Birdseed Bread

It snowed for the first time this year today... a big, wet, heavy snow that turned to water as soon as it hit the pavement but gave the whole day a very cozy, wonderland sort of feel.  I also instinctively began running through the contents of my pantry in my head as I drove home, for even though I knew the snow wouldn't last through the night, I felt the need to make certain there were provisions at hand, just in case.

Baking bread is one of my favorite kitchen activities, and it is truly a delight on a snowy day such as this one.  I love breaking a sweat while kneading the dough, the aroma it releases as it heats up in the oven, and cutting the first warm slice and slathering it with butter and jam. 

As far as bread machines are concerned... I say do whatever it takes to make it possible and enjoyable for you and your family, and the machines certainly do take care of a lot of the time and work.  However, kneading bread by hand is fun, and can actually be part of your exercise regimen (think exercise bands).  In addition, it gives you the opportunity to really be certain that the texture of the dough is where you want it to be.  This is helpful when you're experimenting with a different grain or an unfamiliar recipe.

I can call this recipe my own, even though it began its life as "cracked wheat bread" from a great cookbook called "Beard on Bread" by James Beard.  But as I've experimented, I've tweaked the recipe and added so many notes in the margins of the page that it is truly a whole new product.  I call it Birdseed Bread, because it is chock full of sunflower seeds, millet, and other crunchy goodies that your neighborhood chickadee would love.  It is more nutritious than any bread you'll find in the grocery store, and its superior flavor and texture has awarded me praise at family gatherings.  It is extremely versatile, working well with sweet jams or savory egg sandwiches. 

Gelfling's Birdseed Bread

1/2 c cracked wheat, oat bran, or other whole grain hot cereal (I like a 7-Grain Cereal blend from Bob's Red Mill)
1 1/2 c boiling water
1 package active dry yeast
1/3 c warm (100*) water
1/4 c softened butter
1 1/2 tbsp salt
2 tbsp molasses
4 tbsp honey
1 c. milk
2 1/2 c whole wheat flour
2 1/2 c unbleached white flour
1/2 c nuts, seeds, and various grains (I typically use sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, hemp seeds, flax seeds, wheat germ, quinoa, millet, and bee pollen).

Cook the whole grain cereal in the boiling water until the water is absorbed, stirring to prevent sticking.  In the meantime, dissolve the yeast in the warm water in a large mixing bowl and let proof.  When the cereal is cooked, add the butter, salt, molasses, honey, and milk, stirring to combine, and let cool to lukewarm. 

Add the cereal mixture to the yeast.  Begin stirring in the flour one cup at a time, starting with the whole wheat flour. 

When the dough becomes too stiff, work it by hand.  Knead it until it is smooth and elastic, adding a bit more unbleached flour as needed.

(Yes, I'm sitting on the floor in my pajamas here.)

You want the dough to be tacky, but not sticky.  It should hold together in a ball nicely and just cling to your hands ever so slightly.

Shape the dough into a ball and put it in a buttered bowl, turning it to coat with butter. 

Cover with a towel and place in a warm, draft-free spot to rise until doubled in bulk, about 1.5 hours. 
Punch it down, shape it into loaves, place in well buttered loaf pans (or on a butter baking sheet), cover and let rise again until doubled. 

Bake at 350* for about 30-35 minutes, or until the loaves are nicely browned and sound hollow when tapped on the top and bottom with the knuckles.  Let cool on racks and enjoy!

Masks

I recently rediscovered a fun craft from my childhood: masking plaster masks.  With performance costumes and Christmas gifts in mind, I bought a roll of plaster fabric and spent a messy evening with my darling making masks.  I haven't yet decided how I want to paint this first mask... but I'm thinking that a blue-ish grey base with blue shading and perhaps some glitter might be neat...

There are a few tricks to making a good sturdy, organic-looking plaster mask of a human or humanoid face. 

First of all, wrap your hair in plastic wrap and coat all exposed skin and hair with Vasline.  Then begin the mask by making an "X" with 6 thin strips of the fabric over the "third eye" part of your forehead, across the bridge of the nose, and onto the cheekbones.  This gives the mask strength and will keep it from caving in as you peel it off of your Vaseline-covered face.  Then proceed to building the edges, and finally filling in the space in between with overlapping strips.  Smooth the wet fabric out as you go to create a uniform texture.

The second is to remove the mask from your face after you've established a solid base, but before you begin adding on shapes, such as the beak-like nose of my mask.  It will be easier for you to shape the features of your mask after it is off of your face.  You can place the mask on your face to see how it looks on you periodically as you build.

The third is to imagine the features of the face you want to create in terms of shapes.  For instance, when building the large cheekbones of my mask, I overlapped different sized triangles of the fabric the build the contour of the cheek as opposed to strips or rectangles.   For the nose, I bunched up small pieces of the fabric into cones of progressively smaller size, alternating with thin overlapping strips to build strength.  

