Plant a Peck of Peppers

Need a pick-me-up this time of year?  There is nothing like getting your hands dirty to feel a renewed sense of purpose.

Given the snow swirling outside, it might not seem like the right time to start growing a garden - but indeed, it is.  Today we planted cayenne and jalapeno pepper seeds - the first of many vegetable seeds that we will germinate indoors before transplanting into the garden.  In a few weeks we will start the sweet peppers and than everything else will follow.  I cannot believe planting time is here already.  Spring will be upon us before we know it!

I will set up the lights on top tomorrow and then we watch and wait for sprouts.

Chowing Down on Our Daily Bread

My wild yeast keeps growing so I keep making bread.

Not bad for a mixture of flour, salt and water, eh?  I declare myself proudly self-sustaining in the bread department.  It feels good not to have to rely on the store for our bread or even for bread yeast.

A thick slice of my sourdough bread slathered with homemade butter and last fall's homemade crab apple jelly is quite possibly a little slice of heaven on earth.  Coupled with a steaming hot cup of coffee and a newspaper (can I get one of those nowadays?) - divine.

Varying Degrees of Inaction

After being bedridden for the past two days with an especially vicious strain of the flu, I am now back in action.  Sort of.  It is a snuffly, cranky, achy sort of action necessitated by the fact that Seamus needs someone to take care of him since it is Monday and Ian has to go to work.

Emily was my constant companion during my flu filled days and nights.
Every time I awoke, she was by my side.
She even put her intense passion for barking at the goats on hold so she could remain near me.
If that isn't love, I don't know what is.

Leaving my bread to proof (rise) for 36 hours instead of the suggested 12-24 because I was too sick to get out of bed to bake it resulted in a major sourdough fail.  Clearly giving the yeast too much time to rise contributed to a lack of action on their part.

Rock hard sourdough frisbees.  Yuck.

Finally, today is the day my ewes are supposed to go into heat.  I have been waiting impatiently for today hoping to see lots of sheep reproductive action.  So far nothing out of the ordinary.  They are all doing a lot of eating and standing around but sadly, not much else.  Boring!

Maybe we're all just in slow motion and need one more day (hopefully) to get back to our normal levels of energy and finesse.  Here's to hoping. *Snuffle*Snuffle*Cough*Cough*

Three Ways to Please Your Yeast

I have been spending the past few weeks getting to know what makes my wild yeast tick - you know, its likes, dislikes, how to motivate it, etc.  Despite my regimented twice daily feeding schedule and constant vigilance, I was feeling like my yeast was lacking initiative, it was unmotivated.  There were very few bubbles and so, it was hardly rising - really, it was a pathetic excuse for a wild yeast culture.  If this relationship was going to continue, we were both going to have to step up our game.

After much research on the human-yeast relationship, I have ascertained that things might improve between us if I begin to treat my yeast more like my husband.  Go figure.  I better explain.

There are three keys to making both Ian and my wild yeast happy: heat, rye, and just enough agitation to keep them on their toes.  Given the number of friends and relations who follow this blog, I will forgo explaining the connection between Ian and heat and leave that one to you.  My yeast likes heat from the pilot light of the gas fireplace in our living room.  The sourdough starter is happiest when placed on the mantle.

Ian, as a member of the Walsh-MacLeod clan, has been known to relish a glass of good rye whisky at a family celebration or really, just because.  My yeast, on the other hand, likes rye flakes.  My research indicated that yeast likes to eat the minerals in rye flour, which I did not happen to have, so I tossed in some rye flakes instead.  Seems to have done the trick.

Lastly, I read that many people give their starter a quick stir a few times throughout the day.  Up to this point I had only been stirring mine when feeding in the morning and evening.  I upped the stirring to four times per day.  My relationship with Ian also benefits from challenging each other - thank goodness not four times per day - but requiring each other to question why we see the world a certain way is good for us as critical thinking individuals and as engaged members of civil society.  So, I would argue that a bit of agitation is a good thing - keeps everyone sharp.

After implementing these three changes - heat, rye, and agitation - my yeast and I are on much better terms.

Our (Almost) Barn Fire

Sometimes when terrible things could have so easily happened, but didn't, all you can do is count your blessings.  Like last night, when putting the animals to bed I smelled burnt toast in the chicken coop.  No, I wasn't having a seizure (thank you TV commercial from my childhood).

I ruled out the heat lamp which can smell like burning when you first turn it on as it burns off the dust on the bulb.  I then checked the heated water buckets.  Sure (and scary) enough, the element in the goats' green 2 gallon heated bucket purchased this fall from Princess Auto was burning a hole through the plastic.

It is terrifying to think about what could have happened if I had not caught this in time.  I checked but there are no recalls on this brand of bucket and they are still being sold at the store.  In addition to returning this bucket for a refund, I will be diligent about checking each water bucket over during both morning and evening water changes from here on out.  I have also placed a metal sheet under each bucket so that it is not sitting directly on the wood coop floor.  Harder to burn metal than wood?

After the barn fire in nearby Dunrobin earlier this week, this was a frightening finding.  BBQ goat is NOT on the menu!

