I Bake a Geode; I Sew Something Special and I Enter My Creations in the Fair.

I know that a few of you come here so that you will feel better about your own pathetic lives.  If you are one of these individuals, then today's post about baking is for YOU.

Some of you have enjoyed my baking misadventures.

The loaves à la toddler:

The unleavened tooth-breakers:

And now this:

Yes peeps, it all comes THAT EASILY to me.

Several months ago, I purchased a bag of light rye flour from the Arva Flour Mill.  If it's good enough for the White Stripes, it's good enough for me:

My kids are fond of rye bread, which puzzles me.  I enjoy it, but it's not exactly the go-to for the under-ten set.

I found a recipe for Rye Bread in Fanny Farmer, one of my favourite cookbooks:

I needed a break from quilting this gift for my neighbours; baking was the answer.

(Yes, the lines are supposed to be crooked like that, although I think that bit of drunken quilting at the top of the dark brown bit is especially wonky and probably not entirely intentional).

I also needed to "not think" about the book that I was not writing while hosting Japanese students:

I would bake.  Baking is wholesome and satisfying.  And I had a full bag of rye flour.

Let's get back to that bread.

When I started to kneading, I couldn't figure out why the mixture was so damn stiff.  I reread the recipe.

Doh! (get it?)

I forgot to add the milk.  :-)

I was not pleased with myself, not pleased at all.  This is what I get for multi-tasking, which I clearly SUCK at.  Obviously, I was not going to begin again so I poured in the cup of milk that I forgot to add and tried to "mix it" in with my trusty wooden spoon.  I wasn't mixing as much as I was pulverizing.  Not even Boney M could get me out of my funk.

I ended up with this after 10 minutes of kneading (and mofo'ing):

I let it sit until it doubled in size and then I punched it down - KAPOW! BAM! BAM!  My favourite part of baking bread.

Because I don't want to chronicle the rest of this baking debacle, let's just leave it at this:  My bread was like a rock.  But it sure looked beautiful:

Laughing my hand off here.

The interior of the loaf tasted good but the crust could chip a tooth.  Let's call my loaf The Geode - crack that hard bitch open and you might find a treasure inside.

********  Intermission ***********
have any of you read The Sisters Brothers?

So I was a total slacker this summer and couldn't even post one blog entry.  Please don't tell me that you can't or shouldn't start a sentence with the word so because I don't care.

This summer, I was too busy sewing, playing soccer, yelling, drinking and complaining.  Isn't everyone's summer like that?

I wrote the first part of this blog (above the asterisks) sometime in July and then I wrote some more again in August, but I just couldn't get it together.  And now I'm finishing it the first week of September.  Oh well.  None of my loyal readers give a fig.  Right?

Okay, back to it.

Intermission's over.

*************

The good news is that I did finish the weiner dog quilt:

The pattern is from Boo Davis' Dare to Be Square.  I don't normally make cutesy-pie quilts but something drew me to this pattern - I think it was the seventies vibe.  Boo's quilt in the pattern had a solid blue background, but I like to mix it up a bit so I went for blue and grey.  I also threw in some pink in the dog's body because every little boy needs a little or a lotta pink in his life.

The quilt should really be called a wall-hanging or play mat, due to the enthusiasm of the quilter (i.e. lots of stitches per square inch), and as such, it is as stiff as my loaf of rye.  :-)  It was well-received by the recipients, although they practically had to tear it out of my arms.

In other creative news, the crafty denizens of Bruce Street have been working on entries for the Western Fair.  How could we resist such tempting categories as Wacky Lamp or Horrific Hat?  And I musn't neglect to mention that we can win TOP DOLLAR.

Gwen made "Munchkins", a family of three hapless dolls:

I made Reading Lamp:  a lamp and shade covered in crumpled pages from Trixie Belden and The Mystery Off Glen Road and J.R.R. Tolkien's Book of Lost Tales.  I bought the lamp from the Goodwill for $3 (you can still see the orange sticker in the pic below).  I already had the books and the glue gun, so it was a cheap project.

Before / during:

I burned my fingers quite a bit with the hot glue while crumpling up all those pages and sticking them onto the base and shade.  It's clear that the life of an artist is fraught with danger.

Here's the big reveal:

Stunning, I think.

