Today was one of those wonderful spring days that most people get in April or May. It was around 80F and breezy as all get out.
Perfect day to do laundry. I did one load, hung it on the line and it was dry long before the other load was finished washing. I only did the 2 loads and really should have done a couple more to take full advantage of the weather, but I have laundry on my couch from before Christmas (I, apparently, am the only one capable of sorting it for putting it away - yes, my kids are spoiled).
Some time back, Sally spoke of her adventures with sour dough bread. At the time I was working with amish friendship bread - which I've since killed. Yeah, I suck that way. But, I got a sourdough starter from a friend and decided to try it. I've kept it alive for well over a month (divided it once) and today I baked my first loaf. I was really afraid it would be VERY sour because it traveled to Oklahoma and back with me and wasn't refrigerated during the trip. But it turned out really well. Next time I do it, I'll plan to let it rise overnight and put it in the solar oven. I half wanted to do that last night, but we were out of flour and Mr. Gaia didn't want to drag out the grain mill while we were trying to get the kids settled down for the night (it is rather loud). I feel like we really wasted the sun today.
Hopefully tomorrow will be as sunny and breezy and I can get another load of laundry done. I'm not sure if I have anything to be cooked in the solar oven or not, but I'll ask Mr. Gaia to think to see if there is anything we can do.
Showing posts with label bread. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bread. Show all posts
Sunday, January 06, 2008
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Baking Day
It was baking day at the Gaia household today. Unfortunately, not in the solar oven, a combination of soccer game (to make up for a rain day) and clouds prevented any solar oven cooking.
But, I made 2 loaves of whole wheat bread. It rose more than I've ever seen it rise and Mr. Gaia forgot to turn the oven to "bake" from "preheat" so the tops got pretty toasty. I think it will be okay, though.
Then, I made banana nut muffins from my amish friendship bread starter. I used 3 cups of starter (and then fed the remaining starter with more milk, flour and sugar), and then the following recipe (adjusted for the massive amount of starter I used):
2 overripe bananas, mashed
1/3 vegetable oil
1 c whole wheat flour (fresh ground)
1/3 c turbinado sugar
2 eggs
3/4 t baking powder
1/4 t baking soda
1/4 t salt
1/2 c starter
nuts
vanilla
milk
I only used 6 eggs and 1 1/3 c oil then I added milk and vanilla by feel. I didn't use many pecans because I just didn't have many (this is when I miss living in Oklahoma, we used to ALWAYS have pecans because we'd pick them up ourselves).
I ended up with 4 dozen mini muffins and 2 dozen - 2 regular sized muffins. I baked the mini muffins for 10 minutes and the regular sized muffins for 20-22 minutes on 350F.
I didn't have any starter left to share, but it's been passed around so much that I'm not sure who I would share with anyway.
I find that the freshly ground wheat flour makes for a softer, tastier product.
But, I made 2 loaves of whole wheat bread. It rose more than I've ever seen it rise and Mr. Gaia forgot to turn the oven to "bake" from "preheat" so the tops got pretty toasty. I think it will be okay, though.
Then, I made banana nut muffins from my amish friendship bread starter. I used 3 cups of starter (and then fed the remaining starter with more milk, flour and sugar), and then the following recipe (adjusted for the massive amount of starter I used):
2 overripe bananas, mashed
1/3 vegetable oil
1 c whole wheat flour (fresh ground)
1/3 c turbinado sugar
2 eggs
3/4 t baking powder
1/4 t baking soda
1/4 t salt
1/2 c starter
nuts
vanilla
milk
I only used 6 eggs and 1 1/3 c oil then I added milk and vanilla by feel. I didn't use many pecans because I just didn't have many (this is when I miss living in Oklahoma, we used to ALWAYS have pecans because we'd pick them up ourselves).
I ended up with 4 dozen mini muffins and 2 dozen - 2 regular sized muffins. I baked the mini muffins for 10 minutes and the regular sized muffins for 20-22 minutes on 350F.
I didn't have any starter left to share, but it's been passed around so much that I'm not sure who I would share with anyway.
I find that the freshly ground wheat flour makes for a softer, tastier product.
