Practicing & Pinky Promises

Although we have closed on our new farmstead it will be several weeks, possibly a month or two, before we will be able to head to Kentucky and step foot on our new farm. See, a few months back, CountryBoy's bosses asked him if he would stay to the end of the job and he said he would.  (In this industry, it is common for the guys to 'drag up' near the end of a job and move on to another job just to make sure they are not without work for very long.)  We joke around that he made a pinky promise, ha!  But, since CountryBoy is a man of his word, he will stay and see this job through to the end.  The bitter end, wink!

Thankfully, several awesome people from Kentucky (that we hardly know or haven't even met yet) have said that they would keep an eye out on the place.  Love Kentucky already!

In the meantime, in anticipation of primarily eating things that we grow on the new farm or can get from other local farmers, I have decided that now is a good time to start thinking about, finding and/or coming up with recipes that use only farm fresh ingredients.  And, I am going to practice not buying anything at the grocery store that is man-made just for convenience sake.  Things like salad dressing and bread to name a few.

I know there will be a few things that we will have to buy such as flour, sugar (gotta feed those hummingbirds!) and spices but hopefully we can find some that have been minimally processed and won't have to buy them too often.

We stopped buying bread a long time ago and since I have a love/hate relationship with bread dough I am not in the habit of baking bread.  And, since I'm not much of a bread-eater it doesn't usually cross my mind that we don't have any bread in the house, er, fifth wheel.  Kind of like green peas.  I don't like green peas so we never have peas for supper.  I don't even think to buy any, ha!  (Poor CountryBoy who loves both of them!)  But, every now and then I get a hankerin' for some bread especially this time of year when I make a lot of soup or chili.  Gotta have bread for that!

So yesterday I wanted to try my hand at baking bread.  Again.  I've made bread in the past but it usually turns out too dense.  Tasty, but dense. 

I found a simple recipe for no-knead artisan bread.  I had all the ingredients... flour, yeast, kosher salt and water.  Sweet!  Let's do this!

I mixed it all up in my big ol' Pyrex bowl, covered it and waited.

The recipe said the rising period was 8 - 24 hours.  It wasn't rising very quickly and I thought maybe my yeast was too old.  But, it was also cool in the morning which could've had something to do with it.  Then, the sun came up and started warming it up and directly the dough was doubled in size.  That's a good sign!

 

 I let it rise for about nine hours before popping it into the oven.

I used a cast iron dutch oven and it came out just like the recipe said.  Yay!

Super simple and tasty!  I can't wait to add some other ingredients to it next time I make some, like maybe some Parmesan and Rosemary, or some olive oil and olives.  Mmmm, the possibilities are endless.

To go with the bread, I decided on a Crust-less Broccoli & Cheddar Cheese Quiche for supper.  With ingredients like eggs, milk, garlic, cheese and broccoli this dish is made up of things we will have available at the farm or farmers market.  

Purposefully cooking and eating this way will probably be a challenge in today's world of convenience and getting it done quickly but I am up for the challenge.  We want to purposefully live, eat, slow down, enjoy our farm and each other.  And, if you ever come for a visit then you can look forward to some farm, fresh, wholesome goodness and some down-home hospitality!