Well, I finally bit the bullet and tried to make some faces on the Amiguri Pocket Bunnies. Here they are:
For ages I tried to make sourdough bread. It was never successful. Always flat and ugly even though it tasted good. Dear One and I have watched a lot of YouTube sourdough videos in the last couple of weeks. I wanted to try again, mainly because he was agitating for some sourdough bread!
On Sunday morning I took out the sourdough starter that had been sitting in the refrigerator for months, lonely from lack of use. I had no idea if it was still alive in the jar. Especially since there was no hooch on top! I had left the lid slightly loose and the hooch had dried up.
Since one of the sourdough videos said to use four ounces of flour and four ounces of water to feed the starter, I set it on the scales and put in the required water and flour then stirred it well.
When we came home from church there were two bubbles on top! I was so surprised. I fed the starter again in the evening with the same amount of flour and water.
On Monday morning another feeding. There were a few more bubbles. On Monday evening I slapped my forehead rather significantly because I had not been adding 4 ounces of water and flour I had been adding 4/10 ounces of water and flour! Duh! Double Duh! So I put in 4 OUNCES of each and stirred again.
On Tuesday I was very busy and only gave one feeding. Same with Wednesday and Thursday.
On Thursday evening, since there was a LOT of starter by now, and lots of bubbles, I decided to give bread a try.
One of the wizards gave this recipe:
Mix until there is no dry flour then put into a gallon ziplock bag and let rise on the counter overnight.
The next morning flour the counter and put the dough on the flour. Flour your hands and carefully begin turning and shaping. When you are happy with the nice smooth loaf, put it into a bowl where you have put a flour sack cloth which has rice flour on it. Cover the dough ball with the cloth and let sit 3 or 4 or 5 hours. When you think you are getting there, turn the oven on to 475 degrees F. and let pre-heat for 30 minutes or more. On a sturdy baking sheet that can stand the heat, put on a sheet of parchment paper.
At this point use some kitchen shears to makes some cuts in the top of the bread. I made five cuts. Carefully turn the bread out onto your hand then place right side up on the pan. Put in oven and immediately reduce temperature to 450 degrees F. Bake for 30 minutes. If it does not look dark enough for you, let it cook some more.
Sourdough bread ball is rising under this cloth. I took the picture this way so I would remember which bowl I used for the rise.
This is the beautiful nice high loaf...of course taken from an angle that does not let the height shine forth. Next time I will use something other than the shears to make the cuts. Maybe a razor blade. Or a very sharp knife.
This is the sliced bread. Just as we were falling asleep I told Dear One I was not going to make any more of it. He was very surprised (and not actually that pleased!) and asked, "Why?" I told him it was because I have already eaten two and a half slices since it was so good. Since he really really liked it, I will make it again but I may have to get my jaw wired shut for the duration,,..
Anyway, I would call this a total success, even though it could be better. The taste was great. The texture was great. It was lovely and chewy. Just perfect. In my opinion.
Last week when one of my medical appointments fell through for a variety of reasons and I finally saw my person, it was too late for the appointment but it was very obvious that she was expecting a baby soon. We made a better appointment for two weeks away (the day before my birthday! so it is easy to remember) and I decided to make her a baby gift for her little girl. The last baby gift I made for a medical person did not turn out as I had hoped but as I have no shame, I gave it anyway. Amazingly the baby is reported to love it. That makes me happy.
When I got out into the car after the failed appointment I had a few minutes before the next engagement so I looked in my phone for saved knitting projects and found the perfect gift: Amiguri Pocket Bunny. It is a small project and seemed do-able.
This is what I have made so far. Still not happy with them and hope to try again in a few days.
Here are two faceless bunnies. Usually I make animals with just eyes but this time I need to make faces which will be embroidered. I am not completely happy with these but they will be fine for practicing the faces...so when I get a good bunny made the face will go better.
