Bread Making 101

 

Today I finally made homemade bread again after a three-year hiatus.  And it felt good.  And it smelled great.  And it tasted delicious.  Here is the step-by-step process that used to come second nature to me as I did this several days every week for two straight years.  It takes some time, but nothing in the stores or even farmers' markets can compare to the bread you mix, knead, and bake yourself in your kitchen.

White Bread

 

Stir one package (1 Tablespoon) of dry yeast into 1/2 cup warm water and add 1/2 teaspoon of honey.  Let sit and get foamy.  Make sure the water is not too hot and not cold.

 

In a large bowl, add 4 cups hot water, 3 Tablespoons of shortening/lard/butter (you decide), 1 Tablespoon salt, and 3 Tablespoons honey.  Stir until honey is dissolved and your fat source has melted.  

 

Add 5 cups of unbleached flour and stir with large wooden spoon.  Once the mixture cools to a lukewarm temperature, add the yeast mixture.  Beat well.  Add 5 more cups of flour, one at a time and mixing well after each.

 

Once the dough is no longer sticky, flour your counter well, and turn out the dough onto the floured counter.  Also, flour your hands so the dough doesn't stick to you.

 

Begin kneading the dough.

 

Add more flour to the counter as needed.  I used some buckwheat flour because I ran out of the white.

 

And keep on kneading until the dough feels elastic and springy.

 

Keep kneading for about 10 minutes.  A willing helper is a definite asset.

 

Wash your mixing bowl and then generously grease the inside with oil or butter.

 

Plop your dough ball in the bowl and roll it around so it's coated with the oil.

 

Then cover it with a warm, damp cloth, dish towel, or a child's apron like I used here.  Place it in a warm, sunny area to let the dough rise.

 

It takes several hours for the dough to rise.  You get to leave the kitchen for awhile and do something else!

 

Once the dough has risen to about twice or thrice its original size and has air bubbles in it, you get to take out all of your frustrations in life on that bread dough.

 

Punch, punch, punch until all those air bubbles are gone.

 

I usually have several little people volunteering to participate in this part of the process.

Now you need to grease your bread pans, separate the dough into two or three balls, and put them in the pans.  Mine look a little lumpy because I didn't take the time to shape nice smooth loaves, but you might want to do that.  This recipe makes enough dough for 2 long loaf pans or 3 normal sized ones.

 

Cover them with that warm, damp cloth again and let them rise some more for another hour or so. 

 

Then bake them in a 400 degree oven.  The smaller loaves bake for about 30 minutes until they're slightly golden brown, and you tap on the tops, and they sound hollow.  I like to spread a little butter across the tops.

 

The large loaves bake a little longer.  35-40 minutes should suffice.  Let them cool for a few minutes before you turn them out on a cutting board.  Let them cool a little bit more before cutting, and if you turn them on their sides, they get less mangled when slicing. 

Ten minutes after pulling them out of the oven, one of the smaller loaves was devoured by my crew.  Mouths literally water around here when homemade bread is baking.  Give it a try this weekend.  Your family won't be disappointed.

 

Make Your Own Yogurt

 

I warned you I'd be writing lots of posts on what to do with goats' milk.  Last weekend I made homemade yogurt for the first time in a couple of years.  If you don't have a yogurt maker, this does take a little time and attention.  I've found that if I'm short on either, the yogurt still turns out OK, and if the consistency isn't quite what I'd like, I stick it in the freezer and make frozen yogurt.  Here's the recipe I follow to some extent.  Much of my yogurt making experience has been trial and error though.

 

Yogurt

First, you need to scald 4 cups of milk.  I've only ever used our fresh goats' milk, so I'm not sure how pasteurized, homogenized milk from the supermarket works.  Watch and stir this often so it doesn't burn and stick to the bottom of the pan.  Once scalded, cool it to a temperature of 95-115 degrees.  I use a dairy thermometer to keep track of the temperature.  You'll be using this all day if you don't have a yogurt maker.

 

Once the milk is the desired temperature, pour into a Pyrex dish, and add 1 cup dry milk powder, 4 Tablespoons of plain yogurt with active cultures (I use Stoneyfield plain organic yogurt,) and 2 teaspoons unflavored gelatin that has been softened in 1/4 cup cold water.  Mix well.  The gelatin is optional.  I use it to make the yogurt more firm.  Place the lid on the dish and put in a warm oven with the oven light kept on.  I usually warm the oven to 170 degrees, and then turn it off.

Every couple of hours, you'll need to take the lid off and make sure the temperature of the yogurt remains between 95-115 degrees.  If it's getting low, turn the oven back on to a low setting for a few minutes, and then turn off again.  I have also tried placing dishtowels around the Pyrex plate to maintain warmth.  That's also why you keep the oven light on.  Incubate for 3-9 hours.  There's just no way of knowing when you start, how long it will take until your yogurt is the consistency you desire.  Mine usually takes most of the day.

