BANNOCK BREAD.
Jesse and I have been having some serious adventures in cooking lately. We cook entirely with wood, and we cook three meals a day....so we are learning a lot about cooking on a fire! It is mostly quite enjoyable, especially when we are able to use the grill outside instead of the wood stove INSIDE (not so fun in the summertime!)The one thing we have not been able to figure out: bread. One day, we will have a real wood cook stove (as opposed to our box stove), and maybe even an outdoor earth oven. But for now, we have been relying on this recipe for Bannock Bread - an easy, biscuit-like treat that we can cook on the stovetop. It is from this AMAZING AMAZING OHHMAZING book that is so beautiful I can't even believe it- Home Made Winter.So, if you want a lovely treat, rustic farmstead style, try this recipe! We love it with some spicy jalepeno jam we got at the farmers market.BANNOCK BREAD
- 2 cups flour
- 1 tbsp sugar or honey
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 3 tbsp butter
- about a cup of buttermilk or sour milk
I literally just mix all of this together with my hands. It is that easy. Or you can follow the recipe and be all clean and tidy about it (mix dry ingredients, add tiny pieces of the cold butter until pea-sized clumps form, then add the milk). But hands work, too. Get your skillet REALLY hot, add some butter and then the dough, shaped into an oval. Cook for about seven minutes on each side and ENJOY!- Hannah.
CHANTERELLE SEASON.
I don't know about you, but we have had an unreal mushroom year. Our morel season was prolific, and our chanterelle season is, for some odd reason, still going—four good flushes and counting.
The season has been cool and wet, at least as far as summers go. We've had several, SEVERAL inches of rain over the last few weeks and with every rain has come a new flush of chanterelle mushrooms, the bright orange fruit of the forest. And it hasn't just been the edible mushrooms which have been so exciting, but all the mushrooms. The wetness decidedly brings out the fungi, and the fungi definitely brings out the diversity. The leaf mold is littered with these "wild flowers of decomposition," so hunting has been both extremely fruitful and oddly colorful.- Jesse.
CONFESSIONS OF A FARMER.
It is in these verdant days of summer that I am most often reminded of my profoundest secret: I have never grown a thing.Indeed, I have prepared ground, carefully and respectfully. I have spread compost. I have sowed seeds, cultivated plants and even harvested their fruits, but if there is one job on the farm I have never had the privilege of, it's growing. Something, or Someone Else entirely, seems to do that work.What magic. What captivating magic that part of the process remains to me. Seeds, many the size of the letters in this post, become food, flowers, or more seeds, making plants potentially taller than ourselves. And I, beyond providing the ideal venue, have nothing to do with it.I have such a deep respect for the forces that make growth possible—forces which science has so prosaically rendered into fancy words and chemical reactions. I learned about processes like photosynthesis in school—I'm assuming—but if someone had just told me it was all a mystery, or it was magic, I might have been in the garden years ago. We all might have been––out there hoping to catch a glimpse of This Allusive Being who reaches into the soil and massages a seed into life, then pulls its white string through the dirt and into planthood. If in biology class I had just been asked to tend a garden, then perhaps I would have left school with a greater love for, and understanding of, biology. Or if more churches spoke of the wonders of nature and God's creation, maybe more people would be gardening (...or going to church!). I'm happy to have found that love now, however, to have found a job working alongside Nature and stewarding its art, enjoying the fruits if its labor professionally.Even if I never get to do the actual growing, though, I've got no complaints. By becoming farmers we dedicate our lives to making sure whoever it is whose job it is to grow can do it well, and do it indefinitely. Farmer, assistant to the Grower. Not a bad title.- Jesse.
