Fall....? Its winter

I woke up this morning to snow falling and the back room of our house at 44 degrees Fahrenheit. Mind you we keep the door to the back room closed, but still. The kitchen ranked about 52 and the living room at 59. Cold, snowy and bleak....ahhhh winter.

Cinnamon Rolls using bread dough

I haven't posted in a while so I'm going to put up a few of them. Oddly enough its the fact that I can't find my camera charging cord that has put me off from blogging more than a lack of time (though that is a constraint also).

I'm continually experimenting with bread. Sometimes I knead it, sometimes I don't. I play with how 'firm' I can make a no-knead dough and how 'soft.' I play with the time, the yeast, the ratio of grains etc. You should too, because it makes you dare to experiment more.

Lately I wondered if you could make cinnamon rolls just using ordinary bread dough. There are plenty of cinnamon roll recipes out there certainly, but I didn't want to learn another recipe. Or if I ended up doing so, I wanted a good reason. When you stray from straight bread you start seeing things like eggs, milk, and/or oil ending up in the dough. These do a number of things, but I'm saving those experiments for later. My question is, how much can you do with basic bread, in particular, how much can you do with noknead bread?

So far I've managed to make a stiff enough no-knead dough to make rolls and bread bowls. I have found though that taking 2 minutes and kneading it a bit helps, but its still optional. So those were some victories. But what about something like cinnamon rolls?

I hit the web and looked to see what I could find. The closest thing was a woman using frozen bread dough (that you can buy at your grocery store) to make them. It looked simple enough and it was.

Step 1: make up bread dough. If you're doing a no-knead (long rise) dough, then do it the night before you want them. I set up the dough in the evening to bake them the next morning. You'll have to play with the amount of yeast as it will depend on your home temperature, season and the type of grains you're using and how long you want to let your dough rise. EXPERIMENT! :)

Step 2: When the dough is ready (for me this was the morning), heat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Prepare some sort of greased (I use butter) dish to bake in. I use a cake pan and can fit all the rolls in (squished together) and when they bake they puff out and up and make a lovely sight. Dump out the dough on a well floured surface and stretch it into a rectangle with your hands. I'd say go for about 1/4 of an inch thickness maybe? You're going to be rolling this dough up, so the thickness of your rectangular will be the wall thickness of your cinnamon rolls.

Step 3: Brush on melted butter. Be generous, half a stick goes a long way and I can make a dozen rolls from this, so its not going to end up being that much fat.

Step 4: Sprinkle with brown sugar, though I'm going to try just regular sugar next time.

Step 5: Sprinkle with cinnamon.

Step 6: Now roll up the dough. If its no-knead then it may stick a bit to the counter despite your best efforts, just be patient and work at it. Once its in a log you're ready to cut.

Step 7: Cut the rolled up dough into slices, I make mine about 2" thick, but I'm only eyeballing that measurement. I wouldn't go too much bigger however.

Step 8: You should have put all your slices into the baking dish. Now put that baking dish into the oven for 30-40 minutes.

By squishing them I generally get a crisp exterior and a more moist doughy (but cooked) interior.

While they're cooking, make up a glaze. I use about a cup of powdered sugar, a couple tablespoons of butter (very soft), a half teaspoon of vanilla and 1-2 tablespoons of warm water. Beat it with a whisk. You can mess around with the consistency and the flavor of course by changing the ratios. Put it all in a ziploc bag, cut off the corner (just a little bit, you don't want a GIANT hole) and use it like a frosting bag. I go back and forth over the finished cinnamon rolls making a criss-cross pattern and the glaze melts and runs and ends up covering the whole set. You could probably even half the amount of glaze you use (I already did once) and still get that sweet warm cinnamon morning flavor you want.

Next step....Bagels!

Will the real bathroom flooring please show up...

Today I started poking away at the flooring. I knew the floor was several inches too thick to account for the visible linoleum and the planks visible from the basement. As you can see in the pictures there are a number of layers. Several layers of 'plastic' floors including some contact paper I think. But the biggest surprise was hardwood floors. Yes, hardwood floors. The thick, tongue and groove kind. Not bad actually and Sara and I have wondered if we could salvage them or refinish them. Not sure yet. I do need to get up new sheetrock before winter.

So I think I'm just going to set the depth gauge on my Skilsaw and cut out a perimeter trench around the walls I want to sheetrock. Then I'll demo/excavate the materials and I'll be able to get in there and do a decent job. Pictures will follow. Three days left...

A tribute to my Dad (who's alive and well)

I don't have very good timing (school/work starts in a week and I'm still tearing the bathroom apart) because this kind of a post would be better for something like Father's day.

