The secret to better bread

I've been on a baking spree lately - determined to bake the perfect loaf. It seemed no matter how many recipes I followed however, or the myriad of techniques, I always ended up with woeful results. Oh sure, it looked like bread, but it tasted like heavy and dense yeast!

Don't believe me? Compare the results for yourselves!! Below is a loaf I made yesterday (right) and a loaf I made today (left).

What did I do differently? Unbleached flour. It actually allows the yeast to do it's job properly, which is lift the dough to twice it's size. Normal flour (although not marked "bleached" in the list of ingredients) will counteract the yeast, and defy the biological reaction required for making bread. That's what bleaching does to flour. It kills off the vital living components needed.

Did you know that unless labeled "unbleached", chances are, the flour listed on the packets ingredients, has been bleached.

Not very good if you're attempting to bake bread as good as the local bakery. But isn't a freshly baked loaf of bread, a thing of beauty when done right?

Figuring out exactly how to get the perfect loaf, can be a bit of a mystery though. I have to let you in on a little secret however. I used to be a bakery assistant many years ago. Surprising? Well, you have to do something for a crust! (*wink-wink*) Seriously though, we used something called "bakers flour" in the bakery, and I always wondered what was so different about it. Something magical must have been in there, because I could never bake things as nice at home, as I could in the bakery.

Being a bakery assistant and not a trade-qualified (TQ) baker however, I didn't understand much of what I was doing. It all just came in bags and I put it together the way the TQ bakers told me to. It all seemed to work exactly how they said it would too. So why-o-why couldn't I get the same results at home?

I'll tell you why. Plain flour. It's actually labeled a flour, but I doubt very little of the whole food required to be classed as one, is present. That's really why two distinct types of flour have emerged. Labeled either, "bakers flour" or, "plain flour". I'm sure you've seen both on your supermarket shelves. Baker's flour is meant to have magical voodoo powers that turn average kitchen cooks into budding professional bakers. Plain flour is for people on a budget. Who would actually know the difference of what goes into them however?

Isn't flour just flour? Well, in our dumbed down, in the name of profit, society, flour is the sole ownership of the flour producing companies. They can put whatever they want in it, and you as the consumer, pay more or less for the kinds of results you want in your kitchen. If you want great bread, pay for the "bakers flour" with the picture of a golden loaf on the front. If you want great pancakes, pay for the "pancake mix" in the convenient plastic pouring bottle.

Have you smelled flour that is alive when you cook with it? It's a thing of beauty. All living things are. But if you've never used whole foods before, you will always fall short of the mark. Bakers flour is just code for real ground wheat that will work as a living product should. And bread is a living product.

I guess I've had the luxury of working in a bakery however, and that really gave me the input to not just make bread, but also feel the tactile pleasure of yeast and flour, wofting smells and finally the satisfaction of a customer as they approached the counter - wanting the freshest loaf you could put in a bag, that didn't burn straight through it.

I felt that same sensation this morning, when both my daughter and I marveled at a magical golden loaf that somehow came out of our oven. There was nothing magical about it's creation however, we've known for centuries how to make bread - but our flour has gone into the hands of professional marketers who want to provide a value added "packet of solutions", that really just comes from less processed foods.

Yet they still sell us the powdery artificial residue (ie: plain flour) at a cheaper price. I wonder why? Make of it what you will. ;)

My advice, next time you're looking for a mid-range but not heavily processed flour option for bread making purposes - look to the very bottom shelves, where you'll see bulk flour often labeled, "unbleached".

I recently purchased 5kg of unbleached bakers flour for $10 (AUD) which works out to about $2 per kilogram. The best flour to use is the stuff you grind yourself, but I think that takes a particular dedication not all of us can adopt. Pricing of grain mills being one major hurtle.

But "I" don't want to kid you either...there's a lot of practice involved in making a good loaf of bread too. Patience is a vital ingredient, and it's free - but you need plenty of it if you are to get anywhere making bread. Just don't necessarily fall for the marketing of "bakers flour", when it's basically just less processed flour with fewer chemical additives. Organic doesn't necessarily mean unbleached either. Make sure it says organic AND unbleached.

