Better Bread

I have been trying for years to make a decent loaf of bread.  It has taken a lot of experimenting and failed attempts, dense rolls, and loaves that didn't rise.  I learned to make a decent pizza crust and had been making that for a long time.  My family eats a lot of rolls and french bread.  I have at least a dozen roll recipes stashed away.. some that were better than others but none that were great.  Many times I would have Brent stop into our local grocery store on his way home and grab a loaf of freshly baked french bread to go with dinner.  It was quick and easy and not too terribly expensive.

The problem with stopping at the store for one thing.. is you usually end up buying at least 3 or 4 things and that can really add up.  I was on Pinterest one day and came across this recipe.  It looked simple enough so I thought I would try it.  After making this french bread half a dozen times, I don't think I will ever buy it again.

Here is how mine turned out.  I usually make it into two large loaves using one the day I make it and saving the other for either kids' lunches, or another nights meal.

 

Shaped into loaves

Slicing and doing an egg wash

Baked to perfection

These got a tad bit darker than I would have liked, but I am still learning the ins and outs of my new double oven.  This french bread turns out so soft and airy.  Spencer (4) gets so excited when I make the "squishy bread"!  It is perfect for eating hot out of the oven, turning it into garlic bread, or as leftovers for sandwiches. It is so incredibly fast to make.  I can make a batch in about 2 hours from start to finish with little babysitting. I wish I had known how easy this was a very long time ago.

I recently got a Wondermill grain mill so I will be making much more bread in the near future.  It really is an art but nothing beats a fresh loaf of bread.

Eating wild

When I was little, we had neighbors that would host a huge 4th of July bar-b-que and all the neighbors were invited.  I looked forward to it every year.  They had a huge pit in their backyard where they smoked an entire pig for a few days before the event and it was delicious.  One of those years they had a huge spread of different food to eat.  When I asked them what some of it was, They responded with venison and goat.  There was NO WAY I would have touched it.  Then I grew up and married a hunter.

My oldest daughter turned 12 this year and bagged her first buck.  It was very exciting for all of us.  It was right before Thanksgiving and my father-in-law was coming down for the holiday anyways but ended up coming a few days early to help process it.  It was so nice of him to help out as Brent had to work and I was clueless.  The weather was too warm to let it hang any longer so it needed to be done.  I did watch though and tried taking mental notes on how it was quartered and skinned.

Taylor's buck

Some of my first posts on this blog over 2 years ago were about my misadventures with wild game.  I have struggled with birds and fish and this was my first time dealing with venison.  We didn't really have time over Thanksgiving to deal with the trimming of the venison so we threw it all in the freezer until we had time to grind it up and make sausage.  Since Brent had so much time off over the Christmas holiday we decided to tackle it then.  On Christmas day, while the kids all toyed with their new goodies, we went at it.  We were up until midnight grinding and packaging up pounds and pounds of breakfast sausage. It turned out really good.  The kids haven't developed a taste for it yet but hopefully they will.  Brent and I really like it though.

Deer steak in my Gramma's old cast iron skillet

Throughout the season Brent has been bagging some various birds.  Chukar, quail, Hungarian partridge, ruffed grouse and sometimes a pheasant.  We decided to thaw these out and make a meal out of them. The birds are delicious but it takes quite a few to feed this family.  Thankfully all of my kids love them.  I have not had a lot of success with pheasant in the past.  It is really lean and cooks pretty quickly.  Today, in order to make the cooking process a little faster I decided to just cut the breasts off all of them and fry them up.

Fried quail breasts

I just used a flour breading on the quail and a Panko breading on the larger birds.  I wish I had taken note of the different birds I cooked because they all had their own unique taste.  The quail is the biggest hit around these parts though. Too bad it takes so many to get a decent batch.  There were 7 quail this time around, enough for each person to have one whole quail.  

Quail, Panko crusted pheasant and others

The pheasant was much better this time around than previous times but I still think there is a better way.  I was surprised how quickly I got the hang of taking the meat off.  There ended up being very little waste once I got the technique down.  I had never really messed with anything like that before.  I am used to prepackaged chicken breasts and tenders.  Other than the Thanksgiving turkey I am pretty inexperienced with bone-in meat.

To round off the day, I made some venison stew.  I wish I had more of the stew meat.  It was a little potato heavy but tasted good nonetheless.  I  have been trying to get away from prepackaged seasonings and making my own.  It is surprisingly easy.  I make my own taco, chili and stew seasoning now and so far there are little complaints.  The biggest complaint is that I go heavy on the amount I cook with because it isnt measured out for me.  It is still so much better than MSG laden seasonings.  In fact when we were making the deer sausage, we looked all over for a prepackaged seasoning and all of them had MSG as the first ingredient, so we resorted to a recipe and it turned out great.

Venison stew

I am just really happy that I am getting the hang of cooking this meat.  It would be a shame to waste any of it.  It is so tasty and healthy (except when fried in a ton of butter!) and I get excited each time my husband and his bird dog bring home some more birds, and hope someone is able to get a deer (or elk) each season as well.

