All I Can Do Here: Beginnings

Showing posts with label Beginnings. Show all posts

Monday, 26 May 2014

Working hard, and hardly working

I've had a productive few weeks, while still managing to put off way too many things that need to get done. Turns out being injured means you prioritize...but for me that means the things I always put off just keep getting put off for longer and longer.

*sigh* I'm going to have to pull up my socks and just get the darn laundry done! ....Wednesday.

Anyways, catching up.

The community garden plot is coming along really well so far. I've gotten almost all the planting done! So far the plot has (* next to seedlings I started):

-Zucchini*
-Cucumber* (although it may die it was perking up as of the last time I was over there...fingers crossed. I did plant 2 new seeds in hopes that if the original kicked the bucket the new ones would germinate. I could potentially end up with 4 cucumber plants sharing the spot. Yeep!)
-Patti pan squash (a kind of zucchini)*
-Hubbard Squash*
-Sugar Pumpkin*
-3 Bloody Butcher tomatoes*
-2 Black Krim tomatoes*
-1 Cherry tomato*
-1 Lemon Boy tomato (yay free seedlings! :) )
-2 Jalapeno peppers*
-2 Bell peppers* (these seedlings were poor to start and are decidedly behind the two best jalapenos)
-6 Brussel sprouts
-4 Asparagus (which won't be harvest-able for at least a year)
-6 green leaf lettuce (which just would NOT start from seed for me...:( )
-6 bright lights chard (ish...there were definitely a few extra plants in there but I certainly won't be complaining! I LOVE chard!)
-10 corn stalks (very experimental...I'm excited to see if it'll work)
-4 celery (I'm interested to see how these store-bought starts compare to my home seeded survivor. I planted 2 store bought right near my home grown one in my home garden so I can compare)
-Walla walla onion sets (I'm planting a single row all around the perimeter of my garden in homes of dissuading pests...between that and the marigold I still need to get in I'm hoping it'll discourage many of the bugs)
-Yellow onion bulbs
-seeded sprouting broccoli (probably too late, but we'll see Maybe I'll get a late crop)
-seeded lettuce, 2 varieties

Garden pictures!

Corn
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The back of the plot.
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Left to right: Rhubarb (came with the plot, I have two BIG ones), asparagus, hubbard squash, sugar pumpkin, zucchini. The cucumber is sort of in between the rows.
Tomatoes, then peppers.

The whole plot, just after the first bunch of planting (forgive the sad-looking plants, there was more weeding and soil prep than I'd thought so the starts had to sit in the sun while we worked.)
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Artsy shot of the broccoli starts - courtesy of my sister who took the pics
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I still have to seed carrots, radishes, and beets. I'm planning to line the path in the middle of the garden with rows, as a sort of growing border. I'll do either 2-3 carrots/radishes, or 1 beet. Hopefully I'll get that done this weekend coming up. Then all I have left is mulching around the larger plants and down the walkway! Hopefully that will minimize my weeding and also improve the soil for next year.

All in all I'm counting the seed starting adventure as a success!

Notes for next year:

-Plant fewer tomatoes!
-Plant tomatoes later!
-Plant fewer squash - then the ones I plant will have more room under the light and more attention (besides, I prefer zucchini and cucumbers anyways!)

Sunday, 20 April 2014

Thursday, 17 April 2014

Seed Starting - Update

It's been getting warmer here, MUCH warmer. All the snow in front of our house has melted, but there's still a depressing amount in the back yard on top of my garden. I did get my first peek at the dirt of the garden yesterday though. I feel a bit silly, but I was so happy to see that little bit of rich black earth.

I noticed something about the seedlings that I think is a bit strange and I can't quite explain. It's something I read about on another blog (Lights In My Basement) and thought to myself "No way. There's no reason that would happen...right?" Yeah. Turns out my gut instinct was way off on this one.

I started all my tomatoes at the same time. The same day, planted them all in one go.

They germinated quickly, and grew well. I noted in my last post that the Bloody Butcher seeds germinated the best, but the Cherry tomatoes were the hardiest looking, and that I had up-potted a few of each variety. Admittedly, at the time I did pick the strongest looking starts...but I don't know that that can entirely be the cause of what happened after I up-potted some.

The plants I moved into bigger pots are now easily double the size of the others...easily. They look stronger and healthier, have thick leaves, and lots of little hairs on the main stems. The starts that had to sit in the tiny cells stayed much smaller. I thought maybe it was because they had less room to root, but I up-potted another bunch of them the other day and their roots weren't more than one little tap root and a few off shoots. They weren't anywhere near reaching the edges of the pots.

