Baking Bread with a Zen Buddhist

I make bread once a week. It takes all day. It's a combination of gathering ingredients, mixing some up, letting the dough come alive, kneading, rising, sending the dough down, more rising, shaping, baking and eating.

Talus makes his own rice flour dough creations on the floor, digs through the cupboards, rearranges the pots and pans, helps stir the initial ingredients and shape the rolls as we make trips to and from the kitchen.

Water-Yeast-Spelt Flour Bubbling

I discovered the Tassajara Bread Book at our local library. Read it over, tried it out and then bought my now weathered copy. There really is a beauty and awe in your first dough coming alive and the subsequent loaf to savor.

Dough Swallowing Oil and Salt

I've tried making bread in the past-with no success. Ed's technique, if given the right amount of commitment, will evolve into yummy loafs, rolls, danishes and even cinnamon rolls. The book is not short on sweet delights.

Anise-Caraway Rolls and Loaf

Bread making satisfies my desire to work with my hands during the day and has the added benefit of something I can actually eat. Some of the changes I've made to the instructions include covering with an inverted bowl or plate instead of using a wet cloth. The dough is near impossible to remove from the cloth. Occasionally I leave the dough uncovered. This allows more time to play outside, run errands, go for a walk, you know the routine of getting lost in some other activity. The slow rising is ideal unless you want dough overflowing onto the counter, which has happened to me on a warm summer day. Instead of the quick 45 minute rise I push it 2 hours depending.

Rising Uncovered

I also use combinations of spelt, ground sunflower and ground oats to make up the required "wheat" flour. I have yet to invest in a food mill, although I hear the hand grinders preserve the most nutritional content. Until, I acquire one I grind the oats and sunflowers in a coffee grinder.

I really like the Kalaches-Anise Breads and Swedish Rye as of Late. Loafs bake for about an hour but if you want less time in the oven rolls are a quick 15 minutes. It amounts to nearly the same overall oven time as you rotate baking sheets to and from the oven.

Montana Cheese Bread Loaf

Chocolate Ginger Cake with Maple Frosting

Man this is delicious and warming during cold weather! Just what you need to cap of an afternoon of snowballs and sledding Adapted from Moosewood's Book of Desserts. Their recipes are some of the building blocks to happiness.

I made the Chocolate Ginger Cake for my sweetheart's birthday. It'll make you swoon! Plus it's full of beneficial Omega 3's.

What you Need

3/4 cup organic sugar

2 tablespoons organic molasses

2/3 cup hemp milk

1/3 cup applesauce

1/4 cup organic canola oil

2 free range eggs (get your Omega 3's)

2 tsp Madagascan vanilla

1 cup organic spelt flour

2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp ground organic cinnamon

1 tablespoon freshly grated organic ginger

Mix all wet ingredients together. Sift all dry ingredients together. Combine. Stir in Grated Ginger. Pour into 8x8 baking pan or 9in round.

Bake at 350 for 30-45 minutes. Check center with toothpick at 30 minutes and bake till it comes out clean.

Organic Maple Frosting

1/2 cup organic butter softened

2 1/2 cups organic powdered sugar

1 tsp Madagascan vanilla

1/4 cup organic maple syrup

Chocolate Sunflower Cookies and Huckleberry Waffles

Teddy Bear Sunflower

Heirloom Mix

Chocolate Sunflower Cookies

Inspired by my Heirloom and Chocolate Sunflowers growing in my gardens this past summer. These cookies are not short on sugar or fat so you're sure to enjoy them.

3/4 cup Spelt flour

1/2 cup ground sunflower seeds (use a coffee grinder or handmill)

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1 stick organic butter softened

1 cup organic sugar

3 tablespoons organic molasses

2 tsp organic vanilla

1 free roaming, organic egg

1 cup ghiradelli chocolate chips

Allow butter to soften at room temp for one day or place on a plate near heat from the oven heating up 375 degrees.


Sift with a fork spelt flour, sunflower meal, salt and baking soda


Use hand blender or cake mixer to work sugar and molasses into butter. This can be done by hand, however I have finally conceded to the electric hand mixer as the butter needs the sugar to add some air and texture to it's density.

Add vanilla and egg to butter and sugar

Add dry to wet and hand mix until well incorporated

Pour in chocolate chips and mix well

Spoon Tablespoon size balls onto cookie sheet and bake for 10 minutes

We also like to pick extra huckleberries, particularly in September as the sugars have more time to develop and are rich and seasoned by them. This is primarily due to cooler nights in conjunction with warm days.