Cock-a-doodle-CHEW

Anyone up for jerk-spiced rooster on rice?  It does not get any fresher than this!

Homemade Maple Vanilla Bean Yogurt

My boys consume a ton of yogurt - yogurt in tubs, cups, tubes, drinks, popsicles, smoothies - you name it, my boys want to it eat it.  As I expected it, yogurt is not difficult to make at home.  It just takes a bit of time.  The added bonus is you get to pick your own flavour combinations.

My first try at homemade yogurt was vanilla bean yogurt with Ian's homemade maple syrup to sweeten it up.  I followed Martha Stewart's recipe for homemade yogurt.

I started by heating up six cups (one bag) of 3.25% milk to 180 degrees F.

I then let it cool back down to 115 degrees F.  I whisked together 1.5 cups of the cooled milk with 5 tbs of plain, store bought yogurt.

I added one vanilla bean and two generous glugs (accurate measurement, I know) of homemade maple syrup.

I poured the mixture into two 1L mason jars, covered the tops with cloth, wrapped them in clean kitchen towels to keep the heat in, and placed them up in our fermentation spot in the kitchen to sit undisturbed for 5 hours.  This is where the recipe ends.

My result after the 5 hour wait (I was very patient) was very runny yogurt.  Good flavour but bad texture.  So I lugged up the dehydrator from the basement storage room and let the yogurt continue to culture at a higher temperature (46 degrees C) in hopes that it would thicken without souring too much.  After four hours in the dehydrator I screwed on lids and put the yogurt in the fridge to cool overnight.  By this point it was past my bedtime so I called it even though the yogurt probably could have cultured even longer.

This morning we had blueberry banana yogurt parfaits for breakfast.

The boys polished huge bowls off without a peep.  Fantastic.  A success in any parent's book.

Spouting Sprouts

To reduce our visits to the grocery store we have been making an effort to eat out of our pantry.  A few days ago Ian pulled out a bag of (who knows how old) mung beans.  Who eats mung beans?  Why do we even have these?!

Ian started the spouting process by soaking the beans for 8 hours.  I then transferred the beans into four mason jars and covered them with cheesecloth.

Each day I add water, rinse, and drain. Let the spouting begin!

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

What to do with sprouts you ask?  Our go to sprouts meal is wraps.  The boys love them and they are a great way to get veggies into them without complaints.

Creamy and crunchy: you cannot beat the avocado-spout combo.  

This wrap has both our sprouts and our farm fresh rooster!

Yum!

No Spurs Allowed

In my effort to have Martha and Mellie spend their days with the hens in the chicken run, I decided to remove Beemster's spurs just in case he decides he does not like goats in his territory.

 Beemster might look grumpy...

....but he really is a relatively docile bird.

Rooster cuddles.

However, his spurs are sharp, nasty looking appendages and I could not think of a good reason to leave them.  It turned out that it was very easy to remove Beemster's spurs.  After watching a few videos on YouTube, we decided on the "potato method".  It seemed a bit odd but, whatever, it really worked!

After disinfecting Beemster's legs, feet, and spurs, we held a hot potato onto the spurs to soften them.

This did not appear to bug Beemster at all.  Then we took needle nose pliers and wiggled the spurs and off them came.  Easy peasy.  They might have come off easily without the potato and admittedly, we did not try.  Maybe next time.

We coated what was left in a flour and salt mixture to stop the bleeding and - all done!  Apparently the spurs grow back but the more times you remove them, the smaller they get.

Now we have one spur-less rooster.  Beemster really did not seem bothered by any of this.   In fact, I think he liked having his feet washed in the warm water.  Most likely he thought we were more crazy than anything else.

Sourdough Extraordinaire

My sourdough starter is rocking and rolling.

That is some active wild yeast.

Look at those bubbles!

My starter is growing like mad and so it is time to use it to make some bread and then throw the rest in the fridge for a rest until we need another loaf.  With all this starter, I could make a loaf or two a day but nobody needs to eat that THAT much bread!

To make sourdough bread I mixed together:
2 1/3 cups sourdough starter
3 1/3 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cup water
1 tbs sea salt

My dough was very wet and so next time I would reduce the amount of water.  Also, after the fact, I thought that I should have used my homemade buttermilk instead of water.   Luckily I have lots time to perfect this recipe. The next step was kneading and kneading.

After a while I thought, "This is silly, there must be a better way".  So, I whipped out the KitchenAid Mixer and dough hook.  As the mixer was going I wondered what would happen if I over-kneaded the dough.   After some googling, the consensus is that over-kneaded dough is tough and needs to be left to rise longer.

Meanwhile, I stashed the rest of the starter in the fridge.

 I left the dough to rise over night.

I pounded it down this morning and put it into a heavily greased bread pan sprinkled with corn meal.  I left it to rise again.

During nap time I cut an X into the top and threw it into the oven at 400 degrees F for 45 minutes (until it reached an internal temperature of 210 degrees F).  The loaf is slightly misshapen (I figure this adds to its charm) but it turned a beautiful golden brown.

Once cooled, we spread slices with my homemade cultured butter.  Perhaps it is not the most beautiful loaf but its is entirely homemade and oh so delicious.