Basically I have no idea why...but it does make me consider planting the next bunch of starts (the gourds, cucumber, zucchini, ect) right into my bigger pots (which may or may not be cheap white plastic cups...*cough* If I reuse them it's environmentally friendly, right?).

I have been bottom-watering all the starts as much as possible, the exception being anything very tiny or just repotted.

Despite the wild success of the tomato starts I'm equally thrilled with the other plants I've got going so far. The peppers, bell and jalapeno, are coming along nicely, and three of the 4 habanero seeds came up. I even up-potted the best looking of the habanero starts. I'll probably up-pot one more and then either offer the others to friends or toss them.

I'm really excited about the celery starts. they're still tiny tiny tiny...If I do them again next year I'll plant them MUCH earlier as I don't know if they'll be ready to transplant into the garden by the time the garden is ready for them. I have three and they're all doing pretty good. One is noticeably bigger than the other two, so we'll see how they all progress. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

The last thing I'll add is the salad mix is doing OK. I'm not crazy about it, I thought they would be growing better, but they're turning a bit leggy. I may end up just buying lettuce starts.. :( I'm not giving up on them yet and I'll definitely be doing an early planting straight into the garden as soon as I can work with it. I didn't have much luck with that last year, but maybe I'll try and cloche them to give them a bit of a boost.

Until next time ;)

Pictures to come - Post written April 10, 2014 (I should do another update pretty soon, and I've dawdled on this one long enough I thought I should date it for an accurate timeline ;) )

Thursday, 27 March 2014

Seed Starting 2014

This is my first year starting my garden from seeds. I decided to try it because it's cheaper (factor #1 for me), and I was unimpressed with the selection of heirloom starts locally. (Aka, there were none...)

So many of the big garden/cooking/sufficiency gardeners start from seeds and rave about it...I'll be honest. I wanted to jump on that band wagon.

So jump I did. Without my typical amount of research. Whoops.

Valuable lesson #1
Don't order seeds from the US if you live in Canada. :(

Luckily that was a very small order done as a test...still disappointing but not like I lost all the seeds for this year.

Lesson learned. I ordered the rest from a Canadian organic heirloom seed company (incredibleseeds.ca). and the results so far are stellar. I've only planted about half of the seedlings (stupid Canada's stupid late last freeze dates...*grumble grumble*) but those have done surprisingly well so far.

The repotted seedlings (back to front); cherry tomatoes, bloody butcher tomatoes, black krim tomatoes, jalapeno peppers, bell peppers, herbs.

Here's a bit of info on what I bought, why, and how it's done so far.

Tomatoes

I chose three varieties to plant:

Bloody Butcher Heirloom

ISC: 55 days. Heirloom Tomato Seeds. Indeterminate. An excellent early variety Bloody Butcher Heirloom Tomatoes start early and produce consistently until frost. Tomatoes form in clusters of five to nine on vigorous vines. Medium sized tomatoes with fantastic flavour. A good multi-purpose variety, excellent fresh and canned.

Why I picked them: The growing season here is really short (like...REALLY short), so something that starts quick and keeps going is a huge bonus. I also really love fresh tomatoes, I'll eat them like apples...but one of my goals is to can some of my own produce. Since these tomatoes are good for both fresh eating AND canning that's what I want.

Planting/seedlings: They are doing amazingly. I actually got more than 100% success with them coming up. Clearly I planted an extra few seeds by accident. I'm ok with that though. With luck I'll have 19 well-producing tomato plants this year :)

The plants are doing better now that they've been repotted once. I took some advice from another gardening blog and repotted them straight into fancy containers (*cough* red solo cup *cough*) that should do well until they're ready to go into the garden. I still have more to move, I did the most vigorous 5 plants, and the ones I moved definitely look to be improving quicker. I'm going to need more room in my indoor garden post haste!

Black Krim

http://incredibleseeds.ca/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1_40&products_id=105

ISC: 75 days. Heirloom Tomato Seeds. Black Krim Heirloom Tomatoes are a rare purple-black tomato and is one of the best tasting you will ever try. Originally from the Isle of Krim in the Black Sea of the former Soviet Union. The dark, three inch fruit have a fantastic and intense taste perfect for anything that calls for a tomato. One of the best available.