Finally the vegetable garden for this season has been planted! The potato bed had weeds pulled, stakes put in so we would be able to see where the potatoes had gone in, and the remaining four Asian sweet potatoes in our bin were planted. The whole potatoes were put in the ground. Last year I did that and it worked with yams so I am hopeful it will work with the Asian sweet potatoes I purchased and enjoyed from the Han Market months ago. We shall see.
Also the string bean bed was half planted. I planted them on Tax Day. We had a torrential rain after that so I hope they make it. I planted two packets, one where I had soaked the seeds and planted in a row next to the edge of the bed and one packet with the seeds straight out of the packet. I will be interested to see if soaking wakes up the seeds quicker. Of course with all the rain, that might be hard to tell...
This is the string bean bed. You can see that only half of the bed was weeded to plant the beans. Hopefully soon I will get the rest of the bed weeded so it will be ready for more bean seeds in a couple of weeks. The idea being that we will have string beans for a longer season.
These are the seeds we are raising. They are Cherokee Wax, a bean I seem to remember from my youth. Dear One does not like green beans. Actually, he doesn't like a lot of green foods. Sad, because they are so good for you. He does drink Green Juice when I make it but that is mostly fruit and water. He does like wax (yellow) beans however and I capitalize on that when possible.
Early this week I was hankering for a hot dog (or sausage!) in a big way. I am trying so hard to avoid them because I believe they are detrimental to my health. I was out and so close to the hot dog stand that I was sure my wheels would just turn in.
However! Before I got to the turn I remembered we had some prepared refried beans (we had acquired the dried refried beans at the Home Storage Center ages ago) in the refrigerator. The only good hot dog has sauerkraut, onions, and mustard on it. It occurred to me that I could make a "Polish" burrito bowl. So I did!
A scoop of cooked refried beans, a big scoop of sauerkraut, a handful of chopped Vidalia onions, and a drizzle of honey mustard made up the bowl. It was SO GOOD! I have now had that same meal three times this week.
Go ahead! You know you will love it!!!
At least I know that I love it! I would love another bowl right this minute....
There are always things to make for friends and family. This time I saw several videos on making bunnies to use for treats. I combined two or three of them and came up with this bunny basket. It is about six inches long and 2 inches tall at the ears. Maybe a little more.
The basics: knit (or maybe crochet) as square. Fold in half and, with a running stitch, stitch across the center and then up to the top and back down to the other side to form a triangle of running stitches. Pull up the threads to make a "bunch" where you will insert some fiberfill to make a head. Don't put in a lot of the fiberfill. With the threads you pulled up to make the head, secure very tightly at the back of the head then take a few stitches up through between the ears and back down to the back of the neck. Secure firmly. Weave in the end on the one ear then use a running stitch to secure the back of the bunny. Pull up tightly and secure well. Glue on a pom pom for a tail and glue on goo goo eyes but if you are giving to a young child you might consider embroidering the eyes. I am not good at embroidering so I glued on cute eyes. You could also put on a face if embroidery is one of your talents. Not mine so my bunny baskets are just "all-seeing" bunnies who do not have to be fed.
After knitting your "square, put running stitches through. You can actually use one thread across the bottom then another one on each of the triangle sides. I just used one after the first few bunnies. It worked just fine.
This shows where I pulled up the threads to form (and stuff) the head.
Here are the threads ready to sew up through the ears from the back of the head to secure them in place. The neck stitches have already been pulled tight.
The needle has started the running stitches around the back of the "basket" part of the bunny. Pull tight and secure.
Here is the basket opening visible. Now just the pom pom tail is needed and the eyes.
Three bunny basket cousins ready to have plastic eggs filled with treats or to be filled with candies or other treats and placed inside the basket. Some of the people I make these for will get rabbit food inside instead of pernicious chocolate. (I keep telling myself that chocolate is pernicious in hopes that I will hear it and stop acquiring any more for our house....)
The squares I made were all knitted on the Brother KX 350 flatbed plastic knitting machine.