Once it is finished incubating, I add ingredients for flavor: fresh fruit or vanilla and honey.  This time I added raspberry syrup.

 

If you like, you can place the entire container in your freezer for frozen yogurt.  Mine was still a little too watery for my family's taste, so I froze it.  Even with over 1/3 of a bottle of syrup, most of my children didn't think it tasted sweet enough---which goes to show how much sugar is put in the commercial brands that my kids love.  My children did like this frozen though---after I let them add some sprinkles or chocolate syrup.  I really prefer using fresh fruit and vanilla, with just a little bit of honey.   

Natural yogurt with live, active cultures is one of the best foods you can give your digestive system.  Give it a try this weekend. 

Super Easy Butter-Making Without a Butter Churn

 

If your images of making butter are like mine, they involve someone sitting with a large butter churn in front of them and spending hours there, just churning and churning.  I'm remembering an episode of The Waltons where Mary Ellen churns with book in one hand and complaining about her life to her mama and grandma.  One of Laura Ingalls Wilder's books, Farmer Boy, also stands out in my mind because Almonzo Wilder's mother was always making butter to sell.  But today's post will show you that making your own butter can be simple, easy, and requires no equipment other than a jar with a lid, and a marble.  Even the marble is optional.  Here's what you do...

 

Simply skim the cream off the top of any refrigerated milk you've collected over the past few days (non-homogenized, of course.)  If you left the milk uncovered in your refrigerator, the cream is even easier to skim off.  Just make sure you don't shake the milk up first or the cream will mix in with the rest of the milk.  We typically have over a quart of milk each day, and 3 days worth of cream is typically enough to make butter.  Put the cream in a small Mason jar or jelly jar or even a cup with a tight-fitting lid.  Add some salt if you like salted butter.  You can also add some herbs like dill or chives for added flavor.  Then I place a marble in the jar because it helps me know I'm shaking vigorously enough, and it lets me know when the butter is getting thick.  Put the lid on the jar and start shaking.  This is when a number of children in the house come in handy.  We take turns shaking while we read a book or watch a movie.  After about 30-45 minutes of vigorous shaking, the cream has turned into whipped butter.  Then refrigerate.  We make ours with raw milk, so it needs to get used up in about 4 days.  It's so good that using it quickly is never a problem. 

 

5 Ways to Preserve Peaches in a Weekend

Last week my husband came home with half a bushel of fresh organic peaches from a local Amish farm.  Since I am desperately trying to avoid getting fruit flies in my house this summer, and the peaches were good and ripe, we had this weekend to do something with them.

Before I get started, let me just say that the fruit flies were not my only competitors for these peaches!

#1 Steamed Peach Juice

I don't particularly like to can produce, but my husband loves doing it, so he brought up the enamel water bath canning pot and our steam juicer from the basement and decided to make some jelly and peach juice.  Be forewarned that canning makes for a messy kitchen, so my pictures will not be pretty or decorator-perfect.

After washing everything from our very rustic, spider-loving farmhouse cellar, he placed the canning jars in boiling water to sterilize.  All he had to do with the peaches was cut out the pits.  The rest of the peaches went into the top of the Mehu-Liisa stainless steel steam juicer.  There is water in the bottom section for the steaming, and the pure juice settles in the middle with a tube that hangs out of it and into your clean mason jars.  

Within about 30 minutes, there was enough steamed peach juice to start pouring it into the canning jars.  This is a little bit thicker than juice, so we actually use it as concentrate and mix it with water in a pitcher for drinking.  Once all the juice had been extracted from the peaches, my husband placed the lids and rings on the full canning jars and placed them in the boiling water in the enamel canner with the lid on for about 20 minutes.  He made 6 quarts of juice to put on the pantry shelves for the winter (actually 5 because we drank one already.)

#2 Peach Mint Jelly

In the meantime, my hubby had picked 2 cups of fresh chocolate mint leaves from the side of our house and had it steeping on the stove.  This made about 4 cups of a strong mint tea concentrate, but only 1/2 cup of it got used in the recipe.  The remainder was made into a pitcher of iced chocolate mint tea.  Once the peach juice was finished being steamed, he reserved 4 cups of it for the jelly.

Then the trusty old Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving was pulled off the bookshelf and opened to page 36.  We used the recipe for Mint Jelly, but altered it quite a bit.  My husband doesn't always measure ingredients, so to the best of my knowledge, the following recipe is what he made:

Peach Chocolate Mint Jelly

Make the mint tea extract with 1 cup of fresh chocolate mint and 1 cup of boiling water.  Let steep  for about an hour.  Measure out 1/2 cup of it and combine with 4 cups of peach juice and 2 Tablespoons of lemon juice in a large saucepot.  Add 3 cups of sugar and stir until dissolved.  Bring to a boil over high heat, stirring constantly.  *Cook until gelling point or until jelly sheets from a spoon.  Ladle hot jelly into hot jelly jars and put on caps.  Put into the hot water bath canner and boil for 10 minutes.

