5 Minute a Day Bread, Take 1

Have I mentioned that I'm trying to do everything in my power to both save money on food and eat organically and locally when possible? Yes, you and every other whitey out there you are probably thinking. (O.K. Not every whitey out there, if you caught the Oprah episode this week about the families who waste tremendous amounts of everything possible. Family #1 who sounded suspiciously from Long Island threw out $700 of food a month because they don't save anything once the bag/box is open).

With the rise in prices of food and the current concern about wasting fuel by buying stuff flown in from all over the world, I'm doing what I can. If I can buy as much as possible organically and in bulk, and then make things myself like bread, desserts, and almost all of our meals, then I'm accomplishing two out of three. I also joined a local CSA, which is a chemical-free farm that customers pay a bulk sum to at the beginning of each season. Customers then go to the farm each week and pick up two giant bags of produce. At my CSA the cost breaks down to $25 a week, which for that amount of organic food is pretty darn good. Another great perk to the whole thing is getting lots of varitiy of produce that are not found in any supermarkets. If you want more tips on how to eat healthy for cheap, check out this long but very informative thread on a cloth diapering board I frequent (the third post down turned me on to the CSA and making everything from scratch using bulk organics).


At the same time I decided to make everything from scratch, I kept reading all the hoopla in blogland and message board land. I jumped on the bandwagon and bought the book, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. For those of you unfamiliar with it, the authors of the book developed recipes and a method for baking different types of bread made from a dough that only takes fifteen minutes to make, requires no kneading, and remains in the fridge all week. Each time you want bread you cut a 1 pound hunk off the dough and quickly shape it, let it sit out for an hour and a half, and then bake it for thirty minutes.

Required equipment includes an oven thermometer, a baking stone, a pizza peel, and something large to store the dough in. I asked a group of women on a local mothering message board (several of them are on the bread bandwagon already) what pieces of equipment I can do without, since I did not want to have to invest quite so much money in something that may not even work out. I got some great tips from them that I will now share with you lucky readers:

1. Don't blow $30 on a baking stone. Instead, go to Home Depot and pick up a giant terracotta (untreated) tile for $1.30. Here's mine with some awesome lemon-poppy scones on them (the breakfast of the week that was actually the breakfast of three days):


2. Oven thermometers are really inexpensive at Target, as compared to Williams-Sonoma.

3. The book requires you to fill a broiler pan with water and keep it in the oven during baking, to release steam. Instead of ruining a pan and fussing with all the water, buy a brick and soak it in water for a while before putting it in the preheating oven. The brick will release an even amount of steam and you don't have to worry about any accidents with the water.

I actually did not buy a brick yet because we had to hussle out of Home Depot when I was buying the terracotta tile (two year old wanting to run through aisles instead of staying in cart), but I did buy a great pizza peel and dough scraper at good old Williams-Sonoma. I hit up Target and got my oven thermometer (by the way have you seen the amazing Dwell Baby for Target line? I just bought this and this and this for a few baby showers coming up to go with the requisite Rose & Duke apparel) and went to work. The first thing I noticed about my super-lame electric oven is that it is off by ten degrees. For the temp. to be 450 I ended up setting it to 460. I went to work and heated my water for the dough to 100 degrees (measured on the candy thermometer). I added the yeast and salt and flour, stirred, and let it rise. Here is how it looked:
This doesn't look like it rose very much at all does it? It didn't. I refrigerated the bread, took it out the next day, let it rise again, and formed my loaves:
These loaves are over one pound, because I wanted larger loaves. Unfortunately I forgot to add baking time and took them out when the tops were only slightly browned. The insides were raw.
I baked a little longer and voila:
Two large loaves of bread that were extremely dense and required a lot of jaw-work to get down the throat. Not really what I was hoping for. I dumped the remaining dough and started over, this time heating the water to a little over 100 degrees, and decreasing the amount of flour by 1/4 cup (as recommended by the book if the dough was too dry the first time ,which this one certainly was). I got a nice, sticky dough:
When it rose it really took off too:
I have no idea why the photo won't remain vertical by the way- it's something with blogger, sorry folks.

This time I weighed exactly one pound of dough before baking.

