The goal is to chronicle our journey towards homesteading (in all of it's crunchy, granola glory), starting in our tiny apartment, and turning to Laura Ingalls Wilder (the one who made homesteading chic and relevant to little girls everywhere, because really, who doesn't want a calico bonnet?) for inspiration as needed.
I kill with alarming regularity... One could even say, seasonally.
Yes, I kill plants.
Every year, I say, “This will be the year! This year, my seeds will sprout, my basil will live through the season, and my plants will not wither and die!”
Every year, I’m wrong. Woe-fully wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
But this year...
To be fair, last year I almost made it. I used my basil plant on more than a couple occasions, half of my seeds actually sprouted up, and I even bought a palm tree for the porch.
Then Ryan was born.
We were doing really well to keep both of us alive on a given day. Leaving the house with both of us wearing pants was victory worthy of an endzone dance. The plants never stood a chance.
But this year...
Ryan’s older, pants are overrated, and we’re going to make it!
So I’m researching plants, what’s worth starting from seed, what I can grow with the sunlight I get on my porch (mid- to late-afternoon) with the amount of space I have (approx. 10 x 13 feet), what zone we fall into (8b), what in the world that actually means, and whether or not I want to attempt a potato drum or tea garden (yes to both!!).
The list of things I wish I could cram onto that porch is astoundingly long... Truly impossible. Visions of home-canned tomato sauce dance in my head, I want to brine our own pickles, and the cats have to get their organically grown catnip from somewhere other than the streets. (Seriously, you can grow catnip. It’s hilarious.)
Hopefully, as the season progresses, I’ll be able to share how we’re using the space we do have to it’s greatest potential. Think vertical, my friends.
The remaining task for this month in The Weekend Homesteader (TWH) is practicing media mindfulness. I think that's a delightful idea, but I don't know that that's a discussion for a blog... seems like it would be missing the point. So, be mindful with your media... but also keep reading. Ha.
Instead, I thought I'd share a project / life-style change / experiment that we're trying out. Apparently it's a big deal right now to go paperless in the kitchen! There are lots of very excitable people with varying opinions out there, both for and against.
Those who are for it cite research like:
If every household in the U.S. used just one less 70-sheet roll of virgin fiber paper towels, that would save 544,000 trees each year. Change that to using three less rolls per U.S. household per year, and that would save 120,000 tons of waste and $4.1 million in landfill dumping fees. (read more here)
Those against it say that there are some jobs that you just can't replace with cloth, like microwaving bacon or cleaning up pet messes... hopefully not using the same paper towel...
Granted, I don't think that going paperless in our kitchen is going to halt global warming in it's tracks, but it's a small step that we can take to be good stewards of what we have. Plus, we're whittling every spare cent out of our budget right now, so not buying paper towels is an attractive concept from a monetary perspective.
There are some super fancy options out there, like the snapping rolls on Etsy, or those who have an entire system color-coded by use or function (like this impressive woman). Having somewhat of a system makes sense, especially if you're cleaning bathrooms and pet mess with them. However, I also want to keep it as simple as possible.
I'm much more likely to stick with it if it's simple.
So, I had some store credit at a terrible store in town that I hate, and with nothing else there that I wanted to purchase, I decided to grab a (hugely massive) stack of microfiber cloths.
I chose microfiber because I wanted something with a little texture (since my kitchen needs regular scrubbing... like with elbow grease... lots of elbow grease...), and they can hold something crazy like seven pounds of water per square foot. I should put that to the test...
You can also clean mirrors and windows without using any cleanser, by simply moistening them, which takes another item off my shopping list.
Apparently, however, you shouldn't put them through the dryer, since this messes with their absorbency / miracle-working tendencies. Guess we'll add them to the list of things I schlep out to the drying rack on the porch!
So, I wound up with three colors, and I'm going to use them for kitchen cloths (like for drying dishes and wiping counters), deep cleaning (re: scary bathrooms and pet messes... gross), and napkins / Ryan's crazy face. Granted, I usually have lots of other cloth (burp cloths, bibs, blankies) around for his face, but just in case... I don't want to be wiping that sweet mug with a cloth that just tooled around my bathroom.
Anyway, it seems like something that fits with the whole granola / green and crunchy / Little House / sustainability theme, so we're trying it out!
There're still a couple rolls of paper towels tucked away in the pantry, though. You just never know.
