Happy Mother’s Day
More practice needed
I am fascinated with braided bread. I don’t know why this is on my “I want to be able to do this” list, maybe because it is a mix of baking and textiles, which are two of my favorite things. In the interest of showing the real, I shall share my first plaited loaf. Well, sort of plaited. I attempted Paul Hollywood’s 8-strand loaf, but I need to practice with rope first because I’m not getting it. So I defaulted to a four strand since have that down pat. Then during the second rise it just became a loaf. A lumpy loaf. Hmm. This is something I’m going to have to practice some more, which is not honestly a hardship!
Itsy bitsy spider
Not quite a water spout, but an interesting choice for web building, tucked into my glass rain gauge. I tipped out the water and the spider ran down, then a stick made short work of the web. We’ll see if the itsy bitsy spider crawls up again.
Dehydrating nearly gone fruit
Over buying fruit is not usually a problem in my household, as we eat an abundance of apples, oranges, bananas, and berries. But sometimes, for whatever reason, I have fruit uneaten that is approaching inedibility. But I now have a dehydrator. Ah! I cleaned and sliced all the very ripe fruit (mainly bananas and strawberries), and had some room so threw on some oranges and blueberries. I ran the dehyrator at 135 degrees for around 14 hours. The fruit stopped changing appearance, but had a leather-like texture rather than crisp. So I stuck them in the freezer in a bag. Fresh out of the freezer they are crunchy and full of flavor. And they should last in the cold storage for awhile! (Until my family finds them…)
I didn’t slice the blueberries, and they did dry out hardly at all. The mandarin orange was the most surprising; I liked the texture and taste dehydrated!
Hibiscus
Something is nibbling in my hibiscus, so I sprinkled it with ground cayenne pepper to see if that deters the activity. I know I said I wanted low maintenance plants, but I’ve always loved the look of hibiscus and really want this one to do well so we can plant more.
