if I can bake anything like the gorgeous loaf that Ian made in this tutorial. I am prepared for disaster but my optimistic side says “go for it narf7!” so I am :o). Wish me luck folks. Today…I bake!
Steve’s new paramour and accoutrements 😉
While I was rabidly hoarding recipes from the Yeast spotting site I came across another amazing blog. Zita, from Baking Badly does anything BUT bake badly. This young guy is a most amazing baker and his site is a study in list making, perfection and appealed to my inner experimental baker and my inner list maker at the very same time. How could you resist bread called “Pregels” a cross between pretzels and bagels…and not only does he show us how to make them, he perfects his recipe over 3 posts! Here’s the first pregel recipe should you want to drool all over your computer screen…
http://bakingbadly.com/2013/03/31/spiced-sourdough-pregels-pretzels-bagels/
Steve’s “Old School” cameras and his new baby
The next 2 posts after this one are both about the pregel perfection process although if I could turn out pregels as amazing looking as Zita’s very first batch I would be entirely satisfied and would be baking them for the entire neighbourhood all puffed up with baking pride ;). After initially thinking that Zita was a girl and commenting as such, he forgave me my stupidity and has decided to help me through my sourdough stumbling’s anyway. Cheers Zita, you are a truly kind blogger to be sharing your amazing talent with us all. I think my next sourdough journey is going to be a nice big batch of pregels :o)
Steve’s speed camera. He plans on raising some valuable (elusive) funds on Serendipity Farm by accepting bribe money from upset speedsters 😉
I am a camera widow. Since we started our new course Steve has been making rumblings about cameras. He is a camera buff from WAY back and it would seem our little Fuji S5700 wasn’t giving up the goods enough for Stevie-Boy. We recently got given a pittance by the government in a vain attempt to encourage us to vote for our current prime minister. Note the distinct lack of capital letters for such an esteemed position. I did that on purpose…sigh…I don’t even want to THINK about voting in 3 elections over the coming year and will probably be registering my very first ever donkey vote in my voting history because there just isn’t any candidate worthy of my vote :o(. The dribble of bribe money did, however, allow us to start a small side saving venture that we have been adding to each fortnight. Steve has been avidly studying camera review websites in an effort to isolate the very best entry level SLR camera possible for our purposes and last week stumbled over an amazing deal from Harvey Normans. I am not going to promote this shop here in my post or blog aside from this singular mention. Gerry Harvey is a racists, a bigot, and a consumerist money monger who I would rather drown than promote BUT his online shop managed to make Steve “SQUEE” last week and our carefully hoarded camera savings were able to get us a new Canon EoS 1100D a lot quicker than we thought that they would.
One of Steve’s first photo’s taken with his new camera…note the tree in the background that STILL hasn’t fallen down!
