Homemade Bread

I read about starting a sourdough mother for homemade bread on a blog called MaryJanes Farm here. I made my mother 2 weeks ago and named her Vera after my grandmother. The first week I made the bread it didn't rise much, probably too new. This week I tried again...I'll let my video show you how it turned out.


As you can see, I don't know what I am doing!. At least I have a sense of humor and gave yall a good laugh. I'll try again next week.

Rain Finally!

It hasn't rained here in almost a month. Watering the garden is no fun. Dust and pollen are everywhere. My car is normally white, but lately has been yellow from all the pollen and I refuse to wash it....it needs to be rained on. We finally got a thunderstorm last night, but alas, my car was under the carport. Just my luck.

Anyway the garden was lookin good this afternoon. It seems to perk up after a little water from the heavens. The strawberries were happy.

The canatlope are flowering.

There are little green tomatoes on the bushes
The corn got a little windswept, but surely it will straighten back up.

Very glad for the nice rain.

Spring Fever

I've got a bad case of spring fever. I want to preserve and put up anything I can get my hands on. I want to bake bread and I just ordered a pressure canner. The garden is growing well and I just can't wait to try my hand at canning some of our produce.
I received a starter for some Amish Friendship bread a few weeks ago and made my 1st 2 loaves Sunday. They are really good. I think I will keep that going for a while and when I tire of making it I will freeze it for later use.

It's strawberry season here in Louisiana and I just couldn't help buying a flat. I have enough jelly left over from last year, so this year I made some syrup for pancakes and ice cream and maybe even I'll use it on shaved ice for a snowball. The recipe I used was in my ball blue canning book. I only used 5 pints and it made 7 cups.
I had lots of berries left so I decided to freeze them for using during the year. They can be frozen individually on cookie sheets and then transferred to freezer bags. That way you can remove just what you need without having to thaw the whole bag.

What you see on the top left side is what's left of my Amish Friendship bread...it's going fast..

We planted spinach and mustard greens kinda late this year and the mustards are alreay going to seed. So I am picking as much as possible before the really hot weather gets here. Here is some  fresh spinach we just picked.....yummy!!

I think I'll make a spinach and strawberry salad while the gettin is good.

Lake Bruin State Park

We had a wonderful weekend  at Lake Bruin State Park in St. Joseph, LA. With six of our grandchildren and my son and daughter- in- law, and 2 dogs, we had quite a crew. Our camper sleeps 7 pretty comfortably and we had a tent set up too. It was pretty cold at night and very nice during the day, except Sunday was kinda cold and dreary all day.

The kids brought their bikes and had a great time riding them to the playground. They brought the dogs with them and even had June climbing on the equipment and going down slides. She was soooo tired  at the end of the day she wouldn't even eat.

 

 

There were boats there you could rent (without motors), but my husband and son brought their canoe and kyack. A few of the kids wanted to go in the canoe, but most just wanted to hang around and relax. The lake is really pretty with cypress trees and several nice fishing piers.

Feeding the crowd was an ongoing chore, or um... adventure. We had jambalya one night, hamburgers and dogs one night, monkey bread and of course pancakes and sausage and hasbrowns for breakfast too. I even tried making a dump cobbler that wasn't half bad.

I even ran in to a dear friend from high school. Who woulda thunk!
All in all it was a very nice trip and I think we will try to make it an annual affair.