Garden 2020

This year, we have cut the size of our garden to about a third of what it has been for a number of years.  Since it's just me and my husband here, we simply don't need to work that hard anymore!  I love the new size.  He does plan to make another simple greenhouse for me so I can harvest greens through the winter and soon I will start building the soil in that area.  Many things are already coming up...  we had a late freeze and I had to replant tomatoes and peppers, but everything is happy now.  Here is a picture of how it looked this morning.  :)

Whole Wheat Sourdough Bagels !

Whole wheat sourdough bagels  4/29/2020

Ingredients:

½ cup bubbly sourdough starter

1 medium potato

1 Tablespoon honey

2 eggs (save back one of the yolks)

3 Tablespoons oil (I used avocado)

2 teaspoons salt

4 cups whole wheat flour

For the glaze:

The reserved egg yolk

1 teaspoon cold water

Poppy or sesame seeds (optional)

Directions:

1.      Slice the potato thickly and boil it in 2 ½ cups water until tender.  Drain, reserving the water and you can eat the potato.  It doesn’t go in the bagels. Let the water cool until warm.

2.      Combine the starter, honey, eggs (reserving one yolk), oil, salt and flour.  Stir, and add enough of the potato water to make a nice kneadable dough.

3.      Knead, on a surface dusted with all-purpose flour for 8 – 10 minutes.

4.      Wash and oil bowl. Put in the dough and turn it over so the top is oiled.  Cover tightly with plastic wrap.

5.      Let the bowl sit on the counter overnight (or all day).

6.      In the morning, on a floured surface, dump out the dough.  Knead a little bit, and then break off equal pieces.  I ended up with 12.  Form them into balls and let them rest for 10 minutes on floured surface.

7.      Form into bagels by flattening a bit and then poke a hole in the middle and stretch out.

8.      Place them on a greased or Silpat covered cookie pan and allow to rise until they are nice and puffy… maybe half an hour? 

9.      In the meantime, bring a large pan of water, maybe 3 quarts to a boil and add ½ teaspoon baking soda. 

10.  A few at a time (don’t crowd them) gently place the bagels in the boiling water and boil for 2 minutes, flip over and boil for 2 more minutes. Remove with slotted spoon.

11.  Make the glaze and brush their tops and sprinkle with the seeds, if you wish.

12.  You can put 6 of the 12 per baking sheet.  Bake in a preheated 425 F oven on two racks for 13 minutes.  Switch the pans to the other rack and bake for 13 more minutes. Should be lightly brown

13.  Cool them on wire racks. 

14.  Eat.  We love them toasted with cream cheese or butter.

Remember the Hugelkultur?

I posted about this 2 years ago, here.  I've used the Hugelkultur bed for two seasons now, This will be my third.  I think it is finally losing height.  I was amazed at how slow that process has been.  This year, I decided to put a strawberry patch on it.  All around it is lots of mulchy things from last year and I've got all the plants nicely tucked in with mulch.  These are ever bearing strawberries.  I hope it will work!

 

Tiny Tip.... how to not waste perfectly good cake...

3 days ago, I made this really yummy and healthy "Purple Sweet Potato Cake."  

With only my husband and I here to eat it, it was going to last for 4 days. I kept it, covered, in the refrigerator. On the third day (yesterday) it was tasting a little stale, so I knew it would be disappointing today, and yet, it was made with very special ingredients, so I didn't want to waste any!

Here is what I did.  I put my portion in a bowl and heated it up in our microwave oven.  Then, I poured a little milk over it and ate it with a spoon.  It was very nice.  I wanted to share this tip with you.  I imagine it would work for other cakes and maybe muffins also. I bet it would have been even better with some cream.

And here is the recipe!  This cake was delicious, not overly sweet and very moist.  :)

Purple Sweet Potato Cake

Sift together:

2 3/4 cups whole wheat pastry flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

Mix together the following:

1 cup cooked mashed purple sweet potato
1/2 cup honey

3/4 cup milk

3/4 cup sour cream

1/3 cup oil (I used avocado but canola would be good too)

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Add the dry to the wet and mix just until everything is moist.  Don't overdo it.