The list of ingredients I had on my bulk purchase of flour recently, was unbleached wheaten flour and thiamine. While it sounds so simple, the results speak for themselves.

Makes you wonder why they sell the other stuff? Being cheaper doesn't necessarily mean it works, or even that it can be classed as a proper food group. Now that I've gotten reacquainted with my unbleached bakers flour however, I can see me using it for practically everything. I may even start getting lighter pancakes again!

Can't you just smell it now...?

Chicken fever...again

Some have already arrived, but there are more in the incubator - baby chicks that is! The first batch brought seven babies, and the second batch I have yet to candle. But the chicks will be two weeks old this weekend!

So fluffy and cute...I especially like the barnevelder/welsummer crossed with araucana. For a cross, their feathers are a lot more marked than their barny/welsummer mums were, when they were chicks. I was surprised by that.

Out of this batch we got four crosses and three pure araucana. As you can see in the picture above, I'm sure we have two hens and two cockerels with the crosses. If you see the two hens facing each other, they have their shoulder feathers coming in, while the two other crosses (boys) have only their wing tip feathers. Girls have a habit of feathering up quicker than boys, but this is not the case with every breed. We'll have to see if my estimations are correct.

I think I may have only one hen out of the araucanas though. Albeit, sexing araucanas isn't something I've had much practice at yet. I think the boys have longer necks and bigger hairdo's than the girls. Again, I'll have to wait and see.

Of the other chicks I hatched prior to this batch, I wasn't able to keep them. I reached a point of overload when I began running out of places to put them all. I put it down to poor planning on my part, but I was fortunate to find potential new homes for them in groups.

You will be happy to note however, that I didn't have any problems with araucana chicks getting crooked neck, this time around. I deliberately kept the temperature on the incubator bellow the recommended 37.7 degrees Celsius. I was happy for it to range between 36.9 and 37.7, and got great results.

So it's true what I read, that it's less dangerous to go slightly lower than the recommended temperature, than to go even just a fraction of a degree higher. I reckon that's what was affecting my araucana chicks - it was too hot for them and it affected their development.

I'll have to see what the next batch brings at the end of the month. Not to worry about space though. I'm getting set-up before they arrive, so I won't have chicks coming out my ears again!!

Our backyard...

It's STILL raining here - two weeks and the weather bureau is predicting more. Our bush block hasn't seen this much rain in decades. Literally. Even though we've not lived here that long, we've lived in the area for over a decade. Seriously though, as wet as it is, it also makes for a wonderful change. The land needed it.

Anyway, we got a break in the weather yesterday afternoon, so I decided to see how the water was flowing on the block. We have several gullies cross-crossing the block, which naturally deals with the run-off. I've never actually seen them flowing up-close, because until now, all our large rain events have only fallen within 24 hours. So the run-off is often gone before I can get out with the camera.

But on my recent hike in our backyard, it was a wonderful discovery of miniature waterfalls and changing hues of wet bark and foliage.

This is part of our sand-pit, run off area. The erosion has cut out a miniature waterfall that sounds absolutely delightful when it's running. Although we're not too keen on further erosion, we understand this is a natural part of the lands ability to cope with large water events. One such strategy, is to cut a meandering path through the block, to help slow down the flow of water.

This is part of the reason we're not in a hurry to remove the lantana bushes. Not until we've added more plant life to hold the banks together at least. Otherwise, it would only take a few heavy falls to wipe out most of the soil from this area. If you notice above, on one side, Dave has cut the grass, and the other is left to grow naturally. Our intention is to plant both sides of the banks with reeds and rushes, so we can eventually remove the lantana and keep all the grass mowed.

It's not that we're particularly fussy about mowed lawns, but we are fussy about seeing snakes before we stick a ruddy great big foot on them, LOL. Fortunately we've only encountered green tree snakes so far, but I'm happy for the brown and black snakes (neighbours have reported on their blocks) staying a mystery to us.