The last is to try to follow the natural contours of your own face as much as possible when designing the edges.  You want the mask to seemingly fade into the rest of your face, neck, or hairline.  Blunt or creative edges can be a cool effect for a mask, but they don't go over very well when you're trying to create a human or humanoid face. 

I highly recommend trying out this simple and fun form of sculpture... even if you have no place to wear the mask, they look super creepy and neat hanging on walls and resting on mantels!

This is Halloween, Halloween, HALLOWEEN!

And so it comes... my most favoritest of favorite days of the year!

Halloween has always been a magical day for me.  I love the fact that on this one day, everyone I meet has a perfectly valid excuse to be incredibly silly.  Some take advantage of it by reclaiming their childhood love of playing "dress up".  Others indulge their hidden mean-streak with a few practical jokes and scares.  And yet others choose to act out a fantasy, and to become someone who, perhaps, we secretly wish we could really be.

This year, for one night, I am going to be....

Boudica, Celtic warrior queen, enraged woman and mother, freedom-fighter, and ruthless killer.


I shall enter the Philadelphia Experiment Halloween Ball with my head held high. 

I am tribal royalty! 
I am a woman, full of fire and fury, who will fight to the death to avenge the rape of my daughters, the abuse of my body, and the oppression of my people. 
While I breathe, no Roman man, woman, or child who meets my path shall survive. 
Crude we may be, peasants and farmers... but as a people we are strong, and together we will bite back at the cruel hands of the Roman tormentors who seek to silence us. 
Our course of destruction will be as wild as the wind... our warpath guided by the running of a wild hare and the will of our Goddess of Victory. 
London will burn.
The Thames will run red.
I will have my revenge.





Oh hells yeah.

Edit: here are photos of our costumes!

Mushrooms

I wish that I had another lifetime in which to study mycology. The world of fungi is so fascinating and full of mystery! And how much better can it get than to spend your "work day" foraging through the woods? They come in so many different shapes, sizes, and colors... a single colony of fungi can have dozens of different personalities in its fruiting bodies. Take this one, for example:

I spotted this adorable little family growing in Rickett's Glen last July.  See the camera-shy, self-conscious teenager hiding behind little sister on the right-hand side?  The overbearing father in the rear left?  And we can't forget the plump, always-worried mother in front, who has neglected her own health and happiness in her attempts to manage her family.

Not only are they fascinating to look at, but many are nutritious and delicious too (but not the ones pictured above, mind you... they look something like the Amanita "Death Cap" mushroom, but I never fully identified them...)!  I am a firm believer in the idea that many species of edible fungi have amazing medicinal properties.  Let's talk about chaga.  This has to be one of my favorite mushrooms.  It grows on wounds in the trunks of birch trees, looks like a nasty black/brown tumor, but acts as a sort of sterile dressing for the tree's wound.  This reciprocal relationship won my heart over before I'd even tasted chaga... but then I learned that it is quite tasty when the dried fungus is brewed as a "chai" tea, or when mixed in with coffee and brewed in french press, and I truly fell in love.  This species has been shown to have immune-stimulating and cancer-fighting effects.  It has become part of my daily diet.

There are entire volumes out there detailing the medicinal properties of mushrooms, and I could not nearly do them justice here.  Some of the best are "Medicinal Mushroom" by Christopher Hobbs and "Adaptogens" by David Winston.  So read up and decide for yourself if you can fit a little extra fungus in your day... and perhaps this recipe (one of my all-time favorites) that I got from a mycologist named Terry-Anye Hayes will tempt your palette in the meantime...

Mushroom Tempeh

Heat a few tablespoons of olive oil in a deep fry pan.  Slice a package of tempeh into 1/4" strips, and saute until lightly browned.  Set aside. 

Boil a good few handfuls of red skinned potatoes until cooked through (but not mushy!), chop into quarters and set aside.

Select an assortment of tasty fresh mushrooms, like shitake, oyster, or morel (if you have fresh morels, I ENVY YOU).  Saute these in butter over medium-low heat until cooked through, for at least 20 minutes. 

In the meantime, chop a bunch of scallions or one medium onion, 2 cloves of garlic (or more!!), and a leek or fennel bulb if you have some handy.  Saute in olive oil until soft. 

Toss in the potatoes and tempeh, sprinkle with salt, pepper, and cayenne to taste, and cook until the potatoes are nicely browned and crisp.  Serve the cooked mushrooms on top, and prepare to writhe with pleasure. 

Post-grad musings on books and motherhood.

