Posts from the ‘Front Porch Musings’ category

Getting there

Geez…I am still adjusting to being home. I’m in bed about 6:30 and up at 3:30-4:00 a.m. I was a bit out of whack time-wise the last days of the trip, but the additional darkness at home is making it easy to stay that way. However, since it is just me and the boys and I don’t do social stuff, I just go with it.

I’ve had times of being a bit upside-down on time before.

The good news is that I get a LOT done in the morning…the very LONG morning!

If you were “along” on the trip, you may remember that about 10 days ago, in Provo, UT, I found a wonderful natural food market: Sprout’s Farmer’s Market. (see the post: Sometimes it is nice to be in a big city) One of the items I found was Bob’s Red Mill Artisan Bread Flour.

This morning…this very early morning…I went online to see what others might have said about it. I didn’t find anything from other’s experience, but I did read the Bob’s Red Mill info and all of the info on the packaging. In addition to the flour being a high protein bread flour, it had the addition of malt barley flour. Further reading disclosed that the malt barley additive had enzymes that increased rise. The package had a no knead recipe which was very close in proportion of flour/water/salt/yeast to what I’ve been doing so I decided to go with that for my first try with this flour.

Yowza…it looks wonderful! I did do 1/2 the recipe to make a smallish-baguetteish loaf.

I wish I could have recorded the crack of the crust. This is the BEST crust ever. The crumb is great…no big “ciabatta” holes, but it was a perfect texture.

And the main thing – the taste – it was better than anything I’ve made to date.

So…while I’ve had no complaints about my Wheat Montana breads, as I read, it appears that Wheat Montana flours do not have added malt, whereas many commercial/store flours do. I’ve ordered several malt powders (diastatic, non-diastatic, malted powder) from King Arthur and will try those with my Wheat Montana flour and see what happens.

Much experimenting to be done, but meanwhile I have the better part of 2 bags of the Bob’s Red Mill to play with.

That was the morning.

I still got to work before 8:00 a.m.

By lunchtime, I really needed a break.

Bear and I headed to Wayfarer’s Park for a walk by the lake…

Still a low cloud deck, but to the very south the sun was breaking through…

A gorgeous contrast to the gray.

And on the way home, on the road home…more sun break!

At home, real sun.

We are getting there.

A slow start

Monday, December 1 … first work day at home after 5 weeks on the road and a long weekend.

It took me awhile to get going.

Aside from coming home and getting back in the home routine, it is suddenly (at 48N latitude) 8:30 a.m. before it is full light and it is getting dusky at 3:30 p.m. And right now we have an inversion (low cloud deck) so it was gray all day.

And cold and snowy.

I wasn’t the only one dragging today…

… a slow start.

Settling in

I’ve owned this house since September 2006.

I’ve done a number of RV trips, but tallying up time in the RV vs time at the house…time at the house is FAR greater. And yet…I immediately am at “home” in the RV and on returning to the house…it feels so strange and it takes me awhile to feel at home – at home. I don’t get it, but it is not a new feeling and now I just go with it, knowing that eventually, the house will once again feel like home.

After a relatively balmy first day back, the forecast was correct: it got very cold, very fast and it snowed. But not much snow: less than an inch.

But, cold! 13F was today’s high.

Not enough to deter Bear and Auggie, though!

Last night, it occurred to me that Thanksgiving weekend I usually get out the Christmas decorations. Last night, the thought of moving any more stuff did not appeal at all.

But today, with the cold and the snow …I got to thinking about the Christmas stuff.

And about a Christmas Tree.

I’ve made do with my little silk tree for the last 4-5 years. Every year, I’ve said “Next year, I’m going to get back to having a real tree”.

Hee… That is the tree that Auggie had been using to get on to the garage roof and my neighbor cut it down so that I was not always having to “rescue” Auggie.

It is still green.

The TOP is beautiful.

MY CHRISTMAS TREE!!! – my real Christmas tree.

It is forecast to warm mid-week and then I will whack off the top of the downed tree and next weekend, I will put up my REAL Christmas Tree.

And we all say “YAY!!”

Okey-dokey! Meanwhile, Mel, my across the road neighbor with the chickens and fresh eggs phoned asking if I needed eggs.

YES, I said. Also, Jesse…Mel’s husband…is a tech guy and knows cameras so when I went to get the eggs, I took my lens with the cracked filter. He was able to remove it. Let me say that several men had tried to remove the filter, but he did more than just use muscle…he used brain power. He said that he could feel the point where the glass stuck and he worked with that and GOT THAT filter off! Happy, happy, happy me!!! It saved me a trip to the camera store and $$$ and I put a new UV filter on the lens and am back in normal business photography-wise.

AND, we had a fun time visiting: Mel, Jesse, their sons Hudson and Carter and Brewster their dog.

The eggs.

Back at the house: Christmas decorations.

The “Bear” Angel…it might be moved to the top of the REAL Christmas tree – we’ll see.

Table top venue…

Stockings hung by the chimney with care and a nice fire in the woodstove to keep us warm.

Settling in.

Green River to Provo, Utah

A GREAT day on the road.