The above image is where the run-off leaves our property, behind that lovely thicket of shrubs. This is what we call our recharge area though - which means whenever there is too much water to get through, it spills over the bank and has more time to soak into the sand. While it looks like a creek bed, it's not actually a creek. It's just the accumulation of silt over the seasons, where soil erosion from up stream, ends up sitting here.

To show you how a recharge area works, the image below is to the left of the above image. It's where the water has spilled over and is soaking into the recharge area. And yes, it was the same area, a reader dubbed an interview area. Hi mountainwildlife, how bizarre is that interview set-up now, LOL?

Here is the same spotted gum tree, as well...only it's bark has changed colour in the wet. You can see it's almost completed it's annual shedding of flaking bark, having grown another foot or two, no doubt!

The spotted gum is a native here. Not surprising since it doesn't require a great soil to grow in, and recovers quickly from bushfire. We get several species of native trees here, but the spotted gum would have to be the quickest grower so is more common. They're quite a large tree too, around 30 or more metres in height.

While we're looking at bark though, here is my favourite tree. It's an Ironbark with thick, robust bark. Being a hardwood, they take longer to grow than the spotted gum, but their width is something else to behold. I love that this tree is part of our backyard, and as long as we're living here, it will stay.

Still on the subject of trees though, here is a reminder of the 2003 bushfire, which came through this area - two years before we bought the place. There are a few black tree stumps like this one, and even a few hollowed out trees (no branches).

I'm in awe how rain makes the black charcoal of the stump, stand out more - and there are even plants growing in the middle of it. To the left is some moss too, all part of nature's big recycling project! Even when something dies, a useful job is found for it.

I love how the rain brings new life with it too. All these green sprouts have popped up through the natural layer of mulch nature provided. Even this native grass is sporting a new shade of green, from some of the brown ones already dying off.

This is not a very good picture (below) but this is another gully that runs down one of our south facing slopes. The miniature waterfall trickled and it sounded so beautiful. One of our future aspirations, is to green these particular gullies. We have another gully on the opposite side - both running down into the sand-pit.

We would love to have tree ferns and all manner of rain-forest foliage, planted here. It would be such a haven for the green tree frogs, dwarf tree frogs and green tree snakes. Of course, the gullies only flow in heavy rain, but with enough plant material, it should generate enough humus to keep the plants moist in drier times.

Peeking through the trees in our backyard, we can see the back of our house again. I remember when we used to drive to our block to visit, and imagine our house sitting there. We'd say to each other, "imagine when all this becomes our backyard". Wow, how did it happen so fast!

Seasons change, plants grow and die, that's what I love most about our backyard. We play with a very small portion of it, but nature does all the rest. Most of the photos you've seen today are, "as is". In other words, we haven't interfered with nature's original design. Of course, the surrounding landscape is always changing - depending what the neighbours and local council are doing. Because what happens up-stream, always effects what happens here. So in a way, I suppose it's not entirely a la naturale.

One last photo before I go though...this is technically our backyard. Or the civilised section we've managed to tame. The house is just up the top of that bank, and below (in the distance) you can see our wedding "wishing well". This was made for us, so that guests at our wedding could place cards inside. We got some lovely gifts of money too. Nothing enormous, but it was enough to help contribute for the next phase of our life.

So I think it's fitting I make this the last photo of our backyard. It all contributed to finally bringing us here. Maybe we can do some good in future? I hope we can.

Being considerate

The rain has me inside again - it's been like this for a few days now. I'm not complaining, as I've recently planted some seedlings in the garden which are absolutely loving these conditions.

But I've done a lot of cleaning and I will probably start a new dishcloth today, so I'm left with enough time, to write about something that's been on my mind lately. Consideration. How much consideration do you give any situation you find yourself in?

Two more dishcloths to add to the collection

Funnily enough, I was going to make this post about my working class background (ie: feeling guilty for owning anything indulgent) but it didn't feel quite right somehow. For as much as my attitude towards possessions came through my working class/edge of poverty background, what has been on my mind lately was more than that. It was about weighing up any decision I make, against a scale of understanding.

Now I could have said, moral code, or weighing my decisions against an ethical blueprint. But even that seemed a little dodgy to me. I mean, how do I know it's moral or ethical? Is it because I found the right amount of justification, or a lot of people seem to agree with me? The simple truth is, I can only make decisions, against a scale of understanding I've arrived at to date.

