Weekend update, 13-14 January 2018

In the interest of actually generating some content for this blog, and as a way to boost my self-esteem (I hope), I'm thinking of changing the format slightly. Instead of only doing big, illustrated write-ups when I finish a project (which isn't very often), I'm going to try to at least jot down a quick note of what I accomplished every weekend. I'll still do big project write-ups from time to time, but my primary goal is to be able to look back on the year and see that I have actually accomplished *something* with my time. Sometimes I'll probably ramble on at length. Other times, it may just be a few bullet points.

So, here's what happened this past weekend:

Garden:
Based on the reading I've been doing, Steve and I drew up a plan for managing our compost (how often to empty the kitchen caddy, how often to empty and sift the contents of the bin, where to store the compost for finishing by worms, and so on).

Food:
This week, I've had millet on the brain, so Steve tried out a new recipe that made use of millet as a stuffing for our home-grown Burgess Buttercup winter squash, topped with pesto made from home-grown kale and chard. We swapped out the expensive Gruyere and goat cheese in favor of some Gouda (on special this week), and ordinary white mushrooms instead of shiitake (because I associate shiitake mushrooms so strongly East Asian food that I have a hard time accepting them in White People food). The result was delicious, hearty, and filling. We'll definitely be doing this again.

Gluten-free Bread!
That looks like Bread!

I also had a craving for sourdough bread, so on Thursday night I mixed up a starter of milk kefir and rice flour. I fed it some more rice flour and water on Friday, and by Saturday it was bubbly and ready to bake. I used this recipe for a sourdough boule using sorghum, buckwheat, and tapioca flours. Uncharacteristically for me, the only substitution that I made was to use ground chia seed instead of flax.

The recipe says to divide the dough into two small loaves, so I baked one inside a cast iron Dutch oven in our regular oven, and one in our mini/toaster oven, using our small cast iron griddle/comal as a baking stone. I've suspected for a while that the bottom heating element on our oven isn't doing its job, and that it's making the already-difficult task of gluten-free baking harder than it already was--hence the use of two different ovens. For science.

Leftover sourdough starter FTW!

The toaster oven loaf had plenty of oven spring and cooked all the way through. The regular oven loaf was still sticky and undercooked on the bottom by the time the top was darkly browned. (OMG! There's actually a *reason* why all my GF baking experiments were failing! It wasn't just me!!1!) In the end, I moved loaf #2 into the toaster oven and both loaves turned out tasty, with the buckwheat giving them a slightly bitter flavor that I found reminiscent of rye bread. This recipe turned out well enough that I will definitely be tinkering with the recipe in the weeks and months to come.

I still had some sourdough starter left over, so I topped it up and used it the next day to make a Dutch baby oven pancake for a late brunch, with a diced Granny Smith apple and a bit of cinnamon, ginger, clove, allspice, and nutmeg added to the batter, and a light sprinkling of sugar on top when it came out of the oven. Om nom nom.


Crafts:
Last September, I finally tried my hand at naalbinding with a pair of simple fingerless mitts. These are nice and portable and make a good commuting project, but like everything else, they got pushed to a back burner in October when my brain chemistry turned malevolent. A week or so ago, I picked them back up again and have resumed chipping away at this project, which I hope to give its own write-up later.