Why I picked them: To be honest I got this for fun. I'm not expecting loads and loads of tomatoes from it, since 75 days is quite long to start...but I loved the pictures of the Black Krims on the website and thought it would be neat to see how they do. I'd love it if I got enough to can even one jar of Black Krim pasta sauce!

Planting/seedlings: I've gotten pretty good success from these; I planted 9 and 7 came up. I'm happy with that. They aren't as vigorous as the Bloody Butcher or the Cherry...but they're doing ok. I only repotted the biggest 3 seedlings and they're looking good as of last night.

Large Red Cherry Tomatoes

ISC: 80 days. Indeterminate vines. Large Red Cherry is a very prolific producer of one to two inch bright red cherry tomatoes. The deep red fruit are great for snacks and salads.

Why I picked them: I love cherry tomatoes. LOVE THEM. If I get any of these I'll be thrilled. Again, 80 days is a long start time, but I'm hopeful they'll do ok. I've had a lot of success with cherry tomatoes in the past (well, more than with the regular ones anyways, lol) and since this says it's prolific...I picked this one. We'll see how it does.

Planting/seedlings: These have the lowest germination rate - 6:9 - but the healthiest looking seedlings. They were the first ones to get their first set of true leaves, and were already working on the second set by the time I repotted them! Now they're still ahead of the others, and growing strong.

Peppers

I did plant three varieties, but bought one on a whim at a certain local mega-store...we shall see how they compare to the heirloom plants!

California Wonder Bell Peppers

75 days. California Wonder Sweet Bell Peppers are a top choice for northern gardeners producing very well in our climate. The fruit are large, have thick walls and are very tasty. The peppers can be picked when green or left on the plant until they turn bright red for a sweeter taste. They are hard to beat for fresh eating and also make for delicious stuffed peppers.

Why I picked them: It's like they wrote this just for me! at 75 days they're one of the shortest peppers I found, I'm really hope full I'll get a good set on them. Since one of my goals is to feed both the people AND the guinea pigs in the house these bell peppers were really important to me. (For those who don't know guinea pigs should eat 1/4 of a green pepper, or 1/8 of a red pepper EVERY DAY. Needless to say we go through a lot of peppers.)

I particularly like that they can be picked green or red, the more versatility the better.

Planting/seedlings: The peppers are all a little slower than the tomatoes, but they're still looking good. These germinated out at 7:9, which is great, and they're just working on the first set of true leaves. The 2 I repotted are doing well.

Jalapeno Peppers

73 days. The standard for nachos and salsas! Jalapeno Hot Peppers are 3 ½ inch long and have a spicy addictive flavour which has made them such a popular addition to so many recipes today. The vigorous 26 inch plants bear early and abundantly and are very easy to grow, ensuring a bumper crop. They are ready to pick when the peppers are dark green.

Why I picked them: Again, things that I love. Versatile in cooking, easy to grow, produces lots. I have a few jars of amazing pickles jalapenos I made last year...I bet they'll be even better with home-grown peppers! YUM!

Planting/seedlings: The jalapeno peppers didn't germinate as well as the bell peppers... 6:9, but they are healthier looking. The leaves look very different from the tomato starts, and I'm really interested to see how they do. I repotted 2 jalapeno peppers.

Habenero Peppers

Why I picked them: These are the ones I picked up from Wal-Mart. They are organic (or claim to be...), and I purchased and planted them late, so they haven't come up yet. I only planted them a few days ago, so we'll see what happens. If they don't work I won't be upset, but I'd like to compare them to the heirloom seeds.

Other

I thought I'd try a few new things this year...'cause starting my own seedlings wasn't enough to take on, lol.

Rosa Bianca Eggplant

http://incredibleseeds.ca/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1_24&products_id=323

73 days. Heirloom Eggplant Seeds. An Italian variety, Rosa Bianca Heirloom Eggplants have pink and white, rounded fruit. A very unique and beautiful variety, it does need heat and warmer nights to fruit well. If you have a warm spot in your garden along a wall, hot summer weather or a greenhouse it's a nice variety to try.

Why I picked them:I haven't eaten much eggplant...but I know I'm more likely to eat it if I grow it and these are just so darn pretty! I'm not holding out high hopes or anything, but I'll be happy if they do ok. I have a plan for where I want them to go :)

Planting/seedlings: They all came up! 6:6! I was thrilled to see they came up at all, since they were a good week behind the peppers and tomatoes. I haven't transplanted any of them yet, they were still too little...and I didn't have room. Something that will hopefully be remedied in a week or so.