Growing up my father was something like Hephaestus who was the god of crafts, technology, smithing etc. Whether it was wiring, plumbing, carpentry, foundation work, you name it. He's a mill wright by trade, which naturally lends itself to knowing many things. In my adult life whenever I embark upon something crafty I think of my dad. Of course I've had a lot of experiences in my life that contribute to my knowledge, so its not that I necessarily recall lessons he taught me. Rather he's sort of my patron saint of fixing and building.

The number of fixing and building activities has been rather numerous lately and so I've been thinking of my Dad a lot. There are many little triggers to do this. We both wear Hanes T-shirts, often with pockets. Our t-shirts are kind of ratty and smell of sawdust and sweat. Like many men he'd enjoy a couple of beers over the course of the day when working on some project. I don't drink very much, but when I work on fixing and building I find that a cold beer is a good way to step back and think about what's going on. I think I dwell and worry more than my dad, so the beer helps there too. Of course I drink better beer than Dad (sorry Dad, but its true :)

He'd also smoke a cigar (Garcia Vega). I tried that years ago while working construction...cough cough cough...never really took. But nevertheless I can smell it while working, or at least I think I can. He's a good image to have in my head while working. I never remember him cursing or becoming upset while working on something. He'd silently ponder the situation and just carry on, somehow he knew what he was doing....and this was before youtube!

So as I sit here, taking a break from my recent destructions/discoveries, and I sip on a summer ale (Shipyard)I remember Saturdays watching This Old House and The Woodwright's Shop. I think of hot summer days helping him work, his eyes concealed behind photosensitive lens, a cigar slowing burning in his mouth. Its from him that I learned, implicitly (he never said it) that a job worth doing is worth doing well. There was no place for sloppy workmanship no matter what the chore. Stacking wood was done as methodically as building a roof or pouring a foundation.

So thanks Dad! The frustration I feel for poor workmanship, the time I spend trying to do the very best job I can and the know how to get the job done I owe, in large part to you.

A bit better

Not the greatest picture. I was tempted to just take the window out of the wall and tear everything out and reframe everything, but with school starting next Monday I thought better of it. Instead I worked with what I had. I was too lazy to look up the details on how large the header should be, I figured 2x10's sandwiched together ought to be fine (Sean?). In any event I feel good about this. The studs are plumb and the window is level (though it may not look that way).



Sara helped out today and yesterday tearing out the remaining lathe. Now to move the previous GFI, put up some temporary lighting (we'll be at this for a while and currently we just have a lamp in the bathroom).

Then the floor. I'm pretty sure it's about 3-4 floors deep and so sheetrocking would be rather difficult. We can't get out all the old lathe at present. So I suppose we attack the floor. Hopefully that goes as planned....hahahahahahahaha

This is why...

With each bit of exploration I find so much more work, so many more things than I would have thought. If this had been properly framed it would be straightforward to deal with, now its going to take some time...sigh...

On a more colorful note

One of the blogs I follow is Farmgirl Fare and each Friday she just posts a picture of something on her farm. In that spirit (but with no ambition of becoming regular about it...and its not Friday).

There's a hole in my wall, dear Liza, dear Liza

Feel free to hum the melody to There's a hole in my bucket (a classic children's song) while reading the title of this post.

After the last series of discoveries I turned once again to a task I thought was benign. In all reality it wasn't bad, but it seems unlikely that any task in this fortress of stupitude will leave me without some interesting anecdote of harrowing tale of discovered idiocy. The bathroom had what looked to be a wainscoat around the perimeter...well most of the perimeter. I don't know why they never finished it, but then again I couldn't begin to explain any of the former owner's motives other than to frustrate me.

Turns out it was just really really cheap faux wood paneling painted to look like really cheap faux wood paneling. No surprise there and at least it came off the walls pretty easily. Over near the mysterious concrete corner though I pulled off a sheet to find the above (with the old dryer vent still in the wall of course.

Okay, well why not...then I pulled it out and saw....the exterior siding. They had just sided right over it. Doh...Doh...Doh!



Then....(there's always a 'then' in these posts), I look even more closely....



Yes that's a stud...in the exterior wall. If you've ever seen a framed wall you know that the MAJORITY of the wall is empty space. Its trivially easy to fine the space BETWEEN the studs, in fact it can be frustrating to find a stud in older homes (what with all the plaster and lathe covered up with sheetrock and paneling). But these ninnies, this buffoons, installed a dryer vent by cutting through a stud!

With what I've seen in this house so far I fear my imagination is insufficient to anticipate the antics that will be uncovered as time goes on. So if you like chuckling at the misfortune of others, you've found your blog (at least when I'm not talking about cooking or preaching about how easy it is to be green (apologies Kermit)).

Be careful of what you ask

Or be careful of what you look for. After a day of discovering the many flaws with my bathroom ceiling I decided to start the day with a simple wiring job. As previously mentioned I added a new GFI outlet to the bathroom. Previously we only had one outlet, next to the washing machine and nothing next to the sink. This led to many extension cords and much grimacing. This would be a simple job, take an hour and I could gather those feel good emotions you get from successfully doing something yourself.