If you're wondering where this is coming from, it all started when we broke our pledge to the no-spend year, by purchasing plants at the nursery recently. There was nothing really sinister about that - we did have the money and it was a wise investment - so why was I feeling so guilty about it?

This led me to consider my working class/edge of poverty background. I say, "edge of poverty", because I was raised by a single parent who worked for a minimum wage, and the government pension for sole parents (back then) wasn't enough to live on. Needless to say, I learned a lot about frugal living from my mum. I also learned a love of gardening too. It didn't matter where we lived, we were always looking for a place to plant something.

So here in lies my dilemma...a love of gardening drew me to purchase the plants recently, but we are attempting to live more frugally for a greater good too. Both ideologies (enjoyment and sacrifice) seemed to clash in one decision. Result...guilt!

Since then, my mind has been occupied with a desperate attempt to locate a "repair patch". Like when your antivirus program realises it's vulnerable to attack, and the kind programmers develop a repair patch to fix it. For without the repair patch, the whole system becomes defunct. And when I mean defunct, we can hardly throw a whole human being into the trash when they start reading "error" messages in their Central Processing Unit, can we?

I hope it doesn't come to that, because I happen to think I'm a very useful model of human and could even become a vintage collectible one day. But I digress, I first needed to address this error in my programming. How do I do that?

Well it leads me to the very title of this entry - being considerate. An act of consideration would allow me to accept, it wasn't weakness on my part for purchasing the plants. It may have been spontaneous and derived from desire - but these are not bad things of themselves. They only become bad when they start overruling every other part of your thinking. I would know it is bad for example, if I wasn't able to pay my bills or meet my responsibilities because of those desires.

What dirty laundry? I'm clean, I tell you!

Still, financial ability, has always hinged on the unpredictable nature of the future too. For example, what if a series of events took all our money away from us - events no-one could have predicted? Does that mean we spend the entire 20 years it takes to pay back the mortgage, never spending for pleasure?

We need to operate under a certain amount of ignorance, dare I say, over-confidence, that the future will be manageable. Even if it's not perfect, it can be managed nonetheless. It doesn't mean only living for desire, or only living to an exact moral code either. It means considering that both ideologies will clash at times, so neither one should rule indefinitely.

For without consideration, what is morality and justice anyway?

Maybe as a society, we have to work harder on encouraging consideration towards others too. Our social dialogue and attraction to opinions about certain kinds of people, doesn't do us any favours sometimes. Perhaps it's not enough to teach people they're wrong and everything they do is wrong. Humans can be great self-regulators, if they're taught how to be accepting of themselves and others. By "great", I guess I mean, moderate, too.

Constantly going from one extreme to another, doesn't allow time for consideration...and that's where we really get our understanding from. Through consideration. Believe me though, it's easier to read about than implement. No one is perfect!

That means, you and me. But it's still worth considering all the same....

New Header Image

For those who may be curious to know what kind of moth I've placed in my Header Image, it's a Grapevine Moth, or Phalaenoides glycinae, if you're into speaking Latin. :)

It's a native moth and I've only seen a few around here over the past few years. I suspect it was sussing out my Luffa vine nearby - which makes for a pretty convincing Grape Vine impersonation, if you ask me.

Given that it's a native insect, and happens to be a good host for wasp eggs who feed on them, I reckon it has a place in the food chain here. It happened to be sunning itself on a log stump, next to our rusty wheelbarrow, when it caught my eye. A really stunning sight!

If you want to know a little more about this moth, visit here.

I've been meaning to...

As I'm writing this entry, I'm wondering if I'll even have time to finish it. So much to do and so many times I've jumped on the computer to write a post, then something always whisks me away. It's not a terrible thing for this to happen, I suppose, as it's just my life and it takes priority. Well, it's not just my life either. It's also the life of our six-year old daughter, a hard working husband and a plethora of chooks.