Mary, Mary quite contrary....

How does your garden grow? Well it's that time of year,  frost is on the ground, snow is in the mountains, and I am dreaming of the fall harvest. I'm determined to grow a garden this year. We decided not to renew our CSA membership  and we are going to build two or three raised beds and grow our own produce instead.

I have tried many, many times to grow things in pots and  in the ground with very little success.  I managed to harvest about 4 chili peppers one year off one plant and the first year we were here, we were able to gather quite a few cherry tomatoes and zucchini from the garden that was already here.  Now the chickens reside in that area so we have to build a new one.

I don't know if it's lack of experience in gardening or lack of effort on my part that caused the past failures, and honestly it was probably a combination of both.  I figured if I can keep a flock of 7 chickens alive, then maybe I can grow something also.  Now I am just trying to decide what to grow.  I've priced out the materials, and we have a vague idea of where the beds will go.  I just hope installation doesn't become a huge project and that we don't have to do too much to alter the irrigation in order to make it work.

There is just something so gratifying about producing your own food.  I watched a documentary tonight about the South Central LA farm issue back in 2006.  It was called Save The Farm and there is another one that I will watch next that won many Oscars called The Garden about the same situation.  It was very upsetting, yet moving.  Both of these are available on Netflix instant streaming.  If these people can build a huge garden in the middle of South Central LA, then surely I can can build one in the middle of Idaho.  It will be a labor of love and I will definitely keep you all posted.

On another note, I tried a few new recipes this week.  First I made these homemade granola bars and boy were they good! These are something I am going to be making again.. tomorrow in fact.  My kids gobbled them up and even my husband took one for a snack.  Although I think it's because he is in love with anything he finds on Lauren's Latest .  I thought the flavor was fantastic, very rich but not overpowering.  I am going to attempt some other versions also, like peanut butter and a maple one.  I also made this cream cheese banana bread but the verdict on that will be out tomorrow since it will be breakfast.  It is in no way healthy and it had more ingredients than just about any other quick bread I have ever made, but if it tastes as good as the batter then it will be delicious.

I am researching and brainstorming on what I want my blog to look like, and I will start getting some more pictures up.  I know all this text must be pretty darn boring.  If there is one thing I am uncomfortable doing, it would have to be dealing with and learning new technologies.  My husband picks up on the stuff so easily and to me its like another language, so bear with me and hopefully we will start looking a little more high-class 'round these parts.  

The Island of Misfits

I have been wanting to start a blog for some time and have been without inspiration. It's Christmas night, well technically it is the day after Christmas, and I have been sitting here watching Julie and Julia, when it occured to me what I could write about. Naturally, being a mother, my children would be the first thing I could write about. In some ways, they will be a part of this but for the most part, it will be me and my daily blunders and how I now accept the fact that I am a misfit in the world of being a housewife and all it entails.

It is only appropriate that at Christmas, like Rudolph and Hermie, I have cast myself to the island of misfits, accepting my lack of skill, organization, and know-how to being the perfect housewife. This is all quite interesting in the fact that I am not truly only a housewife. I share the duty with my wonderful husband who in many ways is better at it than I am. It is partly because of him that I decided to do this. I have been the brunt of his jokes and laughter due to my inexperience in the kitchen, and my mishaps through out our marriage. On top of being a housewife, I am a mother of 5, a retail slave, and a returning student. I am sure my attempt at juggling all these things is partly why I fail miserable at many of them.

As I was watching this charming wonderful movie, I thought about the days previous events. Organizing Christmas for a family of 7 is a feat in itself. Not once, but twice there were miswrapped presents, and people ending up with the wrong thing. I found it quite funny as my husband just rolled his eyes. Due to a massive sickenss at Thanksgiving, we totally skipped Thanksgiving dinner. Not wanting to disappoint the kids I threw together a "mock" Thanksgiving dinner with refrigerated turkey and gravy, instant potatos and corn. Only I can mess up not one.. but 2 batches of instant potatoes. It was a disaster. So to make up for it, I decided to make a great Christmas dinner. My mother-in-law gave us a Honeybaked Ham, I made fruit salad, homemade mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, homemade yeast rolls and deviled eggs. To illustrate my inexperience in the kitchen, I had my husband google "How to make yeast rise", "how to boil and egg" and recipes for the rolls and the sweet potato casserole. I have been making Thanksgiving dinner and Christmas dinner for 10 years. Why do I still have to look this stuff up and why don't I have copies somewhere. Needless to say, dinner turned out delicious, even the rolls that before today always seemed to resemble hockey pucks.

This is just a small sampling of my adventures, and I usually have something daily but when I don't, I am sure I can pull something out of the archive in my head. I have plenty of material I believe. So you will be able to laugh and smile and read my mis-adventures of cooking, parenting, sewing, housekeeping, and sometimes for fun, I can throw in the other dumb things I do like dropping my Blackberry in a cup of hot coffee. I think the first step to recovery, is accepting that I am a misfit, but am learning to embrace it.