In a fit of pure genius, I made Hat Head:

I had purchased the bag of doll heads from a yard sale many years ago and had been waiting for just the right project. 

This is why I go to yard sales, peeps :-)

Who needs a meat dress?  Eat your heart out, Gaga:

I love Hat Head!  I think it's my favourite hat ever, even beating out the burr and teezel hat that I made ten years ago, which sadly, I do not have a picture of.  I do have a picture of a teezel though :-)

HH is also a nod to Pretty Ugly, my Western Fair crepe paper and Barbie doll creation from 2004, now languishing in a landfill.  My evil offspring tore off most of the heads and bodies from the lamp, shortening its moniker from Pretty Ugly to just Ugly.  

I also entered some knitting (a vest for Gwen and a bag that I made for myself), and Dynamite - a quilted wall hanging that I sewed last Spring:

I don't think that I have much of a chance of winning in the quilting category (you can win between $300 and $500 in the category that I entered), but I am quite proud of my piece.  The Quilt Police will find many things wrong with my quilt, not least the wonky shapes, which are completely intentional. On the plus side, it's my own design (I haven't ever been confident designing my own things); I attempted free-motion quilting - definitely not my strength as a quilter; and I think the design is interesting to look at.  I will admit to being very curious about the other entries in this category.

Here's Art Bag.  I repurposed a pair of handles from a purse that I purchased at the Goodwill, and I lined the bag with a wine-coloured taffeta skirt (also a Goodwill purchase).

I knit the bag over many months, took a very deep breath and tossed it in a washer full of hot water (to felt it).  Here it is, only a couple of rows in:

Lastly, here is the pinafore that I made for Gwen.  It actually looks quite hideous in this photo, and is much prettier in person.

The kids and I will be venturing to the Western Fair next week and I am quite excited to see how we made out.

I love being creative; I would die if I didn't make things.

image from:  http://findings.creativemornings.com/post/87107476756/creativemornings-you-cant-use-up-creativity

Go make things!



Optional musical pairing:  Hooray! Hooray! It's A Holi-Holiday! by Boney M

Kombucharama!

The second part of the kombucha-making process.  If you're confused, you can read the first part of the post here:  Growing a Scoby

Day 1 of scoby (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast) growing in a large-sized Bick's pickle jar:

Mixed-media piece in the background by Guinevere :-)

The scoby is getting bubbly on day 3:

  

Day 5:  cheesy, slimy goodness:

On day 8, the scoby is thick and juicy enough for a second feeding!  I will add more sugar to make it grow even more. 

After boiling four cups of water and dumping them into a pitcher, I added 1/3 cup of sugar and stirred until it dissolved.  2 Earl Grey and 1 Green teabag later, I had a pitcher of tea:

After letting the tea cool, I transferred it to a large Mason jar (1.6 litres) and added the scoby and its liquid.

It is necessary to wait until everything is at room temperature, or you risk murdering your precious scoby.  I learned this the hard way when I began baking bread.  I poured scalding water onto my yeast and turned out a loaf of unleavened bread, useful as a weapon but not as sustenance.  Hot water kills yeast.

Here's the 1.6 litre jar:

Doesn't it look pretty?

And don't my new, mid-mod curtains in the background also look dazzling?  I got them in the States and they were only $22!  I found them at a TJ Maxx and when I brought them up to the cashier they were hanging out of the package, willy-nilly, which is what happens when you shop in the clearance section.  I paid for them, the cashier stuffed them into a bag, and when I arrived home two hours later, I discovered that I had not one, but two sets of linen curtains.

SCORE!

I briefly considered returning one set, but you know what?

I DIDN'T. 

I WILL SURELY ROT IN HELL FOR MY TRANSGRESSION AGAINST THE CURTAIN GODS.  :-)

Okay, I need to focus and get back to the kombucha.

Doesn't it look pretty? [ignoring curtains here].

I am reminded of jellyfish.  :-)

huffingtonpost.com

***

Because I was having so much fun, I started a second scoby in a larger, widemouth vessel.  Thanks to the marvel of technology, here's the scoby after a week of percolating:

I transferred it to a larger glass vessel (I think it's around 4 litres), ensconced both vessels in a dark cupboard and ignored them for two weeks.  It was hard, but I did it.