The loaf seemed pretty flat when rising on the pizza peel before baking, and it did come out more like a ciabatta than I had hoped for. Unfortunately, I was baking the bread at the same time I was cooking dinner, and I had to set the oven to 550 degrees to get the thermometer inside to read 450. WTF? My guess is that when the stove top ranges are on, the oven just can't get quite as hot. The other consequence of the oven being wacky is that my tile broke in two. I bought another one, but if this one breaks too then I may have to give in and buy an official baking stone.

As you can see it's not the tallest loaf of bread in the world, but the texture inside was just perfect, with a moist and dense crumb, and a crunchy crust.
As you can also see we ate our first good loaf of homemade bread with Nutella. Dinner had already ended at this point, so what choice did we have? Next I'm going to try the light wheat recipe and use a loaf pan. Hopefully the loaf pan shape will make the bread more user-friendly for us, since we a sandwich eating family.

Here are a few shots from the CSA we go to. The lovely farm-maiden is holding a bouquet of garlic blossoms. The stalks are really sweet and delicious in a stir-fry. I used some last week in a greens and feta pie as well.
The farm property is fairly large for an urban farm, and the owner's eight year old son has been kind enough to take Harlan and me on a couple of tours. We got to play with chickens, see the tiny airplane in its hangar behind the crops, giant water drums, a koi fish pond, and several houses on the property that are made completely from native and found objects. The houses are also totally sustainable and I'm looking forward to a tour of them given by an adult at a cocktail party/ property tour they provide once a month. Photos will come. The eight year old also told us where to steer clear from hornets nest, snake-filled areas, fire ant communities, and other country things that reinforced that I would not ever do well living "off the grid" unless it was in a space community on bug and snake-free planet.

This is Harlan playing in a wagon at the farm. It's a funny photo of him, but I'm using it to show off his Obama Baby t-shirt, made by my friend Kim and available at her wonderful store Sidepony.


The rest of this post is totally unrelated items, starting with some lovely Jello desserts brought to a party recently.
Anyone know any good Jello recipes? I'm thinking this may be the only way I'll be able to eat dessert and lose weight. I'm looking for recipes using gelatin and fruit, not actual Jello by the way. This one had seltzer in it which gave the Jello a really nice texture. Also there was hibiscus involved somehow.

Here are Harlan and me on a little hike we like to take. Wild Basin's a nice place to go hiking except for the fact that Harlan ends up wanting to be carried quite a lot.

Harlan and his friend Sol, walking up the steps together, holding hands all the way:

I feel like this photo should be made into an inspirational poster. Perhaps it could say, "You can always make it to the top when you help someone." Or, "A friend with a hand, is high in demand." O.k. What about, "Four legs good, two legs bad." The possibilities are endless!

Abby Don't Look

I know this is lame, but I'm posting a photo of a birthday/housewarming gift before I mail it. So, Abby stop looking (or else look if you want to know what is coming your way soon). Here is what I made last week. With help from the Goddess of Vintage Embroidery Patterns, I was lucky enough to score a set of the busy bees transfers. There is a tee towel with an additional busy bee coming next, but I couldn't wait to show this one off. I used some Japanese bee fabric to contrast with the plain muslin.


Bathroom #1 is complete and I need to figure out a way to photograph a very tiny room in order to show it off. Bathroom #2 is on hold as my contractor called this morning (the day bathroom #2 was supposed to be demolished) to tell me he has a hernia on his leg (?) and he would like to start the bathroom next week. I don't know what to expect, but I sure am happy to have at least one excellent place to bathe.

Rose & Duke got a good review this week on the celebrity baby clothes blog.

Breakfast of the week:
This oat bran banana bread is some seriously good shit. Let me tell you, if you like banana bread, this is the way to go. Take your old bananas and follow this recipe. However, and this is important, substitute raisins for dried cherries, and be sure to dump in a good amount of the secret ingredient garam marsala.
My friend Jen. W. back in Brooklyn taught me this tip, and I must say that garam marsala in oat bran banana bread is to regular banana bread as watching regular t.v. is to watching t.v. with Tivo: Once you've had the new version, you're never going back.