The new baby arrived on our doorstep yesterday. Delivered by a courier, not a stalk, and the poor man stood there bewildered whilst Steve signed his bit of paper and the dogs gave him a magnificent rendition of the Halleluiah chorus from above on the deck all in barks. After the poor man drove his van back down our approximation of a driveway (runnels included for free) Steve raced inside and fondled the large box that the camera came in. I could see that faraway look that men get when they get a new toy and knew instantly that Steve had left the building. I dare say he won’t be back for the next week. He disappeared outside with his new baby as soon as the battery charged and even read an online manual (the real one had writing that was too small…glasses time methinks Stevie-Boy!) so that should tell all of my female dear constant readers how serious this new love really is and he even found out where the “Q” button was…I have NO idea why he would think I could care less where the “Q” button was but it was apparently a small triumph…
Steve’s new camera adds a whole new dimension to our exploration of photography. We haven’t got the foggiest idea about how to use it but you can be sure that Steve is on the case as I type this. By the end of the month it will be putty in his hands 😉
Watching a 48 year old man springing off into the vestigial jungle of Serendipity Farm with a large camera around his neck is like waving goodbye to your last child as they head out of the house…FREEDOM! I know that I can do whatever I like for the next week…Steve won’t care. He will pretend to care; he will mutter vaguely positive things whenever I ask him about anything but he is gone…away with the camera pixies in photographic heaven for the duration of time that it takes to absorb this new toy in its entirety. That might take some time folks. This one does all different kinds of things. It beeps and takes 4 or more photos a second (you get to choose) and will perform sequences of actions seamlessly and can be programmed. This camera is his new best mate and he was holding it tenderly on the sofa last night. I headed off to bed and I swear he was talking to it…should I be alarmed? Nope. I know he will be back when the novelty wears off 😉
The new camera took this photo of our fairy grotto in these alarming colours today. Steve didn’t fiddle with it, it was on automatic and who knows why it decided to add these vibrant greens to what is actually somewhat dull at the moment. Who cares…doesn’t it look pretty? We are enjoying pretending that we actually live in Ireland 😉
This is the actual colouring on Serendipity Farm at the moment. That large brush pile in the background is just that…a large brush pile waiting for a Guy. The collection of wood in the foreground on the right hand side is some of my driftwood that I have found just opposite this area on the riverbank
So in the throes of baking, kefiring, making various non-dairy milks and working through our latest tangled mass of studies I might love you and leave you there folks. I have so much to do today that I am sacrilegiously thinking of only half reading my RSS Feed Reader today and just blasting straight into the “Doing” bit of my day early…” sacre bleu!” I haven’t even filled my allotted 2800 words! This Saturday I will be posting my entry into The Virtual Vegan Potluck. Hopefully you all stick around to see what culinary creation narf7 has decided to enter into the fray and my own little personal twist. Saturday is also the day of the enormous progressive garage sale and Steve and I will be off and hunting nice and early. We will take the dogs and will walk them at Paper beach. Steve will be tenderly clutching his new baby and I will have old faithful, now officially “mine” so expect a LOT of pictures of the event. I will post about it next Wednesday and you will be able to tell the photos that Steve took…not by the quality, but more by his desire to use as many of the inbuilt features in a single photo as possible. Pfft…Aquarius’s and their artistic liens! 😉 See you on Saturday folks or if you choose to bypass the Veganese, see you Wednesday, hopefully loaded up with bargains and a wonderful pictorial trail of our adventure :o)
theroadtoserendipity 
May 08, 2013 @ 17:35:40
looking forward to see the baked baby!
May 09, 2013 @ 03:16:12
Not sure I am going to show it…I think it was way too damp (the dough) and it ended up spreading rather than rising much. I should probably have tried an easier bread but Steve tasted it and said that it tasted really nice, it just didn’t look very nice. Back to the drawing board! Loaf 1 is under my belt and I learned valuable lessons…”Next!” :).
May 10, 2013 @ 00:33:03
was it a sourdough-based loaf? if so, the main thing to consider is wheter your starter is lively enough. if not, why don’t you try to follow someone’s else method step by step in the beginning? you may try my overnight rolls, for instance, there is NO WAY to fail them… keep me posted
May 10, 2013 @ 05:41:27
Overnight rolls? Ok, I am game! Audrey is pretty lively but I think I jumped in at the deep end first up with the recipe. I followed a Mookie Loves Bread recipe but had to make a lot of substitutions as we just don’t have the ingredients here and I think that the flours I had to use may not have been entirely suitable. I agree, if you are following a recipe you need to make sure you follow it ;). Cheers for the heads up about your rolls and I will bake them next. It would be nice to have a success to brag about and if they turn out I will post about them and will link to your blog 🙂
May 10, 2013 @ 06:58:17
eheh, you don’t even need to quote me. I just want you to be happy about your baking. I think it’s best to start up with something easy and move forward toward more ambitious loaves. I started a series (bread for breakfast) in which I will post easy (but not less delicious and fun to make) breads. the last I posted is based on sourdough. I would love to see how your Audrey behaves with it.