Also, teaser: Husband is trying to craft his own beer. There's a gallon jug percolating / fermenting on the floor in the closet AS WE SPEAK. More on that later!
Truth be told, I don't really know what Prairie Bread technically is, other than the loaf fittingly named, "Prairie Bread" that we've gotten at Whole Foods before. So, I'm going with the understanding that it's homemade, wholesome bread, stuffed with nuts and seeds and love... but mostly nuts and seeds.
I was unable to find a recipe that didn't involve the bread maker (which is decidedly against the whole point of homesteading / DIY kitchen / this chapter in my book, so I tweaked some things and combined some thoughts, and will include the one I'm using. The Weekend Homesteader (TWH, for short? It needs some quirky nickname... will think on that one) walked me through the process, starting with gathering my ingredients.
Next, we "proofed" our yeast, which seems like an excuse for the yeast to get all hot and bothered with the sugar until it foams up and consumes it like a monster out of a fifties Blob-esque movie. For my recipe, the role of the sugar was played by honey, because honey with wholesome and delicious and I said so. Plus, someday I'll have bees, and how cool will it "beeee" to "beeee" able to bake bread using honey from my own beeeeeees? So, foamy Blob yeast.
While it proofed, I measured out everything else, creating this lovely archeological sampling of flours and flaxes.
Then we (note the use of the Royal We, as it is only me, but we sounds more inclusive, and maybe someday you'll read through this while on your own journey of bread-making, and then it will be us together doing it, so weeeeee!) mixed everything together. TWH recommends mixing everything together except the last cup of flour, since that'll take extra strong-arming to incorporate. Once mixed, we knead!
According to TWH, we knead to allow the gluten from the flour proteins to form into long strands, allowing our bread to tear along lines, unlike muffins, which simply crumble. (Muffins are decidedly un-sexy foods to eat, if you haven't noticed. You can't eat it all in one bite, but each bite further reduces the muffin to a crumbly disaster, so I've found muffins are best eaten alone or in the car when it can be furtively stuffed down one's throat in three and a half bites, and there're no witnesses to the crumbs stuck in your eyebrows and down your shirt.)
Usually, when I've made bread before (okay, the two times I've made bread before), I use the dough hook attachment on my stand mixer and wander off until the blog grows up and over the hook or down the side of the bowl. This seemed to be out of character for the project, though, so I (metaphorically) threw my mixing spoon aside and (literally) rolled up my sleeves, turned the dough out onto my board, and started kneading.
It was at this point that I realized I'd entirely neglected to mix in my nuts and seeds, which I'd measured out and set aside for picture-taking purposes. Oh, vanity... My elegant solution was to try to knead them into the dough.
However, two turns in, and the pocket of seeds exploded out of the dough and all over the table. The rest of my kneading time included sticking the seeds in whenever I saw an opening, like I was planting a garden in my loaf of bread.
So we're kneading for five minutes, letting the dough rest for five to ten minutes, and then kneading for five more minutes. Apparently, letting the dough relax allows the water to work into the flour, making it less sticky and of a better texture. Delight! In reality, my arms were tired and I needed to wash out my mixing bowl so the dough would have somewhere to rise, so resting was a win for everyone.
Now the dough rises for an hour, so I set my timer, and abandoned my little dough baby on top of the oven, hoping for it to magically double, proving my prairie prowess and vindicating the agility of my hopefully-not-expired-yeast. An hour later, my dough had (sorta) risen, so we greased up the loaf pan and shaped the little dough baby into a little loaf baby before abandoning it to rise again. (We rise again! Like the South after the Great War, the British after alllll the Wars, and Ryan after trying to pull-up on the couch.)
An hour later (again...), the loaf was ready for the oven! In it went, at 325, for 15 minutes. And then...
Bread! "Ed! Ed! Ed!" The whole house smells like a bakery, which is like my dream, and the bread turned out gorgeous. The seeds and nuts are (surprisingly) well-dispersed, and it's got a great chewiness (cheers to gluten!). Truth be told, it probably could've used a few more minutes in the oven to fully brown, but I was impatient and it's still delicious. I'm lucky enough to get to slather mine with raspberry butter a friend made us for Christmas! (Raspberry Butter, folks. Who knew??) Overall takeaway? Well, I could've driven to Whole Foods and back six and a half times in the amount of time we spent rising (and rising again), but nothing compares to the feeling of pulling sustenance out of your own oven that you crafted with your own hands. (Queue Tom Hanks in Cast Away making fire on the beach. "Look what I have created!!! I have made BREAD! I. Have. Made. BREAD!") Now you go try.