After cutting out a hole from the wall (tracing around the plastic outlet box), I took some measurements and set out for the basement where I would drill into the bottom plate of the wall so I could fish the new wire from the bathroom to the basement where I would tie it into the circuit that had the other GFI on it (they would be wired in parallel). This house defies the normal rules of a locally flat space-time so I new I might be off when drilling my hole. I started small and figured that we planned on replacing the bathroom floor eventually. I started drilling, but hit something and I couldn't push past it. I figured it was a nail and moved slightly to one side and tried again. I thought maybe I was in an awkward position and wasn't pushing hard enough...I melted the tip of my bit!

Odd, no? I was starting to wonder if it was going to be one of those days. I went upstairs and figured I could drill a pilot hole down into the basement. Still no luck, there was something very hard between the linoleum and the basement. Maybe some old tile? Tile seemed a bit extravagent for the penny choking misers who'd inflicted their thrifty ways on this poor building for so many years. But as this was a fairly sheltered corner of the bathroom seldom seen...and since we planned on replacing the flooring eventually....I took up a small corner with my utility knife. More flooring. Not surprising. Another layer. Sure, ok. Cheap wood panel board...okay...then....and I'm not kidding...CONCRETE. A couple of inches of CONCRETE. I had to use a cold chisel and my small sledge hammer to remove it. It filled 2/3 of a five gallon bucket (thanks Sean!). As if that weren't weird enough, there are a half dozen different layers/heights under the concrete. I have no idea what this is telling me (sell the house Kevin....sell the house...) as I'm still restraining myself from tearing up the entire floor. But here are some pictures to befuddle you with.

Although now that I look at them they seem like tiny stairs for house gnomes...

Knob and Tube wiring

Disclaimer: I'm not an electrician.

I'm not upset about the presence of knob and tube (KB) wiring in the house. Its an old building and KB wiring was what they used back in the day. Your experiences with KB will probably vary. The KB in my house is in very good condition, in fact the insulation is a pain to get off when you're stripping the ends. However, KB was installed in an era when there were fewer appliances drawing less current. Which has made me consider that using 'green' or 'energy star' appliances may be good for more than just the environment, they may be good for your house if you're living in an older building with KB wiring. Another concern is that most of the light fixtures and electrical outlets (basement, first floor, and second floor) are on one circuit (one breaker) and most of that is original KB wiring. So there's the potential for tripping the breaker fairly easily.

Many sites will tell you that you must replace it all and all of it right now, no delay, do it now. Now, go...what are you waiting for? Well that's all well and good, but I think we have to be realistic. In the last post I wrote about how Sara and I were going to work on the bathroom. Well when we took a look at the ceiling we discovered quite a bit of KB wiring. We had been told, during the inspection while buying the house, that there was 'a little' KB wiring left. We've found more than a little. It runs through the walls and ceiling of the entire first floor. Gutting it and replacing it in the next week just isn't going to happen. There has to be a compromise.

Heck, there's a lot 'new' wiring in the house that I don't like any more than the 'old' wiring. Too many tie-in's, too few junction boxes, too much electrical tape and too few wire nuts. The wires (akin to the plumbing) make the Gordian knot look like a simple overhand knot. So what to do?

KB wiring isn't always colored coded. When you take a look at a modern piece of household wiring (aka romex) there are three wires, one is just plain copper (ground), another is black ('hot') and the last is white ('neutral'). Its a nice convention. My KB wiring however is just a gummy black color. I needed to replace a run of KB wiring with some modern wiring and put in some junction boxes. Since I wasn't in a position to replace everything right back to the breaker box I needed to know the polarity of the KB wiring. So I killed the power to the entire house, went back and took off a small section of insulation from each wire of the KB wire run. Then I turned the power back on. So yes, I had live wires. I'm not particularly afraid of electricity. You have to be smart about it, but its not going to arc across the air and melt your eyes. I used a voltmeter with insulated alligator clips and measured the voltage drop from each wire to a ground (my shower pipe). The wire with the 120V drop is the 'hot' and the other (which may have a small voltage or none at all) is the neutral. Now I know how to splice in.

There's a lot of warning about splicing into KB on the web. I suspect some of it is because KB has some special requirements that your typical romex doesn't have. It was laid in a way to radiate away excess heat. That's why you'll see them laid about a foot or so apart and why they're not running through insulation (in many states its not legal to lay insulation over KB wiring). The connections between KB wiring weren't done in junction boxes, the wires were spliced together, twisted and soldered and so they can be damaged by yanking or pulling on the wire. I suppose the idea is that messing around with existing KB wiring might increase the liklihood of its failure. Its up to you.

