Baking Bread

So a little over a year ago I was gifted a bread machine by friends who were combining households and didnt want it anymore.  It sat in it's box in my trunk for a really long time until the Alero died in January and it was brought home when I cleaned out said car before selling her for scrap. Then it proceeded to sit on the floor until a couple weeks ago when I decided to do a deep clean of the house.  The conversation with Walley then began about actually USING it. He had forgotten we had it as well. Walley loves bread and decided to start reading the manual and took it upon himself to get ingredients to make bread.  Today he decided he was going to attempt the Parmesan Pepper loaf recipe and set it on the timer to be done when he got home.  So while I puttered around the house recovering from a particularly wicked migraine he got it all set up. 

Walley adding yeast to the mix

What the whole mix looks like. Bread machines are picky about what exact order they are put in.

So the time was set so that it would start it's yummy magic at 7p I waited in anticipation and then suddenly it kicked on and started to sound like a Gatling gun...not good. I go to check on it and its having a seizure on the counter and as I look through the view window I can see that it's not mixing. So I called, facebooked and texted around and got the general consensus that I need to stop it and open the lid and try pushing the pan farther down. I did as I was bade and it locked in properly. I restarted the mixer to the blissful sound of normal kneading and texted Walley to let him know all that happened....now there are just 2 hours left to go. I will update with pictures soon!

PA is beautiful, IL is just hot and sticky :(

It has been supremely hot here in Southern Illinois. Hot enough that I've neglected the garden a bit. I'm still clearing grass with the hand held scythe. Just a ten foot square area between the pole bean tripods and the carport where I have the spaghetti squash. I try to wait until dusk so it's cooler,  It's almost done though and then I am going to till the cleared areas.  My cucumbers are dying out and I believe it's mosaic disease. I'm not sure.  If I can get things cleared then I will try and replant in a different area.  I actually have a pretty good growing season down here for another round I believe. It's worth a shot. As of right now I don't have enough to do any pickles and I was hoping to have started that by now.

As a boon (?) of my neglect some of my zucchini are the size of my forearms. So I will be making zucchini bread, with this I can barter, well that and I still have some of the soap Helen and I made.  I am itching to do another batch.  The okra is starting to produce but I am unsure on when I should be picking them, what size, etc.  Eggplant is starting to set and I believe the first one will be ready in a few days. The potatoes seem to be doing well. I need to hill them up in a bit.  The corn is starting to get ears and the beans are starting to flower.  Ahhh yes, the beans.......I'm starting to hate beans as beans equals Japanese beetles. The fight is on again with them and I am losing.  The Stella blue pumpkin that I got from the seed swap is fruiting so is the yellow squash and spaghetti squash. I'm optimistic about the tomatoes and that's all I will say lest I jinx myself.

Going and spending a week in Slippery Rock, PA (where Ragnarok was) was beautiful. I had a really great week and I even met up with some similarly minded people. Talked a little bit of garden shop but not nearly as much as I would have liked, just not enough time. I unfortunately didn't get many pictures but other people did and I'll try to get some put up.  I am wanting to do a road trip soon not really sure when but I'd like it to be before September.  September will be one busy month!  I have a wedding in Pittsburgh the first weekend, and then I have a fighting event in Holden, MO the second weekend.  Third Sunday of September is a fighting event at my home field in Carbondale and the last weekend of Sept my friends are talking about going to the St. Louis area for a PirateFest.  (I'm not really sure what it's called). Maybe I should wait until October? LOL

Yesterday I made Cinnamon Raisin Swirl Bread! Thanks to Kathie over at Two Frog Home for sharing the recipe. Everyone loves it here at the house and that was really a confidence boost for me. It was also very therapeutic for me as I was having a bad day at the time.

Getting in gear

So today I slept in until 9am. I puttered around the house till around noon when company came over. Around 3pm after said company left Bill and I went into town to check out Lowe's again. I did not find any cool cheap things like Unusual Farmchick but I did get pricing for several cold frames and picked up a seed starting kit. When we got home from all that I went through my seed stash going over what I had left over from last year and what we saved from plants...then I decided that since the seeds had been in out in the unheated garage that I would do a viability test and planted a few seeds from the leftover seeds (the saved seeds have been in the nice temperate house) So we'll see how that goes.


Today while visiting with my company I found out that she has a bread machine that she never uses...I will be getting it from her. I am very much looking forward to this. Jodi also brought loaf pans when she moved in so I plan on making bread both ways.... Phelan you will be hearing from me soon :)

I forgot to mention yesterday that I hit the thrift store and got a great find! And I only paid $0.99 for it. She told me it is for tomatoes but I think its for any type of food isnt it?

The weekend is here!

So Im trying to plan a garden. I have some left over seeds from last year (radish, green onion, and an unopend packet of lettuce) plus seeds that I saved from some green peppers. But I really need to sit down and plot out what else to get and stuggle with the fact that I might have to buy them from Walmart (shudders) or maybe Rural King instead of the seed catalogs. Does this make me bad?? The farmers market is suppose to start up the first weekend of April but Im not sure if I will be able to afford a lot of live plants. I can't keep a rosemary plant alive lately it seems and there are just some things Im going to need at the house ASAP. Im a little frustrated. I've never canned anything in my life. Haven't gotten to use my dehydrator either but Im a pretty decent freezer LOL :) I worry that I'll not plant enough or that I'll plant too much and be overwhelmed. Im really worried that I'll sicken or kill everyone with my canning attempts. Everyone starting out goes through this right??!

Also, I've come to the conclusion that bread baking...for the moment...is not something that Im going to persue at this time. I'm not suppose to have it during my 1st phase of South Beach and Bill isn't a big fan of bread either. Really, I'm going to try to focus on the gardening and tackling things like canning and dehydrating and of course, the chickens. Then of course there is the frugal and thrifty living that we want to do so that we can not worry so much about money and bills and enjoy life. I realized that I keep trying to fit everything in and Im giving myself a migraine. So Im prioritizing and once certain things are tackled I will move on to things like bread.

Earthquakes and bakes

So I get online about 9pm or so Tuesday and the first thing I see is that Britain had an earthquake and I'm all in a panic. The second thing I see is that my friend Matt (who lives there) is on my yahoo messenger. So I'm blazing up an IM to know that him and his are all ok...they are thank Gods. So it got me to thinking that I really need to show and let ALL my friends know how much they mean and have meant to me even when I don't see them that much or in this case, at all. I've known Matt for many years but I've never actually met him. I actually "met" him online via my ex husband and an online game called Everquest. Anyway, over the course of time Matt became a great source of friendship and sanity for me when everything went to hell in a handbasket. Sometimes we'd lose track of each other and what we were doing for long periods of time but I still consider him a my friend, and that is a rare thing in my world let me tell you. It's kinda funny how life is. So I have a project in my head to go with "I need to let my friends know I care" kind of thing.

In other news I have a dutch oven that I'm borrowing coming tommorow and I am going to attempt to do the "No knead bread" recipe that was featured in Mother Earth News magazine.
It will be my first attempt to make bread. I am also trying to find my glass bread pan to use for when I attempt "normal" loaf style bread..I have no idea what I'm doing on bread stuffs.