Utah Celery

Utah celery is widely grown and disease resistant. It has tall stalks that are sweet and smooth with leafy tops. It is cold tolerant and long lasting.

Why I picked them: I'm a sucker for cold tolerant plants. I wanted to try celery last year, but without anyone selling seedlings I was out of luck. I've heard there's no comparison to store bought, so I'm curious to see how this works out for me.

Planting/seedlings: I've got 5:6 seedlings up. They're the tiniest little seedlings I've ever seen! The seeds were miniscule, so it makes sense...but I'm hoping the grow quick because at this point I'm a bit nervous about having planted them too late!

My set up is very basic (VERY basic), I have one short shelf, two three foot long fluorescent fixtures (too long for the shelf...whoops), and two seed starting trays. One is empty, the other holds the seedlings I haven't repotted yet.

I should have some things (visiting pets) moved out of my hobby (guinea pig/visiting pet/seed) room by the end of next week, so I'm planning on rigging a way to hang the lights and putting in a table. That should give e enough room to keep the seedlings all happy until spring gets here (whenever that happens....) and they get to go outside!

In a month I'm going to start worrying about setting up an easy hoop frame for the tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers. I want well producing plants, so I'll need to trap what little heat we get here. I'm also hoping to be able to rig up something so I can harden the plants off outside...without having to tramp up and down three flights of stairs with cats underfoot and delicate seedlings in my arms - twice a day! Not going to work.

Other than the herbs that's all I've got going on so far. Yay, long updates! XD

Thursday, 20 March 2014

I'm Back!

Alright, alright, it's been a while.

In my defense I've been crazy busy. Here's a brief update of my flurry of activity the last few months:

-New jobs! 2 of them since the beginning of January! (A non-profit group, and a library, YAY!)
-House guests, in the form of snakes! (They'll be here until the end of this month, and have been with us since the end of December.)
-I registered my business with the city :D This was especially big for me, as it makes my business (pet sitting, dog walking, and pet training) much more official.
-Setting new gardening and self-sufficiency goals. More on this below.
-Starting a bunch of house plants from cuttings (pictures to come at a later date ;) )
-Seed starting!

So I've been quite busy, as you can see.

Now, however, I want to write about self-sufficiency and what that means for me and this blog.

I feel like calling what I'm doing 'self-sufficiency' is a bit like cheating. I'm very much in the baby steps portion, but I am trying to work towards being a bit more reliant on myself and the items I can grow and make (preserve), as well as eating healthier and more locally.

Last year I had made a goal for myself that I was pretty nervous about, to tell the truth. I wanted to not buy any tomato sauce/canned tomatoes between August and January. Now, that seems like a teeny tiny goal to reach compared to some of the other bloggers and self-sufficiency buffs out there, but since I was working full time and canning only in my free time AND it was my first year making canned tomatoes...I felt it was going to be tough.

Well, good news. It's the middle of march and we STILL haven't bought any sauce or canned tomatoes! I am absolutely thrilled. Overall, it cost me about $40 ($1/lb tomatoes, I bought $30 lbs, plus cheap/free jars of kijiji, plus some lids) to make 5 jars of delicious salsa (definitely a recipe I'll be re-using. YUM!), and 8 jars of pasta sauce. Plus the FREE (my favorite price ;) ) 5-6 jars of tomato paste made from the waste products of the salsa and tomato sauce.

The only thing I would change is that I wish I'd made more canned crushed tomatoes. They were sort of an after thought (which means I bought them from the grocery store rather than the farmer's market) and I made about 4 jars...and I wish we had a LOT more than that! Not only was it much easier than the sauce and salsa, I could use it in so many more things.

Other fun things that I did last year include the fridge pickles. Another recipe I'll be going back to this year. They were absolutely amazing, even if they did need more salt (I added more than the recipe called for, but it turns out we just like our pickles saltier!). Especially the single jar of jalapeno dill pickles. I don't know what it was, but man those were amazing. One jar was not enough, and the four big jars I made total barely made it into December.
That makes me want to look into a mini fridge to go in the basement so I can make many many more jars without having to worry about where to put them in our constantly over crowded main fridge! Anyone know where I can get a free mini fridge?

Unfortunately I have no idea what the cost of the pickles was, since I've completely forgotten what I paid and how many pickles I bought. Oh well. I am planning on keeping track better this year (yay blogging! lol) and since I have a lot of things I want to try that'll be important.

