4th folder 4th photo???

Well, okay Kerry. Here is the 4th photo 4th folder in my picture's. I can't tag 4 people because I only have the same ones you do and you already tagged them. At that rate we would be tagging forever. I will tag you and Kass. Anyway this photo was taken in 1965 I believe. It was taken on the farm. Mom and Dad are looking good. Sometimes I miss them when I think of funny things they said and did. They were great! In the background is the "EAGLE". My Grandpa Rob got that many years before from a Farm Equipment Dealer in Wahpeton when they went out of business (or discontinued the eagle). It was Iron. Think Grandpa Rob painted it up and it sat in his farmyard for years. We loved to climb on it and was always a conversation starter for visitors. When Grandpa left us Dad hauled it to our farm in the old green pickup. It sat there for many many years. I am sure all the grandchildren climbed on it too. It was taller than you were until you were probably 10-12 years old. One day a guy was driving by and seen it. He came in to talk to Dad and offered to buy it. He had 3 sons and wanted one for each of them. He offered dad a thousand dollars for it and Dad took it. After all he was planning to move to town and someone would surely steal it there. He couldn't give it to one of his children because we all lived in the city and someone would really really steal it there. He was probably right. I am sure we all remember that eagle fondly. The old green pickup is another story and another photo. Hey, I probably could do this forever.

 

The subject is FOOD

I stole this photo of the Foot Network from another Michigan blogger, The Luna Pier Cook. If you read his blog maybe he won't sue me. He writes some very interesting and often humerous blogs. You can tell he is a good cook. Anyway I suppose the subject of the day on the Foot Network was recipes using Foot Products. Like maybe Pickled Pigs feet or Calves Foot jelly. Maybe Ham Hocks although I am not real sure what a hock is and I am a former farm girl who was once married to a butcher. Notice photo of brother and me trying to decide what the heck a hock is. I LOVEEEEE the Food network. I cannot bear to watch Giada pronouncing mo-zza-REL-la to prove how Italian she is. Switch channel. Paula Deen is my favorite, you all. The first ingredient is "a stick of butter" you all. I like Guy and his diners, drive-ins and dives because I have been to a few of them. Love his hair! I am planning to put the now famous waffle recipe on this blog. Maybe both recipes although I am not sure anyone wants to make sour-dough unless they want to stay up all night to feed it. The other one has buttermilk, which I am willing to bet is not a staple food item in anyones fridge. I used the powdered stuff. I can have waffles on WW if I eat just one and just have sugarless fruit or sugarless syrup, which I do even when I am not dieting. I have to find some WW recipes. Kerry sends them to me once in a while and she has lost 25 lbs. Yayyyyy For Kerry.

 

 

 

 

I only have 36

What is this? A contest? I only have 36 blogs, well, 37 counting this one. In all fairness I have a boring life so I just cannot compete. Then I am told that people are sick of my food/fresh baked bread blogs. Give me a break, its all I have.
To top it off it is snowing again. I am trying to take a picture of a cardinal that looks so pretty against all the white snow but he flies away when I open the window. I started Weight watchers. I will post about my low fat yogurt and cream of wheat. I still get to bake bread, I just can't eat as much.

All the Sophias that have come before

My sister is a great grandma and she, of course, is very excited. The little girl's name is Sophia. That is a very pretty name and a few of our ancesters thought so too. One hundred and sixty two years ago in Hanover, Germany her great great great great grandmother Sophia was born. She had an interesting life what with crossing that great big ocean in a ship. That was not a pleasure cruise I am sure. She married in Illinois and then traveled to Iowa. Gave birth to a whole lot of kids. Traveled to North Dakota with all those kids, etc. etc. In 1780 another Sophia was born. She never made it to the USA and I am sure her life was hard work. She probably never learned to read or write. There was another Christina Sophia whose actual birth year is unknown. Another girl who no doubt did not have an easy life. Makes me wonder what this little girl will do and accomplish in her life. In most ways it will be a lot easier for her than it was for her ancesters. And she sure is adorable!
I just found out some great news! There is a Best Buy within 10 miles of our house and I never knew it until yesterday. We normally go to Toledo for everything we cannot get here in this town. Its 20 miles south. 10 miles north is Flat Rock which I knew had been growing a lot since we lived there. There is a Best Buy there now. I am going to have to check it out soon although I cannot think of a thing I need to buy right now. Also I think I have to check on what else is there now that I didn't know about. Maybe a Starbucks?? Ya think??? I do not need Starbucks because we have BigBees (formerly known as Beaners until someone decided that name was politically incorrect)...we still call it Beaners. Like Macy's will always be Daytons. Maybe we will check out BB today on our way to Beaners.

