Steamy

The heat and humidity are on! We’ve been having temps hovering around 90 for the past week. The tomatoes and other summer veggies are loving it, but the lettuces, broccoli, and other greens are a some worse for the wear. My raised bed is now full, with petunias, marigolds, peppers, okra, basil, rosemary, cucumbers and tomatoes, all still small plants yet, but with great promise! The bees are going gangbusters after a rough winter, and the rabbits are growing by leaps and bounds.


This time around our HBinFive breads were made with the master recipe. Like the other blogfolk, I’m glad to get back to the basic recipe. However, this assignment’s breads are far from basic. I knew that I would like the cherry black pepper Focaccia, but with ingredients like shallots, dried cherries and red wine, I was a little concerned about MJOL, but he thought it was scrumptious and ate it up. This is definitely a make again recipe.

The cinnamon raisin bagels were a challenge for me. Since I’m a little OCD, I wanted them to be perfectly shaped. I had to let go of that dream! It was the first time I’ve ever made bagels and it was an adventure. I have to say though; once I lowered the perfection threshold it was a lot of fun. They also were very tasty, toasted with cream cheese slathered on them, or toasted with honey…that hint of cinnamon and just sweet enough….delish! MJOL liked these toasted with butter for breakfast with his bacon and eggs.

The moon and stars bread was easy to shape and came out pretty, but really…it’s just a regular bread shaped differently.

Check out what other bakers did with these recipes at Big Black Dogs.



Until our next baking adventure…

New Additions

Well, I'm way late in posting this bread assignment. We now have some new additions to our family, three florida white rabbits. One male, Hemingway, and 2 females, Bette and Judy. Yes, they are in seperate hutches, so no baby bunnies until we decide. So, one excuse for not getting this post done sooner was that I was testing my carpentry skills building a shelter for the rabbits. Now, I never claimed to be that efficient with power tools, but it came out pretty well. A little off plumb, but then again, so I am; it fits right in!

The other excuse for not getting this post done was that I didn't have most of the ingredients for gluten free bread, and I knew that it would probably go over like a lead balloon, so I ducked out. Bad me. :) To see what the other bakers did with the bread check out their posts here, http://www.bigblackdogs.net/search/label/HBinFive.

Instead of the gluten free bread, I saw Ina Garten make some Irish soda bread that looked really good, so I made it. Although it's not leavened with yeast, it's still no knead. :) MJOL really liked it and so did I. The recipe is available on the Food Network website, here: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/irish-soda-bread-recipe/index.html. It has a touch of orange and some currants. Very tasty.

I also made the soft whole wheat sandwich bread which was a big hit at our house. This time I used molasses instead of honey. I know, how awful since I'm a beekeeper, but I use honey all the time, so thought I would use something different. It was tasty, but I think I like it with honey better. :) I think that I'm a little partial!

For those of you not from Kentucky, we here in the Bluegrass are gearing up for The Kentucky Derby. All this week there are festivities, a parade, a steamboat race, hot air balloon races, chow wagons, concerts and lots and lots of parties. Yesterday Churchill Downs opened for the spring meet and we attended. It's always a lot of fun. Check out the goings on here: http://kdf.org/ and be sure to watch the Derby on May 1st.

Until our next baking adventure.

Carrot Bread and Olive Spelt Bread

I want to start this post by thanking everyone who sent wishes to me and my family after the passing of Mom O, such support always lifts the spirits. Things are beginning to return to normal, if they were ever normal anyway! The garden is beginning to shape up, the bees are buzzing and spring is in the air.

This time for our bread baking challenge we made Carrot Bread and Olive Spelt Bread. I have to say I really liked both of these breads. Check out what the other bakers did with the recipes and our esteemed leader Michelle at her blog Big Black Dog.

First the carrot bread; it was great, and just sweet enough but with great yeasted bread quality. It was very good with cream cheese, and toasted with butter, forget about it! I took all the dough from the ½ recipe and used it to make one big loaf. It seems that most of the ½ recipes don’t make enough dough to fill the pan twice, but using it all made a nice loaf. I had enough to share and I did! Everyone loved it and I certainly will make it again.

I had a few stumbles with the Olive Spelt bread. Focaccia was calling to me, so I oiled up my sheet pan and spread out the very wet and sticky dough, let it rise, dimpled, sprinkled with kosher salt and baked. The smell was amazing; it looked amazing, but was absolutely glued to the pan. It took me about 3 days to chisel it out. I thought that I had put enough olive oil on the pan and the dough to keep it from sticking. Wrong! Not to be deterred, I whipped up another batch of dough and this time just shaped it as usual and put it on parchment paper on my pizza peel. It spread out quite a bit. Once again it smelled fantastic and came off the stone looking great. I let it cool and sliced it and it was delicious! I love olives. Next time I’m going to add some garlic to the dough, shape it as a baguette and make bruschetta. Fresh tomatoes, onions, basil, olive oil, more garlic, piled on top, wait I have to wipe the drool off the keyboard!

Now, I have a confession to make. I miss kneading. The rhythmic motion of turning the dough over and over, feeling it come alive in your hands, smelling it, seeing the blisters start to form on the surface. So, I made my favorite challah dough and did a six strand braid. Ah, desire calmed.

The weather today is gorgeous, so enough time sitting here at the keyboard. Garden work is calling, the bees are calling, so until our next bread adventure together, happy baking.