After spending a day replacing some of it though I have vowed to largely rewire this house in the next year, the supplies are not very expensive and its mostly a matter of cursing, grunting and staring thoughtfully (and annoyed) as you try to figure out what the hell you're looking at. But since we're planning on gutting the inside we'll have greater access to the wiring and can replace it quickly and efficiently.

NOTE: While you're rewiring or adding onto a circuit in your home it'll all make sense to you,...now. But what about in five years, will you remember all the reasons you did what you did? Will you remember where that wire went? I doubt it. So for the wires I've been laying I've been using a sharpie to give some hints on the wire and I've been writing on the junction boxes indicated the date of installation and the breaker number that shuts down that box/outlet/fixture/wire. For example I recently added a GFI to my bathroom (in parallel to the other GFI...which was the only outlet in my bathroom) and here's what you'll see if you look at my wiring:

I like a good puzzle, but once its solved I prefer to move on. Within a year, a ten year old will be able to explain the wiring of this house to you and do it justice.

This old house

I should have known. This wasn't the first time events unfolded in this manner. This past spring Sara and I took out the suspended ceiling in the bathroom. Suspended ceilings are usually a sign of a patch job over something you really shouldn't ignore. That was the case. After the ceiling was taken out we removed all the plaster and lathe and then put up a layer of plastic to keep the dust contained while we dealt with life.

We decided that since we had a few weeks before school started this would be a good time to take down the plastic and throw up some sheet rock and 'improve' the bathroom which was the dingiest room in the house. But upon closer inspection, all was not well. I've written previously on the series of morons, cheapskates and degenerates that owned this house before us. We have only just begun to explore the depths of their depravity.

Take a look at the pictures above. You'll see a number of beams 'sistered' together. Look closely...they're sagging. Why? Look closely, you'll some rough cut 2'x4's that are perpendicular to the sistered beams and cut off roughly level with the beams. What are they? Those are the studs of the the exterior wall of the upper story. When Dingbat and Dunceman added on the addition some time ago they just cut through the exterior supporting wall and sistered some beams into the original ceiling joists. Its simple physics!

So what now? Well the ceiling joists all have differing levels of sag so even if we were a couple of lazy, unimaginative DIY home owners we couldn't sheet rock over it (unless we wanted lots of cracked gypsum). I've gotten some advice and here's what we're thinking. I'm going to lay some beams from wall to wall to add some strength for starters. We don't have the time, money or expertise to consider jacking up the house. But we can prevent it from further settling. The addition has been there a very long time. Long enough for knob and tube wiring to be installed, rough hewn lumber to be used and square nails to be used as well. I suspect its not settling very much, but it worries me nontheless.

Once the cieling's been reinforced we'll use 2x4's to create a 'level playing field' to attach sheetrock onto.

There has been a decision made however, its time to start living in a construction site. We can't keep chipping away at this monstrosity some folks call a house. Not if we want to make it into a home. Sheetrock, wiring and insulation are relatively inexpensive and demolition is very cheap. Sara and I have have decided to start gutting the house. It will ultimately be better to stare at bare timber and be able to access old wiring, insulation, and plumbing easily than try to second guess all the different problems that we'll encounter.

More to follow.

Sweet Potato Chocolate Chip Cookies

These are basically a spin off from Pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. For whatever reason, I figured that I could use mashed sweet potato. Its certainly easier than making mashed pumpkin and you don't have to buy it in a can. As a side note, just steam a cubed sweet potato and then mash it, its that easy.

The cookies came out lovely, very similar to pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. I think there are some things I'd like to try though, like using whole wheat flour and maybe some oats as well, but one thing at a time :)

Sweet Potato Chocolate Chip Cookies

Heat oven to 350 degrees F

1 C Sugar
1 C mashed sweet potato (or probably lots of things)
1/3 C oil (though you could probably use other fats and even yogurt)
1 egg, beaten
1 t milk
1 t vanilla

2 C flour
1/2 t salt
1 t cinnamon
2 t baking powder
1 t baking soda

1 C chocolate chips
1/2 C optional nuts

Mix dry, then mix wet (consider sugar wet). Mix together and add chocolate chips. Put on a lightly greased baking sheet (or use parchment paper). Bake for 10-14 minutes (largely depends on how you like them. I like mine a bit drier)

Garden Fresh Salsa

I was never much of a fan of salsa until a few years ago when we came across Sister's Salsa which is made in Blue Hill, Maine (not far from here). We didn't buy it just because it was local, but because it was clearly made of fresh veggies. It didn't have any sauce, it wasn't pureed, it was tomatoes, onions, bits of jalapeno and a tangy tasty juice that I would regularly slurp down once the salsa proper was gone. That being said, its also kind of pricey at around $4-5 a 14oz bucket. But as Michael Pollan has said "Pay more, eat less."