P.S. Austinites: Did you know that a loaf of banana bread costs $12 at Texas French Bread? Are they F'ing kidding me? I don't even think that the obnoxiously overpriced Dean & Deluca in SoHo charges that much. If this kind of price inflation is a result of New Yorkers moving to town, I humbly apologize, and offer you my secret banana bread recipe as a peace offering.

Doin' my Homework

Between South by Southwest, old friends and family in town, and the bathroom renovations, it's a miracle I have accomplished anything above and beyond keeping my hair clean and my kitchen clean. I eek in time when I can these days, and my Superbuzzy stash is finally going to good use.
We bought this rocker at Ikea when we first moved to Austin. When we got home, there were no cushions included. I am not sure if we got ripped off or not, but I ended up buying some foam at a local upholstery store, and making my own covers for Harlan's very own rocking and reading chair. I used a cotton/linen blend on the back of the chair, and the sides of the bottom. I also used a green Kona cotton, some of the Joel Dewberry faux bois print, and the Superbuzzy trees. My brand new Janome machine came in super handy and I decided to trip out my pillow with this stitch along the borders of the fabrics:
Fancy, don't you think?
I also finally got around to buying a new foam seat for my mid-century love seat, and I covered it with some velvet Crypton fabric, and of course added some pillows made with Japanese fabric from Superbuzzy.

The blue leather ottoman is from John Derian in NY. It's one of my favorite stores of all time. In fact, I would be perfectly happy if Anthropolgie would move in next door, and City Bakery would move in on the other side. They could knock down all the walls, and I would move in and only let in my friends, people who promised to take in and care for stray animals, orphans from Africa and any eastern block country. O.K. you can also come into my store-house if you give me personal Pilates lessons each day with your expensive Pilates machine.

Those pillows on the sofa are also from my Superbuzzy stash, and I must admit that I sewed them a couple of months ago but forgot to post them. Here are details of all the pillows.


Here is a sneak peak of bathroom number one which is just about finished. The tiles are by Cocktail and the color is Mojito. They are made from recycled glass and they are super light and remind me of the ocean. I'm going to make both bathrooms pretty much the same, and my theme (yes, I'm giving my bathrooms a theme) is of course, the sea (or if you want it make it sound really fancy, let's call it la mer).

I've been slowly making more items for Rose & Duke, including more of the tree applique with painted deer shirts, onesies, and pants. I will be adding them to the shop tonight or tomorrow. I decided to stop hand painting the deer and go with using freezer stenciling them for now, since it's a little more crisp looking and leaves less room for error. A few of the hand-painted ones were not what I was hoping for and so I'll be adding them to a new SALE section of the site. I've also started sewing together the long-awaited waterproof play mats. These are great looking quilts with PUL waterproof backs. The PUL is the same fabric used in some cloth diaper covers to prevent liquid from getting to the other side of the cloth. The idea of the waterproof play mats is that they can be used with young babies whose diapers often leak (and who often puke all over the place unexpectedly). This way, mothers can protect their floors, beds, couches, and those of people whom they visit with baby in tow. The play mats are also perfect to bring to a park where grass may be wet from morning dew or rain. I hope these are a hit. Here is the first one I've put together:
As you can imagine it will be a challenge to photograph these since they are quite large. I'm probably going to make them in a large size and a small size, so that customers can have options.

As many of you know, I love to bake, and each week I make a batch of muffins, scones, or something else both tasty and full of fiber for us to grab in the morning and eat as we scurry out the door. I realized that if I at least post the breakfast of the week each week, along with accompanying recipe, that I'll be forcing myself to check in here four times a month. I think this is a must as I tend to get distracted easily and forget to post on a regular basis. This week's breakfast is a mixed-berry lemon muffin.
The special ingredient is a Meyer lemon which have been in the supermarkets around town this week. For those who have never had one before, those suckers are super sweet and delicious. I also made a big batch of vinaigrette with a few of them for salads.

