It's Been a Long Time

Back in 2019 I was trying to make all my own bread. Kept it up for a lot of months. Not sure what happened, but I pretty much stopped. I'm not a great bread baker but seem to be a little better than in the distant past.

So, I had some sour milk and went looking for a yeast bread recipe that would use it. Found this one: Sour Milk Yeast Bread.

I replaced one cup of white flour with whole wheat. Could probably do a bit more.

Yes, it was a hot day to be baking, but I did it first thing in the morning. I wanted to use up that sour milk.

After removing from pans and rubbing with butter.

How did it turn out? Texture a little coarse- a problem I often have, but it tastes good. All sliced and put in the freezer now except what I'll eat in the next couple of days. With no preservatives, homemade bread gets stale and moldy fast.

It was another really hot day, but not as humid. I managed to keep working on things pretty well. Wrote my Ludington Daily News column, edited, worked on other stuff. Did a little bit outside. "They" say August will be cooler. I will not be sorry.

One more book has worked into Ingram. Just Paddy Plays in Dead Mule Swamp to transfer.

See Bread Day Experiment

Didja Hear the One about the Banana?

 Om has developed a cute little sense of humor in his old age. I had three bananas thawing on the counter that had been in the freezer. Of course they were black due to their recent housing situation.

So he comes out of the kitchen and completely deadpan says to me, "Those bananas are too ripe for me to eat." (This is quietly hilarious because he only eats green bananas, not even yellow ones.)

You know the fate of freezer-slumming bananas... bread.

One for now, and one for later.

I spent the rest of the day editing and writing. My eyeballs are swirling with words.

See Same as Last Year

Yum Yum

  This is one of my tried and true recipes to use up sour milk. You've seen them before. This time I made them whole wheat. As soon as the pan cools a tiny bit, I'll be indulging myself. Hopefully not to exceeding excess.

The only problem is that I had the kitchen ALL. CLEANED. UP. Now... it's not. Again. But I really tried hard not to spill new stuff on the floor.

Guess I'll tell a story on myself. I try really hard to be efficient with car trips. Did my errands and went to the house where I'm painting. I had forgotten the key. Sigh. Had to drive all the way home to get it. Definitely not efficient. It's a good reminder that there are going to be those kinds of days when the brain just doesn't get all the circuits hooked up right. No matter how perfect or wonderful or famous anyone is. There are going to be the days of stupid mistakes. Just take a deep breath, solve the problem, and get on with life.

In other news: I did errands and grocery shopping. You know how much I like that. Painted for four hours.

See Truck Picnic

Best of 2020- Best Recipe Finds

  There are actually several good recipes that I discovered in the past year. You've recently seen one of them- the banana bread. This is the recipe off the Gold Medal flour bags. It's significantly better than the recipe I'd previously used. I will say that the Gold Medal test kitchens have come up with some great recipes over the years. I have a cookbook, Century of Success, put out by them. There is hardly a recipe in the book that isn't superb. The Christmas pecan sticky buns are from that book. I've used it so much it has fallen apart and now has to be kept together with a ribbon when I'm not actually using it. If you are a long-time real-life friend and remember our big Christmas dinners, the dinner rolls everyone liked also came from that book.

The next item is really two things. When I was clearing Garlic Mustard in the spring I went looking for something to do with the leaves. It is edible, although you'd have to do a lot of serious munching to eat a meaningful amount. First I made pesto. Garlic Mustard Pesto I used the pesto in a couple of ways. I layered it with cheese for grilled sandwiches.

But these savory muffins with pesto and nettles leaves are to die for! Savory Muffins

My final find is almost not a recipe. I made it up one night when I wanted some kind of savory crackers, but all we had around was saltines. It's easy and really good. I laid out four saltines on a plate and lightly buttered (oleo, whatever) them. Then I sprinkled them with Mrs. Dash seasoning and microwaved them for 15 seconds. So good!

It was a pretty good year, recipe-wise!

In other news: I finished one editing job and am getting my head in gear for the next one. I participated in an on-line class that took a bunch of time. Then I still wanted to walk, so I decided to try to do my 3-mile loop at a pace of 15 min/mile. I did it!

See Best Recipes- 2019

Banana Bread Day

  Same as last year... the fruit basket spawned several over-ripe bananas. However, I am thrilled to tell you that I found a new recipe that I like a LOT better than the one I'd been using for close to 50 years.