Well the tomatoes have been coming in for a few weeks now and I've been working on my salsa recipe and I think I've duplicated the Sister's Salsa. I started with the ingredients on the bucket and added (and recorded) until I had something that tasted pretty damn good. I thought I would share it with you.

Garden Fresh Salsa

1.5 lb of tomatoes (4-6 depending on size) cut small (makes scooping easier)
1/2 a jalapeño (or the whole thing if you like it hotter)
1 t salt
3/4 C Onion (minced)
1.5 T apple cider vinegar
1.5 t lemon juice
1 t lime juice
1 clove garlic (I'm lazy so I press it)
1.5 T minced cilantro leaves.

I think salsa is definitely a personal thing and you may want this hotter, or tangier or maybe you want green peppers in it. Go ahead and adjust, just record what you do so you can make it over and over again. Happy Summer Eating!

Almond Milk

I first came across this non-dairy milk a year or so ago when Sara bought some. We liked it as it doesn't have a strong flavor, and reminds me of skim milk (more so than soy milk). Time passed. I was reading a book on medieval cookery this summer and the authors were pointing out that almond milk was very common in europe for many centuries and that you often didn't find any mention to how to make it since it was so common the authors of such cookbooks just assumed you knew. I thought that was neat (has soy milk likewise been around for a while). Then I happened across a link one day in my internet travels that mentioned the ease of making almond milk.

We don't necessarily need to make it, but I was curious given the above. Here's the modern way. Take a cup of almonds and soak them in 3-4 cups of water (so a 1:3 or a 1:4 ratio of almonds to water) though one person mentioned using 2 cups if you wanted it real thick. Soak them for at least 12 hours, I did mine overnight. Then put the whole thing in a blender and blend. What you then have is almond milk and a bunch of tiny bits of almonds.

So use a sieve or a cheese cloth and strain the liquid. I'm looking for ways to use the almond paste that I've got left over. There must be some baking that can be done. But the resulting liquid was tasty. You can sweeten it with honey or I saw one video that used a couple of dates blended in.

But its that simple: Almonds + Water = Almond Milk. I did notice that there's seperation of the liquid when left in the fridge, but a quick shake mixes it back up. Sara mentioned that the carton's of Almond milk she's seen have "shake before using" on them, but doesn't everything? In any event, its tasty and a good addition to a smoothie.

Why make almond milk? I'm sure there are many reasons for many different people. I think its neat because almonds are a natural part of my pantry. I keep a couple of pounds of them on hand for eating or additions to various culinary endeavors. So this is a product that can now be made from what's on hand.

One man's trash...

We live in a town next to a university and so we have many young folk who move in and out of apartments on a regular basis. I'm accustomed to stopping next to road to pick over their discarded materials, but today I went a step further. I started opening garbage bags. What's more...I took my youngest along with me. Brenna was thrilled since she's been raised as an earth loving environmentalist. But not one of those yuppie environmentalists are by hybrid SUVS and organic oreos. No, if you want to be an environmentalist, pick through garbage. Not food garbage, but trash. I'm quickly getting a feel for when the garbage is food based or loot based. The loot tends to be in larger bags that end up having an irregular shape versus the kitchen garbage bags that have smooth contours. A quick peak inside gives you a clue as to whether you're about to stumble upon a load of treasure or a pile of rotten food :(

Here's what we picked up:

Meal Tray
Chess Board
various micro USB cords
AC-to-USB converter
A pile of clothes (they're in the wash, We'll give the extras to Goodwill)
A neat display case
loads of thumb tacks
a couple of plastic buckets
various rags (good for bike repairs)
couple of CDs
casserole dish (w/cover)
some baskets
A serving platter
and more!

Keep this stuff out of landfills and keep yourself out of stores. Do yourself and the environment a favor, pick through your neighbor's garbage :)

Why buy local?

This evening I had another experience to reinforce eating locally. I had a hamburger. I purchased the meat from Grassland Farm (Skowhegan, Me) which is also where we get our milk and eggs from. I didn't do anything fancy, no seasonings or such. I just made five patties from the pound of hamburg I bought and fried them in a bit of olive oil. I'm a fan of condiments so after tasting the very tasty burger plain I put it on some homemade bread along with a bit of ketchup, mustard and relish.

"ZOMG" I think is the modern expression. It was fabulous. It was tasty. It was local (which makes it mentally fresh) from a farm I believe in and know the owners of. It was also fabulous because I haven't had a burger in months. The cost means I buy it less, so I eat it less so I enjoy it all the more. Eating locally has constraints, it can limit you, but those constraints can also enrich your life. Or maybe this is just me seeing the glass as half full...and the hamburger as wonderfully tasty!