Mixed Berry Meyer-Lemon Muffins:
2 sticks unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
Mix in mixer for about five minutes until light and fluffy. Add a swig of vanilla, and then slowly add four eggs, one at a time, being sure to mix well after each addition. Meanwhile, have four cups of well-mixed grains. I vary what I use here, and this week I used 1 cup of white flour, 1 cup of oat bran, almost 2 cups of stone ground whole wheat flour, and a dollop of ground flax seeds and wheat germ. Total grains should be 4 cups. Add to this 1/2 tsp. salt and 4 tsp. baking powder. Mix well. Grate the skin of an organic lemon (non-organic lemon skins are supposedly pretty chemical-laden) and add this to the grains. Have a cup of buttermilk set aside, and squeeze half a lemon into it. With the mixer on, alternate pouring in some flour with some buttermilk, ending with buttermilk. Add three cups of mixed frozen (or any kind of) berries. Bake at 375 for 25 minutes.
Last but not least, I'm excited to have joined Ravelry, the knit and crochet community. I first heard about over at Futuregirl's blog, and boy am I psyched to get back into my projects. If any of you are on Ravelry, please look me up (VioletteCrumble) and make me your friend! You know I love this web-community jazz.

Also, I need your opinion on something. Should I cover the rest of my mid-century sofa in the same pumpkin fabric that I just made a new seat in. I love the funky pattern of the original fabric, but I'm not sure if it's just too many crazy things going on at once. I am slowly learning how make my surroundings a bit more minimal looking. What say thee? Yea or nay?

Second post in two days!

I forgot to do self-promotion last night.

This past week, Rose & Duke was featured on the blog Cuteable:

I was also asked to participate in Funky Finds' March Giveaway of handmade baby items. One lucky winner will receive a Rose & Duke gift certificate for any shirt or onesise.

Be sure and enter the contest :)

Picopter Pants and other tales

Now that life is falling into place a bit, I am returning to doing things that I enjoy, such as working on projects planned for before we moved to Austin.

Case in point: I bought some helicopter fabric from Superbuzzy (do I even need to link it anymore?) back in August to make curtains for Harlan's room. It turns out that the blinds in there don't offend me as much as I originally thought they would, and the kid is totally, completely, obsessed with what he calls "piecopters". There are quite a bit of piecopters flying around Austin for some reason. We have even seen two of them make landings on near by hospital roofs (there are about a trillion hospitals here for some reason. They all have special purposes too, like the heart hospital, the children's hospital, the eye hospital, the trauma hospital, the big toe hospital, and the eyebrow hospital). I broke out the fabric and made Bub some pants that he refuses to take off:


I also recently bought him some frog rain boots at Target which he is quite fond of wearing:
This is the outfit he picked out today to wear to Ikea. We went there to pick out new bathroom supplies because we are finally getting the bathrooms renovated, hooray! I will post before and after photos when the work is finished. The bathrooms are way too gross now to simply post before photos. Seriously. If you thought our balcony looked like Sanford and Son's, you don't even want to know what's in the loos.

Harlan's latest obsession besides piecopters are pillow houses. We discovered pillow houses last week over at chez Ellen & Brennan. Their sons pull all the pillows from the house together and dump them across the living room floor. They then proceed to throw themselves on top of the pillows and one another. For, like, hours. It seems to never get old. They like to be buried in piles of pillows and pretend to be chickens coming out of the eggs too. That's good times. Here they all are at Harlan's first pillow house:

And here is Harlan at home with his own pillow house. Please note the pillow I made from Superbuzzy fabric!
Doesn't he look just like a newborn chick?

Here are the guys at a trip to the zoo last week:
And here is a lousy shot of an amazing band called the Quebe Sisters. You can listen on that link.
They are a family with three sisters who all won Texas fiddle contests (one is the national champ as well) and they sing the loveliest harmonies I have heard in years. Plus, you really can't beat triple fiddle.
If you're wondering how we got to see a band play, just notice the playscape (that's 2008 speak for "jungle gym") structure behind the tent. The local fancy supermarket has a restaurant and a huge deck and playground (with a heart hospital right on the other side! And the hospital that Ladybird Johnson died in, one block away) attached to it. On the weekends they have bands play for free outdoors so that suckers like us with kids can pretend we still have social lives. I don't want to make all of you who are freezing feel jealous, but it does feel pretty awesome to spend a winter evening sitting outdoors in a light dress and watch the sun set while drinking a margarita and listening to a kick-ass live band play. Did I mention the playscape behind the tent where Harlan is happy to run amok for two hours?


