Outdoor waterfountain

A few years ago, before I started school ( :-) ), I got really ambitious and made several changes to some of the "icky" corners in our yard. In the back we had a muddy, partly shade area that we changed into a wonderful patio.

In the front NW corner we had another boring corner. There is too much shade to grow much of any flowers. Yet, it is the front of the house and kind of an eye sore so it was a perfect spot for a rock water fountain.

I had made some concrete leaves from rhubarb and lily leaves and got a half-barrel size tub from a friend whose husband farms and had no need for it anymore. Then I dug a large hole and put the tub in. I picked up a pump at Lowes (check how high you want the water to go!), built a little housing around it to protect it from rocks or other things and then placed the whole thing in the bottom of the tub. In order to keep "junk" out of the water, I tied an old sheer curtain over it. Then I build a grate of old metal pipes and double layered chicken wire to place rocks on and keep animals/children from falling in. I then planted some hostas around it because they do really well in shade areas and kind of look like a "water fall plant" (yeah, bottany is not my strongest side). The whole project cost me merely $17, the cost of the pump.

It was wonderful, but that was 4 years ago. In the meanwhile we have had strong winters, losts of stormy weather and I had not run the fountain at all last summer. The concrete leaves had fallen down and I figured it must be broken by now.

I had decided it was the summer to repair it and get it working again. Yesterday was apparently the day for it because I decided to plug it in and see what would happen. It worked!!! Perfectly!

My husband helped me take all the rocks of it and rinsed them all off with the hose. We took the grate off and cleaned all the "gunk" of the sheer curtain and placed the "leaves" back in such a way that the water cascades nicely again. Now I just need to get a plant to place on the cinder block in the back and it will look so nice again.

Today is the day!

Finally a break in the weather! The forecast for today was partly cloudy and fairly warm, so I decided to be bold and brave and prepare my sour doughs for the solar oven. I figured that eventhough Haiti has significantly more sunshine than South Dakota, there must also be less than "ideal" days where it is partly cloudy and so I wanted to try the oven on such a day.

As it turns out, the day started out more cloudy than "partly" and my oven barely reached 200 F. But, it is over 180 F and my dough was already ready to go, so in they went. After two hours, of which the last hour was much more sunny and the oven reached 250F, I could smell the sweet smell of bread all the way to the garden where I was weeding.

They were DELICIOUS!! Even my husband, who is not a bread eater, loved the whole wheat. That was was by far the best starter and taste, but the white and rye were right on its trail. They are not "sour" but have a slightly sweet taste and are light in texture too. Wow, what a success.


Here is the white dough. I had only made a tiny little bit to try it out, but after two hours it had risen double in size. This is before rising.









The wheat was a slightly bigger dough and rose wonderfully. This picture is also before it has had time to rise.








The rye performed great and rose better than some of my yeast rye breads in the past. Again, before the dough had risen.







Don't let the flat shaped fool you, I had simply made very little dough. This is the wheat bread.









This is the wheat cut in half.











This is the white bread.







And this is the rye bread.







For the dough I had a smaller version of roughly:
- 2 cups of starter
- 3 cups of flour
- 1/2 cup of honey (you could also use sugar, but I like honey)
- 1 tsp. salt
- 1 tsp. cardamom in the white and the wheat
- 2-3 tablespoons Canola oil

You want your starter (sponge) to be a soft consistency, slightly firmer than a mousse au chocolat (what better analogy :-) ! ) The dough needs to be not-sticky but not too heavy, so balance the amount of flour.

I kept about 1/4 cup of starter and I have been feeding them once a day the past week. That seems to work just fine. Since I from here on want to bake regularly and need 2 cups of starter for each loaf, I will no longer throw out part of the starter when I feed it, but simply keep feeding it daily until I have 2 cups worth and then bake another loaf, starting the process all over again.

I will definately continue with the starters and baking in the oven all summer long!

And along came a spider....

My friends and family know that I intensely dislike spiders! Someone once told me that they are useful because they (supposedly) eat mosquitoes. Well, if that is the case (and I am not so sure), they are not doing a good job around here!!

Last week I was about to go to bed and I found one in my husband's study. I "dealt" with it and went to the kitchen, turned around and there was a big one, on the floor, right in front of me. I proclaimed my distaste for its presence and went to get my shoe, but by the time I returned it was gone!! No matter where I looked, it was gone!