Recipe:
1 1/4 cups warm-but-not-hot water
2 tablespoons honey (or sugar, if you hate bees)
2 tablespoons olive oil (or vegetable, if you hate everything natural and granola)
2 cups bread flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup ground flax seed
2 tablespoons vital wheat gluten
2 tablespoons sunflower/pumpkin seeds
1 tablespoon poppy/sesame seeds
2 teaspoons fast rising instant yeast
1. Combine yeast, water, and honey, allow to sit until foamy and Blobbed.
2. Mix in the rest of everything (including the nuts and seeds!!!), reserving 1 cup flour.
3. Add in last cup of flour, while cursing the dough for being resistant to accepting said cup of flour.
4. Knead, rest, knead.
5. Allow to rise for an hour or until doubled in size or until you give up.
6. Punch dough and shape into greased loaf pan (whoops, don't forget to grease your loaf pan), releasing trapped air compliments of foamy yeast and your frustrations at waiting another hour.
7. Wait another hour.
8. Preheat oven to 350, then bake for about fifteen minutes. (But it should really by 20)
9. Let cool, if you can manage to resist the smell. Slather with an inappropriate amount of butter, and furtively enjoy with as few witnesses as possible.
So, Husband Lee (hence forth known as simply Lee) had the last three weeks off from school, as a delightful, much-needed break between quarters. This proved wonderful for the adult side of my brain, and simultaneously terrible for my new blog project that was designed as an outlet for the adult side of my brain. He's back in school today, so I'm back here. Holla.
Anyway, I'm starting this book, called Weekend Homesteader: A Twelve-Month Guide to Self-Sufficiency, by Anna Hess. (I feel like my eighth grade English teacher should be proud that I underlined the book title versus italicizing it; it's the little victories, like using a semicolon in a sentence.) I think the book title should be self-explanatory. However, I have a few issues right off the bat. For one, the book is broken up by months of the year, and starts in April.
It's January.
That's an issue in and of itself.
So I flipped ahead to January, where my first task is to do a soil test and determine the quality of my garden soil.
...
As I've mentioned, I live in an apartment. We have arrived at issue #2. I have no garden soil. I find myself unable to analyze the macronutrients of my soil, the pH of my soil, or the structure of my soil.
I have no soil.
Balls.
However, if I skip this task, the next one is baking bread!
I love bread!
When we got pregnant with kiddo (hence force known simply as Ryan, as that is his name), we conjured up scenarios where Lee would come home from school, and I'd be baking in the kitchen, with Ryan in his doorway jumper, gleefully smiling and clutching a crust in his hands, bouncing and crying out, "Ed! Ed! Ed!" (Bread, in baby talk...) Rather involved, but this was our dream. Actually, the dream included bread on every inch of counter space, as I tend to go overboard and Lee thought it would be funny if I threw myself into housewifery in the same manner.
...
Anyway, I've made bread at home before (and have not covered the counters with it), with varied levels of success, but never Prairie Bread (which I feel like should be said with appropriate pomp and weightiness. Prai-rie Bread, buh buhm buhmmm.)
I picked up a loaf of Prairie Bread (buh buhm buhmmm) from Whole Foods last week, and from what I can tell, it's simply bread with seeds on top. What separates Prairie Bread (buhmmmm) from whole grain bread, I don't yet know, but maybe I'll discover it by making my own.
Weekend Homesteader starts off with a fluffy white bread, with the intent of teaching the science and ease of bread making, taking quite the tangent to discuss yeast. I love yeast as much as the next guy (...does the next guy love yeast? Maybe not the best terminology), but by the end of the page, I kind of felt like the yeast was going to come after me for not feeding it enough.
Feed. The. Yeast!
Anyway, I'll be making Prairie Bread (buhmmm) at home this week. I may or may not feed the yeast. I'll take pictures. Have you noticed, though, that food pictures always feel a little porn-y, like you're looking quite intimately at something you ought not? Dessert drizzles are the worst. Keep your glazes to yourselves, kids.
And with that, nap time is over. Prairie Bread waits for another day.
