Kitchen Adventures On A Cloudy Day

It seems that ever since we arrived home from Colorado, there has been a time shift in the mornings.  It stays dark so late now.  It's definitely time to turn the clocks back!  

Yesterday was particularly dark as we made our way to the barn thanks to a heavy cloud cover.

Chores were completed as usual...

with everyone excited about breakfast.

We have noticed, since Griz is gone and Pete is now in the barn, that the two Beatrixes have become extremely friendly and out-going.  As we work around the barn they are at our feet and don't mind us picking them up any more.

Bea One, who can be identified only by the pale white dot (five white hairs) on her chest, (Bea Two only has two white hairs in the same place) greets us each evening from the stall divider - meowing until we pay some attention to her.

We seem to have the perfect combination of personalities right now.  The barn's a happy place!

Another happy place on the farm (well, really they're all happy places) is the chicken house.  Although lately I have been a little worried about these five gals.  Each evening when we head out to close the chicken houses for the night, to keep everyone safe, these five wild gals are roosting in the willow tree next to the chicken yard.  Each morning they greet us as we arrive to open their yard.  In they rush to partake of the morning snacks with the rest of their flock.

I guess they are just a bit more independent than the rest.  Yesterday morning we were especially worried as we found a whole lot of white feathers on the ground.  We were flooded with relief when we saw this gal (molting) from whom the feathers came.

I wanted to show you how lovely Poppy has become... 

his coloring is so unique now that he is full grown. 

Yesterday I finished using the produce that we had picked earlier in the week.  With the apples, I made some Apple Harvest Cake (which I will frost with a little buttercream)...

apple dumplings and apple sauce.

I stuffed all the large ripe peppers that I had picked....

and made fermented hot sauce

 from hot peppers that I had been fermenting since early last week.

I often receive questions about the breads that I make and the processes that I use.  First of all, I have two separate "starters" in my refrigerator.  One is a classic sourdough (like they make in San Francisco) and the other is known as a levain (a starter made with naturally occurring yeasts just like the sourdough starter but without the sour taste).  A levain is more like the starter that Europeans use to bake bread.  

Yesterday's bread was a cheddar/rosemary, although this slice does not show the rosemary very well.  All of the breads that I make from the levain have a hearty, old-world flavor and are so easy to modify by mixing "extras" in - such as the case with yesterday's bake.

For all of my levain breads, I use this book.  It has great instructions for how to create your own starter as well as wonderful, easy to follow directions.

It all sounds so much harder than it is.  And there is no bread in the world quite as good as traditional, old-world, home baked bread - it has a wonderful texture (crust and crumb) and a complex, delicious flavor.  I have found that I seem to digest home-baked bread so much easier than store-bought.  And, it doesn't seem to end up on my waistline.