That little incident prompted me to get started on a project I have been postponing all last semester: deep clean my kitchen. I pulled out everything and started to wash the walls, back and behind appliances, shelves, everything! But, I quickly noticed that washing was not going to be enough.

We have lived here for 8 years (the longest I have EVER lived in one place!!) and it was time to repaint the kitchen. And why limit the job to the kitchen? So, I added the icky hallway to the project and noticed that I then also needed to paint the stairways.

Well, since the weather didn't allow for any further solar oven experiments this week, I went to our local lumber yard and got my paint. At the end of the week, I had painted the kitchen, the kitchen cabinets, added some dimension to the cabinets with a simple crown molding, the hallway, all the baseboards, door frames and doors AND changed my mind a few times. I am pleased! Since I had to work all week I ran out of time for the stairways. Next week I will fix the whole in the plaster and then paint. Maybe I can paint the upstairs banisters too.

And the spider? It showed up again the next night and let's just say it is now in a better place. :-)

I will post some pictures soon.

Sour dough progression

Today is day 5 of my little sour dough starters and I am thrilled with the results!


First, the white. On day 3 it started developing a really foul smell. The best way I can describe it is that it smelled like a bad blue cheese. :-( Yuck. I also noticed it had less bubbles but more foam than the whole wheat and rye starter. But, since there was no sign on mold or other nasty indications, I decided to continue the experiment.




I poured of some of the dark liquid that at times forms on a sour dough and kept feeding it morning and evening. I did change the ratio of four to water to have a little more flour than water. I am not sure if my smell senses are affected by my allergies at the moment, but it seemed like the foul smell was a little less pungent this morning. I will continue feeding it a few more days and then see.



The whole wheat has a pleasant, nearly sweet, smell and forms a substantial amount of bubbles that remain in the dough instead of forming foam on the top. I think it is soon ready to use for baking.







The rye also has a pleasant smell and uses all the bubbles to rise the dough instead of forming foam.









Here is a side view where you can clearly see the bubbles trapped inside the dough.







I scraped some of the top aside here before mixing in the new flour/water to show you how the bubbles are all trapped inside the dough.






In a few days I will take half of the dough and start feeding it with white flour and see if I indeed can develop a healthy starter for white sourdough from a rye starter.

This week we are supposed to have rain and wind but that gives me time to completely finish my starters. As soon as the sun is back out I am testing the loaves in the solar oven. Can hardly wait......:-)

Walk Now for Autism Speaks 2011

This morning we walked for Autism at the annual Walk Now for Autism Speaks. There are so many feelings and thoughts going through me right now, but I want to share with you the kindness and unity we always find at this event.

Davids teacher, her husband and her parents were there again. My mom and oldest daughter got to join this year too.

I think this post will mostly be non-verbal, letting the images speak for themselves. Kind of fitting, considering how many children with Autism are non-verbal.



Because of people's generous donations, David got a free t-shirt.













"Are they done talking so we can finally start walking?"












Dana, Daniel, my mom, and Daren.









My mom.










Staggering!








Yay!! Jeffrey was there again!












He loves his teacher!!









Just amazing.....

Sour dough - day 2

I am excited! At first I started fearing a repeat of the other times I tried to start a starter with nothing more than just flour and water. After letting my starters sit for 12 hours on my temperate counter, I went to check, hoping to see tiny bubbles. But nothing. Not even a sour smell. Nothing.

At this point I decided to leave them there as long as it took. They would either start showing fermentation or rot. And eureka!! Tonight I found my little starters full of bubbles.




The rye definitely showed the most bubbles and was much softer.








It also showed a slight foaming on top.










The wheat was the runner up and had also softened a lot.









This one had a slightly more foamy top.











The white flour starter was surprisingly the least bubbly......









...but it was the most foamy.








I fed them all tonight with an equal mixture of flour/water: rye/water, wheat/water, and white/water. From here on the plan is that I feed them every morning and evening and in about a week my starters should be ready to try baking with. It is going to be important to go against my nature and discard half of the starter each time before feeding it, unless I want enough to feed an army :-).

If I wanted to, I could eventually feed the starters with white flour and end up with a white bread starter, but I am thinking of keeping them separate for now. Maybe..