For my birthday I got something I've been oogling for YEARS. A pressure cooker! I know most of my friends would have unwrapped that and promptly smacked their significant others for such a gift...but I LOVE it. I haven't gotten to use it yet (maybe some cherry jam is in my future if I get a day off...) but I'm really looking forward to being able to make meat sauce for our spaghetti, non-fridge pickles, and a few other things. I just can't wait for spring!

My goals for this year are:

-Seed starting: Check! (Well, partially. The tomato seedlings are poking up, and eggplants and peppers are planted. I have to wait another few weeks before I can get the squashes and zucchinis started. Because Canada. That's why.)
-Growing enough to can some of my own produce
-Canning

tomato meat sauce!
plain spaghetti sauce
crushed tomatoes
non-fridge pickles
fridge pickles
meal-parts (aka Things We Will Use - rather than boat loads of jam and jelly which we don't go through all that fast...)
Canned peaches? (Costco has moved into our town...I'm hoping I can get a good enough deal on peaches this year to make this feasible)

-Freezing (rather than canning)

peas - home grown (shucked?)
beans - home grown
fruit (Why did I can so much fruit when I could have been canning veggies!? Can more veggies and freeze the fruit for later!

-Eating more locally, specifically buying local (and ideally organic/heritage breed) meats. With 4 local organic chickens in the freezer and 15lbs of local heritage pork, this is well on the way :)
-Improving the garden

BIG window boxes under the front window? It's such a sunny area, and completely wasted because of the crappy soil in the front bed :(
Improving the soil in the front bed (Composted horse manure? Sounds like a plan.)
Improving the soil everywhere (just can't get too much organic fertilizer :))

-Learning more about cold storage and cellaring. We've got some good spaces where we can store food, but I'll need to learn how to store everything I grow and can glean (free fruits and veggies? *fingers crossed*) so I can stretch our local/home grown stores further into the winter. I'd like to have potatoes, apples, carrots, onions, and garlic until January. And a few odd squashes too.
-Home made bread! I need to get back into this. I'm in the process of reinvigorating my starter (which I killed through neglect :( ) and once I do that I want to bake a loaf per week. Freeze what we don't use immediately for weeks when I just don't have time. (*cough* like this one...lol)

My goodness what a list!

I should add that I also want to blog about all these things. I originally intended to blog about books, my pets and animal behavior, and some gardening/preserving...but in my eternal search for more blogs to follow I've found there are none about gardening and preserving the harvest HERE. Where I live. Near Edmonton, AB.

There are a few out East in Ontario, but our climate here is so very different that it's not a ton of use. I find myself chuckling at the 'hard' winters in the states. You know, where they can still grow broccoli, kale, and other brassicas into February...when we're at -40 here?

I know a lot of places had completely ridiculous amounts of snow, I'm not trying to down play that. But you all still go to start your seeds in January. I planted mine this week. Mid March. that's a pretty serious climate difference.

So, as I bumble through, reading books and trying to gain knowledge I hope you'll follow along with me. Whoever else is out there in internet-land ;)

-Becky

Wednesday, 6 March 2013

Misadventures in Cookery

Well, after last weeks beginning and random crap uploads...on with the good stuff!

I'm sure everyone needs to read about someone else's misadventure - I know I always do - so here's the word of the week: Blah.

I was all excited last week so find an ad for a dehydrator online for CHEAP. $20. I thought "Hey, twenty bucks...I can afford that!" (ok, this was before the major vet bill on saturday, so forgive a little optimism) So, on Saturday I drove myself out to pick it up. Stony Plain is definitely farther than I thought it was.

On the way home I stopped to grab a few things to dehydrate, 'cause I wanted to get this thing running! Turns out it's a good idea to have some idea of what you want to dehydrate BEFORE you go to the store since I came home with:

-Limes
-Lemons
-Grapefruit
-Oranges
-Strawberries
-Beef
-Salmon

Despite the fact that my favorite dehydrated food is apples...which somehow slipped my mind in the maze of an unfamiliar Safeway.

The rest of the day was a stressful, agravating, bloody (*sigh* I LIKE that vet Jitzu, don't make her bleed!), EXPENSIVE mess. So, needless to say by the time I returned home with one angry half-sedated cat (who also bled, to make things even) and one disgruntled but very good orange cat I was more than ready for some de-stress time in the form of cooking.

