Bread baking morning....

Picture of the Day...

Scarlet Runner ... a BEEutiful sight!

mmm second day of making the Turkish Flatbread, BUT this time i changed it again... i have a great deal of trouble sticking to a recipe, can't leave well enough alone, god help me and everyone else if i was a chemist ;) ..

this time i substituted 1 cup of white flour for a 1/4 cup of millet flour, 1/4 cup of coconut flour, 1/4 cup of quinoa flour, 2 tsps of Xanthum gum and 1/4 cup of kamut flour... we shall see, i just checked the rising bread dough, and it's working!!

as for my garden, i seem to have some wee buggies in some of my pea pods... ahhh to share with nature! a PEA MOTH or 3 have arrived, discovered just how delicious they are!! i picked a bunch of peas this morning, just to take a photo of.. and nope, not even one could i find! the last one i found with the wee buggy, got fed to Sampson, who LOVES peas.. a little protein is good for puppies!!!

going to be another hot day and i just discovered that a lot of my pepper flowers are falling off...
not sure of the cause but could be wind, not enough moisture, cool temps at night.. or even all three.. have tried very hard protect them with my little reemay house and the tomatoes and eggplants seem to be doing okay, sooooo i will have to say a little prayer for the peppers and hope for the best!

Elephant Garlic flowers, loved by bees and other insects

my eggplant is doing well, only one fruit but for the west coast it's doing very well!

wee cucumber flowers, tucked under the leaves, might be needing some human pollinating help!

Momma and her Fawn......

was spotted by me this morning... and the 4 legged childrend didn't see!! so momma and baby wandered by, grazing at the edge of the bluff, where all the tall trees and shrubs are. Was a pleasant site indeed!

am making another batch of the Turkish Bread, i gave away 3/4s of what i made last time and it's nearly gone... very tasty and seems to be holding up to being on the counter for a couple of days... a good sign for a home made bread!

am slowly getting my sewing area cleaned out and a bit more organized... difficult when i'm in such a small space, but i've got a quilt thought and can't wait to get it started!!

i've been saving grandbaby's drawing and finally scanned them today, and will print them out on the PhotoFabric that i bought.. i'm going to make a throw quilt for daughter's birthday in September... i think it's going to be cute... grandbaby doesn't care for colour much, but does great pencil drawings of Pokemon and other cartoon characters so i'm going to intersperse her drawings with some nice fabrics that i have bits of... should be fun i think.. and not terribly difficult, will be a scrap-athon!!

picture of the day-----

i'm not sure if the inhabitants are alive or dead, but momma wasp must have thought a fishy mouth was perfect! it's been there a couple of weeks, just as you see it and i'm hoping that they are a bust and not just waiting for the perfect moment to hatch!!

MMM YUMMY..... bread!!

Am back to normal, watering garden and generally being at home... all good things!
Yesterday i finished off my 2 day bread recipe... all i can say is DELISH!!!! I got the recipe off the net and it's a goodie!! it takes 2 days to make, but well worth the effort i think... wasn't yeasty as a lot of homemade breads can be, it used much less yeast than normal, i didn't have either Nigella seeds or Sesame seeds so used Celery seeds... i cooked the breads on my pizza stone, an item that i use often for Pita bread, rarely for pizza :D

Turkish Ridged Flat Bread (Fladenblot)
ACTIVE: 30 MIN
TOTAL TIME: 4 HRS 30 MIN PLUS OVERNIGHT RESTING
SERVINGS: makes 4 loaves
Make-Ahead
Ingredients

DAY 1

SPONGE
1/2 cup warm water
1/4 teaspoon active dry yeast
1 cup all-purpose flour
DAY 2

DOUGH
1 1/4 cups warm water
1 teaspoon active dry yeast
1/2 teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
3 cups bread flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon salt
Cornmeal, for dusting
Nigella or sesame seeds, for sprinkling
Directions
MAKE THE SPONGE: In a medium bowl, mix the water with the yeast and let stand until foamy, about 10 minutes. Stir in the flour. Cover loosely and let stand overnight.