Lazy Sunday

We just hung out here at home all day. Well, Lenny did remove snow so he wasn't too lazy. I made sourdough waffles again, cutting the recipe in half so didn't have so much extra for no body to eat. They were better than last week if thats possible. Then for dinner I made homemade pizza. I did a yeast crust from my favorite cookbook called the Bread Bible. Then used leftover chicken from last night, with some garlic alfredo sauce, artichokes, sun-dried tomatoes, mushrooms,red onion and cheese, of course. I was going to put spinach on it but decided that would be too much stuff. It was excellent. I will have to cut that recipe in half too or see if I can freeze half the dough. It has warmed up a bit and more snow is expected...I am excited!

Its sure cold!

It was 12 below zero here this morning. It doesn't usually get this cold. However not real windy. They closed the schools. That would not happen in Minnesota. Kassie feels bad about that! We went to Red Lobster for lunch to use a gift certificate. I just had soup and salad but they give you so much bread with it. I brought it home in a doggy bag. May end up feeding it to the birds. I am making banana bread because we had really ripe bananas. Lenny promised to eat it all. I just got new photos of Erin. Her 5 year old pictures. Notice her ears are pierced and she has nail polish too. Quite the model!

 

 

 

Snow & Waffles

It finally quit snowing. I would guess we got 8 inches or so. Lenny has to get out the snow blower again. Don't think we have gotten as much snow in the last 9 years we have lived here. Supposed to get down to the 20's...that is "above zero" for you Minnesota people. It could be worse, right? I made the sour dough waffles. The recipe said to start the night before and add milk and flour and refrigerate over night and add the rest of the flour, eggs etc in the morning. I will tell you right now that those waffles ruined it for Hungry Jack and bisquick for us. Words can not describe how good those things were. The recipe made like 5 more than my old method. Now what do I do with the left overs??? Lenny may eat a couple through the week. I DID throw out some sourdough starter and have it down to two containers of it now. I may make one of them into whole wheat starter..some people do Rye but I am not too fond of Rye bread. Our biggest problem is consuming all this stuff I make, but I am sure it will wear off and I will revert to my old ways. THE SUN IS OUT!!! A real scarce thing in Michigan.

 

 

The Saga of the Sourdough & Trisha's Lasagna

Well I made the black bean lasagna. I forgot I used one of my cans of black beans in the taco salad the night before so used one can and one can of pinto beans. That recipe didn't have any meat in it but it sure had a $#@- load of cheese! I didn't realize just how much until I started making it. It is not exactly good for the diet but it sure tasted good. It made a 9x13 pan full and there is only two of us.So guess if I make it again it will be for more people or I will cut it in half. I have 3 large containers of it taking up room in the freezer. Then the sour dough. I did not figure out the "time" issue before I started. The first waiting time was 10 to 12 hours which brought us to 10 p.m. Too late to turn back and I didn't want to wreck my precious starter that cost me $6. The next time it needed attention was at 2 a.m. so I set the alarm and got up. Then it said to let it ferment for another two to four hours, but I overslept until 8 a.m. Didn't seem to be much harm done to it but how would I know. Anyway each time I was supposed to divide the mixture in half and discard the other half and mix flour and water in the remaining half. I thought why should I discard half, after all it cost me $6..so ended up with six containers of starter this morning. I condensed it down to four. I made bread with half of one so I have a refrigerator full of sourdough starter and a freezer full of black bean lasagna. The loaves didn't look too bad before baking but they got a little odd shaped while baking. I will probably end up discarding some. Sunday I will use some to make waffles. We won't need bread for a few days. Oh,the bread tasted great! I don't know what I will do tomorrow when we are snowed in if I can't bake bread. We are supposed to get up to 11 inches and it is coming down hard now. We may put away the snow village. We don't have to go out tomorrow and we have plenty of food to eat.

 

 

 

Sour dough and German relatives

I got my sour dough starter. I have to read the directions on how to make it now. The little jar of sour dough looks a little strange. Its began its life over 250 years ago. Thats what it says. And we plan to eat it??!! It also says the sharp astringent odor is normal. To get it working I need All Purpose flour. I only have bread flour at the moment. Also need bottled chlorine free water. We have one of those PUR water things on our faucet but to be safe and not ruin it I better go buy some bottled water. I have to go buy AP flour anyway. I think it takes a couple days to get it ready to use so I will have time to find a recipe. I have lots of cookbooks so should be no problem. Oh, there is a recipe on back of the directions. This should be interesting. I am actually baking very good bread these days. The first loaf I made we used to throw at the squirrels to keep them out of the bird feeders. Way more deadly than the pellet gun. Then I had an email this morning from Nils my new found relative in Germany. We are exchanging information. I think I have more information on his branch of the family than he does, but he is in a better position to research than I am, being he is in Mecklenberg, Germany. Yesterday I cleaned cupboards and the fridge and threw out some old things. I bought a new thing of cinnamon and realized how much more flavorful it was than the old huge economy size I bought 8 years ago. From now on I will buy just small containers. Now isn't my new sourdough jar cute? Stay tuned to see how this project turns out. Will it be fit to eat???