Solar ovens and sour dough bread....:-)

Many years ago I got fascinated by sour dough. It has all the elements that interests me: food, natural and a kind of sustainability or perpetuation. Ok, nearly all the elements that interest me, it is missing the sewing part.:-)

True to my nature, I refused to use the "fake" method of using a commercial starter or "cheating" with yeast. No, I had to use only "pure" ingredients and even ended up mushing up grapes because it supposedly added natural yeast (unlike.??) and a wonderful flavor to the dough. Yeah....that was not the best idea.

A little discouraged I caved in and bought a commercial starter. It produced a wonderful bread and I have had great luck keeping the starter going for years now. But it was still nagging me that I could not start the starter without. After all, what did they do 100 years ago? Often, cooks would accompany the larger wagon or cowboy "companies" that traveled across the plains and they used sour dough starters to make bread.

Well, it just so happens that the Solar Oven Partners are still needing a reliable recipe for sour dough in the solar ovens AND they need a reliable way to start and keep the starters in Haiti, without yeast! So, I am back on a mission and this time it is not just for my personal curiosity.

After some intense research (again) where I sifted out anything that distracted me from the basic ingredients and methods I am trying the following three starters: rye, whole wheat, and white. I mixed up 50 grams of flour and 50 grams of water in a plastic container with a lid. The starter is fairly dense. I am now leaving them on the counter and checking them every 12 hours. The hope is that within the next two days I will see bubbles or smell something. Unlike to previous readings, I read that an unpleasant smell is not necessarily bad. It indicates that something is alive and now I "just" need to cultivate the good bacteria. The organisms I want to encourage are yeast and lactobacillus.

This is the whole wheat starter. As you can see, fairly dense.









The rye looks like thick ground mustard.









The white resembles something I used as bate when I went fishing as a kid.







My "old"starter. Don't worry about the separation, that is normal. It has been in the fridge all winter and I had no time to feed it or anything, but it smelled great. A perfect balance between sour and sweet. I am letting it sit on the counter to get to room temperature and will then stir it up. Later I will gently feed it with flour/water.

Walk Now for Autism Speaks

I hate autism!!! You will not often hear me say the word "hate" but in this case I will use it. It is one of the most cruel disabilities emprisoning approximately 1 out of 5 children born today.

Our son has during his young life had to fight for nearly everything: in his younger years he was litterally fighting for his life, at times every breath he took, simply keeping food down, sitting, walking, crawling, going to the bathroom, .....everything. Of all his handicaps (and there are several) autism is the cruelest. His mind seems fully functional, but the autism is keeping him from reaching out and participating and learning. He can see everything going on but cannot get himself to join in. Because he is also deaf, he does not benefit from the accidental learning, the stuff you hear and pick up even if you are not really engaged.

We can tell that he wants to be just like everybody else, like his brothers. But he just cannot.

I hate autism.

Please help us find the cause for this so we can work on a cure and prevention. Go to http://www.walknowforautismspeaks.org/. Select a walker (Bonnie Junker). Click on my name all the way on the bottom. Enter your donation and print out your receipt.

Thank you!!

Butter chickpea curry

I have had several requests for the chickpea curry recipe, so here it is. Don't let the "butter" fool you, there is no butter in it. I figured it refers to its creamy texture. This recipe is basically from Allrecipes.com. They have good ideas in general.

It is not spicy at all, so if you want it a little spicier, you need to adjust the seasonings. Also, this recipe produces chickpeas that are soft, but still hold their shape and texture. If you want softer chickpeas, you will need to pressure cook them first.

Ingredients:

• 4 medium potatoes, cubed
• (2 tablespoons canola oil)
• 1 medium yellow onion
  
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic
• 2 teaspoons curry powder
• 2 teaspoons garam masala
• 1 teaspoon minced ginger
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 (10.75 ounce) can condensed tomato soup
• 1/2 cup condensed milk
• 1/2 cup white dried chickpeas
  

Directions:

1. Soak the chickpeas overnight in plenty water. You can add a little baking powder to help soften the peas.

2. Peel and cube the potatoes and drain/wash the chickpeas. Place in black pot with enough water to barely cover. Place in solar oven for 6 hours or until potatoes/chickpeas are done.

