Home Grown

Archive for the ‘Steven F.’ Category

Saturday

Saturday we worked together to start the first of our firewood for next winter. We brought home about 5 cords. Among the wood in the back of the truck we found this little creature on the last load home.

Steven loved watching the lizard change colors.

He was also delighted to have it sit on his shoulder.

Sunday

Sunday afternoon Gracie, age 12, did some baking.

The results were not only beautiful but also delicious.

She made the banana bread recipe from last week and a white bread. We are trying to use up some of the quantities of commercial flour I have on hand. This is a really good bread recipe.

White Bread

6 tsp active dry yeast
3 tablespoons sugar
2 1/2 cups warm water
3 tablespoons lard or crisco
1 tablespoon salt
6 – 6 1/2 cups bread flour

Preheat oven to 425F degrees. Just before putting in the loaves turn it down to 375F.

In a large bowl, dissolve yeast and sugar in warm water. Stir in lard, salt and two cups of the flour. Stir in the remaining flour half a cup at a time. Beat well after each addition. (Depending on the look and feel of the dough I may only use 6 cups other days it may require 6 1/2.)

When the dough has pulled together into a ball is not sticking to the sides of the bowl turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic or continue to use your dough hook attachment on the stand mixer to do thr work for you.

Lightly oil a large bowl, place the dough in the bowl and turn to coat with oil. Cover with a damp cloth and let rise in a warm place until doubled in volume, about 1 hour.

Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Divide into two equal pieces and form into loaves.

Place the loaves into two lightly greased 9×5 inch loaf pans. Cover the loaves with a damp cloth and let rise until doubled -about 40 minutes.

If you have smaller pans divide into 3 pieces and bake 3 loaves like Gracie did.

Bake at 375F degrees for about 30 minutes or until the top is golden brown and the bottom of the loaf sounds hollow when tapped.

Monday

We made pizza using a 100% whole wheat crust. It was amazing!

Pizza with sausage, pepperoni, black olives and sweet peppers

We love thin, cracker crisp pizza dough and this one fits the bill perfectly.

100% Whole Wheat Pizza Dough

2 1/2 tsps of yeast
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 warm cup water
2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour,

Add ingredients to your mixing bowl in the above order.

We use a stand mixer and let it knead the dough about 3 minutes – when it pulled away from the bowl into a neat ball.

Place the dough into a lightly oiled bowl, drizzle just a little olive oil over the top, cover and allow to stand for about an hour.

Divide into two equal portions and roll the dough out as thin s possible.

Place onto a baking sheet or pizza pan and allow the dough to crust for about 8 – 10 minutes at 400F degrees.

Remove from oven, apply toppings of your choice and bake.

Tuesday
Steven loves to collect eggs. He gets very excited finding them. He also wants to help carry them to the kitchen which often ends up badly for the eggs. Yesterday he took his wheel barrow out to the duck pen filled with fresh green grass we collected for them. There were so many eggs and he was so eager to help that I took a little hay from the large bale in the field and nested the eggs on it. He was so excited to the bring the eggs from the barnyard to the house. This is half of yesterdays offerings – duck, guinea and turkey eggs. Special delivery!

I bottled a light pilsner yesterday.

I love the look of filled bottles capped and ready for aging.

I procured said wide mouth gallon jar for the apple cider vinegar that is culturing. I tasted it this morning – yumm!

Wednesday

Today’s agenda and to do list – not really sure but I plan to do a pickled carrot and green bean mix. We’ll see how it goes.

What is your week looking like?

A loose brick on the side porch has been nagging at Steven. He has wanted to fix it for a while now but he didn’t want any help from me.

This was his final solution when I refused to give him my roll of duct tape.

He slipped out with a roll of scotch tape in his pocket and set to making repairs while I was sorting laundry and getting the washer started one sunny day last week.

No bad for a four year old. The wanting to use duct tape catapults him into the four year old DIY genius category if you ask me.

Steven and I have taken some time together this week to plant a few seeds in a few peat pellets. He has had a great time counting out the seeds and placing them just so in the appointed cups.

Along the way he makes sure I think the same things he does.

“This dirt smells so so so good. Do you like the way it smells, Momma?”

“Yes, I love the way the it smells, ” I reply.

“These vegetables are going to be very very really really good for summer.”

“Yes, they are going to be very good. Are you going to help eat them?”

“No. I just want to eat pickles. Can we plant some pickles now?”

“Sure, let’s plant those pickles so you can eat them.”

And we did plant pickles. I had some pickling cucumber seeds left over from year before last. So we set about planting those. I wonder if this is start of what is to come in the future. Years of pickling cases of cucumbers for the boy who loved pickles?

We have also started many other seeds the last two days:

Early green peas
Sweet Peas
Snow Peas
Spinach
Yellow crook neck squash
Yellow straight neck squash
Patty Pan Squash
Butternut Squash
Zuchinni
Romaine
Endive
Slicing Cucumbers
Pickling Cucumbers
Lemon Cucumbers
Banana Peppers
Jalapeno Peppers
Purple Tomatoes
Artichokes
White Eggplant
Purple Eggplant
Parsley
Chives
Dill
Cilantro
Basil
Birdhouse gourds

We started with about 500 peat pellet cups.

We need about 500 more.

I also want to order some different seeds to go with what I already have – like snowball tomatoes, yellow pear tomatoes, yellow beets, purple bell peppers and butterpeas.

How will your garden grow this spring?