May 11, 2013 @ 04:02:40
That’s a great idea to post simple loaves for people to start out with. I am pretty good with instant yeast and dried yeast breads and have been baking great loaves for a few years now but sourdough is a whole new ballgame 🙂
May 08, 2013 @ 17:40:54
Fronkii, Fronkii, Fronkii…… just drink milk. So much easier. At the least, keep a long life litre of soy, almond or rice milk in the pantry if you have to. I would have gone stir-crazy if I had to give up normal cows milk. If I had a health reason ie Allergy then yes, i’d have no qualms about giving it up but as its a nutrionally balanced food group (dairy) then i’m never going to give it up. Nice cameras too. Wish the government would try and woo Jason and I with free money. I think they know that one of us is never going to vote labour in her life (guess who?). I’ve been so sick these last two weeks with the flu from hell that I haven’t felt like blogging at all let alone checking on the blog. Starting to feel better a bit now so might get back to the recipes and photos soon. Love you xoxox
May 09, 2013 @ 03:28:56
Sorry you have had the flu Pinky :(. I dare say it will head on over this way in it’s own good time. I gave up dairy, meat etc. because I was the size of the side of a house (remember? 😉 ). I am naturally greedy. I can get as greedy as I like on a massive bowl of steamed cabbage and veggies without having to worry about my health. Almond and oat milk is actually really tasty. I make it myself because the shop bought stuff is very expensive and home made is always going to give you more quality control. The reason it went over to the dark side was that I was storing it in a 2 litre plastic milk container right alongside my sourdough starter in the fridge so there may have been a bit of crossover effect. I have now put my homemade almond and oat milk into a glass bottle. I only use soymilk (homemade) for my non-dairy kefir. I make it up with date paste and it turns into an amazing fermented fizzy drink. I use it in my morning green smoothies as a probiotic because I can’t stand that sweet stuff they try to sell as non-dairy yoghurt in the shops. You KNOW how passionate I am about my cuppas and I have tailored my non-dairy almond and oat milk to my own tastes and it works really well in a cuppa (unless it turns to the dark side…but then, regular milk is just as bad when it turns 😉 ). Yeah the government is just about to head over to the liberal side. I won’t be voting this year (well not in the normal sense…does drawing a horses derrière on your ballot paper count? 😉 ). I won’t support the greens because they sold their causes down the river, I won’t support labour because they are as corrupt as a bent penny in this state and I won’t support the liberals because they will completely remove support for unemployed and lower waged Aussies. They are only concerned about the upper and middle class. What’s left? Nothing :(. Our ridiculous amount of bribe money (they paid students the lowest amount because we are obviously morons who don’t know how to vote!) got saved up for a bit and added to and we decided to do something positive with it. I don’t even want to think of what is going to happen to Australia over the next few years after the liberals get in but I guess we are just going to have to suck it and see aren’t we? All I know is that labour doesn’t deserve another term and that is coming from a life-long labour supporter. They should be VERY afraid if people like me are not going to vote for them…take note labour…you are stuffed! Here’s a HUGE hug from Tassie Sis. By the way, just because we are complete opposites and do just about everything differently doesn’t mean that we aren’t the best sisters for each other :). It just means that we have to work a little bit harder to understand each others point of view and that is actually a really good thing. Easy relationships are boring :). Love right back atcha Pinky 🙂
May 08, 2013 @ 18:24:35
Well Fran about that driveway… will I be able to drive up in the little hire car?? I might need a tow lol. Good luck with the bread and the Virtual Vegan Hotpot and the progressive garage sale. You are one busy little vegemite! Looking forward to seeing what photos Steve’s new baby can take too. Sorry to hear you have been crook Cathy, I’ve had the damn flu too x
May 09, 2013 @ 03:35:18