This may be good or bad. I didn't eat much today except banana bread!

In other news: I worked at my editing job, and I did laundry, and other odds and ends.

See Banana Bread

Finally Flowers

 
A few of my flowers are tolerant of the fact that I've given up pretending to be a gardener. However, the first picture is the biggest surprise of all. This is a Windflower, or Anemone. I haven't seen one of these come up in quite a few years. I really love them (blue of course), and was always disappointed that they didn't do well for me. But this year, I get a smile!



Here is my multi-color daffodil that I believe is Narcissus delnashaugh. These just opened today. I was thinking everything was late this year, but I see they were in full bloom on May 4 last year, so maybe not so far behind.



The little purple corydalis that Ester gave me seems to hang in there.



And the forsythia bush began to bloom today too.



Now we are supposed to go back to rain for a couple of days, and then warm. I think we'll be looking at mowing the grass if that happens!

In other news: I actually managed to finish a promotional video I've been working on for my mystery books. And, friend Sue dropped off some jigsaw puzzles for me to do. We chatted a bit from a nice safe distance. That visit I got a nifty puppy fix from Sophie and Annabelle too! Sorry, but I did not keep a social distance from the furries.

Oh yeah, and I made apple bread.

See Spring Tease

English Muffin Day

 
I'm not sure how long it's been since I made English Muffins. More than 12 years, because they were not in my master food/calorie spreadsheet we made after Om had his heart attack in 2007.

But, I got a hankering, and we have flour because I always keep extra (apparently everyone is now making baked goods at home because buying flour is a pipe dream).

The recipe was still in my notebook, so I didn't have to hunt for it. They are a tiny bit fussy because the dough has to rise three times, and then you have to baby-sit them on a griddle.



How do you think they are looking?



How do you think they taste?



The answer is "yummy." We made a house rule. No more than two per person per day. We are determined not to gain a ton of weight just because eating is an easy thing to do. And I would be a carb junkie if I let myself.

It's really interesting that you can take the same 3 or 4 ingredients (flour, yeast, salt, and maybe some oil or butter) and turn it into so many different kinds of bread that do taste somewhat different. At least they certainly have different textures.

Anyway. I've finished Ivanhoe. I want to watch the movie, but maybe not just yet. I've kind of had enough of chivalry and fair maidens for a while. Not my preferred genre although I don't dislike it.

Om went to the store during senior citizen hours. He ended up going to three stores to find a few things he wanted that haven't been available for weeks, but he did come home with everything. He said there were fewer people than during the main part of the day. So, that's probably good. He's certainly higher risk than I am.

See Navajo Bread

Stay at Home Fun

 
Cold and rainy today. So I stayed home and finished two more squares for the Ludington Area Center for the Arts Bingo Game.

The line I chose included the landscape, which I did first- see link below. It uses the middle free square. So I have 3 to go. One is to do a still life. This is nothing wonderful. It's not even a great composition. But I'd been wanting to try to copy this particular style. So my goal was accomplished, and it will count for the square. Medium is colored pencil.



One of the squares in my line is kinda whacko! It says "COVID-19 virus art - create your own virus." OK then. I call this work "Dance of the Naked Virus," and it's mixed media. My reaction... meh. I tried a new technique with the background. My success was poor, but I learned a lot. The virus studded cells turned out pretty good. The naked virus proteins are off balance. Mixed media. I'm calling it done. It was totally experimental anyway.



I also made soup. It's better than refrigerator soup because I bought some things to put in it. However, I did trim down some freezer burned sausage to salvage the good parts to put in, and thawed a pile of black beans I'd thrown in the freezer some time ago that went in too. This was a complete winner because Omer even liked it, and he hates soup.



I guess it was a day of experiments. I also tried Navajo Fry Bread. It's OK. Actually, it's pretty good. But it's just a plain fried bread: flour, salt, baking powder, water. The pan has to be oiled and quite hot and I managed to set off the smoke alarm. You can only cook one at a time (unless you use multiple pans), so I wouldn't want to make enough for a big group. I like biscuits or pancakes better. But now I can say I've tried it!



In other news: Did a little bit of accounting work, and worked on a web site.