Day 21

My scobies are finally thick enough (to use) to brew my own kombucha!

As soon as I start brewing, I will provide an update; however, I still need to steep myself in several hours worth of research.  As a librarian, that suits me to a tea!


Optional musical pairing:  The Tea Song by Yorkshire Tea

Addendum:

The third part.


For more information, read here:
http://www.picklesnhoney.com/2012/04/09/how-to-make-kombucha-growing-a-scoby/

Mothers, Babies and Scobies

So in another life, I used to be a knitwit.

Here are some of my creations:

Shrug knit with Noro Kureyon (Japanese hand dyed yarn)

Lanesplitter Skirt for Gwen (Noro and Paton's Merino)

Art Bag (Noro)

Storm Toque-r for Nathaniel (Noro - can you tell I like Noro?)

My life and my personality being what they are - ADD - I have been ignoring the yarn in my stash and focusing on writing the great novel and sewing quilts and patio cushions instead.

But for reasons unknown (KISMET?), I ventured to Ravelry recently - the knitter's online mecca - all things knitting all the time - and immediately noticed that I had a friend request.  Weird.  I proceeded to check out my fellow knitter's profile, as you can never be too cautious.  The last "friend" request I had was from a Scottish non-knitter who said that he loved to see "women's legs in knitted stockings and women's bodies wrapped in soft wool".

I kid ewe not. (See that? There are two puns in that sentence!)

While I was tempted to friend the woolly wiggler for the humour factor, I did not.  I was worried that I would be tempted to start sending him wool porn.

So... where was I?

Aha! - the friend request from Ravelry.

I saw that the lady was a blogger and so I read some of her entries.  You can tell a lot about a person from reading her blog.  Just like that, I learned about kombucha tea.  I learned that it tastes like tart green apples with an underlying sweetness and fizz.

I learned that it (supposedly) promotes a healthy liver, is great for digestion and prevents cancer.

And I learned that I can brew it myself, in the privacy of my own home, using black tea.

I marched down to the Quartermaster for a bottle of Kombucha, eager to sample this magical elixir.  I picked a bottle of tea that looked like it had the most sediment on the bottom (a.k.a. The Mother), as that is what is used to grow a scoby - the jelly-like, snotty layer of cellulose that keeps harmful bacteria out of the tea while it's fermenting.

Some up close and personal snaps of scobies, some more attractive than others:

inhabitat.com

tching.com

inhabitat.com

***

Aren't they pretty?

Quartermaster sells Kombucha starters, but at $18 a box, my inner cheapskate was not impressed.  I did not purchase the Mother in a box, but I did leave with a bottle of Kombucha and a package of locally made, overpriced, gluten-free chocolate and almond treats that are so fucking delicious, that I am going to try to make them too.

The magical moment?  When I cracked open the bottle of kombucha and took a swig.

LOVE. 

So yummy, light and refreshing, tart and sweet, and a sparkly explosion in my mouth! Mmmmmmm.

I can't wait to brew my own, but first I have to make a scoby.

Here's the baby scoby (a.k.a. the Mother, the starter culture, the mushroom) in the bottle of Kombucha that I purchased from the store:

You can also see a mother in a bottle of apple cider vinegar - it's that brownish, smoky thing that hovers at the base of the bottle.

The scoby pictured above is tiny but it will grow rapidly once it's fed, taking 2-3 weeks to mature.

I thought that I better get started if it was going to take a minimum of two weeks.

I rummaged through the recycling bin and found a pint-sized glass jar.  I washed it thoroughly and then sterilized it by boiling it for ten minutes.  I like to err on the side of caution when it comes to food and drink.

While I was waiting, I brewed two cups of black tea and mixed in 4 tbsp of sugar:

I carefully removed the sterile jar from the pot of water, and dumped in the bottle of Kombucha:

Aren't the two vessels of amber liquid pretty?

I then mixed them together to begin the fermentation process:

my kombucha starter, in a warm spot out of direct sunlight

I used a paper towel and one of Gwen's rainbow loom creations to seal the jar.  I could have also used cheesecloth, a coffee filter, linen or muslin but I went the paper towel route because that's what I had. You want to use something that's breathable that will keep the fruitflies out.  