It would seem that being a penniless hermit student hippy that only goes in to town once a month is doing me a favour! No flu here (yet). But Tassie is ALWAYS behind the mainland isn’t it! ;). No problems with your little hire car Kymmy, it’s the welcome committee at the other end that has me more worried! ;). Yeah we are flat out like lizzards drinking here Kymmy. We had to throw ourselves into our studies because our lecturer, for some reason, isn’t content to give us our course work up front. He makes us wait a few weeks and then throws it at us with deadlines that are within days of each other. I think he likes us to “think on the fly” but Steve and I are used to bolshie lecturers and are quite adaptable ;). It does mean that we can’t get out into the garden and get stuck into our veggie garden though as we have 3 deadlines this week to meet and they aren’t easy jobs. At least we are learning HEAPS about Photoshop and I will be able to airbrush all of my childhood photos to make myself look like Kate Moss! ROTFL!!! 😉
May 09, 2013 @ 12:32:49
Oh I like the sound of the air brushing! You can do that to any photos we have of my visit lol. Good luck with that lecturer, he sounds a bit power hungry to me as in “I am all knowing so you will do as I bid” kind of thing 🙂 Anyway hope you get into the garden soon. I’m yearning for some hay bales at the moment, but will have to see if I can sorce them from around here and not get ripped off in the process…
May 09, 2013 @ 12:55:47
I would ask some of the locals…start with your newly adoring deputy ;). The locals will know where to get hay and who from. I will air brush us both Kymmy so that we look like super models 😉
May 08, 2013 @ 18:34:29
i hope you post a pic of your loaf..happy baking!
May 09, 2013 @ 03:39:39
Hi Jane, That would require me “making” a nice loaf in the first place! After all that hype, my loaf spread sideways (obviously too much liquid) and ended up a sort of 3 inch pancake. I left it covered overnight and we will cut it today to see what the crumb (if it has one!) is like. As a first loaf I can learn all kinds of lessons from it including not substituting whatever you fancy for what is actually in the recipe! ;). Next time I make it, I will find the ingredients that the recipe calls for! Aside from the disappointing shape of the loaf Steve tried some of the dough that was left in the bowl after I tipped it out (very wet dough) because I tipped it into a cast iron frypan and cooked it to see what it was like while the “loaf” was cooking. He said it tasted really nice and went back for another piece so there is hope for it yet, so long as it cuts well and isn’t rock hard! I consider this first loaf a very valuable step in my process from complete rank beginner to someone who can turn out a reasonable sourdough loaf like you guys can :). Hopefully it won’t take me TOO long to get from go to whoa…a girl has only so much patience! 😉
May 08, 2013 @ 19:42:25
Chocolate pudding porridge for breakfast sounds much more fun than my rolled oats! You lead a very interesting life Fran.
Always lovely to read your newsy posts.
May 09, 2013 @ 03:43:12
It was actually quite tasty Jean :). Our “interesting life” involves spending most of our days being dragged around behind large dogs (early morning walk) and sitting on our derrières as we study for the rest of the day and me making up my various fermented cocktails and keeping the bugs happy. More like a circus roundabout than “fun” ;). I am so knackered at the end of the day that I fall into bed at 7pm! I do have a lovely early morning adventure every day though where I get at least 4 hours all to myself where I can go online adventuring, I can post and I can pretty much do whatever I like for those 4 hours so it’s all worth it :). Swings and roundabouts ;). Glad you liked the post Jean, wish we could get our act together and get out digging those garden holes though! I haven’t weeded my veggie garden in ages or watered it and I have new babies that need to be planted into some of the garden beds. Some areas of my life need a good kick in the pants! 🙂
May 08, 2013 @ 21:14:33
Great fun as usual, you can never say you are bored, always something going on. Love love love those cameras. Im with Steve, drool…. and he read the manual!!!!!! Looking forward to some very artistic photos. I too was convinced by an eager sales woman at an organic shop to buy real raw cacao. Not only was it expensive but no one would touch it. Glad you are getting value out of yours. Bread, mmmm , with butter. I have borrowed a bread machine to try and make home made tortillas using it and my pasta machine. I have not opened either of them yet. I wish sometimes i was a stay at home mum, just for a little while so i could have some time to play (sorry, work hard at home).
