I DID IT. Well, I did a couple of things, actually.
I managed to make a beautiful loaf of sourdough bread, that actually has a decent “ear”. The ear is the flap you can see in the above photo. I will be working towards a larger ear with all successive loaves.
The crust is not burnt, it is carmelized. Crunchy.
Also, I will be changing the contents of each loaf. The next loaf will be five hundred grams of all purpose flour, with one hundred grams of freshly ground Einkorn berries. I cannot wait to see how it turns out.
We are on our way to un mercado, called La Ciudadela. I am looking for blouses in the Mexican style, and some small terra cotta dishes, for salt, and salsas. If we should happen upon other things we did not know we needed, even better. I will post anything we end up buying, if they are worth posting.
We ended up buying three blouses, and two shifts, all of which, with one exception, I will need to work towards fitting into.
I told Iván, today, again, that when I lose a certain amount of weight, which will not be divulged here, I am cutting my hair short again. I want to see if it will get a little bit thicker if I am not pulling it all out with my comb.
We are in traffic four lanes across, bumper to bumper. So, until we can make our way to the market, and back, stay happy, stay healthy, stay safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect your loved ones.
As promised, I have a few more photos of the install. Everything is coming along beautifully. I wish you could see the craftsmanship that has gone into everything Martín has made. He does such a wonderful job.
You can only see part of the third shelf, but I think you have the idea of what it looks like. (If someone would please move all of that junk out of the way)?These are on the wall straight as you come in the door; opposite to the previous photo. Two thirds of the flower box. It is everything I wanted, and more. Ivan was the one to ask them to make it deep enough so the plastic boxes would not be seen.
They need to come back, again, as there are some things that need to be finished, and one item that needs to be changed.
The cabinet under the fermentation station was just a centimeter too wide, and two millimeters too tall.
Not to worry, though. Martín is all over it.
While we wait for him to adjust that, stay happy, stay healthy, stay safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect your loved ones.
They have arrived; the guys; with some of the things we need for this, phase two, of the remodeling. I am doing my best to stay out of their way, and not “help”. It is very difficult, I must admit.
Before they got here, however, I noticed, in the kitchen, the grossly greasy, and dusty, exhaust hood. Not to mention the front of the fridge. I could not let them in here with that disgustingness. (Yes. I noticed it every time I went into the kitchen, but chose, successfully, to ignore it).
I started to clean it with vinegar and water to no avail. Look at what a citrus cleaner will do for cleaning grease!!!
The front of the fridge is aluminum, as best I can tell, as magnets do not work on it. The ability to actually get it clean has eluded me for a whole year. Fingerprints, Kombucha spray, you name it. Nothing would get it clean, and shining. Now look. Like brand new.
This morning, I tried, of all things, the citrus spray that I normally use to get the stains out of our clothes. Would you believe it? Worked like a charm.
This is made with citrus juices, and is available on Amazon. One last photo of the cabinet they built for the bathroom. All of those things in the cabinet have been on the counter of the sink for a year.
At the moment, the guys are putting up the shelves in the living room. When they are finished, I will take more photos.
Until then, stay happy, stay healthy, stay safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect your loved ones.
Well, folks. We have been without electricity for over an hour now, and the whole condo is silent. There is the occasional sound, from downstairs, in the garages, somewhere. Eerie, I am telling you. It is as if everyone is still sleeping, while it is just after noon.
I do have to tell you, though, I went to check the fermenting vegetables this morning. When I opened the jar with the yellow, and, green bell peppers, the whole top of the liquid starting spewing these tiny effervescent bubbles, by the thousands. It was very impressive, and satisfying, to say the least. A few hours later, when I showed Ivan, they were still bubbling, profusely. Amazing, is all I can say.
The power returned for about two minutes, then went off again, for another forty five minutes, or so. Now, we are all good.
The little white “tails” are the seeds sprouting a stem.
Here is a photo of the Einkorn berries having sprouted. Now, they are in the Smart Oven, dehydrating, getting ready to be hand milled into flour.
Einkorn is a difficult grain to bake with as it has a different type of gluten structure; one that does not allow for much rise, or spring, in a bread loaf. It is that fact, the difference in gluten structure, that allows most people, though, not those with Celiac disease, to eat it without gastrointestinal distress.
