The Road Home

yet another mystery

The house is open.

…as in the gates are open. They both have run of the house.

The “boy’s room” is heated to 68F!!!

There is fleece on the day bed in the boy’s room.

The bedroom is cool at 60F, but there is fleece and flannel and a window to the woods.

Bob and Bear are both in the living room…Bear on one of the chairs he prefers for nighttime and Bob on the dog bed….

I have put the dog bed in various places and with and without a pillow…for Bear, to allow him an easy and comfortable bed vs jumping on to my bed or one of the leather chairs (while we are resting his leg). Bear occasionally uses the “dog” bed, but never for long. I’ve flipped it so that the canvas side is up…thinking that maybe the fleece side is too warm…

I’ve moved it here and there.

Whatever.

The “just stay out of my way” boys…now are the “together boys”… yet another mystery.

Kodachrome, part deux: you give us those nice bright colors

I had some phenomenal teachers in high school and am forever grateful for them as well as for the influence of my parents on reading, problem solving, learning, loving to learn…AND learning that failure is something to be learned from, laughed about and absolutely not feared.

And I have a Canon camera… although my first camera was a Minolta, rescued from a pawn shop bin by my father and given to me on my 16th birthday.

I was made to first learn in black and white, NOT Kodachrome :) !!

And I have no idea why sometimes these songs come to mind. Music, as in the “current” music was not and is still not of great importance to me. I guess I had the car radio on when I was young but I didn’t buy much music…ever. And now: I prefer listening to the wind in the trees and chatter of the animals or the sound of my car or motorhome engine…so HOW do I know and/or remember these songs?

A mystery.

But yesterday, walking through the woods with Bear as the sun was setting and lighting up the wood grasses and dead thistles…I wanted to capture the moment and the feeling.

I love to take a photograph.

And the song came to mind, unbidden, out of the ether.

Kodachrome by Paul Simon

When I think back
On all the crap I learned in high school
It’s a wonder
I can think at all
And though my lack of education
Hasn’t hurt me none
I can read the writing on the wall

Kodachrome
You give us those nice bright colors
You give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world’s a sunny day, oh yeah!
I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So Mama, don’t take my Kodachrome away

If you took all the girls I knew
When I was single
And brought them all together for one night
I know they’d never match
My sweet imagination
And everything looks worse in black and white

Kodachrome
You give us those nice bright colors
You give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world’s a sunny day, oh yeah!
I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So Mama, don’t take my Kodachrome away

Kodachrome

I love to take a photograph.

Morning

After a dramatic cold front that took temperatures 20 degrees (F) colder with three nights in the 20’s, we bounced back to somewhere in the middle. A change to “wet and cold” is forecast for the weekend. We really need some rain and I am looking forward to having a fire in the woodstove and cozying up inside even if it does mean boots, hat and coat for outside excursions.

But meanwhile, we are all enjoying the sunshine.

Bear’s leg is finally doing better. Not 100% yet, but we doing a bit more off leash and normal.

While he did not chafe or object to the leash, he is also obviously happy to be off!

Beardog in sunshine – beautiful.

A treat is the normal reward for a good walk. All walks are good walks!

Bob joined us in the sunshine.

And I lingered over a second cup of coffee before going in to start my work day.

Morning.

The bread: Oatmeal pumpkin bread

At the end of the last bear story there was this teaser photo of a mini loaf of bread:

With the not quite 1 cup of pumpkin from my last pumpkin roasting, I decided to try Oatmeal pumpkin bread from page 100 of Artisan Bread in 5 minutes per day…my high moisture dough “Bible”. I highly recommend this book if you want to try the high moisture thing….aside from good recipes there are lots of instructions, troubleshooting and info that helps understand the why and how of working with high moisture dough. And understanding some of the why and how helps if you want to experiment. And if you experiment some things work and some don’t and the book info helps you tweak things so they DO work…I speak from experience :)!

But for this dough, I followed the recipe exactly.

For the bread, I followed the adaptation on page 102 for Oatmeal Pumpkin Seed bread – almost…I used sunflower seeds instead of pumpkin seeds because I wasn’t thinking or reading carefully. In this case a “mistake” that worked fine!

This little bread was as good as it looks. And the dough – it rises wonderfully. This is not a sweet cake like pumpkin bread ala banana or zucchini bread. It is very slightly sweet as there is a little honey as well as pumpkin in the dough. It is a whole grain bread: half white flour, but the remaining is a mix of oatmeal, whole wheat and rye flour.

The cranberry seed variation made a wonderful roast turkey sandwich. And black forest ham was good on it also.

It made excellent toast.

I made an apple hand pie with the same dough on Saturday morning. It smelled so good and was sitting there with a bit of carmelized apple and cinnamon so I ate it!

No photo.

But, on Sunday, I decided to add some sausage to the apple so I could call it breakfast. I drizzled a little maple syrup over all before sealing them up.

A bit of egg wash and they are ready for the oven.

The hardest thing about making this kind of thing is waiting for it to bake and cool enough to eat.

My kitchen floor is nearly always sticky or crunchy or both. So I cleaned the floor. 10 minutes down, 20 to go.

Tick-tock.

Worth. The. Wait.

I made a mini loaf without cranberries and seeds.

And then I was out of dough.

The big green squash are “winter squash”…I think. I looked at a number of photos, conferred with my mother…we think they are winter squash. They are wonderfully flavored. I like them better than pumpkin – the texture is smoother and they are just a bit sweeter. Most of the flavor we associate with pumpkin stuff is the spice combo. If you’ve ever tried plain pumpkin, you know it is nothing like the flavor of a pumpkin pie.

Second round for the dough, I thought I’d try some of the winter squash in place of the pumpkin. Not a risky experiment and the only difference I detected was that the goods are a tiny bit sweeter. I am not talking sweet like a cake or or cookies…just a bit sweeter than a plain dough.

Since bagels are a plain dough with a bit of sugar…

This dough makes wonderful bagels – crunchy outside, chewy inside.

On to “English” muffins and pizza. The muffins are cooked in a cast iron skillet. I did as I always do…a little cornmeal on them, a bit of olive oil and butter in the pan and a lid on top: 2-3 minutes per side.

Keeping with the pumpkin/squash, sausage and apple theme, for the pizza I spread a thin layer of squash for the sauce, thin slices of mozzarella, then sausage and apple slices. Fifteen minutes on a stone on the grill, a drizzle of balsamic syrup (reduced balsamic vinegar) and it was pizza for supper!

Nice crispy crust with just a bit of chew – perfect!