And sometimes we get an "oops"

The spousal unit frequently cooks for us, and when he sets himself to the task, he can do rather well. Over the last several years he's started to bake bread and has branched out to English muffins, biscuits, hamburger rolls, dinner rolls, and now pita pockets. It's sort of amazing to me that he decided to start baking just as I decided to cut back on carbs, especially breads. Maybe that's another blog entry for some distant day. 

Some of his inspiration comes from YouTube channels. If he sees it being done it makes sense to him. A printed recipe is not a "how to" as far as he's concerned. I agree.

So it was pita pockets the other day and it turned into an expensive endeavor for him. 

The enamel over cast iron skillets do not come cheap. 

Never use a rubber spatula in a hot skillet. If you melt it, the rubber won't come off and it's not something we should ignore and subsequently ingest. 

The new skillet is on the way. He's paying for it. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor

Bread baking and creative picture taking

For a reason known only to the gods of baking, my partner in life decided he was going to be the bread baker in the house. I didn't fight him for the title. 

He's actually gotten quite good at it. We've had fresh biscuits, English muffins, wheat bread, rye bread, and now we have baguettes. He purchased a special baking pan for the baguettes, and I approve. I also approve of his creativity and ingenuity of how and where to place the bread to get an unusual picture. Where else would you let the bread rest when you're clearing off and cleaning the island's granite top? 

Baking our own bread fits right in with our efforts to control food additives. The only drawback is, homemade bread doesn't last long without molding. Of course, most breads freeze very well, and we have a good-sized freezer. 

We're learning, here on the manor. We want a slower, more basic lifestyle. With cold weather almost upon us, I expect he'll expand his repertoire of bread and we'll have wonderful, buttery accompaniments to the homemade soups I'll be canning soon.

For a story about his first attempt at bread baking, visit my writing blog at https://kckendricks.blogspot.com/p/writing.html. 

Living simply doesn't mean we don't enjoy the little things in life because we do.

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor

Homemade bagels

Not so very long ago we made the decision to cut down on the amount of added chemicals and preservatives we consume. We're not turning fanatic, but we're taking steps. One of those steps is baking our own breads. We love bagels so we found a good recipe and gave it a try. The end result was, in a word, wonderful! 

We chose a very simple recipe: 
3.5 cups flour
1 packet instant dry yeast
1.5 tablespoons sugar
1.5 teaspoons salt
1-1/3 cup warm water

We have a Kitchen Aid stand mixer that, when purchased, was a game-changer to the way we cook. We combined the dry ingredients in the mixer bowl with the dough hook installed, and slowly added the water until the dough ball formed. After that, let the dough rise for an hour, and then formed the bagels. Once the bagels were formed, the tricky part came in to play. 

The bagels needed to be boiled, two minutes per side, and then placed on the baking sheet. The boiling is where the rough texture happens. Once on the baking sheet, give them a little eggwash and bake at 425F for 20 minutes. 

We consider our first attempt at bagels a success. They toasted nicely, smelled fresh and yeasty, and tasted better than store-bought. Six went in the freezer for upcoming weekend fare. 

It's not that we think baking bread together will solve all the problems with chemicals in our food, but it's one small thing we can do here on the manor. If we were twenty years younger, we'd have a large garden but we've settled for container gardening. We can't eliminate one-hundred percent of additives and chemicals from our diet but we'll do it when and where we can. It's one of life's trade-offs, and we accept that. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor