Soup and Sourdough

I made Sourdough bread according to the instructions in Wild Fermentation. The sour starter had this terrible cheesy smell and the bread kind of had the same smell/taste. So it didn't turn out well. It did rise by itself from the wild yeasts and taste sour so that was exciting. I guess the yeasts around here just aren't tasty?


We had it with a new soup recipe that I got off Soulemama's blog. Cream of Broccoli. It was really tasty except it had the problem that I have with all pureed soups, I just don't find them filling and I'm not willing to make something to go along with them.
http://www.soulemama.com/soulemama/2009/09/bits.html

Salsa

We made our 2010 batch of salsa this week with tomatoes from the garden. This time we made jalapeno salsa, a recipe from the Ball's Canning book. So it should be good and spicy, might even be Kevin only salsa. This year we only got 4 pints of it. Had lots of smallish tomatoes, no big ones at all.

Foot stool with Storage

I finished a foot stool yesterday. It is built like the blanket bins using 2x4s. And then I just wrapped it in some thrift store fabric that I liked. And bought some foam for the top too. I'm very happy with how it turned out. I thought at one point that it might be useful as a little stool that Henry can sit on at a kiddie table but I think I made it much too tall for that. But mostly I wanted to make it as a practice for a big bench sized one I might make for the living room, will need to find a big piece of fabric for that though.

A day out in Kitchener

We spent the day in downtown Kitchener today. Wandered through Victoria Park, checked out our favourite thrift stores downtown, looked in the market and stopped for lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant.

We took these photos at the park, and the last ones at the restaurant.

First Soup

We had the first soup of the season here yesterday. I made my standard soup with various veg including potatoes and carrots in veg stock with oregano but this time I at least added parsley from the garden. I am making a vow to try some different soups this year.


It is getting cold. Kevin also insisted on putting the heat on for part of the day yesterday. And Henry has been looking cute in his snuggly sweaters.

More Pants

I have made 3 more pairs of pants for Henry, all from old sweaters.

Crazy mismatch pants:

Made from a hoodie, I thought the front pocket on the side of the leg might look cool but mostly it just looks weird, not too noticeable though:

My favourite:

Late Summer Harvest

I've been harvesting tomatoes like crazy. Also green beans, which reminds me I have to do something with the ones in my fridge. I planted a lot less than last year but still maybe too many. And on the weekend I dug up all the potatoes.

An Ode to Tomatoes

I have been harvesting loads of cherry tomatoes but haven't been doing much with them other than drying them. So I decided to make a meal based on them. We had delicious bruschetta. Cutting up the tiny cherry tomatoes bor the bruschetta was annoying but it made it extra delicious. And we had pasta tossed with loads of roast cherry tomatoes, some roast eggplant, gralic, basil, and a few olives. Will have to make meals like this more often.

More food for Henry

Henry has been having lots of adventures with food. He still doesn't really like the mushed up food but we are definitely making progress and the past couple days I felt like he actually swallowed some of his apple sauce. We've also tried sweet potato and mashed banana.


But he does love sucking and chewing on pieces of fruit through his mesh "nibbler" that I bought him. In there he loves peach, watermelon, frozen blueberries, and pears. But the mango we put in there for him he did not like - too flavourful I think.

New Shelves

I added some shelves to our laundry room. I want to add shelves everywhere - there is always stuff to put on shelves. These were super cheap and easy. And I think if they were painted they would be nice enough to even put in places other than the laundry room. Here is my recipe for easy $6 shelves, there's barely even any measuring.
Cut 2 pieces of 2x4 to length
Join together with biscuits
Buy shelf brackets
Find studs and measure same distance from floor or ceiling for each bracket
Use drill and screws to attach, do the brackets to the wall first

Cheltenham Badlands

We visited the Cheltenham Badlands on Monday. A small area just North of Brampton. They were really cool to see. They were caused by erosion after over grazing by cattle. The hiking trail was closed and they weren't very big but worth the drive anyway, they were very cool.

Henry's First Tux

Henry got to wear his tux to his first wedding on the weekend.

Soy Yogurt!!

I got a lovely surprise this morning. The soy yogurt I made last night actually worked. And it tastes delicious! I was sure it wouldn't work. I tried making cocount milk yogurt a couple months ago and it didn't work. Also, when I looked online I found lots of instructions and all of them fit into 2 categories: either they were very complicated with extra ingredients and steps all to make the soy yogurt thick like regular yogurt or they were very simple (like dairy yogurt) and didn't even mention thickness.

Luckily my Wild Fermentation book had instructions to use soy milk just like regular milk in a recipe so I did that. Except I added a bit of sugar because one of the sets of instructions said you needed to and now I'm not sure if I want to try to omit it next time. So I followed instructions for dairy yogurt using Edensoy soy milk (only ingredients are water and soy beans, don't know if that is important) and used a cooler with a 4L bottle of hot water and stuffed with towels as my incubator and left it over night. Oh and I used a tablespoon of dairy yogurt as my starter because after the coconut milk yogurt failure (in which I used soy yogurt starter) I read somewhere that commercial soy yogurt doesn't work as a starter (even if it says live cultures).

It really does taste delicious, way better than that expensive processed stuff I bought myself as a treat all the time while I was pregnant. And it has a lovely thick consistency and tasted delicious with my granola and maple syrup. I am so excited. That is often the one thing missing in our kitchen - easy snacks. Kevin eats so much chips and salsa that I think he will turn into chips and salsa. And Kevin thinks the yogurt is good too. So I think this goes along with the Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day recipe as a life-changing discovery.

Projects

I've been having a very productive week. Besides giving the whole house a good vacuum after finally buying a proper vacuum last week ($10 at Goodwill, spending time cleaning is bad enough don't also want to spend too much money) and restocking us with granola and zucchini bread, I got to work on these projects.

Tomatoes picked and mint dried (for tea)












Tomatoes drying












Cider to be made into hard cider, is currently bubbling away in the basement











Sauerkraut getting more sour












Soap hardening












And Henry has been very happy to sit and play on the kitchen floor. He is especially happy with his new toy the coathanger.