fridges . gardens . travel . cheesy bread. waste not
In our homes, the fridge has become a quiet graveyard for good intentions; where food often dies uneaten. We don't waste what we grow though.
We know better when we garden; we know how much work goes into growing it. So we don’t waste it. Hopefully.
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I don’t want you missing out on anything!
Good Lord! (Yes this could be a prayer) - my life is getting away on me. I start to write a letter to you and then get back to it three days later. By then I have something else to say too. It’s not that I feel depressed, my life is heaving with joy, just despondent. As though I do noot deserve this much joy when others suffer. It happens to all of us. Out of nowhere a few curved balls fly past and we wake up in a state of unease.
I cannot get these privately owned tent detention camps out of my head. And I shouldn’t. We should never look away from them. And the governmental cover-ups of my adopted country fill me with dread because so much else is still happening. Even though I am away busy in Australia, I am still an immigrant to the USA as long as they will have me. I have a family and a farm there. But. My fellow immigrants are still being hauled off by masked gangs of armed men. They talk about girls being trafficked a long time ago and the media pays so little attention to their horror stories, as young women are being grabbed off the street right now and pulled out of cars and out of fields now with no warrants or justification or legal ramifications - then disappeared into transports. With the same media ignoring their stories too. Citizens and green card holders and workers with legal visas are being sent to court for resisting these armed attackers. You cannot tell me that none of these gangs of ‘agents’ are not bad players. That these women and men are safe in their hands.
It terrifies me that the law cannot stop this.
But knowing all this we must live our lives, we must still garden and cook and sigh about a cold day, and look after our corner of the planet and do the best we can to support and protect our neighbours. I know awful things happen elsewhere while we try to just get on with life. And it should not feel ok. Yes?
When one of us is challenged and shoved down into the dark - we all are. We must not waste this feeling by burying it.
Flipping from that to cheesy bread is a hard cut but it is how our lives are now. Sigh. This conundrum.
Cheesy Bread
I have invested in a 3.5 litre cast iron pot for baking bread. I find a smaller cast iron pot gives a nice tall fluffy loaf of bread with a strong open crumb.
The cast iron pot was on a 50% sale and will last forever. I hate to buy new things - pre loved is so much better - but these pots last forever. And this is just the right size for the loaf I like the most.
This baby, sitting here on my lap as I write - quite determined that sleep is not for him, will get to inherit his grandma ceci’s Dutch Oven. Preferably after he has eaten loaves and loaves of ceci’s bread baked in said Dutch Oven.
With any inclusions into my bread - like the cheese and thyme here - I add it into the last stretch and fold. So I rolled cheese and fresh thyme into the dough before shaping but maybe I should have incorporated the grated cheesy cheese a little earlier. In this loaf - we ended up with a big hole of melted cheese.
Which is fine too. The cheesy bread will make great toast! But it does look a little odd! 😁 The crust has cheese on it too so it is all crackly and cheesy and delicious.
Here are my specs.
500g high protein flour
400g water
10g yeast
10g salt
This is my usual yeast based recipe - when it is a rainy day and I just want bread - today. If you want to make two loaves of no fuss no knead bread: You can go here for more instruction.
Honestly - making bread is not nearly as hard as they make it out to be. You can do it. And if you are an upgraded member of the kitchen’s garden group: you can email me directly to talk bread - or anything.
The farm back in Illinois
We’ll be there in a couple of weeks. In Illinois. Though I hate to leave my daughter and baby for even a short while - I do need to get back to the farm to catch up with my family there and with farm chores.
Tima looks like she is in a mood. And not a good mood either. But as usual Jude is looking delightful.
Sustainable Home Tip
Don’t waste food. In the USA, nearly 40% of food is wasted, with much of it coming from household refrigerators where forgotten or unused items quietly expire. I just cannot believe this statistic but there you are.
The fridge is where so much food goes to die. So. Eat the Fridge! Eat the leftovers. Eat everything out of the fridge, before buying more.
If you can see an item in plain sight you will be more likely to eat it. So get those veges out of that bottom drawer. I hate drawers of any kind - they hide stuff. So we store the jars of things that we only sometimes need, and therefore will go looking for, in the lower crisper drawer.
Condiments, back-ups and even dairy go into the bottom crisper drawer. Vegetables and perishables are on the middle shelf where I cannot ignore them.
This way we waste less produce.
Just a thought for you.
And anyway - a lot of my veges are stored in the garden. 🐞 In the summer we won’t be buying veg at all.
I hate drawers anyway. I do!!
Random Thought
How many people in your house watch Netflix with a phone in their hands. My (grown-up) kids do it all the time. I guess it replaces knitting or crochet - right? No hobbies. No reading novels. Just scrolling at the same time as watching the television.
I wonder if the reason that the series and movies are so vacuous nowadays is because they know no-one is paying attention anyway. The big screen in the home has become white noise.
I worked in the film industry a long time and this makes me kind of sad. A lot of work goes into making these films and documentaries and series. A lot of work.
The rain.
Rain is a most beautiful event in a garden. And we are getting plenty. And I love it.
The garden
I am still digging when it is not raining.
Adding curves to the hard lines of the raised beds. I design the curves carefully because these are high value marks. They need to be thoughtful.
I enjoy digging and I have a habit of getting carried away and digging too much. This whole garden can be seen from the kitchen window. It is a tiny garden. It can be perfect. Every corner can grow something useful. And every corner is seen. I think all gardens are beautiful. And all gardeners are artists. But if I don’t get the curves right to balance the garden, they will annoy me when I look out the window. So I am taking it slow.
Travel
I popped into my airline app to check my seat for the first leg of my journey from Melbourne to San Francisco (one of my favourite airports) and found that the plane appears half empty. Actually more than half empty - which is a little odd. I know less people are visiting the USA nowadays but this is unnerving.
Most people book online and the system automatically gives you a choice of seats. So they should not be marked available. Usually 10 days out there are very few empty seats left. So. Hmm.
I imagine when people start to check in this will change.
I hope. I don’t want the flight cancelled.
It was raining yesterday and I had such plans for the day. Walking - a bit of gardening. I can do all those happily in a gentle rain but this was a blowing driving rain so I stayed inside and did inside things.
Namely brooding and reading old posts.
It was even too nasty to put the pot plants outside for a rain drink! More old posts and brooding.
So here is my most read post of all time. Who knew!
How to revive dried out potted plants.
Pop over for the pictures - if nothing else!
Below is another well loved story. I enjoyed reading it again. You might too!
Have a gorgeous day. Leave a comment.
Celi aka Grandma CeCi
PS
I had a very similar DO in the UK. I left it behind. I loved it. The perfect size, and great tall loaves.
I've had my Dutch Oven for 40 years, and the deep, dark patina on the interior enamel is, I believe, contributing to the flavour of my loaves. As for cooking/eating the fridge, I do it all the time. I don't buy fresh produce for recipes, just what's in season, and I decide meals around what I have, rather than buying things specially. I do use the fridge drawers, but I eat the contents down till I can see the bottom! And anything that is just too limp or sad I convert into eggs by feeding it to the chooks! It does tend to lead to volunteer pumpkins in the chook yard, but they eat the shoots too.