*This made 2 full pints and 6 half-pint jars of "jelly."  I must be honest here and admit that I was out of the house buying more sugar and freezer bags while Hubby was making this.  It did not set up like jelly, which has happened to him before.  I suspect he disregarded the part of the recipe that says to "cook till gelling point."  We are using the jars of "jelly" as syrup for pancakes and waffles and ice cream instead.  By the way, any kind of mint could be used.  It just so happens that the chocolate mint has been prolific here this summer.

#3  Peach Sauce

After the juice and jelly were made, there were still plenty of peach parts left.  All the pulp and skins were dumped out of the steam juicer and into our Roma Food Strainer shown above.  These strainers are so easy to find now.  I googled them and discovered they're even sold at Target and Kohl's.  We bought ours years ago from the Lehman's catalog, along with all kinds of other homesteading supplies and kitchen tools.

Once we ran the peach parts through the food mill, we were left with delicious peach sauce---just like apple sauce.  It was a little tart, so it was a good thing I went out and bought more sugar because we ended up adding 2 cups of it, along with 1 Tablespoon of nutmeg and 1 Tablespoon of cinnamon.

This made over 3 gallons of peach sauce, and Hubby scooped it into large ziplock freezer bags.  They went into our chest freezer to add to our winter collection.  The children got to eat a bit too after dinner that night.  Any pits, skins, or other bits of peaches were given to our goats, sheep, and any chickens smart enough to be nearby.

#4  Frozen Sliced Peaches

After the hard work of steam juicing, jelly making, saucing, and canning was done, I came along and sliced up another portion of the half bushel to freeze.  My husband actually hates to do this because it requires peeling and slicing the fruit, which drives him insane with boredom.  I went through 1/8 of a bushel and put about 1 1/2 gallons of sliced peaches in the freezer for making pies and cobbler in the winter.  Sometimes I add lemon juice or Fruit Fresh to prevent any discoloring.  Other times I add a little bit of sugar.  This weekend, however, I added nothing.  I figure we'll be stirring sugar into any dessert or pastry recipe anyway, and once they're baked, you won't be able to notice the discoloration.

#5  Dried Peaches

Our final method of preservation is probably our favorite: dehydration.  Our Excalibur Food Dehydrator is the best at drying fruits, vegetables, and herbs in our opinion.  It's now even sold in the coolest preppy colors!  Who would have thought?  I will write another post on all the things you can do with one of these, but for now, I'll stick to peaches.  We simply peeled and sliced the peaches, and then placed them on the dehydrator trays.

Once the trays were full, we put the lid back on the front, plugged it in, and set the temperature to 135 degrees.  It takes between 8-16 hours to dry, depending on how thick the peaches are sliced and how humid it is in the house.  We used to dehydrate in the kitchen, but the juice sometimes seeps out the bottom, and the fan on the dehydrator makes the kitchen more hot, so we now do it in our spooky (aka "rustic")  basement.

Out of the dehydrator came these delicious dried peaches that the children love.  If they're kept in longer, they are crisp like chips.  These were more chewy and are not good for teens with braces, by the way.  They can also be re-hydrated by putting them in a container of water in the refrigerator all day. We placed these in quart-sized ziplock bags which were stored inside large metal tins in our cellar to keep the dampness out.  They take up far less space than canning jars and don't require the electricity that a freezer uses.  A full dehydrator fills about 4 quart bags.

{She probably looks like she just swallowed a lemon, but she was actually savoring last year's dehydrated peaches and apples while her daddy made juice.}

All in all, a half bushel of peaches yielded 1 1/2 gallons of frozen peaches, over a gallon of dried peaches, 5 pints of "jelly," 6 quarts of juice concentrate, and 3 gallons of peach sauce,  not to mention what we ate and shared with neighbors.  This was done in a weekend, but we really could have finished it up in a day.  However, we have other projects and events going on, so we spread it out a bit.

**I would love to hear about any methods of peach preservation that you use!  Either make a comment below or go to my new "Contact Me" page and send me an e-mail.

Making Natural Carpet Freshener

Our family recently purchased a rustic cabin with the intention of it being used as a guest cottage.  It has been uninhabited and closed up for quite a while and smells rather musty.  Today I prepared a simple carpet freshener to sprinkle on the carpets and furniture which will be left overnight until the cleaning service comes the next day to vacuum it all up.  The only ingredients are equal parts baking soda and corn starch, along with a few drops of essential oil.  In my case, I used about 10 drops of lemongrass pure essential oil to half a cup each of the baking soda and corn starch.  No need to buy expensive brands since it is just going to be vacuumed anyway.  I do like to use pure essential oils, but be careful if you have light colored carpets since some of the oils do have a golden tint to them.  In this cabin, the mismatched carpets are already a golden brown color, so no worries there.  I always wear an apron when working with oils since they stain clothing if spilled or splashed.  This is my favorite apron which was handmade and worn by my great-grandmother years ago on her mountain farm.  Here's hoping that our guest quarters will be smelling lemony fresh in a few days!