Now that the Einkorn is sprouted, it changes the grains’ ability to be digested more easily, and has gone from a complex sugar, (carbohydrate), to a more simple sugar, again, easier to digest. Lovely, do you think?
Anyway, now that it is being dehydrated, it will be shelf stable in this form for quite a long time to come. Yay!
The dehydrated Einkorn berries in a cotton sack for storing. Here, there are no mice to get into the sack and eat all of the berries. Here, you an still see some of the white “tails”, that are all dried up now.
On to making bread, but only with one to two hundred grams mixed with four hundred grams of all purpose, or bread flours. I will let you know, in words, and photos, how things progress.
Until then, stay happy, stay healthy, stay safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect your loved ones.
Post script: the bird song today is absolutely fabulous. It is so completely different from the birds in the Midwest. Both are beautiful in their own ways. As I mentioned, they are just different. Both make my heart lighter, and bring a smile to my face.
A grilled slice of sourdough bread, half of an avocado, applied like butter, egg salad, and alfalfa sprouts. Need I say more? What a lunch.
E’s blood pressure is holding steady, so, that is a worry done, thank the good Lord.
Oh, Luis, and Martín are coming here in the next week. They have phase two of our remodel almost finished. Let me show you what is going to happen.
Chest of drawers for Juan’s room. The thick black line is dividing the chest from the hutch underneath it. The hutch that will go just inside the front door, to the right, and hold all of our beautiful dishes, freeing up the cabinets in the kitchen for food stuffs. The lower kitchen cabinet that will go under the fermentation station. The wood is the cabinet door, not secured just yet. This is half of the “flower box”, if you will. It will be the entire width of the living room windows. It will be secured to the front wall, just under the windows. These are the floating shelves that will be on both long walls of the living room.
As you can see from the photos, we will have more storage, and, more space to display our much loved Mexican artifacts.
Two of the five plastic flower boxes. Soon they will be full, and in the new wooden box.
The flower box is deep enough to hide the plastic window boxes I bought to plant anything in, from herbs, to flowers. The dirt will all be contained within the plastic boxes, and those placed inside the wooden box. In the long run, dirt, directly in the wood box, would rot the wood, and that would not do.
Originally, we had thought that the hutch would have a black granite top on it to meld it with the kitchen countertops, and clear glass on the doors. We have changed our minds, about the granite. Now we think that, as it will be in the living room, with the oak shelving, etc., we will leave it plain. We will use it to display all of our beautiful Japanese, and Mexican dishes.
There will be the domino effect, once these few things are installed. The dishes will come out of the kitchen, and go into the hutch. The food staples, in the pantry, will go into the kitchen; the small appliances will come into the kitchen, into the cabinet under the fermentation station.
Where there is a drawer, holding the two plastic garbage buckets, there will be two drawers, like the two to its left. We need drawers, not garbage buckets. Those we have hanging on the drawers themselves; one for food wastes, and one for paper, and plastic, etc.
This garbage bin closest, is for anything non-organic. The one in front of the sink, is organic. Ivan empties both every two, or, three days. This will be enclosed in a cupboard, containing the small appliances being housed in the pantry, at the moment. The water jugs will go around the corner, into the pantry, and the food, either to the kitchen cabinets, or the pantry.
We are really starting to get organized, and will continue to do so when the new furnishings are installed. While we wait, patiently, for that to happen, stay happy, stay healthy, stay safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect your loved ones.
Today, which is actually, the fifth of March, it is eighty two degrees here, and getting hotter. The high today is supposed to be eighty four, in another hour. Yikes. I am melting.
Before we left home today, I had the opportunity to make another batch of kombucha, with fresh pineapple, ginger, and turmeric.
These should have lots of carbonation, as well as flavor. Much more so than the previous batch with the canned pineapple that is. Yuck.
I almost forgot to show you that I was able to switch from plastic to stainless steel spigots on our kombucha containers. Big deal, you say? Not so, I say. The plastic flip top spigot was really unwieldy, when it came to filling the smaller, sixteen ounce bottles for the second fermentation. I almost needed three hands to fill them.
Not anymore. The SS spigots turn at ninety degrees, so I do not have to hold the spigot open anymore. It may not seem like much to you, but, to me, it frees up my left hand, in case I need it to do something else; like, make the next bottle ready to be filled. It will speed up the process quite a bit.
