#breadishappiness

I’ve been pondering this question over and over for the last few months. Why haven’t I been writing?

Winter was brutal. On the farm and personally. A long winter and a severe lack of vitamin D took its toll on me this year. Every year, if I’m being honest. Which is really the point of this here homesteading blog. It’s not all sunshine and roses and cute animals. After the long winter was finally over, spring came and rose my spirits and brought the farm back to life....then I hurt my hip and even the simplest of farm chores became out of the question. The garden I had just planted was ravaged by birds and chickens and weeds as I watched from the window in the house as I toiled through physical therapy exercises. The garden didn’t make it.....well most of it any way. After weeks of physical therapy, my pain is gone and I’ve been working on the garden again, not allowing myself to throw in the towel. It’s looking better, slowly but surely.

So again, why haven’t I been writing? I think it’s because I felt like I failed this year....over and over and over again. What knowledge or helpful tidbits could I offer up after having such a rough go? But here I am again, plugging along and not quitting. That’s what it comes down to, doesn’t it? Not quitting. Not throwing in the towel when all you want to do is scream, sell everything and live in a bus with your family and travel the states. (I may have thought this one through before.) Getting yourself back outside and reviewing the perhaps dismal situation, changing plans, and rolling with it. Perseverance. Determination. Things that don’t always come easy after a long, hard winter.

So what is it that I have to offer up? My failures, my hardships, my determination, my successes. Whether they are helpful to you or not, they have all been part of my process of delving into the homestead life. They are what will continue to shape how this farm works, or doesn’t. They will determine what direction I adjust to and move forward with. What works? What doesn’t? What did? What no longer does? It’s all part of making this farm work for us. It’s all part of growing myself into something that works for this farm. Work hard, play hard, repeat. Start over. Learn. Grow. Fail. Succeed. Learn. Grow again. This homestead is not my life, I am so much more than just the farm, but I’m learning to enjoy the parts of me that are continually challenged to grow through this life. To enjoy the fruits of our labor, to be cliche. To enjoy the gratification of growing our own food and providing something from our soil to our family. To raise up our own meat. To raise our children with a fundamental understanding and appreciation for life, hard work, and fresh food.

Soft pretzels or pretzel buns

Ingredients:

Dough:

4 1/2 cups all purpose flour

2 tsp kosher salt

1 1/2 cups warm water

1 Tbs honey (or sugar)

1 3/4 tsp active dry yeast

4 Tbs avocado oil (can use unsalted butter)

For baking the pretzels or buns:

10 cups water

2/3 cup baking soda

1 large egg, whisked with a dash of water

Kosher salt for sprinkling

Instructions:

Add the water and honey into a bowl or measuring cup, let honey dissolve. Add yeast and let foam for a few minutes.

Add flour, salt, oil and yeast mixture into a large bowl and mix by hand until a ball starts to form.

Dump onto a floured surface and knead for 5 or so minutes adding a dusting of flour as needed until dough is soft but not sticky. (When the dough starts to feel warm and soft, you are almost there) Place the dough in an oiled bowl and cover with cling wrap. Keep in a warm place until it has doubled in size, usually an hour or so. (My house is chilly this time of year, so I turn my oven onto warm until preheated, turn it off and place covered bowl in there to rise.)

Preheat oven to 450. Prep baking sheets with parchment paper.

Punch down dough and divide into 8-10 pieces. Roll each dough portion between your palm and the counter to form a ball. Place on parchment. If doing soft pretzels, roll out dough piece into a 19-21 inch rope, using your palms to roll and stretch to lengthy. Twist into pretzel shape, pinch the ends well to keep the shape. Let rise again for 20 minutes, on the counter is fine at this stage.

Meanwhile bring the water and baking soda to a boil in a large pot. Turn heat down to simmer so that no bubbles break the surface. Drop 2-3 buns/pretzels into the water, leaving for 30 seconds on each side. Remove and place back on parchment paper, brush with egg mixture and sprinkle with salt. If making buns, cut two shallow slits into the top of the bun after the egg and salt are done.

Bake buns for 13-15 minutes.

Bake pretzels for 8-10 minutes.

Mini pretzels or pretzel knots are also a fun option and will bake for 8-10 minutes as well.