And now, I am introducing my new blog collection of local bumper stickers. Here are the best of the past week.

Irony and humor:


Scaring you away from hell with the threat of an angry and wrathful God:


That's right sistah:


Whatever it takes to keep you away from the devil:

Drumroll please....

Rose & Duke is open for business!

I love the way the site turned out, and I have more products that I'll be adding to the site when they're ready.

Today I was thrilled to see that Rose & Duke got a mention on my favorite blog about web shops for kid's stuff: Bloesem kids.

I must warn you to hide your wallet before checking her site out. Every store she highlights sells the loveliest handmade items for children. It's addictive for shopaholics like myself.

In mail news January was a pretty exciting month over here. I won a contest on Chet & Dot's blog and check out the booty I received from Jenn:
That's right gals! I got a free Chet and Dot drawstring bag, a kleenex pack holder, a scalloped-edge wallet, a mini spool of twine, a bookmark, and my favorite, a tiny penguin ornament. I tell you it was better than Ed McMahon showing up at my door with balloons.

But wait, there's more! Last month I fell in love with a new blog, Elsa Mora. I found Elsita through the flickr embroidery group, but she also makes spectacular porcelain sculptures, detailed dresses, jewelry, and prints. Anyhow, Elsa highlighted one of the prints she made on her blog (it's called Motivations) and I commented that I wanted to purchase it when it went into her etsy shop.

Instead of putting it in the shop she sent it to me! I got it to frame and give to Joe for his classroom, although I'm looking forward to the summer when I get to have it back.

Lastly, I had pretty much given up hope of ever receiving my swap package from the Montessori by Hand holiday traditions swap. I sent my package out on the mid-December deadline, and when mine hadn't arrived before I left town for the holidays, I wrote to my swap partner. She had apparently accidentally sent my package to the wrong address and it was returned to her. Anyhow, it finally made it to me in late January and inside were some recipes, some truffles, and this adorable acorn hat family. Emily also included an envelope with some other acorn hats so that I could make my own. I have to admit these were worth the wait!

And here's another reason for a drum roll, after staying home with Harlan full-time since he was born I've finally gone back to work part-time. Now that Harlan has acclimated to Montessori school, I'm going to work at my own school each morning. I'm tutoring junior high students at a near by public school in a rural area that I had never been to before. It's only fifteen minutes away from my central Austin neighborhood, but you would never know you were right next to a city based on all the fields that stretch to the horizon. The weird thing is that it's kind of a rural ghetto. There may be expansive fields on either side of the two-lane road, but every few fields there is one filled with something like a row of pink dumpsters, a gentleman's club, or a cluster of mobile homes with cardboard window coverings (and yes, they are occupied). I'll have to start taking some pictures to add to the rural decay flickr group. There are some truly spectacular shots in this group, like this one, and this one, and this one.

It feels good to be back at work, not just because it gets me out of the house, but because as some of you may know I was suffering from stomach issues and ensuing panic attacks when I was in graduate school (and pregnant with Harlan). I was tutoring at a public school back in NYC at the time and it became physically impossible for me to continue the work I was doing as well as attending my classes. I could not get on a subway. I was positive I was going to need a bathroom or that there would be a bomb on the train, or that there would be a bomb scare and the train would stop and I would need a bathroom and not be able to get to one. I could not stop thinking about the people who were on the subway both during 9-11 and during the blackout a couple of summers later when subway riders were trapped for hours. It was a very rough period in my life, both because of the physical and emotional issues I was having, and because of how difficult it was for me to get those around me to understand that I was in a legitimate crisis and not able to control what was happening to my body. While panic attacks are common, people who have never had one can't really grasp how terrifying they are, and how much they can limit one's ability to function. In my personal situation, the panic attacks were a direct result of the stomach issues I was having during my pregnancy, and once Harlan was born, the fear of having more panic attacks did not help my stomach functionality return to normal. It became a case of the chicken and the egg whenever I had to give up control and get on a subway or bus or in a car, and I retreated into a safe and wonderful world in Fort Greene where I was lucky enough to be able to surround myself with compassionate and intelligent mama friends. For Harlan's first year I was never alone, and I never had to explain to anyone why I couldn't get on a subway and come meet them. I was also lucky enough to have Joe support me and believe that I would get better. He never pressured me to get on a subway that I couldn't get on, or to "try this or try that" as many other well-intentioned loved ones suggested.