Garden Update

I'm woefully overdue for a garden update. So here it is (pictures from last week)



The zucchini are doing well. I ended up keeping three of the six that sprouted (didn't want them to crowd). They seem a bit skinny as plants and haven't really filled out, though to date they've put out three very nice zucchini that have made their ways into a cake and a frittata. So I shouldn't complain much.


The kid's garden is quite alive, with both plants and japanese beetles. The death toll is horrific but they seem friskier than ever. The tripods I built for Brenna's pole beans and Delanie's morning glories (or was it holly hock?) were woefully lame. Next year we'll just have these plants grow up the side of the house instead. That should provide more shade to us and give these guys somewhere to expend all that youthful energy.

My pride and joy: onions. I can't wait to chew on these. They're so pretty! Definitely need to grow more of these folks next year. I have a couple of friends/family that have offered up portions of their yards if I want to put a raised bed in and onions are one of those crops that I'm thinking of out sourcing. They grow so easily and have always seemed to do so well. We use a lot of them as well and they store fantastically.



Tomatoes next to the stairs, like many of our tomato plants are doing very well. I picked up the seedlings from a farmer at the Orono Farmer's Market and have been very impressed with the results. Speaking of seedlings the peppers are doing wonderfully as well. Never before have I grown so many types of peppers and I'm not sure I will again, but I happened to come across some great variety six-packs at a local organic greenhouse (on Forest Ave, off Stillwater):

The potatoes have settled into their new home along the fence. While I do not yet know how much is growing within the buckets I'm still very pleased about the current results. The portability and the space saving effects of this means of growing potatoes weighs heavily in favor of doing this again.



I've grown bush beans a few times and sorely underestimated the height requirements of pole beans, as already noted above. This next pic is from the back of the house which only receives a few hours of direct sunlight each day, but ends up with many hours of reflected light from a neighbors garage. The beans have done admirably back here. As noted above, next year this part of the house will hopefully be a wall of green beans and morning glories. I'm super excited for it :)



I've suddenly reached photo uploading burnout. I'll post more soon.

Pizza

There's a lot I don't know, but I'm excited about Alton Brown's pizza recipe. For one its a tasty crust and AB's notion of pizza is to 'decorate' a tasty crust...not bury it. So we add a bit of sauce, a bit of herbs, a bit of cheese (we like asiago and a bit of feta, but you can use almost anything). This is a bit of a revelation in the land of _____-Lover's pizzas where the crust is merely a vehicle for toppings. AB's pizza tends to be much lighter on the cheese and toppings which tends to make the 'pizza is healthy' idea a lot more plausible.

Something else that inspired me was the refrigeration step. After AB makes his crust he pops it into the fridge for 18-24 hours. It will change very little in volume during this phase but as AB points out, we're not looking for volume, but flavor. What I like is that you can make it ahead of time. In fact, as of this post I've used dough that has sat in the fridge (covered) for over a week! So you could whip up a batch on Sunday and then if you're feeling like a pizza night, you're all set.

Some notes: From the fridge, it takes 15-30 minutes for it to loosen up. Try shaping it too soon and it'll tear. Also, realize that the pizza cooks at 500 degrees and it takes a while for the oven to reach that temperature. So once you decide that its a pizza night, set your oven to 500 and take the dough out of the fridge. Half an hour later shape it, dress it up and cook it for 7 minutes. So all in all I'd say you can have pizza (on homemade crust) within 45 minutes.

The Grant Loaf

I've been using the basic no knead recipe I posted on here for a while. But sometimes I goof and I don't plan accordingly and I run out of bread. I've started thinking about how to deal with that. Flat breads can be done fairly quickly. In a couple of hours you can bang out a stack of tortillas or chapatis and they are awesome. But what if you want something more leavened? Well I came across the following recipe in a bread book labeled, appropriately enough, The Bread Book by Linda Collister and Anthony Blake. Generally I feel as though the book is a bit pretentious but it does have a number of good recipes in it and some helpful advice.

In any event, I was reading through some recipes and came across The Grant Loaf (pg. 44). Its a no-knead, one rise (short at that) bread. You mix the ingredients, put them in loaf pans, let them rise for about 30 minutes or so and bake for another half an hour. So within one and a half hours you end up with bread, not bad.

I modified the recipe from the start as it calls for just whole wheat flour. I've had trouble in the past getting my whole wheat bread to leaven enough (for me personally) and so I cut it 50-50 with unbleached all purpose flour. It was easy to make and came out really well. The next batch I'm going to try just using all unbleached flour, then I'll play around with some proportions. In any event, here's the recipe:

The Grant Loaf

4 - 4.75 C whole wheat flour
2 t salt
2.5 C lukewarm water (I just used cold)
2.5 t dry active yeast
1 t packed brown sugar or honey
2 greased loaf pans (I used butter)

Mix together 4 cups of flour and the salt in a large bowl. Mix the water, honey and yeast together in another bowl and let the yeast bloom (i.e. get all ready to munch on some flour). Once the yeast mixture is all nice and foamy dump it in the dry ingredients and mix. The start adding the reserve flour, about a 1/4 cup at a time, until you get a moist dough that pulls away from the walls of the bowl. Put the dough into loaf pans and cover with a moist cloth. Heat your oven to 400 degrees. Let rise until about a 1/2 inch from the top of the pan (depends: anywhere from 20-40 minutes) and then cook for 35-40 minutes.

