Curry Up, I Got Gardening to Do! AMISH Mosh of 4 Days Off!

I am on day 3 of 4 days off. There is so much TO do, and so much I want to do that taking the time to enjoy what I am doing can be difficult. At least the phone isn't ringing. But the stereo is at full volume today as I find myself in a creative "get ER done  mode." Lasts week winter storm wasted my 2 days off plans.  After wasting one day preparing for the ice and the other day "experiencing the ice" my biggest excitement was gettingup at 5 am to break through the ice to get to my car so I could go to work again.

I almost threw caution to the wind and road tripped it to St Louis but we are on serious budget mode and I just could not afford it.

I spent my first day off this week in Springfield with a couple of gardening friends and my oldest boy. We did some garden and building window shopping. Had lunch at a fabulous Indian buffet and shopped at an asian market where I got all the makings for steamed buns( I already had this time planned out so they will happen another time.) And took my boy grocery shopping(he just moved into a house he is sharing with some other college students) at Aldi's. You gotta love Aldi's, I stocked him up for a week on 26 dollars!

I also bought some supplies to pratice making my own herbal botanical hospitality soaps with herbs from my garden(this MIGHT happen tomorrow.) I think my herbs are profuse enough now that I can sufficently use them for teas ,cooking and creating, which is a milestone for me!

Yesterday I HAD to clean after a week of trudging in and out through ice and mud hauling wood in and getting the dog to go outside. We moved a few more boxes out of storage and into the attic space and going through a few boxes of pictures to check for damage.

I got out to the cold frame and planted a few seeds to see if the cold frame will give me any results and a jump on the season. I am SORTA playing with planting by the moon this year...SORTA..and had only yesterday to make up time lost to the winter storm we got here last week. I put in some parsnips, turnips and radish.Later in the day, I pulled out my recipie for eggless noodles to work on comming up with a whole wheat version that I can dry and take with us to festivals that might be interesting. Did okay, still needs some work but I made lunch from them with some peppers from the hot house and more of my sunchokes.

I used mushrooms and onions and ground boca beef, boullion and curry, garlic and cumin. It hit the spot perfectly as well as giving me an idea for changing the cut of the noodles and drying them.

Today,I have been in the hot house most of the day planting seeds for salad stuff and put some beet seeds out in the cold frame.Roc finished hauling  and dumping soil into the new potato bed. Tomorrow we will finish it up by mixing in some organic fertilizer and get it covered to start warming up the soil. Wasn't quite as warm today. I got chilly and took inside to see what havoc I could create for the rest of the day.

I have some dried apple soaking and plan on being up late into the night baking. My youngest boy is comming by tomorrow and he loves home made bread! I chose a yeast raised Amish Cake and added the apples, almond meal, wheat flour and oats.

1 pkg dry yeast

1 cup warm water

1/2 cup solid shortning (or lard)

1/2 cup sugar( I used a mix of honey and molassas)

3 eggs

1 tsp salt

5 cups AP flour( I used a mix of flour, wheat gram, almond meal, and rolled oats and added at least three cups reconstituted dried apples)

1 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 cup softened butter

1/2 cup chopped pecans( I used oats and almond meal)

directions for making loaf:

Disolve yeast into warm water( I do this with the honey and molassas stirred into the water.)

In mixing bowl cream shortning and eggs( one at a time) Stir in the yeast water sugar mixture and enough flour to make a soft dough( still some-what sticky.)

Place dough into greased bowl. This dough has 2 one hour rises. You do the first rise, punch dough down in bowl and then allow to rise again.

Cut dough and form into balls. The recipie calls for three balls, with the adition of the apples I got 4 one pound dough portions.

Place dough into pans and press lightly. the recipie calls for baking this in pie pans for the shape of a large bun. I chose loaf pans.

Cover and allow to rise again for 1 1/2 hours!

Topping mix:

Mix the brown sugar and cinnamon, cut in the butter and add pecans till a crumb forms.

Put topping on bread right before baking.

Bake in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes.

This turned out just as I had hoped! The sweet topping is a perfect compliment to the apples I added to the recipie!

We made a simple dinner of panco coated fish and a baked salsa rice casserole with cheese tonight. I believe I have done more dishes today than I have in the last 2 weeks!

I think I will take tomorrow off before I go back to work...YA THINK!? Well, except for playing with my soap project.

These days off sure go by quickly the older I get. Hopefully that just means spring is just around the corner dispite Mr Groundhog's prediction, along with a huge successful garden that I can eat from daily.

From garden to table, as Madame D says. A goal worth working very hard for!