The last day of 2 lane travel until the last leg Missoula to home.

The Green River to Spanish Fork (the 2 lane part) is much improved from 4 years ago which was my last drive on this route. There are more passing lanes and more turnouts so easy for me to allow faster traffic to pass. This has been true of all 2 lane legs on this trip.

From the road:

As all went better than expected and I approached Provo much earlier than I had anticipated…I dithered about going further or sticking to my thought of Provo and seeing what happened with the approaching weather…

…the approaching weather.

Ultimately, I decided to stick to my thought of Provo.

Provo looks to stay south of the worst of the weather: warmer and more rain than snow.

And the RV Park online looked nice.

The online info did NOT disappoint. (see Instagram for the wonderful dog run and how close our site is to the dog run and the views from the dog run!)

It was a stellar day!

Sunny and warm in Wild Thing! Windows open, roof vents open and a great spot!

The Auggie-boy…he is doing SO well and with so much interesting to see at each venue, he does not seem unhappy with not being outside. My mom and I have talked about what we think he might do on return home…it will be interesting :) !!

The Bear-boy is doing well also! As usual, we have had good experience with nice spots to walk.

Sharing work space.

The sundeck.

Sunset Provo.

‘night, ‘night.

Friday wrap

I write this as it nears 7:00 p.m. Friday evening.

A Yukon gold potato is in a pan…to be mashed shortly.

Some roast beef, pinquito beans, green peas and broth are warming. A bit of flour and a nice thick gravied mix for that masher will be tonight’s supper. Oh and some farmer’s market carrots are roasting in the oven.

Auggie is in for the night after a productive day that included two voles – go Auggie!

We had several walks and Bear and I went to Bigfork on an errand run for vanilla extract and coolant for the Jeep!

It was a good and productive work week ending on a high note of a good and fun work session with my work partners.

Seriously.

I have no… as in zero… as in NADA complaints! Mark your calendars!!!

To add to the good stuff, yesterday was the full moon.

Bear and I had our last walk and our early morning walk in the light of the full moon with beautiful moon shadows in the woods. Heaven!

No photos except on my Instagram and there, there are some fun shots.

Happy Friday.

I dearly hope your week was wonderful as well.

Who rescued who and scratch cooking from Jennifer Perillo

I follow just a few food blogs.

One is In Jennie’s Kitchen.

I have Jennie’s cookbook: Homemade with Love

I make Jennie’s Chocolate Snaps, her rif on Marcella Hazan’s tomato sauce and her lentil ricotta meatballs regularly. Other recipes are on my “to make” list and I’ve learned much about techniques from reading her posts. My scrambled eggs are 100% better after reading her method! Just in the last weeks, I was inspired by a description of her napa cabbage-apple-sesame salad with honey-mustard vinaigrette to make my own salad.

But it is not just her recipes.

Her writing and her approach to cooking is what drew me to her blog and cookbook.

A little over three years ago her husband died suddenly, leaving her a single mother of two young girls.

BUT, that is NOT the story here. The story is…as the story always is…not so much what happened as what she did with what happened.

She got the book deal and did the cookbook – even in the early days of grief and single parenthood.

In the past year, Jennie, who lived in apartments in Brooklyn her entire life, bought a house in rural New York. As a person who LOVES a simple and quiet rural life, I cheered and hoped that she and her daughters would love rural life also. This summer, they left Brooklyn and made their country house their permanent home. And in the last weeks, they added to their family: a tuxedo cat named Ms. Paula Poundstone and a sweet terrier mix named Miche.

Oh, yes!

Miche!

Ms. Paula Poundstone!

Jennie explains Ms. Paula Poundstone’s name in this post: All in the family

Yesterday, Jennie announced a new project: a quarterly magazine called Simply Scratch Cooking: a homecook’s journal for making easy, everyday meals.

Jennie’s eloquently written post about how all came about: A leap of faith

I am a fan and follower of Jennie’s, not because she is a woman, not because she is a widow with young children and not even because she moved to the country and got a dog and a cat. What draws me is her passion. Passion for something is in fact what draws me to the people for whom I have the most respect and admiration. What I see in Jennie’s work is her passion for creating beautiful and delicious food, simply, from scratch and sharing all of that with the people around her.

I haven’t subscribed to any magazines for years, but I could not resist ordering Jennie’s. Her cabbage salad recipe is in it! Also the peanut butter swirl brownies she showed on her Instagram that had me drooling. The link to order is in her post: A leap of faith. I’m so excited to receive my copy. I look forward to a weekend of browsing, enjoying and cooking or baking from it when it arrives in 2 weeks.

I emailed Jennie to ask if I could use the photos of Miche and Ms. Paula Poundstone in this post. She warmly replied in the affirmative and also said: “Most people think I rescued them, but it’s totally the other way around. These little creatures have made my life so full, they have rescued my heart in a way I can never fully understand myself.”

I know a little bit about how that has worked in my life and I was so happy to hear that it is working in her life.

Cheers, Bon appetite and I hope all who read this visit A leap of faith and get a taste of Jennifer Perillo’s Simply Scratch Cooking.