Backyard Garden

So in the name of cutting back on sugar we bought 5 gallons of honey. My parents know a beekeeper and they picked it up for us at a decent price. Not many people buy honey by the 5 gallon bucket. When you open the cover the smell is intoxicatingly sweet with of flowers and spice. So the next step of course is mead! Just add water and...  The entire kitchen smelled of very good flavorful honey as Shawn stirred up the wort. He felt a little like a magician in a renaissance fair, so I fixed his picture up for him. We will post a recipe later and hopefully a nice picture of the terrific and "magically delicious" mead.

So for my birthday I got the book Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day, and so far I love it. Although I question Shawn's motives because I think it was just as much for him as it was for me. I make bread every week and have for a while now when I decided I could make better tasting bread that cost less and had less garbage added to it. I also make my own pizza dough, and we have tried to get a sourdough started and failed. So this book has been intriguing to me, and now I know why. If you buy the artisan bread at the grocery this book it is. You can make all kinds of wonderful different types of bread and it is super easy. So far I have used it for pizza crust (which is superb), we made a boule (again superb), and sticky buns that were out of this world. I cannot wait to try the brioche (very eggy and honey sweetened bread) and some of the other options. In a nutshell you make a very wet batch of dough, it rises at room temperature, you put it in the fridge, and cut off pieces for d

 So we were visiting today and dug up some ramps, we also came across some checker berries which are fun. They have the same taste as Teaberry Gum. Apparently checkerberries have an asprin like quality to them so I guess if you are hiking and sore you can eat them to help or use the leaves to steep a tea. Ramps are delicious in anything you would use onion and we used some tonight for some hummus instead of garlic, very mild and tasty. If you come across them keep in mind you have to dig well below the bulb to get it out intact which is about 4-5 inches down. Also keep in mind to leave some behind for the next year.