So, I sliced up my citrus, figuring what could be easier, and fired up the machine. Two hours later I rotated the trays - while battling off the two cats who were not still disgruntled and avoiding me - only to find those on the bottom tray were a bit...browner than they should be. I think.

A quick internet search later and I've realised that the dehydrator I procured has hot spots. Seriously!? Seriously. Oh well, I can just put the trays on 'backwards' and roate them that way every few hours while I'm also rotating them top to bottom. Doesn't seem like it's all that bad, right?

At the same time I decided to make up some fruit leather out of apple sauce and black berries. Turns out it was a good thing I did - more on that later. I also had a brainwave and connected the thing to a wall dimmer I happened to have handy. I dialed down the power a bit and hoped the rest wouldn't get too crisp.

A few more hours and another few rotations of awkward trays and I had finished about 1/2 the citrus I had cut...the rest began inhabiting the compost bin. Sentanced to decompose due to 'brown-ness' (read: I burnt it.)

Oh well, I shut off the machine for the night and decided to give it another go the next day. Prepped the soon-to-be beef/salmon jerky and went to bed.

The next day, armed with my marinated meats, I went to turn the dehydrator on and...nothing. NOTHING. After dissassembling it and poking about a bit I got a second opinion from the BF. Seems the lamp dimmer might have caused the fuse to blow...and since it's a cheap thing we can't locate the fuse to see if it's possible to replace it. Bottom line? Waste of $20.

The fruit leather turned out well though! Too bad we nommed it so darn fast!

Friday, 1 March 2013

Beginnings

Today's 'B' word is, obviously, beginnings.

As in, this blog, this year, this year's TBR list (which I am very seriously looking forward to after editing it), and new hobbies.

I've had a few false starts with blogs over the last few years, mostly because of my procrastinating, but also because I couldn't settle on one topic I felt strongly enough about to write something every week. Yes, there are things that catch me, that hold my attention...but who wants to read about how much I love riding the bus, snuggling with my kitties, or the satisfaction I get out of finishing a good book, or knowing I'm caring for my pets to the best of my ability. Sure, there are things I do that seem to be 'interesting' to people, but I am a novice bread baker at best so a blog about be bumbling through bread making with wild yeasts once a week might be more full of failures and mishaps than anything else.

The truth is there are niche markets for all of my loves, and they are well filled with bloggers. So why stick to one thing? I'm not a 'one trick pony' so why would my blog be?

Please bear with me as I transfer some of my previous entries from other blogs, and edit them a bit, onto this page. With luck this one will stick!

-Becky

Yet More Bread

-Originally posted by me on February 16th, 2013.

Since I've had quite a few people tell me they liked reading about my bread making adventures I figured I'd post some more.

I've been reading through Tartine Bread (the book I got from my sister for Christmas) and upon further inspection the book goes like this:

-Stories about the bread makers and their shop.
-How to make a starter
-How to make basic bread
-WHY making bread this way works (fairly in depth...like chem/bio 30, lol)
-Stories and pictures
-How to use the first recipe with whole wheat or rye flour
-Variation on the original recipe.
-Awesome pictures and stories.

Sooo, now that I've made the recipe a few times, a few different ways, I've apparently mastered it. Neat :) This doesn't mean that I'm done with the book by any means. it really is beautiful and to stories and pictures inside make it so much more than a recipe book. I'd totally recommend it.

Here are the variations I've made:

-Regular white sourdough loaf (YUM!)
-3/4 whole wheat (Also YUM! Less sourdough flavor though)
-Whole wheat with flax seeds (Love the texture of the flax seeds, so yummy)

Today I made a white sourdough using buttermilk rather than water ('cause I had it and that stuff is nasty to drink...but yummy in things :) ), and a whole wheat honey-raisin-cinnamon loaf. Both are cooling right now, so here's a picture of them looking super temping:

The loaves I made today; cinnamon raisin on the left and buttermilk sourdough on the right.

I've also realized that there are other things you can make using the starter...which led to me making amazing English Muffins en mass last weekend. They were really really yummy, and I now have tons in my freezer, Yay!

English Muffins!

Doran helped with this one.

I think that now I've got the process down so it' much less overwhelming I'll keep making us new bread every week, there are pretty much infinite combinations of things to put into the loaf, and ways to change the flavor. Even though I've got the recipe down it's not like I'll begetting bored with this any time soon. Awesome, hobbies where you get to eat things are the best!