This is the first time in my life that I cannot describe myself as a "student". Even during my breif hiatus from nursing school while I switched schools, I studied under Maia Toll at the Apothecary Garden in her Community Herbalist Training (http://www.theapothecarygarden.com/). Now, I find myself in a somewhat disquieting place in which I feel like I am not moving forward. This under-employed purgatory I am trapped in while I wait to take my state boards and find a nursing job is wearing on my self-image. I am a "do-er", I am constantly in motion, I am a list-maker and a goal-setter. I have defined myself by what I do, and what I aim to do. Now I feel rather aimless, and while I impatiently wonder what I'm going to do next, those long-term ambitious goals of mine aren't getting any closer .



In order to remedy this feeling, I am turning to books. I am accepting this place as an opportunity to seek out cerebral stimulation in the areas of life that have been neglected during my years of "official" study. For as long as I can remember, I have been an avid reader. I recall spending many a sleepless night as a child, hunkered down in my bunk bed with a flashlight and a book. My thirst for books has been quenched over the past several years mostly by textbooks as I studied for nursing school. Since I graduated, I have been enjoying the freedom to read for pleasure once again.

I am currently reading:


-"Odd and the Frost Giants", a new children's book by Neil Gaiman. My boyfriend Jeremiah and I have been taking turns reading chapters aloud to one another. It's adorable, and full of the "omgosh, did he really write that? In a KID'S book?" moments that I've come to expect from Neil Gaiman.  Full of Norse mythology, humor and great characters. 


-"Hood" by Stephen Lawhead. So far I'm not terribly impressed. It seems to be the classic story of the spoiled good-for-nothing son of royalty being forced into manhood and leadership by tragedy, and the spiritual gurus he meets along his journey. It's just interesting enough to keep me reading it, but I'm not getting lost in it the way I did the "Albion" books.


My current wishlist of books includes:


-"Botany in a Day" by Thomas J. Elpel. This is the go-to botany book that has been recommended to me by many wildcrafters and herbalists. I have always struggled with keying out plants using field guides, and feel like a good basic understanding of the concepts of botany would help. I plan on reading it over the winter to learn the concepts, then again in the spring while using it in practice.

-"Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen" by Christopher McDougall. I heard about this book on NPR when they interviewed the author. It's all about barefoot running in native tribes and in modern times... which is a skill I'd eventually like to learn, as running has always been extremely painful for my joints. After listening to the author's story, I found myself wondering if this pain isn't just a "natural" and unavoidable side effect of running, but rather a result of running shoes that do nothing except force me further away from the natural form of movement my body should be taking when I run.

-"Too Close for Comfort?: Questioning the Intimacy of Today's New Mother-Daughter Relationship" by Susan Shaffer and Linda Gordon. An investigation into the dynamics of the relationships between mothers and daughters nowadays... profiling the different modern archetypes of mothers and how their behaviors shape women's lives.
This book interests me right now not only because of a desire to heal and strengthen my relationship with my own mother. This past summer, my 22 year old cousin died in her sleep. Recently, my family received a letter from her mother (my cousin) with thanks for attending the memorial service. I found it curious that a large focus of the letter was on the "friendship" between mother and daughter, and how they used to go out drinking at bars together and be "mistaken for sisters". This concept of being more of a "friend" than a mother disturbs me, and raises questions about how my generation is going to "mother" their daughters when they lacked a "mother" role model in their own childhoods.

To Warm the Cockles of Your Heart...

I just got news that snow is falling just a few hours west of me in Central Pennsylvania.  We are getting saturated with a miserable, cold, grey rain in my neck of the woods, and my poor chickens are shaking the water from their feathers and hiding beneath their coop.  Today is the perfect kind of day to stay home, read a book, and cook up something for dinner that will warm you down to your toes.

It has only been in recent years that I've developed a taste for "hot" or "spicy" foods.  Having grown up in a house with a father from Texas, the only "spice" I knew was Frank's Red Hot Sauce on tacos.  Since making the choice to eat a pescatarian diet, however, my palette has expanded exponentially, and I've come to enjoy foods that make me break out into a sweat.  This colorful vegan dish will clear out your sinuses and fill your home with a most delicious fragrance.

Spicy Squash Coconut Curry

Heat 3 tbsp of oil over medium heat in a large saute pan.  Add 1tbsp of minced fresh ginger, 1tbsp of minced fresh garlic (or more, to your taste), 1tbsp (or more!) of hot pepper paste, 2tbsp of good curry powder, 1tsp of cinnamon, and a bit of salt and black pepper.  Cook until the garlic and ginger soften, about 5 minutes.  Add 1.5lbs of cubed butternut squash, toss to coat with the spice mixture.  Add 1c of coconut milk and 1/4c of vegetable broth.  Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer, cover, and cook until the squash is tender, stirring occasionally.  Raise the heat to medium, and cook uncovered until the sauce thickens to your desired consistency.  Serve over basmati and wild rice.

If you want to keep the theme of spicy sweetness through dessert, try making some hot cocoa with a bit of cayenne pepper.  The best I've tried is Hershey's Cacao Reserve Mayan style hot chocolate, made with whole cow's milk.  Yum!!!