Speaking of which, I have a few photos of my barnevelders. Actually, I think they're a barnevelder crossed with a welsummer, although they were sold to me as a pure breed at the time. This was the earlier picture I took last year, when they were only a few weeks old. Those two in the picture, turned out to be hens - one was red and one more ginger-blonde.

They are quite docile. Adorable in fact. You can pick them up as they scratch for food near your feet. On the other hand, they can be quite flighty when they want to be too! Their eggs are a lovely dark brown colour, but one girl lays a really splotchy coloured egg. I don't have a decent picture of the eggs yet, but this is the ginger-blonde girl, we named Penny...all grown up!

Her sister we named Jenny. So they are Penny and Jenny - shouldn't be too hard to remember I hope. Their two brothers had to get the chop, unfortunately, as they were terribly aggressive and we couldn't have that. Not this boy though, remember him...

We decided to name him "Alfred" after all this time. He just seemed to carry himself like a dignified Alfred, strutting around the yard - head held high, like most Araucanas do. Well, I've gone and crossed him with our two barney girls, who share Hilltop coop with him and two other araucana hens.

The eggs are due out of the incubator in a day or so. I know - terrible aren't I; for not writing something about it sooner? What can I say...I've been having fun learning how to Homeschool and not spend money, LOL. The only reason I have time now is due to the fact our daughter is having a few days sleep-over at her Nan's.

We missed her terribly yesterday. So much so, Dave and I had a sudden urge for chocolate and fatty food all day. Okay, so we were working hard in the garden too, but most of the day we both wanted something deep fried and covered in chocolate. It took me until the late afternoon to realise, we were missing our girl. The food was our compensation for the void I think.

Upon speaking to her on the phone later that night, she too confessed tears that day, all because she missed us too. Awwwh...

How are we going to be when she leaves home for good? I'm surprised how much we miss her now. I'm longing for those hundred questions and hugs and kisses we have every morning. I want a big squishy hug right now. And this folks, is why most of my days are spent wondering if I have the time to blog. Life with my family under wing, is amazing. My daughter is amazing for all the things she gets me to do. My husband is amazing for not complaining about all the crazy stuff we do too, LOL.

How do I convey that all in a post? Believe me, I try to, but then something always calls me away. Like the recyclables I should be taking to the transfer station right now. I've put it off for three weeks already, LOL. I promised myself I would do that today. Hang on a minute...

...back again! Did you miss me? Of course not, LOL, what just took me 30 minutes to drop off three bags of recyclables at the transfer station, and two bags of clothes at the thrift shop bin, can appear mere seconds in cyber space. But I just had to run out and do that - it was bugging me. I wasn't going to miss another week.

Perhaps due to the fact, in part, that we've been increasingly busy in the garden. More ramp digging, feeding and mulching the fruit trees, seed collecting and something recently which broke our no spend year. Ooops! I guess we were compensating for our daughter's absence and spent just over a hundred dollars at the nursery. If we were going to break our no spend challenge though, then I'm glad it was on plants. When you buy a fruit tree, you're buying it's lifetime of food production for your family. Or when you buy flowering trees and shrubs, you're also buying it's lifetime of food production for the eco-system it will be planted in.

Needles to say, AGAIN, I reckon if you're going to break a no-spend challenge on anything, then plants have to be an incredibly sensible indulgence. Of course, we didn't just go willy-nilly at the nursery with an open wallet. We made sure every purchase had a purpose in the garden.

For starters, we needed another pollinator avocado to help fruit production with the first avocado we planted earlier. It was beneficial to plant them in the same season together, even if it was a few months apart. That way, they should come into production around the same time. We've got at least a 3 year wait for first fruits on avocado (yum...avocado) so that's why I didn't want to lag a year behind with the pollinator.

Secondly though, we bought a blood orange citrus tree. Not exactly an essential citrus to have in the garden (in a no spend year) but I haven't seen them stocked in nurseries much, so we took the plunge and grabbed it. We also purchased 10 assorted natives for a noise barrier between us and the neighbours dogs.

Every time we hear them howling, it reminds us of last Christmas when the neighbours went away. They left their dogs on the property (friends came to feed and check on them) but on Christmas eve they wouldn't stop howling. It was very frustrating.