I like that I can see the baby scoby sort of hanging down the side, near the top of the jar.  

I will post more pictures over the next couple of weeks as the scoby matures.

Grow, baby, grow!

***

Addendum:  I am posting a picture of Day 3, so you can see how it grows...  there are actually two scobies growing:

Day 5 - see that white line that covers the surface of the liquid?  That's the new scoby, spreading out:

Day 7 - it's getting juicy!

More juiciness to come :-)

Musical pairing:  Strange Brew by Cream.

Part 2 of Kombucha Making

Any Fin is Possible!

Apologies in advance for apundance of bad jokes.

I will eat pretty much anything.  Let me rephrase that.  I AM a food snob (not ashamed) and so I won't ever knowingly ingest things like canned meat, cheese whiz, packaged soup or frozen convenience foods; however, there is little in the way of unprocessed food that I won't mow down, except for the ubiquitous banana.  EEEEEYYYYUUUUUUWWWWWW.

I'm not sure whether I was force fed a banana at a young age, like I was with a tomato, but I can't abide nature's "perfect food".  I did get over my deep loathing of tomatoes when I was in my early twenties, and now I eat them daily - in salads, sandwiches, soups and the dishes that I make for my family's dinner.  But I digress, that is a story for another day.

Look at these nasty bananas:

Ick - gagging here.  They should be illegal.

You, sir, are disgusting...

image courtesy of http://www.vh1.com/celebrity/2011-04-26/these-carvings-are-bananas/

Poor bananas.  They really have no idea how I peel about them.

Every couple of months, I try a (revolting) bite of banana and I involuntarily gag.  I can eat bananas in smoothies (very nice mixed with berries, yogurt and juice), and I bake two-dozen banana-chocolate-chip muffins at least once a month (which I scarf down like a beggarwoman), but I can't eat a banana in its natural state.  It's all about the texture.  

I can't eat lox either.  I am o-fish-ally disgusted by it; it's reel-y clammy and reel-y slimy.
Many years ago, I was invited to a friend's for brunch.  The menu was lovely - toasted Montreal style bagels with cream cheese and lox (oh my cod!), and strawberries sprinkled with a bit of sugar.

It all looked very colourful and stylish, and completely delicious.   I ate it all, except for the salmon.  To be polite, I did sample the tiniest, thinnest sliver of fish, but the texture made me recoil in disgust.  The hostess was not impressed with my antics; her pained expression made me think that I was giving her a haddock.  I was actually ashamed of myself.  I can't stand it when people can't or won't try to get over their childhood (childish?) food issues.

Over the years I have tried smoked salmon many times, but the very melt-in-your-mouth texture that others crave leaves me shuddering.

Yes, I am carping on.    

One Saturday morning last winter,  I had cabin fever and so I dragged the family to the Western Fair Farmer's Market.  Trawling for goodies, my son spotted a vendor handing out samples of smoked salmon and trout - big chunks, actually.  I am tenacious and so I tentatively took a piece of fish, popped it in my maw and prepared to gag.  Holy mackerel! The strangest thing happened... I did not retch and the fish was completely delectable - it didn't taste crappie at all.  I was ecstatic.  We bought an eighteen dollar piece of fish, most of which disappeared on the car ride home.  It was truly delicious.  We returned the following week and bought more.  And then more the next.  Our yen for fish was getting expensive; it was a pain in the bass.   

I told the hubby how my Dad used to smoke his fish in a big blue and white striped Union Carbide barrel in our garage.  An avid fisherman, he always had fish to smoke.  What I wouldn't give for a taste of my Dad's fish today.  Big sigh.

Richard told me that it might be possible to borrow an electric smoker from one of his colleagues - Bill - another diehard fisherman.  Here's a shot of the "Big Chief":

After Richard's first batch of salmon, we were hooked.  Bill eventually gave us the Big Chief after borrowing it many times.  He was probably sick of us bugging him for it.  He said that he never used it, it took up room in his garage, yada, yada, yada, so he told us not to bring it back.  SCORE!
The ridiculous part of this story is that, after tasting Richard's salmon, Bill took the smoker back!  He came and got it one day and we were very sad.
Oh-ho.  I just reel-ized something.  Bill was being an Indian giver.  I'm laughing as I type this... okay so I'm not politically correct but the smoker's called a "Big Chief" for cod's sake!
Oh come on people, lighten up.
Floundering here... I really hope I don't get any hate mail, but seeing as this is the very first inappropriate comment that I've made in my blog - chuckling away - I'm sure salmon will say something.

