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.
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