Take out of oven and transfer to cooling rack. Enjoy once they cool enough to handle :)

This last week has been full of hard work, play, family, friends, hosting, traveling, shopping, chores, and on and on. This upcoming weekend is full of slaughtering our steers and butchering one of our pigs. I'm sure you can guess the idea behind next weeks post. I decided today to scrap a few chores in the name of baking some pretzel buns and pretzels for my family. Sometimes life is crazy, any more it feels like I say that every week. Crazy can be really, really good. It's not always a bad thing to be so busy and full of life that you're not even sure what day it is or how most the week vanished already. When life gets crazy, I try to do something nice, not just for the fam, but for me as well. I got in a run today and decided that making bread was a priority. I enjoy it, it's a newly discovered happy place for me. I can't always control how our week goes but I can make bread, and bread equals happiness....at least for me. Give these a try, I promise they are amazing and they aren't as hard as you may think. My family can burn through a single batch in one day, so I always double the batch (pictures are from a double batch). Have a fantastic Veteran's Day weekend and make sure you thank the veterans in your life. Maybe make them pretzels 😉

Sandwich Bread

I’ve decided to make our sandwich bread since I like making bread and it’s indeed less expensive to make it myself. The first few times I made it with just white flour, it was amazing but lacked on the health factor. I tried all whole wheat, but the bread was dense and crumbled too easily for sandwiches. I’ve tried a few different ratios of white flour and whole wheat and have settle on this version. I will be adding flax meal to it next week and figure out the appropriate ratios for all three then. For now, this bread is soft, holds together for a sandwich, makes fantastic toast, and makes me feel a little bit better about what I’m feeding the monsters.

Ingredients:

6 cups all purpose white flour

2 cups whole wheat flour

2 tsp salt

1.5 tbsp yeast

1/4 cup honey

3.5 cups warm water

Directions:

-Mix warm water and honey until honey is dissolved.

-Mix in the yeast and let sit for a few minutes until it starts to get foamy on top.

-In a large bowl, mix together the flour and salt.

-Once yeast has foamed, add to flour.

-Mix by hand until it forms a rough ball.

-Dump onto a floured surface and knead for 5-10 minutes.

-place in a well oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap.

-put in a warm draft free place (I use my oven) and let double in size

-punch down dough and dump onto work surface, divide into two and shape into loafs

-put dough into oiled bread pans, let double in size again, no need to cover at this point

-preheat oven to 375

-once bread has risen, place in oven and bake for 23-25 minutes

-take out and brush liberally with oil

-put back in for 5-10 minutes until a deep brown has occurred.

Let cool, take out of pans, cool further on a cooling rack and enjoy!

I enjoy making bread. It relaxes me and is a simple gesture I can do as a stay at home mama to make my family feel special. We all have our own thing we like to do, this is mine. If you do enjoy fresh bread, this one is pretty fantastic. My youngest is still at home during the days and has taken up helping me make the bread, all the bread. It’s a pretty awesome way to spend the morning. Bonus for our fam, my youngest had a stroke in utero and literally anything that encourages her to use her right side is a huge accomplishment and helps build that side up to function a little closer to normal.

English Muffins and English Muffin Bread

5 1/2 cups warm water

6 3/4 tsp yeast

2 Tbsp salt

3 Tbsp honey or sugar

11 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

Add honey or sugar to warm water, mix until dissolved. Add in yeast and set aside for 5 minutes or so until yeast blooms/foams. In a separate bowl mix dry ingredients. Make a Well in the dry ingredients and pour in the wet ingredients. Mix well until forms a rough ball. Turn out onto floured work surface and knead for a few minutes. This is a very wet dough so all you are really doing is getting it into a manageable ball, it will be quite sticky and that’s okay! Let rise until double in size. 1-2 hrs depending on how warm the room is or if you utilize the warm oven trick I mentioned in my pretzel post.

Punch down the dough and turn out onto your well floured work surface. From here you can go a couple different ways. I typically divide dough into 4 equal parts. 2 I place into two well oiled bread pans to rise again. The other two portions I roll out until 1/4-1/2 into thick. Use a jar to make rounds like biscuits. (You’ll need ample flour to work with as this dough is very sticky) place cut rounds on parchment paper. Cover and let rise again. You can easily just do four loaves or all English muffins or any combination thereof.

Once dough has risen the second time bake your bread in the oven at 350 for 45 minutes. It will be crispy on the outside, and beautifully golden brown.

For the muffins you’ll need a cast iron or something heavy bottomed. Turn on to low-medium/low heat, dust bottoms of pan with corn meal. Cook English muffins 3-4 minutes on each side, they will become browned on each side. Place on cooling rack. You’ll want to have plenty of room in the pan to be able to flip the muffins, I typically can place four in a pan at a time or I use my large cast iron skillet.

These muffins and English muffin bread are incredibly soft and delicious. With the wet dough it really takes practice to make the muffins look nice, I’m still getting there, but from trial one, they’ve tasted amazing and you get yourself some amazing homemade English muffins!

I hope the holidays treated you all well and you were able to enjoy your friends and family to the fullest. Now that we’ve spent ample time relaxing and playing and enjoying game time and Christmas break, it’s back to the grind for our little homestead.