If anyone was the recipe let me know and I'll post it up. I also have a good amount of 'seed' starter, so if anyone wants a bit to try their hand at their own sourdough loaf I can give you some of mine. It makes good bread :)

Breadmaking adventure continues!

-Originally posted by me on January 11, 2013.

Bread making #2

Tonight was day three, so according to the instructions I threw out 1/2 of each starter. Then added 1/4 cup flour (sticking with the same as before) and 1/8 cup water.

When I was mixing them I noticed a few things. Liza is still very stiff, but is gaining some elasticity...I'm debating adding quite a bit more water so the consistency is the same as the other two, but haven't decided yet. Of the three she smells the most pleasantly, which isn't saying much at the moment.

Both Maggie and Juliet have a strong cheesy, fermenting odor. I think Juliets is worse, but I'm not positive.

Juliet is definitely working away though, lots of bubbles, high elasticity...she's doing good.

Maggie got lots of bubbles today too, a little more brown liquid, but not as much as yesterday. She's gaining elasticity for sure.

I also noticed they had started rising!!! This is a major thing, since the last attempt was at nearly a week and no rise at all. All three starters rose, it seemed like Maggie rose most, and Liza least. I put marked tape on them tonight so I'll have a better idea of how well they're rising from now on.

Exciting things are happening! Pictures were taken and will be posted tomorrow.

Breadmaking Adventure

-Originally posted by me on January 10, 2013.

I've recently decided to give sourdough breads, and starters, a try after receiving a copy of Tartine Bread for Christmas. (The book, btw, is lovely enough to fully satisfy my inner bibliophile :) )

I will also be uploading photos fairly regularly (at least at first) to a new photo album. I figure between logging my progress and having photo evidence I'll be able to avoid repeating mistakes...if not making them in the first place.

Onwards! This is attempt #2...#1 ended in me throwing out my 4 day old starter last night after doing a quick web search on 'sourdough starter turning pink' which may have left me slightly concerned for my health if I attempted to make bread from it. :/ But enough of that! Looking positively forward is what's needed!

Attempt #2 is part experiment, part learning experience.

The method I'm following is posted here: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/10251/starting-starter-sourdough-101-tutorial

Last night I started off three starters: Rye (Liza), Whole Wheat (Maggie), Unbleached All-Purpose (Juliet). The recipe called for 1/3 cup flour and 1/4 cup of water, and to mix it together. I read on another tutorial that starters work better if you use your hands...so i got right in there. I noticed a few things right away as I felt the different textures. Aside from the obvious difference in the three types of flour they reacted very differently to the water even though I measured them all the same way. I only mixed them until the water and flour were fully combined and then I scraped the mix out of the bowl and into a container.

Liza slurped the water right up, and stayed quite stiff and firm for a dough. The color darkened right up, of course, and the initial smell is rich and pleasant, I'm most excited to see how she smells in a few days!

Maggie seemed to be the 'happy medium' between the three of them. The wheat flour also absorbed the water fairly quickly, but didn't become as stiff, spreading out a fair amount within the first few minutes after being placed into the container.

Juliet was a whole different story. It took a little bit more stirring for the AP flour to absorb all the water, but the texture at that point became fairly elastic right away. I was a bit surprised, especially since both Maggie and Liza were barely stretching at all. As soon as I put Juliet into the container she spread right out, covering the whole bottom of the container.

The last step was labeling each container, covering semi-tightly with plastic wrap, and setting them in a corner of my counter. Pictures will be put up at some point today of the lovely ladies. :)

I checked on the girls this morning, and saw a little bit of change. While Liza seemed a bit darker to me she otherwise looked the same. Stiff, with some peaks; like a very thick muffin batter that's been over mixed. Maggie had spread out much more, to the point of being flat rather than wavy on the surface. Juliet had a few bubbles on her surface, which seems too fast to be true...we'll see what happens there.

*Note* In case you're wondering "What is she talking about...why do they have names?!" It's a tradition, apparently, to name your starter. The older a starter gets the more it matures and has a better flavor when made into bread. There are many people out there with 15+ year old starters...and you have to feed them fairly regularly. Makes sense to name them.

I did use just plain tap water to create my three starters, if they flop again then I'll switch to using bottled spring water in the hopes of avoiding any disruption by chlorine and chloramine...or a may cheap out and use my water dechlorinator that I have for the toad water. We'll see how it goes with regular tap water first.