Friday, October 05, 2007
Baking
I made fresh bread last week. I couldn't use the solar oven because there were too many clouds, so I made 2 loaves. Would you believe it's all gone already? Sigh. So it's time to bake again.
Oceanus loves my bread, which thrills me because it is such a healthy food. Last week he said "there's nothing better than fresh bread".
I was also given a start for Amish friendship bread this week. I'm looking for a good recipe that doesn't use vanilla pudding because I'm not about to buy pudding for it. I'm thinking a good banana bread recipe would work (we have lots of frozen bananas in the freezer). So if you have one, let me know, pretty please?!
Oceanus loves my bread, which thrills me because it is such a healthy food. Last week he said "there's nothing better than fresh bread".
I was also given a start for Amish friendship bread this week. I'm looking for a good recipe that doesn't use vanilla pudding because I'm not about to buy pudding for it. I'm thinking a good banana bread recipe would work (we have lots of frozen bananas in the freezer). So if you have one, let me know, pretty please?!
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Surprise Father's Day
I'm not sure how we managed it, but we managed to surprise Mr. Gaia. I'm very impressed that both boys were able to keep it to themselves. Of course, I didn't tell them the plan until Friday.
Mr. Gaia had a great day.
I mixed up some bread for the solar oven (finally a sunny day!). Of course, I got distracted and used gluten instead of the softer whole wheat flour (I usually mix 2 different grinds). I realized it when I took it out of the mixer to knead and it was tougher than a brick. Crap!! So, I quickly heated some more water, started mixing another batch - with no gluten this time - and then mixed them together. I'm happy to report the bread is really good, just a tad bit chewy, but a soft chewy. I've got a loaf in the freezer ready to pull out and bake next sunny day.
After we put the bread in the solar oven to cook, we decided to go to some furniture stores. Mr. Gaia and I haven't had a bed in 7 years. We have just had our mattress and foundation sitting on the floor. We also haven't had a dresser or chest of drawers in the same amount of time. I have open wire shelves to hold my clothes. We've decided we'd like to look more grown up. So we went to 3 different furniture stores, but none of them had what we want. We like simple, clean lines. Mission style is always good. We did find a lot that had the simple lines we wanted but the pieces were "Texas sized" and would be overwhelming in our room, not to mention that they would block our windows.
Then we went to Sam's to walk around and have lunch. That reminds me, I have to send an email to corporate. This Sam's never has Dr. Pepper on the weekend, or ice. How freakin' hard would it be to realize that you ALWAYS run out of Dr. Pepper and to order an extra canister? To make it worse, they never post an out of order sign on the machine - so you waste what little ice you can manage to get by having it covered in jet water. Today she told me the sprite and powerade canisters were empty too. None of them had out of order signs. Can you imagine the poor people that thought they got Sprite? At least with a cola you can tell the color is wrong.
Then we came home and the boys played on a Slip 'n Slide. These are so not fair, no one over 100lbs or 5' can play on them. Of course, it is wasteful of water so it's a good thing we aren't in a drought this year.
After they'd played for a while, Mr. Gaia sent them to the shower and mixed pina coladas for us.
Then he opened his gifts - a beer butt chicken cooker and a board game - The Game of Life. When I was a kid, my granny wouldn't let us play games with dice. So my mom bought us this game to take to her house (we still had Monoply, etc at home). Let me tell you, the game has changed since I was a kid. I swear I remember retirement was either rich or poor house, now it's comfortable or rich. It was a fun game to play with the kids and it provided some good teaching moments. Oceanus bought a house when he was a starving artist with a salary of $20,000 per year. He had to take out a bank loan. At the end of the game when he was last, we talked about how much money he had spent to buy his house. Hyperion was in a hurry to finish and kept treating it was race to the end. We'd explain that like real life, longer was better. He came in 2nd last.
Mr. Gaia had a great day.
I mixed up some bread for the solar oven (finally a sunny day!). Of course, I got distracted and used gluten instead of the softer whole wheat flour (I usually mix 2 different grinds). I realized it when I took it out of the mixer to knead and it was tougher than a brick. Crap!! So, I quickly heated some more water, started mixing another batch - with no gluten this time - and then mixed them together. I'm happy to report the bread is really good, just a tad bit chewy, but a soft chewy. I've got a loaf in the freezer ready to pull out and bake next sunny day.