Butter and flour 2 round cake pans.

Divide the batter between the pans and bake at 350 for 30 minutes.  Check it then with a toothpick.  It might need more time (mine didn't)

Allow to cool in pans for 10 minutes and then transfer to cooling rack.  Cool completely.

"Frosting"

4 ounces softened cream cheese

4 ounces softened butter

1/2 tsp. vanilla

1/4 tsp grated nutmeg

"Some" honey until it is as sweet as you would like.

Beat well and put some between the layers and then all over the cake.  It wasn't very thick.  I also put some chopped walnuts on top of the cake, covered it all with plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator overnight.

I hope you will try this.  I have not done so, but I bet it would be good with orange sweet potatoes, too, and maybe use pumpkin pie spice in it.

Enjoy!

Purple Sweet Potato Star Bread...

I took this picture before it was baked and then neglected to take one after it was done!

I made two of these yesterday and gave them to our two closest neighbors for Christmas.

Light the World!

Merry Christmas to all of my Gentle Readers.

I appreciate you all so much.

Tiny Tip - Making muffins last longer...

There are only two of us at our home now; just me and my husband.  The empty nest has some advantages, but I miss all of my fledglings.  

One thing that has been an ongoing challenge is learning to cook for just the two of us and not waste food.  "Quick breads" are notoriously enthusiastic about becoming stale and ending up in the compost. I've finally found a solution!

I made a batch of "Fresh Cranberry - Nut Muffins" (recipe follows) and have found a way to keep them nice for several days without refrigeration.  With refrigeration, although it prevented mold much longer than leaving the quick breads at room temperature, the muffins would become stale and dry anyway.

Here is what I do now:

I have something called a "Food Saver"

I also have a set of two different sizes of these adaptors.

There is one for wide mouth canning jars and one for regular mouth canning jars.  All you need then are clean new metal canning lids, such as these. If you are careful in opening the lids, you can use them multiple time when vacuum sealing food in jars.

So, now you're all set.  I used a 2 quart wide mouthed mason (canning) jar to do this.  We each ate a fresh muffin and then when the others were completely cool (12 in the batch so that makes 10 left over) I carefully placed them in the jar, put on the metal cap, applied the adaptor, used the Food Saver to vacuum out the air and voila!  

My muffins are still perfectly good 5 days later just sitting on the kitchen counter.  It's a bit of a hassle, resealing the jar every time I take out some muffins, but I am very happy with the results.

I thought I'd pass this on in case you have one of these gizmos or have the same problem I was having.

Here is a picture of the Food Saver set up to vacuum seal the jar:

Here is a closer look at the jar:

By the way, these muffins were better tasting the second day.

Here is the recipe - feel free to tweak it however you wish.  :)

Cranberry - Nut Muffins (12)

2 eggs, beaten

1/2 cup avocado oil

1/2 cup honey

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour (that's one and a half cups)

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 cups chopped fresh cranberries (that's one and a half cups)

1/2 cup chopped nuts (I used black walnuts, but you can use whatever you wish.)

Preheat oven to 350 F.  Butter a 12 - cup muffin tin.

In a small bowl, combine eggs, oil, honey and vanilla.

In a large bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder and baking soda.

Add liquid ingredients and stir just until the flour mixture is moist.

Gently stir in the chopped cranberries and nuts.

Spoon batter into the 12 muffin cups and bake until when you touch the top of one of them, it bounces back.  Don't over bake or under bake!  I can't tell you exactly how long.  Start with 15 minutes.

Where I live, it is easy to find fresh cranberries in the grocery store this time of year.

Monster radishes!

Two years ago my daughter came and helped me make a hugelkultur in the vegetable garden. You can read about that here:  

http://simplyhomemaking60.blogspot.com/2017/10/hugelkultur.html

This morning I went out to check on some radishes that I had planted in the hugelkultur in March and neglected to pull up.  Here is what I found!

Surprisingly, they are good flavored and not stringy.  In fact, they are very good!  So, I cut them up and have started a ferment.  :)

Then I cleaned and blanched the greens and ended up with 4 nice little packages for the freezer.