Changing the subject, slightly, when we got home, I was able to finish my first “real” loaf of “artisanal” sourdough bread. The first of many, I am sure.
The results. Not bad for my first attempt at razor designs.
The above loaf of bread is not a lovely looking “crumb”, as the inside is called, but, it tastes really good. And, all made by hand. I suspect each loaf will get better, or, at the least, be another learning experience. If we cannot eat them, they will become bread crumbs, or, croutons, or, some such thing. None will go to waste.
This morning, I toasted a slice, buttered it with half of an avocado, added salsa, kosher salt, and, alfalfa sprouts. Absolutely delicious. I am already wondering what I will put on it for lunch, or dinner. Hmmm.
Not much else to tell you about today except that I also made home brewed Flor de Jamaica, or, Hibiscus flower, drink. It is not as sweet as the powdered mix we buy, called Zuko, which uses natural fruit. And, it has an almost grassy note to it, that will take a little getting used to, I fear.
While we are drinking our latest brew, stay happy, stay healthy, stay safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect your loved ones.
Another busy day for the both of us. I have been in the kitchen, and, Ivan, with Enrique.
I started by doing the usual sourdough starter feeding, then, went in search of my box of Einkorn wheat berries. I am in the mood to sprout, then dehydrate them, making them shelf stable for years to come.
Einkorn berries taking a soak.
I am soaking them overnight, then, will drain them, tomorrow, and place a mesh cap over the top of the jar. The jar is laid on its side and rotated daily, until the berries sprout, only a few days after starting.
After they sprout, I will put them in our Breville Smart Oven, on the dehydrate setting, for a few hours, until they are completely dried. After that, I will have to learn how to use them in bread making.
They are the “original”, ancient wheat berries, several thousands of years old, and, completely unmolested. The berry is actually a single grain, not the double grains of the current, genetically engineered wheat berries.
This is an Einkorn berry wheat shaft. You can see the single berry per row. This is a modern wheat shaft with at least two berries, or more, at each spot.
The modern grain of wheat has been modified for a couple of reasons; it has triple the amount of wheat berries on each stalk as it had originally, because of the need to mass produce bread for the US, in the forties, and, fifties; to grow lower to the ground, because the weight of the grains had a tendency to cause the shaft to fall over, spoiling the wheat, plus, the farming equipment necessary to harvest it is also low to the ground.
Einkorn wheat is able to grow taller as there are so few grains on each shaft, but are harvested with a combine, just like regular wheat.
What else did I do today, you ask? I finished our “fermentation station”. You already know about the kombucha batches, (though the bottles are almost invisible on the counter), I have added the jars of vegetables I am fermenting to the top shelf. Surprisingly enough, each jar contains just the vegetables, water, and salt. Each jar is weighed- the vegetables, plus the amount of water, then multiplied by two point five percent, which equals the amount of salt needed to ferment each jar. The veg needs to be completely submerged in the water; anything above the water will spoil, possibly spoiling the whole jar.
‘More fermenting veggies to come.
From left to right are two jars of Roma tomatoes with onion, garlic, and rosemary. The next jar contains cherry tomatoes with the same onions, garlic, and rosemary. The fourth jar has yellow and green peppers. The fifth jar has grape tomatoes, purple onions, and rosemary. The next jar is the Einkorn berries, then the sauerkraut. Neat, huh?
Last, but hardly the least important, are the EGG BITES!! Yessiree, I made fourteen of the little gems, and cannot wait until I can have one, or two, tomorrow morning.
I was so busy throughout the day I did not get a photo of the bites. Next time.
E is spending the night tonight as he has been having blood pressure issues today; he should be better in the morning.
Until we know for sure, stay happy, stay healthy, stay safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect your loved ones.
As unproductive as the last several weeks have been, today, I believe I made up for them.
Up at eight thirty. Check. Apple cider vinegar with honey drank. Check. Vitamins, and, meds. taken. Check. On to the kitchen it is then.
The sourdough bread I want to make today is a simple loaf, from a loaf pan; nothing artisanal yet. That will come in time. Not quite enough confidence yet. This recipe calls for four hundred sixty four grams of fed starter, so that is how I started today. I fed the started two hundred fifty grams, each, of flour, and water, then watched it rise throughout the day. (Always better to have a little too much than not enough).