After we put the bread in the solar oven to cook, we decided to go to some furniture stores. Mr. Gaia and I haven't had a bed in 7 years. We have just had our mattress and foundation sitting on the floor. We also haven't had a dresser or chest of drawers in the same amount of time. I have open wire shelves to hold my clothes. We've decided we'd like to look more grown up. So we went to 3 different furniture stores, but none of them had what we want. We like simple, clean lines. Mission style is always good. We did find a lot that had the simple lines we wanted but the pieces were "Texas sized" and would be overwhelming in our room, not to mention that they would block our windows.
Then we went to Sam's to walk around and have lunch. That reminds me, I have to send an email to corporate. This Sam's never has Dr. Pepper on the weekend, or ice. How freakin' hard would it be to realize that you ALWAYS run out of Dr. Pepper and to order an extra canister? To make it worse, they never post an out of order sign on the machine - so you waste what little ice you can manage to get by having it covered in jet water. Today she told me the sprite and powerade canisters were empty too. None of them had out of order signs. Can you imagine the poor people that thought they got Sprite? At least with a cola you can tell the color is wrong.
Then we came home and the boys played on a Slip 'n Slide. These are so not fair, no one over 100lbs or 5' can play on them. Of course, it is wasteful of water so it's a good thing we aren't in a drought this year.
After they'd played for a while, Mr. Gaia sent them to the shower and mixed pina coladas for us.
Then he opened his gifts - a beer butt chicken cooker and a board game - The Game of Life. When I was a kid, my granny wouldn't let us play games with dice. So my mom bought us this game to take to her house (we still had Monoply, etc at home). Let me tell you, the game has changed since I was a kid. I swear I remember retirement was either rich or poor house, now it's comfortable or rich. It was a fun game to play with the kids and it provided some good teaching moments. Oceanus bought a house when he was a starving artist with a salary of $20,000 per year. He had to take out a bank loan. At the end of the game when he was last, we talked about how much money he had spent to buy his house. Hyperion was in a hurry to finish and kept treating it was race to the end. We'd explain that like real life, longer was better. He came in 2nd last.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Fresh ground wheat
I made bread again this week. I used our new grain mill to grind the wheat (well, Mr. Gaia did), but I don't think it was ground finely enough - the texture was more like cornmeal.
The bread simply did not rise. I'm not sure why. I proofed the yeast, so I know it was good. I used my same recipe. The only difference was the flour. I'm hoping it wasn't the flour. That would really suck. I suspect the flour was really too coarse, but I don't know that that would have made that much difference. It still tastes good, it's just a little dense.
Today, Mr. Gaia cooked salmon in the solar oven. He sprinkled just a little dill on it with some salt. It was really, really good. When he finished that, he put in bratwurst and then we went for an 12.5 mile bike ride (took an hour and twenty minutes). It was perfect when we got back. Yummy and delish.
I've been really lazy lately. My house is a mess and I don't think I met any of my June goals. Shame on me. I'll soon be traveling to pick up my kids, so the blog will be quiet. I'll be going somewhere with no internet and no cell phone service. I'll bet you didn't know such a place still existed in the US, but it does.
The bread simply did not rise. I'm not sure why. I proofed the yeast, so I know it was good. I used my same recipe. The only difference was the flour. I'm hoping it wasn't the flour. That would really suck. I suspect the flour was really too coarse, but I don't know that that would have made that much difference. It still tastes good, it's just a little dense.
Today, Mr. Gaia cooked salmon in the solar oven. He sprinkled just a little dill on it with some salt. It was really, really good. When he finished that, he put in bratwurst and then we went for an 12.5 mile bike ride (took an hour and twenty minutes). It was perfect when we got back. Yummy and delish.
I've been really lazy lately. My house is a mess and I don't think I met any of my June goals. Shame on me. I'll soon be traveling to pick up my kids, so the blog will be quiet. I'll be going somewhere with no internet and no cell phone service. I'll bet you didn't know such a place still existed in the US, but it does.
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