May 09, 2013 @ 03:53:53
Hi Lynda 🙂 I never get time to be bored because there is always something waiting for me to do it as soon as I have a few moments break :). Yeh…you have to mix that cacao with some carob and then it becomes edible (vaguely 😉 ). I can make great loaves of yeasted bread…great big high top things that are gorgeous with butter and Steve loves them BUT I am a woman on a mission…I want to learn to bake sourdough bread like a champ. I can be a stubborn bollocks when I want to and this is one of those times. I want to be able to make something that I can be proud of and as a type A fussbudget supreme who likes to add a cherry to the top of everything this is going to be fun! ;). Homemade tortillas are fun to make. Not too hard and have you tried chapatti? They are nice and easy and go amazingly fast. We broke our pasta machine making lasagne noodles. It wasn’t ever going to be a reliable thing at $15 from Habitat, BUT we hoped that it would last longer than 3 pasta “events” (which is didn’t 😦 ) but the flip side is that we found a great pasta recipe that didn’t require sumo arms to roll it out and that tastes fantastic so we could care less about the pasta machine now. I bought a tortilla press online in a fit of desperation. I get those fits occasionally “Steve I am going to DIE if I don’t have 6 individual friand pans…” “I NEED a hand cranked grain mill…”…”I think my life is over…I don’t own a mouli!”…Steve has started (wisely) ignoring me because my infatuations tend to wane and if I actually buy my paramour, I go off it as soon as it is in my hot little hands. Fickle…thy name is narf7. You would think that I would have learned by now ;). I am actually using most of the gadgets and gizmo’s that I have bought in the past now. I am also getting rid of anything that I don’t use to the op shop. I have a core group of necessities but that urge to “CONSUME” is strong young padawan and needs to be tempered at all times! It helps when you are a middle aged penniless student hermit hippy and that moth eaten sock under the bed is mostly full of “moths” ;). Swings and roundabouts Lynda. You are able to pay your bills, save up for your future and pay of your mortgage. We DO have time to play and we are incredibly grateful for that chance. Your time will come and you will be all the more grateful and will appreciate it all the more for the efforts that you put into getting to that point in your life :). At least you can live vicariously through your mates :). I will try to do more interesting things for you. Let me know what you want to “try via narf” and I will see if I can do my best to try it…maybe that could be the theme of my blog on Serendipity Farm? “Ask narf7 to do something and she will try to do it”…might be a syndicated Foxtel show in it! 😉
May 09, 2013 @ 01:19:20
Good bread is the bomb, I agree, and I make mine now with kefir whey and it is denser and has a nicer crust, plus all those gassy intestinal bacterial goodies.
As you know and actually suggested, I sent Linne in Canada a baggie of kefir grains over TWO WEEKS ago, and she still hasn’t received them. Dang customs is probably studying them in their security labs.
Our son Austin is home for the summer and building a deck for us and he has commented on being reacquainted with my intensity. As in, “You are so intense, Mom.” It will be good for me, like you, to muster and master serenity this summer. LOL
Ah, the box in the mail with the male’s new passion. The B.O. got his new chain saw sharpener — it sharpens itself as it saws!! — and talks about it a lot. He envisions a long, satisfying relationship.
Good luck in the garage sale trek! May you find many treasures. Love from Olalla.
