JUST PUTTERING ALONG

Things are puttering along. Anna has been here almost a month so everyone including me has been very well looked after.She leaves on the weekend and I do not look forward to doing it all by myself again.

She makes the most beautiful work lunches too!

Do you remember the walnut that was split down the middle in a bad storm last summer? Here she is. Recovering fast!

We have a few days of sun ahead so we cut two more fields of hay. The hay is not growing back as thick and fast as previously but we are slowly getting it in. So I will be rolling the rows over this afternoon. The humidity has dropped way down so this load will be easier to dry I hope.

The pigs are getting fat in the fields eating apples and restaurant scraps – Del is back on twice a day milking after having a light bout of mastitis. Better now but annoying.

It is cool again in the evenings. Really nice. The ducks and chickens are both laying a little less – no eggs from either flock of newbies yet. Still a good month to go I think before we go into even fuller production.

We are picking a small but steady supply of zucchini and the tomatoes have begun. The tomatoes are beautiful so far.

My bread-making is improving in leaps and bounds now. ( the loaf on the left was baked in a pot with a lid the one on the right was in an open cast iron pan) I am finally making some nice doughs to work with. In fact I am sending loaves up to an event in Chicago today with Jill the Mill Manager. They are rising in The Coop right now. Though I feel apprehensive. Up to now it is all family and friends who eat my bread – not other bread makers.

Chicago and Calumet bread

Chicago and Calumet are both Glen flours. We have started milling a new Lot of Glen and it is high in Protein which is enabling a really good loaf. I feel I am finally getting a handle on these locally grown whole kernel flours.

Follow Tartine method as usual

800 g Chicago flour

200 g Calumet flour

700g water

200g starter

25g salt

Combine flour, water – rest one hour

Fold in starter – rest one hour.

Fold in salt – rest 1/2 hour

Fold every half hour for 3 hrs. Let rest 1 hr.

Divide. Rest 20 min. Final shape. Rise till double overnight.

Bake at 480 for 45 minutes. ( 25 minutes lid on – 20 minutes lid off).

This has become my standard loaf now. I start the loaf at 3-4pm after work and bake in the morning before work if all goes well. I baked two loaves almost every morning this week. And will bake two more every morning until Saturday. Everyone seems to want a loaf of bread lately.

So exciting to be finally making a good light loaf!

If you don’t have a sourdough starter you can make up a poolish for this recipe – I never have but I need to so I can see how they work.

I can hear the ducks making lots of noise. The duck eggs are not selling as well as they used to which is a little alarming given I have at least 25 more duck layers hopefully coming on line in a month or so. I think I need to find an alternate market. Until then the pigs are getting duck eggs too!

I hope you all have a great day!

Celi