Further Notes: I'm not sure what would happen if you let it rise further, something to experiment with certainly. As it is, the crumb is soft and moist and it has a pretty even distribution of gas pockets as you can see from the image.

Rain, Rain, welcome back!

So far my garden has only been water with rainwater. Either with rain falling from the sky or rain gathered during rain storms. Yesterday I used up the last of my reserves. I've been using it frugally by watering first thing in the morning and watering close to the base (i.e. not watering the foliage or the surrounding yard). My thought is that by being really careful with when and where I water I can get more to the plant and waste less. It seems to have worked. Despite the hot weather (sans rain) the plants have looked vibrant.

Today its raining and when you collect rain water you tend to look forward to the rain. So the garden is getting a good watering and my water coffers are filling up. I encourage anyone to start. Just grab some pails or plastic bins and put them under the eaves of your roof. You don't have to worry about spigots and screens etc at first. You don't even need rain barrels though they're nice. You just need something to hold the water and then some way of getting it from the container to your plants. While I certainly aspire to more clever (and larger) collection systems, start small and take advantage of that great stuff falling from the sky.

Damn Simple Smoothie

I'm posting this for posterity's sake. I make a damn good smoothie and I make them often (daily currently). So here's one take.

Damn Simple Smoothie

Some yogurt (I use the plain stuff)
Frozen Berries
honey (optional)

Directions: blend, then eat/drink.

I probably use a 2:1 ratio of frozen berries to yogurt, but I don't measure anything. This is one of those great foods where you can experiment. Feel free to add things like peanut butter, or if you use fresh fruit, add ice to make it thick.

Good food for this weather :)

Garden Update

Time for some pictures and comments on the garden, which is the first garden of this residence.



Its the second week of July and its pretty hot and humid up here in Old Town, Maine, but I planted peas late (June) but, I planted them in a really shady spot. This spot (next to our kitchen) gets 3-4 hours of pre-noon sun and then its in shade the rest of the day. As a result, I think, these peas are doing alright considering the weather. There are a few pods and I suspect that we'll have some to munch on by next week. Certainly not early, but its telling me what I wanted to know. Also, notice that I have quite the number of bean plants growing in there as well. I read that green beans would do okay with partial sun and indeed they are. I just need much longer canes as the vines have already outgrown the tee pees I set up last month.



Onto the potatoes. I haven't posted too much about these as I played around with them. Its time for a summary, though the real results won't be in until this fall when I tip the buckets over and see what kind of loot its born. I used buckets I obtained from a local bakery for a dollar a piece. They're not quite five gallon buckets, probably 3-4 gallon. Each bucket got a couple of eyes planted in about 3-4 inches of composted manure. The going was slow at first and I initially used straw to 'mound up' the potato plants. However, for two buckets I used compost (from the town) to 'mound up'. What I found was that the potatoes that were given the compost did better than the ones given straw. I'm a newbie so I can only conjecture but I wonder if the compost doesn't both hold moisture better and provide some nutrients while the straw does little except block light. So I tried switching some of the potato plants from straw to compost. They did much better. Once I saw that, I switched all of them over to compost. Now they all look lovely.



Lanie's garden (our oldest) is a flower garden which isn't very far from flowering. She's got nasturtiums, holly hock, and morning glories. I finally got around to putting up a tee pee for them to climb on.



That is, if the japanese beetles don't eat all them yet. They started showing up a few days ago and these folks will eat at night but are also more than happy to take an afternoon lunch in the sun. They crunch a bit when you squish them and they're smart enough to fly away once you start on your beetle killing spree. So we'll see who wins.

Snack food meets dinner

It has occurred to me (and I hope I haven't already written about this) but guacamole and salsa are just veges. Get yourself some decent tortilla chips and you've got some good summer eats.

It was hot today so I whipped up some fresh salsa (not perfect yet, but its coming along) and a really good guacamole recipe (five ingredients!).

So go ahead, snack, but make it a meal and enjoy some veges!

Our First Raspberries

Online Cookery

I've cooked LOTS of new stuff in the past week, too much to worry about catching up on. So I thought I'd link to the recipes I'd obtained online. I'll make a couple of comments for each link.