Sunflower Huckleberry Waffles with Apple Honey

1 1/2 cup spelt flour
3/4 cup ground sunflower seeds
1 tablespoon baking powder
3 eggs separated
1/4 cup organic canola oil
1 cup water
3 tablespoons organic hemp milk
Frozen Huckleberries

Mix dry set aside

Separate egg whites and reserve for later

Beat egg yolk and oil and add to Dry and Mix

Add 3 tablespoons dry milk and 1 cup hemp milk to batter

Stir in huckleberries

Fill waffle iron with 1/4 cup batter

Serve warm

Makes about 10 waffles

Apple Honey Syrup

Splash of organic apple and organic juice

Few Tablespoons Local Honey

Heat honey on stovetop with both juices until well constituted. Pour into open glass and allow to set up at room temperature.

Waffles can be dipped or drizzled with Apple Honey Syrup

Planting a Years Worth of Garlic

Where were we? After a lengthy time of no posts and lots of gardening-we are back in the blogging world for the fall and winter. Hopefully catching up on this past season's growing notes and what's brewing for the winter month's.

On to fall planting of bulbs!

So we were lucky enough to have a warm fall weather window to plant our garlic! After some intense Arctic Weather in early October, which thankfully did not send the frost too far into the ground, we took 3 days to prep and plant our garlic beds. This is Music-a hardneck variety-in all it's hopefulness for spring.

After eating and canning through our harvest from this season, we decided to plant 10x-yes 10x the amount this fall. Now, to be fair I under-estimated my estimate of planting roughly 200 cloves. But after cracking and popping our 15lbs of Music, Bogatyr, California Soft Neck plus some extra Okanogan Purple from our harvest this year- we ended up with 544 cloves.

Undoubtedly, all would be planted-sore backsides and plenty of wine to mend the pain of it all.

They now occupy four 50ft rows double planted 5 inches apart. We worked around some carrots and parsnips in one bed and seasoned roots of pepper and basil plants in another. The other two beds were previously planted with fava beans (whoo-hoo nitrogen) and 3 types of potatoes-Purple, Yukon Gold and Colorado Rose.

My guess is the previously planted fava bean bed will have the most vigorous bulbs. Beans fix nitrogen in their roots. Once turned under the nitrogen is released into the soil. Come spring we will work in some herbs like sage, basil, bee balm and nettles. Along with calendula and marigolds covering the perimeter.

All beds were turned over by hand with a pitch fork and the pepper/basil bed was lightly hand weeded with very little ground disturbance. This follows our "One Straw Revolution" approach in that we prep beds and grow crops the first season followed every planting after with little to no disturbance of the ground . We simply dig enough soil to plant whatever succession of seeds we are working with. Overtime this should lead to a super nutrient rich growing medium with no weeds.

Straw is used as a mulch for all beds and paths are covered with last seasons flotsam and seed heads. We planted 544 garlic cloves which will hopefully amount to a similar number of bulbs. Garlic is planted in the early fall for northern latitudes and late fall if you are further south. December being the latest for latitudes somewhere below North Carolina.

We plant our cloves with 2 inches of soil over the top or about 3.5 inches deep. We will cover will at least 8 inches of straw once the rain hydrates the first inch of our soil which is expected this week.

The hardneck varieties we are working with this season are Okanogan Purple, Music and Bogatyr. I particularly enjoy hardnecks as they are easier to pop, easier to pull and extremely arctophillic (i made that word up-they love and thrive in the cold).

We also planted 1 soft neck variety this year (148 cloves of California White) as I plan to experiment with braiding next fall. I found the soft neck more difficult to pop and not nearly as plentiful in decent weight usable cloves. Still they will be a nice addition to are hardneck crop.

This is are 3rd season planting and playing with garlic. We have gathered much of our "how to plant" from local farmers, our own experimenting and digging through literature online and in books. All the planning that goes into growing garlic is worth it from the time you place your first clove into a cool shallow grave, to when you unearth a beautiful bulb and savor the rich oils after curing. If you'd like a Garlic Lemonade Recipe check out Sun Loving Baby's Blog.