As much as it irritates me, I don't want to be one of those constantly, "shaking my fingers at the neighbours", type neighbours. On the whole, they're not bad dogs and the neighbours do what they can to control them. Besides, we always meant to plant a native garden on our side of the property boundary anyway. Feeling indulgent, we spent our money on some bird feeding and sanity saving plants, LOL.

One last picture before I dash off and turn into a pumpkin! These are the luffa's doing exceptionally well on their trellis. It's a pity it's taken them so long to get to this point, as the heat of summer is almost gone.

For this reason, we're planning on some permanent grape vines next season instead. They'll take a few years of training before we get the kind of coverage we want, but I love the thought of a green wall here, so it will be worth the time invested.

Anyway, that's just a quick run-down of our happenings lately. I cannot promise how regularly I'll be posting in future, as the living part of life is something I don't want to miss. I figured if it was getting increasingly difficult to post my thoughts, then maybe I needed to accept that. If anything my daughter's absence has taught me lately, is how important our family is right now. We're going through a busy period with lots of changes - and I cannot predict when that will end. Or at least, when I have enough time to blog.

So don't consider this goodbye, just a few interludes of wonderful distraction. I promise to post when I can...

Building paradise

Everyone dreams of paradise. More to the point, I think everyone dreams about arriving there. I'm certainly no different. Whenever I visit a permaculture garden on acreage - you know the type - dripping with foliage, water and productive plants - I always end up wishing it belonged to me. If only I lived there to enjoy "that" paradise, oh the things I could do!

My dusty five acres, in comparison, seems rather lifeless. Sure I have recent fruit trees in the ground, chicken coops and the potential for more development - but it's not paradise. It doesn't look or feel anything near it - yet.

And that's really the silly game we play with ourselves about the concept of paradise. It's something other people (or nature) does for us, while we just magically arrive there. The truth is paradise can rarely be afforded by common folk. You either buy it by the million, inherit it from a wealthy relative, visit it, or - you build it from scratch.

Which happened to be the only option we could afford at the time too. This particular block of land was nothing flash. The fact it was five acres, located near a rural city, was probably its most sellable asset. Otherwise, it had two slopes that converged right in the middle - where all the storm water ran through. We could take our pick of house sites - the north facing slope or the south facing slope. The only flat land was the sand pit in the middle!

Our sandpit, or stormwater run-off area

So it seemed our paradise was to be riddled with 30 metre native eucalyptus trees too, lantana thickets, clay-loam type soil which eroded in enormous caverns in any disturbed soil - not to mention the water repelling ability of the soil, not to retain any moisture. We bought into all this rather naively too. All we had to do is build walls, plant plants and use any earth-moving equipment required. Oh yes, and the little thing about water - didn't that just fall from the sky?

Needless to say, our pursuit to find paradise by building it around us, came at the expense of those original (idealistic) beliefs. They had to go! There was much more to it than that. Oh so MUCH more.

The reality is, we haven't stopped working from the day we first bought the land in 2005, until this year, 2010. Five years in total. We've moved dirt - ate dirt - got bogged in mud after the dirt got wet, and still the dirt persisted at teasing our personal thoughts of paradise. Are we deprived? Hardly. But it's certainly a long way awaaaay from the kind of paradise we first imagined.

Our wall, still resembling a dirt mound

For starters...it's a lot harder to believe it's paradise when the ground is parched, the plants won't grow and your back hurts from all the physical labour. But this to me is where my pioneering spirit takes flight. God isn't making any more land, as far as I know, so it's up to me to help rejuvenate paradise to what it used to be.

It may only be a small dream and I may not see anything but dirt for a long time to come. But one should never be accustomed to arriving at paradise. For that generally leads to idealistic opportunism. You can believe what you want, if you've never been tested in paradise.

No matter how much you believe your patch isn't as nice as "paradise", or it's too much hard work, just remember that any labour of love going into growing things, reaps more rewards than the initial effort. It will feed you, shade you, comfort and build you up in years to come - probably when you most need it too.

If you don't build it though...

A day full of dirt (in my books) is a day well spent in paradise. :)