Since nine o’clock, when that was all taken care of, I got in my “groove”, as it were, and, peeled, cored, and sliced eight Granny Smith apples, for the much anticipated/dreaded Apple Squares. I absolutely despise the dough recipe. It just does not make enough dough, as far as I am concerned. It never has. Grrrrh.
Peeled apples, with sugar and cinnamon, the jar of rising sourdough starter, to the right of the red handled spatula, and my breakfast taco of eggs and chorizo.
When I finished rolling out the above dough, put it in the pan, (which is too large), I filled it with the sugared and cinnamoned apples, and topped those with butter, and, the other half of rolled out dough. I put it in the oven, and started on the bread.
The starter had risen beautifully, so I proceeded to combine the starter with the rest of the ingredients, and then on to kneading it for twenty minutes. Did I mention it needed to be kneaded for twenty minutes? I was going to use the Kitchen Aid, but it was all of ten feet away, in the pantry, under the new little table. As I did not want to lose my momentum, onto the lightly floured counter it came, to be loved for twenty minutes. (Could you hear the whine?)
Only half way through the twenty minutes. Yikes.
The dough came together quite nicely. After the twenty minutes, it was very soft, and smooth. I put it in a marked, plastic, two quart container to let rise for one hour. (The marked container makes it easier to see when it has doubled in height).
The marked container is on the cutting board. The Apple Squares, though not very pretty, should taste pretty good. I hope.
Ivan, and I, invited Enrique for dinner, so, instead of the hamburger patties, that I would have made for just Ivan, and me, I made that into a meatloaf instead. I have some dehydrated Idahoan potatoes, and fresh asparagus. That is what we will have for dinner. Along with a slice of freshly made sourdough bread. And, Apple Squares for dessert.
Homemade powdered sugar. Just blitz white sugar in a mill, and you have powdered sugar. I used it for the icing on the AS.
Cannot wait to get into a couple of loaves of artisanal sourdough bread, because “the guys” are coming in a couple of days, to continue with the remodel. I would like to be able to give them each a loaf to take home.
While I build up my courage, stay happy, stay healthy, stay safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect your loved ones.
We bought some new plants the other day, for our condo. The poinsettia’s we bought in December both have white powdery mildew, for some reason, so they are going to the garbage.
We bought two different colors of primrose, one of my favorite indoor flowers, (they were five dollars each), and, one of the first of many bromeliads. The one in the third photo is called a Neoregelia Carolinae. This is what they all look like.
The pink primrose.The purple primrose.The bromeliad called a Neoregelia Carolinae, from the top. From the side.
Our next acquisition will be very small cacti, and, tiny succulents of varying sizes, shapes and colors. I want to put them all around the condo. Hopefully, this weekend, we will have shelves in the living room, and, possibly, the new hutch. Who knows? We are happy for the surprise.
These are some of the succulents we will be looking for, alongside some tiny cacti species.
Now is the time to start bringing color into our living areas. We have been too long with the beautiful white all around us. It has always been our intention to have pops of color accenting our white background. Little by little, that is happening.
While we wait, patiently, to see what of the remodeling comes next, stay happy, stay healthy, stay safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect your loved ones.
I have, once again, rearranged the kitchen counter. I cannot stand leaving things in one place for very long. I think I get bored.
Think of it this way- if you rearrange things in a room, the room is new again; not the same room that it was. It is like moving to a new place, except you did not have to move.
So, this simple reconfiguration allows me more open counter space to form dough for bread, or roll out crust for apple squares.
It also allows me to stay in one place while I prepare food. I can go from the cutting board to the stove without wasting steps. Let me show you.
It does not look like much counter space but there really is quite a bit more. A little better angle of the counter space.
Now that I am exercising, again, and watching what I eat, let me show you what I had for lunch, and dinner yesterday. It was too much for one meal. Hah! I never thought I would ever say that.
The bed lettuce looks like a curly endive, so, that is what I will say it is. Then, there is a half cup of tuna salad, a hard boiled egg, homemade herbed croutons, a few grape tomatoes, alfalfa sprouts, one quarter avocado, and two tablespoons dressing.
It was delicious, and made for a better choice than the quesadillas I had originally planned to eat.
We are sitting under an umbrella, outside our favorite Toks, waiting to have poblano soup, and lemonade. While we wait, stay happy, stay healthy, stay safe. Wash your hands, cover your mouth, and protect your loved ones.
