Post margaritas morning

As you can see, there was a lot of time spent in the kitchen yesterday. The rest of my time was dealing with tracking merchandise we haven't yet received, like the chandelier ordered in April, that was supposed to be here late May! Then the pool man showed up to go over the system, and what's working and what's not. At this point, I wish it were a koi pond and not a pool!

One of my readers requested the recipe for the Nutty fruity sourdough, so here it is:

Nutty-Fruity Sourdough  (makes great breakfast toast)
   
    If you don't do sourdough, just use a* poolish instead*.
   
    To make the poolish, just mix *4 ounces of KAF all purpose* flour(or GM
    Better for Bread, or other similar flour), *4 ounces of cool water*, and
    *1/16 tsp of instant yeast*. Let it sit at room temp for 8 to 12 hours or
    so(16 hrs max). Use this for the 8 ounces of sourdough starter in the recipe.
   
    If your dried fruits are really dry, you may need to add  extra water to the dough.
   
    1 cup (about 8 ounces) fed sourdough starter
    1 cup water
    3/4 cup pumpernickel flour (can sub Hodgson all rye flour if you can’t find pumpernickel)
    2 1/2 cups (10 3/4 ounces) King Arthur All-Purpose Flour
    1 1/2 teaspoons salt
    1 teaspoon instant yeast
    1 1/2 cups Fruitcake Blend or the dried fruits of your choice ( I used golden raisins)
    1 cup chopped nuts (pecans, walnuts, or almonds)
   
    Mix all of the ingredients (except the fruit and nuts) by hand, mixer, or bread machine till you've created a smooth, elastic dough. Because the consistency of sourdough starters vary, you may need to add a bit of extra flour or water; the dough should be medium-soft but not sticky. Add the dried fruit and nuts, kneading until they're evenly incorporated. Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl, cover, and let rise for 1 1/2 to 2 hours.
   
    Turn the dough onto a lightly greased or floured surface, and form it into a fat log. Place the log into an Italian stoneware baker that's been greased on the bottom, or onto a lightly greased or parchment-lined baking sheet. Cover the loaf, and let it rise for 1 hour, or until it springs back very slowly when lightly pressed.
   
If you're baking in a covered stoneware baker, place the bread into a cold oven, set the oven to 400̊F, and bake for 40 minutes. Check the bread, and bake for a bit longer, if necessary; the internal temperature should be about 190̊F when measured on an instant-read thermometer. If you're baking on a sheet pan, preheat the oven to 375̊F, and bake for 28 to 32 minutes, until the bread is brown. Remove the bread from the oven, and cool it on a rack. Yield: 1 loaf.

NOTE: I use the stoneware baker as shown in the photo. It works great for this and other breads. I use a sourdough starter which, along with the pumpernickel flour gives the bread a nice flavor. Instead of mixed fruits, I use either cranraisins or raisin. It's good either way.

Not sure how today is going to unfold other than grocery shopping which I didn't get to do yesterday because of the late visit of the pool man which was too close to our dinner time.

Right now I'm hoping this second cup of tea help me recuperate from Jim topping off my margarita glass - bad husband! :-)

Nachos

Last night was nachos night - an easy, fast dinner using some of the tomatoes and serrano chiles so abundant this late in the season.

Yesterday and still this morning, I'm dealing with chills,swollen glands, etc.etc., so I opted to skip the studio and sit on my rump most of the day other than preparing our meals. I got a lot of computer photo cleanup done, read and filed a lot of old email and dealt with some paper work chores that seem to pile up way too fast, and put together a couple of wooden molds for slab work.

Looks like Jim may be coming down with the same bug so we won't be doing porch sitting with friends tonight. No need to share this.

There's some cooking to be done today - meat sauce for a pasta dinner and a green bean bisque to make for the freezer. Since I'm still not feeling 100% I think cooking will be it for today unless I perk up later. If I do, I'll try to get to the studio to just do some decorating on already slipped pots.

Mashiko Yunomi

Here's a yunomi from Mashiko Japan, with a saturated iron glaze over a resisted clear glaze. I don't know why, the color in the photo is not true and I couldn't get it right even trying, with Paint Shop Pro. It's actually a beautiful, deep brownish red - typical Mashiko, iron red.

Yesterday was a super busy day. A huge crew showed up to do the rock work and by the time Jim and I got back from lunch and doing our Easter food and other shopping, they were close to being finished with the whole job! There's a lot of transplanting and weeding that I'll have to do down the line since I had them widen a couple of the beds.

After I put the groceries away and changed clothes I headed down to the newly raised terraced beds and got one terrace fully planted with the spinach, kale and broccoli transplants, a couple of marigolds and parsley and then started on the next bed, which had to have some weeding done before I could plant the cabbage and cauliflower. I hope the cottontail bunnies don't visit before I get a chance to put down some blood meal to keep them away.

I need to plant a row of potatoes in that second bed. That was on this morning's planting agenda but rain if forecast for this morning and there's a possibility of hail, so it looks like it will be a full studio day instead.

We stopped at the local hardware store on our way home and I got some Red Pontiac potato seeds. I've already planted the Kennebecs and still have some Yukon Golds to plant as well. It doesn't make economic sense to plant potatoes since they're so cheap to buy in bulk; but I love growing them. More than that, I love harvesting them!

The rock workers dug up a few plants but didn't put them back. If I can beat the morning rain, I'll get those replanted before I head for the studio. It will be a full studio day. Dinner is going to be easy - guacamole, nachos and margaritas. I found some Meyer lemons at Earth Fare and they make the best, smoothest margaritas!

Till later,
June