See Art Center Bingo- Square One

Philadelphia Flower Show - White Plants

 
I always like to find the plants with white foliage at the Philadelphia Flower Show. The choices go way beyond dusty miller and lamb's ear!

There were more than this, but a lot weren't labeled. The huge succulent garden in the entrance had few labels, but I think this is some kind of agave.



This is a border plant that looks a bit like lamb's ear. It's a Senecio. There's a genus with an incredible amount of variation. This is Senecio candidans, Angel Wings



Centaurea are knapweeds, yes like the invasive spotted knapweed. But many are beautiful ornamentals that aren't a problem. Centaurea cineraria 'Colchester White' has really white foliage.


This is a near-white succulent. This is a gasteraloe, a cross between a gasteria and an aloe. Variety 'Green Ice.'



And finally, for today at least, is an Aloe, 'White Fox.'



In other news: Busy day. I made yogurt, refrigerator soup (which turned out yummy), and whole wheat soda bread. I packaged and mailed books. I wrote a newspaper article.

See Meijer Gardens- White Plants

Banana Bread

 
Even when I make quick breads, I rarely make banana bread because it is low on my like list. I don't hate it, I just like almost any other kind better. The last time I made several kinds, banana didn't make the cut. See link below.

But we still had 3 bananas from the fruit basket, and they needed to be used, so banana bread it is.



That sore throat I had turned into coughing and a runny nose, although I still feel fine. It's just annoying to deal with the hacking and nose blowing. Haven't coughed up a lung yet, although Omer is wondering why.

In other news: I wrote all morning and edited all afternoon. Made really good progress. It was lovely outside, and I would have liked to join a group for a hike, but I really have to put my runny nose to the grindstone, and I'm going hiking on Saturday, so... today I worked.

See Cast Your Bread

Soda Pop Bread Again

 
It was bread day. In fact, it was way overdue, but I haven't had time lately. So there were a couple of loaves of store bread since the last baking day.



I liked this bread so much that this time I made two loaves. Of course I pigged out on warm bread for dinner. What did you expect?

And since I still have several cans of stale pop from an event last year, there will be more of this in my future. I'm delighted there is a use for that pop besides forcing myself to drink it because it cost money.

In other news: I wrote in the morning, formatted in the afternoon, made bread, and did laundry. I wish all days could be so productive.

	See Bread Day Experiment
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Bread Day Experiment

 
This was yesterday, but I saved the picture for today. Actually now I can report that this bread keeps its wonderful soft texture really well.

This is a complete hoot. The recipe book had this bread. 3 cups flour, 1 pack yeast, 1 1/2 cups soda pop (at room temp). I looked up on line to see if anyone ever tried this. The answer is yes, but with more ingredients. The only real review I found was for one with more stuff, and made with ginger ale, and they said it baked up nice and light but smelled and tasted like wet dog. Hmmm.

But I had to try it. I had a couple of bottles of stale pop around, so... What I couldn't believe was that diet pop would have enough sugar for the yeast to be happy, so I threw in 2 T sugar as well. I made one loaf as an experiment. This is the result.



It's very good. Doesn't exactly taste like cola, but it doesn't exactly taste like white bread either. Definitely doesn't taste like wet dog. I'll do this again for sure. It's a great way to use up stale pop.

In other news: I wrote in the morning, and formatted in the afternoon. Well, trying to anyway. Word doesn't do one thing I want and Word Perfect doesn't do another thing I want. But I want them both. Will keep struggling till I work out a solution. When I formatted North Country Cache it was with Word Perfect, but it was a different version. Then I had bell choir practice and went grocery shopping.

	See Bread Day Stupor
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Bread Day Stupor

 
Made bread today. Not a great success. I tried a different recipe for plain white bread, but it was not as good as the one from Sylvia, or one from a friend, Margaret. And it said it made two loaves, but I think that would be ONE. The texture is fine, but the loaves are thin. Ho hum. I still ate myself into a carb comfort stupor while it was warm. No regrets.



Sunrise this morning was nice. Tomorrow, I'll be on the road long before the sun arrives. I have a vendor event all day.



In other news: I listened to a journal tape for the book this morning, loaded software to transfer it to digital another day, and edited in the afternoon. Plus the bread. It would have been a great day for a hike, but waiting for bread to rise and bake does not allow one to leave the premises.

	See Buttermilk Honey Bread
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