 

I am excited!!!

I got some new information for our Family Tree this morning. My great grandfather Helmuth Mindemann had a aunt named Frederikka. A decendant of hers by the name of Nils sent a letter. Apparently he is working on geneology too. He got tons of information free and hopefully he will send some of his information this way. He lives near Schulenberg, Mecklenburg, Germany where he is attending the university studying politics. He confirmed that Helmuth's father was Johann August.I knew that. Johann was a Govenor, which I knew. The new information from Nils is that Johann's father was named Harnack. I had found a Harnack and a Johann who had a son named Johann. I was thinking it was Johann, but guess I guessed wrong. Now I can go on-line to the LDS library and search for more information on Harnack. I like it when they have unusual names like Harnack and Helmuth. Like how many Harnacks can there be??? Although there is another Helmuth ( Helmuth named a son Helmuth.) Nils was impressed with the documents that I had inherited from Helmuth. We have sleet this morning. Lenny is working so hope the driving doesn't get too bad. I was going to read my new cookbook this afternoon, but now I really have to work on geneology. The new cookbook is Trisha Yearwood's. There is a recipe for Black Bean Lasagna that looks kind of good. Be good for our vegetarian relatives. Lenny probably won't be home until late so he will get a frozen pizza. He has to eat it before I make "from scratch" pizza again. I have a new recipe for that I want to try too. The photo is Helmuth and sons and sons-in-law.

 

 

 

Bread and Soup

I tried a couple new recipes for dinner tonight. First is Bruce & Lori's soup. They liked it so well that they shared it with us.
Bruce & Lori's Soup
14 oz chicken broth
6 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 T. Rosemary
2 tsp crushed red pepper, I used only 1 tsp
1 can cannelini beans, rinsed and divided
1 14 oz can diced tomatoes
1 cup medium pasta shells
2 cups frozen spinach
6 T. Olive oil
6 T fresh parmesan
1 lb turkey sausage (optional)
combine crushed garlic, rosemary, red pepper in 6 qt. pan with chix broth. Simmer for 20 min. strain out garlic, rosemary and red pepper and return broth to the pan. I browned a lb of turkey sausage and added it. Crush half of the can of beans and add to broth along with the other half of can of beans. Add tomatoes and bring to a boil, Add pasta and cook till pasta is tender. Add spinach and cook until it is unthawed. I added like a cup of water because it seemed too thick. Garnish with olive oil and cheese. Eat it with the NO-KNEAD BREAD.

NO KNEAD BREAD
3 cups of bread flour
1/4 tsp instant yeast
1 1/4 tsp salt
1 5/8 cups (room temp) water

Mix all together in a big bowl. The dough will be messy. Cover with plastic saran wrap and leave to rise for 18 hours.(yes, that is eighteen hours) The dough will be bubbly when it is ready. sprinkle flour on work surface, Scrape the dough out of the bowl. I used a wooden spoon that I dipped in flour as needed and my floured hands. The dough is real sticky. Dump the dough on the floured surface and cover loosely with the plastic wrap. Let it rest for 15 minutes. Shaped the dough in a ball by folding it over twice. Don't knead it. Flour a plain towel, not terry cloth, and lay the ball of dough seam side down, flour the top and cover with the other end of the towel. let rise for two hours. I did three hours because I didn't get home in time. Pre-heat a heavy dutch oven with the cover on at 450 degrees for 30 minutes. Dump the dough into the pot seam side up. Shake the pot a little to straighten it out in the pot. put the lid on and bake 30 minutes. Take the lid off and bake 15 to 30 minutes more to brown up the top. I did 15 minutes because I was afraid it would burn on the bottom. It did not. It did not stick to the pan either. This bread is like an artesan type bread with a crunchy, chewy crust and tender inside. Really yummy with the soup. Be careful your pot's handles etc are heat-proof to 450 degrees so you don't ruin it. Cooking lesson over! This meal is much much better than Panera bread and we have enough left for a couple more meals.