Flour Tortillas, what I like about this webpage is that they discuss some of the history of tortillas. Increasingly as I research recipes, I like to know as much as I can about the original form and ingredients. I'm finding that its often simpler and easier to make. Starting from the original you can tweak it according to your taste or convenience instead of starting in the present with recipes that have already been tweaked by other cooks. I use butter for the fat in one batch and then used olive oil in another batch. Both came out just fine.

Biscuits a la Alton Brown, I've recently become a huge fan of Alton Brown. If you haven't watched his show, do. Each show is usually about a food more than a recipe. There's a discussion of the history of the food along with nutrition and chemistry. He then generally makes a couple of items and often discusses quick ways of altering the recipe. The above biscuit recipe has alterations to make shortbread and scones. I've made both the shortbread and the biscuits and they came out great. I used butter as I don't use shortening. The scones are coming soon :) Below is a picture of the strawberry shortcake we had last week with strawberries we picked that morning. The shortbread is homemade (above recipe with an extra 1/3 C of sugar, though just biscuits would work fine) and the whipped cream on top was whipped just moments before eating. YUM!



Sour Cream, this is rather easy and before making this I didn't realize that buttermilk is cultured. Modern buttermilk is pasteurized and then they add back in the cultures they want. In any event, I like the overnight recipe (down the page a bit). You can be a bit glib with the recipe. Fill a small mason jar and just pour in some buttermilk. Let it sit at room temperature for 24 hours or so and bam, tasty sour cream.

Caesar Salad, I never knew caesar salad could be so elegant but this recipe does it. I recommend looking for the video of Alton doing this on YouTube, its season one, episode four. I also recommend that when you make your croutons you do so just before you make the salad. The warm garlicky croutons on the cool crisp salad is a great juxtaposition. You certainly don't have to, but its a nice touch. I also like to make my croutons just a bit chewy, not so desert dry, but that's personal preference. In any event, this recipe gives you a nice way to open a dinner if you're entertaining and a nice way to connect with your food (as opposed to pouring the white stuff in the bottle labeled 'caesar dressing' on your lettuce).

Tuna Surprise

I love tuna fish sandwiches. However, I'm sufficiently wary of mercury and overfishing to limit my consumption. Today I have found a vegetarian replacement and: it. is. amazing. Which is the surprise, I made this little recipe just to increase my bean-using-arsenal, but it turned out to be super great as a sandwich.

Made from the white kidney bean (also known as the cannellini bean) it is great! Its from online cookbook put out by the folks over at Stone Soup. I just started following the blog, but I heard about the cookbook through Lifehacker.

Here's the recipe (adjusted by adding salt/pepper as I'm not under the five ingredient constraint), its on page 16.

white bean & parmesan puree

1 can canellini beans (400g /14oz), drained
1 - 2 cloves garlic
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
60g (2oz) parmesan cheese, fnely grated
3 - 4 tablespoons lemon juice
Salt and Pepper to taste.

Place all ingredients in a food processor and whizz until very smooth.

NOTE: I used dry canellini beans, soaked overnight and then cooked in a pot of water (same water they soaked in). I overcooked them (a bit mushy) but it turned out okay since I was going to puree them anyway.

Another night, another bug

The circles are bad guys. The circle with a "2" next to it are bad guys having have bug sex...on my squash


This is the latest little rascal. I'm not sure what it is, but I find them eating the leaves on my squash plants at night. Hell, I catch them humping on my squash leaves! Is nothing sacred? Well, at least they died in a moment of pleasure. For now I just squish them between my fingers but once I figure out what they are perhaps I can learn something a bit more clever (and that results in less blood lost from evening insects).



I've found a couple of these on my potato plants previously while on my evening rounds and squished them. Now I find them on a tomato plant. Luckily they're not very quick, physically or mentally. They just kind of hang out on the edge of leave all long, brown and gluttonous.

Once again I have to say, knowing that many pests are nocturnal is super helpful. While its a bit buggy out at night, it is kind of nice to figure out what's been eating at your veges and catch them in the act.

Veni, Vidi, Edi

I'm fairly convinced that cookery in the ancient world was both a simpler and a more complicated affair. Complicated in the sense that they couldn't tune their oven to exactly 375 degrees, they didn't have food processors and for that matter a refrigerator. But what they lacked in convenience they seemed to make up in bold simplicity (and extremely vague recipes!). I tried a recipe today. I can't say that I'm terribly impressed so I'm not going to post it. However I've found a book with some other versions and I'm going to try those out. However, the 'cake' turned out okay (I had no expectations) and consists of only ricotta, flour, an egg, and honey drizzled over the finished product. There is a bay leave involved but I'm skeptical as to how important that is. Perhaps important for authenticity and I respect that. But to be honest I'm hoping to pillage history for simple dishes that reflect local cooking. Long before shortening, baking soda, and granulated sugar there was food. While I'm not planning on living like a medieval monk (they ate some weird crap) I think there are some valuable lessons to be learned but looking back.