3. Mince onion, garlic, and ginger and add to curry powder, garam masala, cumin powder, salt, condensed milk and tomato soup. If you wanted to, you could first gently fry the onions and garlic in oil until translucent and then add to the rest of the ingredients.

4. Drain the potatoes and chickpeas and add the tomato soup mixture. Place the pot back in the oven for another hour.


Really good with fresh chapatis too :-)

Gardening

Last year I spent two months in India, which were two amazing months!! You can read a little more about that experience on http://monsoonlessons-bonnie.blogspot.com/.

But, it did mean that I had no time to either plant a garden or keep it and let's just say that had was suffering from severe withdrawals this winter, especially since the winter turned out to be such a loooooooooong and coooooooooold one!

So, this summer I got a little ambitious and had a little larger area tilled up (thank you Roger Lamp!). That of course means, that with the weeds from last year and the newly tilled up area from this year, weeding is going to be a bummer!

But, for now I am enjoying my garden. I have all the hot weather crops is such as tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, peppers, onions, garlic, peas, beans, carrots, celery, potatoes, corn, cucumber, cantaloupes, and of course, my little strawberry patch. I will plant he cooler crops, cauliflower, broccoli, and Brussels sprout soon, but they need to mature when the worst of the summer heat is over. Because my dirt is so clumpy this year, I planted my lettuce in containers over by my herbs.

This is my little curry leaf tree. I ordered it last summer after I came back from India because I learned that it was a main ingredient in so many wonderful dishes. You can buy the leaves here, but this is so much cooler :-) I kept it alive for a winter already (which is amazing, considering I really don't have a great thumb!).

Solar oven experiments

This spring I met Rick Jost who runs a phenomenal project providing solar ovens to Haiti. You can read about that in my earlier post. But, I had asked him if I could buy an oven and he does not sell the ovens in the US because he needs to focus his resources on the people who really need it, not the ones who find it interesting for a time or two.



However, he did let me borrow an oven for as long as I would use it and in return I would experiment with recipes and tell his story. Wow, win-win!!!


So, now that the sun finally found South Dakota (took a while!!), I picked up my oven and started experimenting. My first try was a simple chickpea curry and it turned out really good, but I didn't get any pictures of it. Next day I made two whole wheat breads and they were delicious. I am so hooked on this!

I can see how in Haiti, where sunshine is more abundant and fuel costs are so high, this is a fantastic resource to prevent cholera and other food born deceases. Also, people can allocate their money to food instead of fuel.

If you want more information about the project or wish to support, contact Rick or visit his web site at www.gbgm-umc.org/solarovenshaiti.

In the meanwhile, I keep experimenting :-)




A little water, oil, salt, eggs, honey, yeast, spices, whole wheat flour, ground flax seed, and white flour.








Wow! A little more dough than I had expected....about that recipe thing :-)









Divided the dough over two greased pans, put the lids on and off the oven they went.







Done! I was pleasantly surprised at the beautiful color too. I had baked them with the lids on and wasn't sure if they would brown or even get gooey, but they were great!







Fresh out of the pan.










My two loaves, cooling on a rack.









Oh my goodness!! So, so good!

To blog or not to blog....

People often wonder what I blog about. They claim they would have nothing to share with others. My goodness, I have the opposite problem: I have been so busy I haven't had time to blog much.

But, now that summer has arrived (at least according to my schedule), I plan on blogging a little more.

For me, blogging is not something I do in the hope others read it. I do hope that, if you read it, you like it or might even find something useful/inspirational. Blogging is instead for me a way of keeping a record of what I have done, ideas, thoughts, etc. This is really funny for a girl who does not like to write or has ever journaled. Maybe it is the on-line aspect of it and the option of posting pictures, making a completely non-verbal entry if I wanted to. Maybe it is the feeling that I might just be writing to someone out there I don't know and don't have to worry about what they think of me. That is what differs a blog from a journal. A journal is supposed to be private, a blog is open for anybody. So, I guess I actually do hope someone reads it and by not knowing if someone does or does not, there is always the hope that someone does. Yet, by not knowing for sure that someone does I don't have to worry about what I write or how I have written it. Hm..... Did you follow all that?

Whatever the reason, I love to blog as much as I love to sew, cook, garden, read, talk to my husband about quantum physics (really!), go for walks, etc etc etc. And this summer I will be blogging more.

Wow, what a long entry just to say that. :-)