Cast on 28 stitches with e-wrap.
Knit 45 rows at Tension 6 (for this I Love This Yarn from Hobby Lobby--so many spring colors...)
Knit Row 46 at Tension 9.5.
Bind off.
Make bunny basket.
Be sure to put weights on your knitting after row 2 or 3 or 4.
On Friday I found some actually fresh Butter and Sugar corn on the cob at the store. I picked up three ears and brought them home. I had lots of other stuff in the bag on top and, after about seventy-leven stops, I finally got home. I took the "refrigerate immediately' things out of the bag and put them in the refrigerator. On Saturday I finally finished emptying the bag and found the corn.
This is how I cooked it:
Rinse off the corn, in the husk.
Put the corn in the microwave with husks still on.
Microwave for increments of 3 minutes. Since I put 3 cobs in at once I knew it would take more than three minutes so I tried it for 5.5 minutes.
With a hot mitt, pull corn out of the microwave and place on a cutting board.
With a sharp knife, cut along the bottom end, half an inch or so from the outside end.
With the end off, and the oven mitt on, pull the husks and silk off from the silk end and compost or throw out if your HOA does not allow compost piles....
Eat your beautiful fresh corn on the cob.
Here is the corn ready to eat. You can see how much of the bottom you need to cut off. There is no need to "silk" the corn since it slides off with the husk.
Really do use a hot mitt as the corn is HOT!
It has been wonderful to have a stick-on-the-window bird feeder. I love watching all the birds coming to the window to feed. So many birds, many I do not recognize. I love the little crested guys and the large red Pierre Cardinal. I was so surprised that Pierre actually came to the feeder.
Last week one day I came out into the dining room and saw that a big fat gray squirrel was sitting squarely in the feeder. Part of his hips were even hanging over the edge!
Well, a few days after that vision of squirrel, I came outside and found that the feeder had come off the window. I am totally sure it was the squirrel and his hefty eating causing the problem. Since the feeder did not seem like I could keep it on the window because of that interloper and in order to keep from having the feeder broken I set it on the stool that was under the window and filled it with seeds. The birds kept coming though I had to go to the window to look down where they were feeding in order to enjoy the view.
Today I came home from a visit and this is what I found:
It is my considered opinion that this is another squirrel aftermath. Thank you, Mr. Squirrel...I guess this time he has won. R-r-r-r!
Dear One loves the Broccoli Cheese Soup he has eaten at Panera. Well! That is something to emulate in a healthier way. This is it.
Lenny and Shalva Gale on Life Is No Yoke have a wonderful recipe which I made. It really is delicious. I will show what changes I made...because I almost always make changes to recipes.
This bowl of soup (mine!) has some ground black cumin seeds on top which just add to the enjoyment of eating this.
To make this soup the first thing I did was to chop up a smallish head of broccoli into small bits (Dear One loves Broccoli Cheese Soup but NOT broccoli and has asked that I chop it fine, so I do. Mostly.) Since there was not very much broccoli in the pot, I chopped up a bag of broccoli and cauliflower and added it to the pot, then steamed in the microwave for 4 minutes. I knew it was ready because I could smell the broccoli.
At this point I put all the other ingredients into the Vitamix and blended for 5 minutes.
The other ingredients:
A little crushed red pepper is called for but I forgot/left it out!
When the above has finished its 5 minutes in the blender I threw in the broccoli and blended again on speed 1 for a few pulses but knew it was still not small enough for Dear One so I ran the speed up to 5 or so then back down.
First comment from Dear One: "Too much broccoli." Well, he is right, there was too much broccoli but it could not hurt him and he DID eat his whole bowl. We may have company for lunch who can share which will mean he only has to eat this version one more time...!
#LifeIsNoYoke is a such great website to go to, and YouTube channel to watch. So many good recipes! Such nice people. And their family is a delight to see grow up, involved in their mom and dad's work.