MAKE THE DOUGH: In a large bowl, mix 1/4 cup of the water with the yeast and sugar and let stand until foamy. Add the yeast mixture (the SPONGE), the remaining 1 cup of water and the olive oil. Stir in the flours and salt until a dough forms. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and knead until smooth. Place the dough in a large, oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let stand until doubled in bulk, about 3 hours.
Place a baking stone on the bottom of the oven and preheat the oven to 450°. Punch down the dough and divide it into 4 pieces. Flatten each piece into a round. Cover them with plastic and let rise until puffy, about 30 minutes.
Sprinkle a pizza peel with cornmeal. On a floured work surface, with wet hands, flatten each round into an 8-by-10-inch oval. Make 6 or 7 deep grooves with your fingertips down the length of each oval. Sprinkle the ovals with the nigella seeds. Slide the ovals onto the peel, then onto the hot stone in the oven. Bake until crisp on the bottom, about 10 minutes. Serve warm.

BugZoo part 2....

Well pictures anyways... thought i'd like to post them, just because...







note the centipede on his head.. ewww

grandbaby finally held one of the stickbugs :D

am making some Turkish Flatbread, Fladenbrot, it sounds great, hopefully it turns out!

had to run into town today.. masses of people and cars... i think i'm a perma country gal, even tho we're now on fairly busy road, i still have space around me... life is good!!

Sunday afternoon was sooooooo FUN!!!!

we went for a journey, 1 daughter, 1 granddaughter and me... went to Victoria B.C. (not too far from us) and went to the Victoria Bug Zoo.... wooohooo bugs galore... BIG bugs galore!! there were a lot of mantis, stick bugs, centipedes, millipedes, tarantulas, ants.. if your on the island and in Victoria and have children (well even if you don't ) its great fun.. make sure that u go around with a guide because it's well worth it! they had several guides at one time, so if you could switch if you liked...

here's a short video.. sorry about the quality, but i wanted to show it because 'they' make a tea from the Malaysian Jungle Nymph Walking Stick poop... mmm yummy ;)after our host told us about the insect, then he put it on the ground and she proceeded to dig a hole to lay and egg....

laying an egg

mmm cockroaches

bush crickets... and yes they were very LARGE

just hanging around

will post more pics tomorrow... i'd go back there any day... we stayed for over 2 hrs., watching and listening to our hosts...

A quiet Sunday?

a very heavy OLD plane just flew over and rattled my windows... sometimes wonder HOW such things do fly... like Bumble Bees that technically aren't supposed to fly!! Tell that to the masses that have been pollinating my garden. i love to watch them buzzing around heavily laden with yellow pollen.. and very grateful that we are blessed with them... a neighbour has a few hives and this year we've been blessed with honey bees, the past few years they've been far and few between.. being on an island we have strict regulations about transporting bees... but unfortunately some people chose to ignore the regulations and brought some from the mainland.. disaster, same as on the mainland, dying off in hordes.. i can only hope that the bees have transfered the virus or mites or whatever it is that is the problem, to the local populations.. here we have several different species of wild bees.. all wonderful to see hovering over my comfry or climbing into a foxglove flower...

MMMM breakfast ... grandbaby made her own version of 'granola' rice crispies with things she picked, cherries, blackberries, saskatoons and huckleberries.. yumm!! Thank you to all the bees and wasps, hummingbirds and any other creature that helped to pollinate all the berries and cherries!!!

sleepy Sunday mornings are always good for a doggie rest... note the ear holder (my slipper) :D

It was a more quiet afternoon, but hot, muggy and generally icky in my house... so off we (me and doggies) went, searching for the perfect photo... well we didn't find it.. but i did get some nice pics of some of the places we went to...i'm having troubles uploading them.. so you'll just have to wait!! Yay I finally got them uploaded... I went to Cowichan Bay which is on the Southern part of Vancouver Island, a beautiful area.. beach, river, fields and mountains in the background... doesn't get any better!!











Red Osier Dogwood

Red Elderberry

Red Elderberries



the corn is tall this year because of the amount of sun and heat we've had... should be a good crop (weather permitting)!!!

Technoratic....

told me to make a post with this ( nf69vbetw3 ) in it, so it can find this blog... whatever i say!!!