I was not a stranger to the world of panic attacks when I became pregnant with Harlan. Back when I graduated college and began my first job teaching at a school for children with emotional and learning disabilities, I experienced panic attacks for the first time. This first time too, stomach issues were involved, as was the fear of getting on public transportation. The school was two very long bus-rides away from my house and I was lucky enough to have a best friend who drove me to work at the crack of dawn each morning, even though she had no reason to be up that early. Our friendship ended years later, but I will always be thankful for her help during my first crisis. I suppose I have been very lucky during both periods in my life when I was full panic-crisis-mode. If I had had to experience either time without such wonderful friends and loved ones, I'm not sure I would have made it through to the other side. Anyhow, the point of my divulging all of this personal information to the world is that my being able to take myself to work each morning means that it's finally over, and that I'm officially back in the world of the fully-functioning. For the most part I kept my crisis to myself, because it was difficult to explain and also because it was shameful. In retrospect I can't understand why I felt ashamed except that I was afraid of being judged. I suppose I'm not anymore.

Greetings earthlings

Yes, it has been a long time since I posted an entry here. The explanation for my absence is that we took a long vacation back to NYC for Christmas and then down to Florida for Harlan to meet my 95 year old grandparents.

Since our return I have made a new year's resolution to get my time management under control, and to prioritize what I spend my non-Harlan time doing. This blog has been bumped down a notch, along with reading my favorite blogs, because right now I am under a deadline for the launching of the new Rose & Duke site and so I'm spending whatever time I have working on samples of the 2008 designs to photograph. I also made it a new year's resolution to make more time to work on personal craft projects for my home and my family. It seems like I used to spend a ton of free time making cute outfits for Harlan and other nifty creations, but sadly that free time got all eaten up by work obligations, and suddenly what began as a fun way to make money without leaving the house became a very full time job. I am going to try and find balance this year my friends.

Without further ado I present the highlights of the past month:
Harlan enjoyed opening a ton of Christmas gifts at his grandma "Mimi's" apartment. It was so bittersweet to be home (Joe wonders how long it will be until we call Texas "home") and see all our family and friends. We miss everyone a lot but at the same time our peers with toddlers are stressing about finding places to live where a second child could fit, and getting their toddlers into pre-school. As many of you may know the pre-school scene in NYC is super competitive and expensive. These are two adjectives I'm not so thrilled with, and our trip basically reaffirmed that we made the right move to Austin.
Our trip to Flordia was ironically freezing cold. The local news seemed to have around the clock coverage of the local citrus growers and how they were trying to salvage their crops. Harlan enjoyed meeting his great grandparents, but let's just say they had forgotten how two year olds act and seemed to think that I had let a wild gorilla loose in their condo. Above is a photo of a house that had a crocheted gaslight cap. I really wanted to get up on the lawn and get a close up shot for the blog, but I was too chicken to get out of the car with my camera. There were a LOT of crocheted gaslight caps, all in green, white, and red for the holiday season (or because everyone in Florida is Italian, but I tend to think the holidays had more to do with it).
This photos was taken at a recent turkey fry potluck party that my friends Kevin and Jenifer hosted at their home here in Austin. The Jackalope that Harlan is posing on was made by Kevin at his amazing business Blue Genie Art. By the way, if you have never tasted a deep-fried turkey before you are seriously missing out. I went to the party thinking it would taste just like turkey except with a fried skin on the outside. Instead it turns out that frying a turkey seals in all the juices and flavors that end up pouring out of the meat when you bake it in an oven. D-licious. Below is a shot of Kevin deep frying some Twinkies. I didn't try these, but I heard they were pretty F'ing good too.