Soooooo... moving along... the salmon that my husband makes is usually devoured by the 10 year old fishpig, aka Nathanimal, in a matter of seconds.  The remaining pieces are individually wrapped in plastic film, and popped into the freezer.  They stow it someplaice sneaky, a place that is not obvious to me.  It's hardly fair.

So buoys and gills, I have decided that it is time for me to smoke my own fish, which I will then wrap and hide in a remote corner of the downstairs freezer (heh heh - like in a box of frozen burgers, which would never get eaten in this house), shellfishly hogging it all (and becoming a fishpig myself).  I am reveling in my cleverness here.  :-)

Here is my $56 worth of salmon, purchased from Costco, one bag of "wild" and one of "farmed":

I read that the salmon can be brined either wet or dry, so just for the halibut, I did half and half.  If you're dry brining, you can use frozen fish (I brined it for 5.5 hrs in a sea salt and brown sugar mixture).  The brine extracts the liquid from the fish and replaces it with flavour and seasoning (i.e. the ingredients in your brine).  

Packets of wild salmon:

Here's the fish resting in the sugar and salt dry brine:

Here it is again, after 5 hours.  The moisture in the fish has reduced the brine to a thick, honeylike substance:

Here's my wet brine recipe. If you can't read my crappie writing, I have also added another recipe farther down the page which also promises stellar results.

This brine recipe is from the Examiner.com:

1/2 C. Salt

1 C. Brown Sugar
1/4 tsp Garlic Powder
1/4 tsp Liquid smoke-your preferred flavor
1/4 tsp Lowry's seasoned salt
4 Tbsp Molasses
Juice of one fresh lime
1 Qt Water

Here's the farmed salmon soaking in the brine; it has been defrosted before being added.  I'm about to pop it in the fridge overnight.  The floaty yellowish bits are fresh ginger:  

I'm just happy that the devildog didn't get it.  Django steals everything:  whole chickens, raw meat of all kinds, and yes, even $30 of salmon fillets.  

After removing the salmon from the brine, be sure to rinse and pat it dry with a paper towel so that the pellicle will form.  Here's some more information about that, also from the Examiner:  

The pellicle is a dried coating of proteins and ingredients in your brine that seal the surface of the fish... resulting in a more moist and flavorful product. First, remove the fish from the brine and rinse lightly under cold water then pat dry with a paper towel. Lay the fish on a rack, skin down, so that air may circulate. If the outside temperature is relatively cool you can set it in the shade for two hours.  Many people refrigerate the salmon to form the pellicle.  

My pellicle has formed (after a couple of hours in the fridge) and it's ready for the smoker:

Time to preheat the smoker.  I put my mixture of alder and maple chips in the pan on the bottom and plugged it in.   After fifteen minutes, the fish goes in:

The smoke smelt amazing!

Richard, brain sturgeon that he is, told me that it would take at least 5 hours for the fish to be done.

It did not.

In fact, it took less than three and so I overcooked some of it because of this.  The fish is still delish and so I am not too put out.  I am thinking that it was quite cool outside when Richard last used the smoker and so his fish may have taken longer.  He didn't use the barbecue cover as an insulator either:

Here's the finished product:

Looks cod awful, but tastes delicious.  The white goo on top of some of the pieces is fish fat.  It is fine to eat, but people try to avoid it because it looks a bit unappetizing (I don't have an issue with it).  I read that this can be controlled by smoking your fish at a cooler temperature, but seeing as my smoker doesn't have a temperature gauge, I'm not sure how to proceed.  

I should also note here that I prefer the fish that has been wet-brined.  The dry brined fish is a different texture - a little drier - although that could also be because I overcooked it and the pieces are thinner.   I will buy another bag of the wild salmon and try it with a wet brine and see what happens.

My verdict:  not so bad, but I cod dolphinitely do better.  

Oh and if you can think of some batter fish puns, be sure to let minnow.  nyuk nyuk.  

Musical accompaniment is Fish Heads by Barnes and Barnes (1979):