May 09, 2013 @ 04:01:08
Steve lusts after a chainsaw sharpener! Tell the B.O. that he has Steve’s envy ;). I wish I was able to bake a good loaf of native yeast bread :(. I am going to try your kefir recipe as the 3 day loaf was a bit of an abysmal failure this time BUT it was only loaf number 1 and I did tinker around with the ingredients AND I did tend to twist the instructions to suit myself so perhaps there might have been a little bit of a problem with my dissemination of the recipe ;). LOL! Austin certainly has you pegged girl! ;). “Ah the serenity!” did you ever manage to find that movie “The Castle” to watch? I know that you would love it to bits :). It is one of those very rare Aussie movies that is amazing…made all the more amazing by the plethora of very BAD Aussie movies that our local industry seems to want to churn out on a regular basis (methinks the pretentious darlings at the “academy” are pushing their own addenda’s as they all seem to be overrepresented in our acting confraternity…I say “it’s broke! Fix it!” 😉 ). Kudos to Austin on the deck building. 2 weeks to cross the border? It would have been quicker for Linne to catch the bus down to Olalla, pick it up herself and go home!!! Sigh…that’s customs for you! I didn’t have any problems with Audrey coming from Rabids home in Mainland Australia to here but I guess our customs dog couldn’t be bothered to sniff it…no nice smells there! ;). I have my fingers crossed about finding at least a few good things to post about or next Wednesdays post is going to be boring indeed! Steve will be taking all kinds of experimental shots of peoples ears and feet and out of focus things and you will be able to tell my shots from his because mine will look like “something” ;). Have a great rest of the week and big hugs from cold Tassie 🙂
May 09, 2013 @ 01:46:45
well now I am going to have to skip the rest of MY rss feed and go bake! i’m working on a rye sourdough but now i am completely inspired to get more creative. thank you! ❤
May 09, 2013 @ 04:04:30
Could you post about it? My loaf was somewhat less than perfect…who am I kidding…it was SAD! ;). I did take a bunch of liberties with it though so I guess I should stick to the basics before I go experimental on its derrière ;). The good thing is that the more I experiment the more likely I am to churn out a custom loaf that we all love. Audrey (my starter as in “FEED ME SEYMOUR!” Audrey 😉 ) is a rye starter and I give her half rye and half strong white bread flour when I feed her. Might have to start tinkering around with the variables…I think I was a scientist in a past life! ;). Hope your rye turns out amazing. Please post about it…you know how it is…you go hunting for you “new love” everywhere and all you can see is bread for a few months ;). Have a great rest of your week 🙂
May 16, 2013 @ 02:20:14
I know! I have diverged from bread and now everything is lacto-fermented sodas, cordials, etc….but I WILL post about it! there is nothing like a sandwich of homemade sourdough bread with homemade kefir cheese and homegrown herbs with a glass of homebrewed rose hip soda…
May 16, 2013 @ 04:10:17
And it would make a fantastic side series of posts because we ALL want to know how to do it well :).
May 23, 2013 @ 03:25:36
okay! challenge accepted! i’m going to do a rose hip soda post next. 🙂
May 23, 2013 @ 04:02:06
YUM! I can’t wait :). Next year I am going to collect all of the rosehips in the area and am going to make all kinds of preserves out of them 🙂
May 09, 2013 @ 02:47:15
I came off my fast with bread (toast with coconut oil) and green tea. It gave me so much energy – have already done my 3 miles and have been cleaning house. Will have to show Chris this post – he loves cameras. Your drive-way looks fantastic compared to ours.