We are also planting 8 heirloom bulbil varieties. Bulbils are a much longer commitment for growth. Somewhere around 2-3 years I'll have more on how to raise these in a later post. We will be planted half in the fall and the other half in the spring for trial runs. Heirloom Varieties include Fish Lake, Gaia's Garden, Thai and Siberian to name a few. They are from the scape of hardnecks and genetically identical to the mother plant.

So we are exhausted but more aware of what goes into growing and providing food for our subsistence. There is an entirely different relationship with food you grow and food you buy. Planting what we expect to be our intake of 1 year's worth of garlic puts it in perspective for us. Mind, Body and Spirit goes into growing our food. We are grateful for the wonderful weather provided to pull this off.

Wind and Uva Ursi

After 70+ mph winds on Tuesday, the hoop went through some modifications. It now stands about 3ft tall and and 5ft wide but is still 50ft long. It held the following day under milder breezes.

It was quite a challenge resetting rebar while carrying and nursing my 10 month old and not getting blown over in the process. The sections that held their ground under the wind were still quite comfortable-at least 10 degrees warmer than the outside air temp. In the end I know the plants sighed some relief that their pseudo habitat was restored.

We'll be planting the potatoes out this weekend! They include

Purple

Red

Russett

We had much success with the purple last year and are looking forward to the red and russett. In fact we'll be sampling some more frozen purples tonight.

The greens and broccoli are still holding on in the hoop and a couple of rows are planted with

Bloomsdale Spinach

Spicy Mesclun

Spicy Lettuce Mix

Red Celery

Valerian

It's amazing spinach only requires 35 degree soil temp to grow! Those in warmer latitudes have ample opportunity to eat and freeze copious amounts of Spinach.

The first stage of our cob oven will begin this week as well-Digging a large deep hole and separating out the soil mediums. Clay is just over a foot deep in spots so we'll be taking advantage of our local resource. Look for our Spelt Treats at the Farmer's Market:Including Artisian Breads and Ginger Snap Cookies!

On the Medicinal Plant Front

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The uva ursi still has berries in the woods. This medicinal plant literally translates to Bear Grape, Uva being grape and Ursus-bear. This is a wonderful medicinal for urinary tract infections by simply taking a tincture of the berries. It grows readily on south facing, sandy slopes and transplants easily as well. Any trailers on the periphery of the main stand can be gently clipped away (as long as roots have not grounded) and moved to a suitable habitat in your native garden. We like to harvest cuttings from sites that are being prepared for a new home or are slated for extensive logging. Might as well save the little guys and give them a new start!

Springing Back Into Action

Our first round of seedlings were started February 15th. The tomatoes are nearing a foot with the Mortgage Lifters growing the best. This must be a sign of a brighter economic future. Here's the run down on tomatoes for this season

Yellow Perfection

Burbank

Santiam

Caro

Tigerella

Thessaloniki

Double Rich

Chadwick

Black Plum Paste

Peron Sprayless

Brandywine

Roma

Mortgage Lifter

BEANS

Kentucky Pole Bean

Provider Snap Bush Bean

Gold Marie Vining Polebean

Black Turtle Beans

Fava Beans(cover crop)

Garbanzo Bean(cover crop)

GREENS

Golden Frill Mustard

Mesclun Mix

Sweet Valentine Lettuce

Oak Leaf Lettuce

PEPPERS

Jalapeno

Ancho Pablano

King of the North

Napolean Sweet

Feher Ozon Paprika

EGGPLANT

Imperial

Black

Rosa Blanca

Italian White

ZUCCHINI

Black Beauty

HERBS

Sweet Basil

Clary Sage

Parsley

Garden Sage

Sweet Marjoram

Rue

MEDICINAL

Valerian

Calendula

Lemon Balm

Chrysanthemum

Comfrey

Motherwort

Olympic Mullein

Goji

SUNFLOWERS

Taiyo

Arikara

TUBERS

Kohlrabi

Zeno Fino Fennel

Daikon

Red Champion Radish

Torpedo Red Onion

Parsnip

BRASSICAS

De Cicicco Broccoli

Romanesco

Chinese Choy

Lacnito Kale

FLOWERS

Sky Pink Campion

Lobelia

Marshmallow

Poppy

Gift Zinnia

Dahlia

Zinnia

PEAS

Cascadia

Cover Crops

Cayuse Oats

SQUASH

Spaghetti

Red Kuri

MELONS

Hales