May 09, 2013 @ 04:09:04
You are looking at the trees and not the foot deep ruts that are only going to get worse as the winter rains run down (thanks to the blocked up gutter pipes 😉 ). Glad you have heaps of energy… could you lend me a bit? Earl is über energetic thanks to our new cooler weather and sets out like a dog on a mission every morning with narf7 dragging behind ;). Toast and coconut oil sounds YUM! Do you drink coffee? Have you heard about using coconut oil in coffee? Apparently it makes an amazing creamy cup of coffee! I don’t drink coffee. Not because I don’t like it, but more because I love it strong and black and it does terrible things to my stomach…so does wine :(. It’s 4.07am here. I have my own personal 3 miles dog wrangling to look forwards to at 7am with Steve and the dust is starting to make itself feel at home so I had best do something about it as well ;). This online community that we all share is great isn’t it? We can live vicariously through everyone else’s experiences and gain so much more than we would have if we didn’t bother to share 🙂 I LOVE IT :). Have a fantastic rest of the week and see you on Saturday with my vegan pot luck entry 🙂
May 09, 2013 @ 05:54:50
Saturday is our anniversary, will be on our get-a-way, so I’m pretty sure the potluck is out. One side of our driveway looks like a miniature Grand Canyon. It’s 1/2 mile long, and mostly downhill. I hate coffee, but Chris loves it. I’ll tell him about the coconut oil, but basically he’s a butter guy. You and Steve have a great week too!
Do you guys FaceTime? We will have to try that sometime.
May 09, 2013 @ 05:59:11
Steve follows it avidly but I opted out after wasting a bit too much time on my butt ;). It’s great to keep in touch with friends and family though. Have a GREAT time on your anniversary getaway and you can use butter in your coffee as well apparently! Sounds disgusting to me but there are people out there that swear by it ;).
May 09, 2013 @ 04:35:18
Nice… a new camera! Very exciting. A similar thing happened to me recently and I carry the thing around everywhere I go. If only I could mount it onto my forehead. Maybe you guys should start a photo-database of all of the species you’re growing… happy photographing.
May 09, 2013 @ 04:37:14
That’s a great idea Spencer…first I have to get Steve to stop taking artistic shots of his foot, the mailbox and the dogs left nostril though 😉
May 09, 2013 @ 04:48:40
I addressed that issue by including my hand in photos of plants for a scale reference… but a foot, mailbox, or dog nostril would also work
May 09, 2013 @ 04:51:08
Hopefully he doesn’t get so excited that he tries to put a plant pot inside the dogs nostril…he is somewhat distracted these days and is apparently bypassing some of those mental neurons that pass for “normal”. The dogs are hiding… ;). I saw a woman who crafts. She had dots tattooed down her right arm in inch increments for when she knits and sews…she is getting them tattooed down her left arm in centimetre increments…you have to love dedication like that! 😉
May 09, 2013 @ 16:24:28
Looking forward to the bread baking adventures. When we’re back in Spain (end of next week hopefully!) I am determined to get a starter started. So funny about Steve and his camera. Big Man is a bit like that with power tools. Not sure how we’re going to get the collection he has bought over the last few months back to Spain 😉 Not sure I could face chocolate porridge in the morning, but as a woman who is just abotu to eat leftover dahl, I guess we’re both as eccentric in our morning eating habits as each other!
May 10, 2013 @ 05:38:24
That chocolate porridge wasn’t all that bad! I guess it is my vegan version of “cream of wheat” with a lot more nutrients ;). Steve loves power tools as well. He isn’t specific about his loves…power tools, cars, cameras, guitars… hopefully Big Man isn’t going to pine for his missing power tools. You might have to get him outside working on “something” to take his mind off them 😉
May 15, 2013 @ 04:02:46
Don’t worry, I have a list of Spanish projects for him!
May 15, 2013 @ 04:26:29
Always good to keep them busy…they don’t think a lot about what YOU are up to if they are busy 😉
May 19, 2013 @ 02:20:21
I like your reasoning!
May 19, 2013 @ 04:22:50
I like sushi! 🙂
May 19, 2013 @ 05:05:10
Me too 😉
May 16, 2013 @ 07:02:05
mmmm, bread! yummy. Though, I actually prefer a dense wheaty bread myself. The husband likes the white stuff. But, I’ve gotten him pretty far in his day-to-day eating of the stuff.
Mmmm, pretty cameras!
And, I LOVE that you made pudding with the carob and “older” milk. I love using everything in my fridge!
Have a lovely day. 🙂