Cold Frame - Week 2

Well, the first day of spring brought a foot of snow to Maine. It was, surprisingly, still warm enough to put the cold frame on the porch the next day.

Cold Frame March 21

I was worried about being able to keep the temperature even - we had kind of a cold snap - but things seem to be progressing. The parsley decided to come out to play, though the sprouts were still too small to get a good picture. Here are the kale and shallots week two.

Kale - Week 2

Shallots - Week 2

However this rather low-tech experiment works out, I've been enjoying seeing something green outside my sewing room window on these early spring days!

Christina's come up with some really cool designs to add to our collection: a whale tea towel, hydrangea tea towel, and allium tea towel. We hope to have them listed in our Etsy Shop soon. We'll post an announcement on our facebook page when they're ready, so please join us there. Don't forget to let us know how your gardening projects are going!

Hope your week's a good one!

Portable Cold Frame Experiment

 I recently read an article about starting seeds in containers (milk jug, yogurt containers, and the like). The idea is to plant the seeds in the containers, wrap them in plastic, and stick them outside for natural light. When it comes time for planting, the plants will already be "hardened." Seemed like a cool idea.

Plastic Bin "Cold Frame"

Instead of many small containers, I purchased a plastic bin and some seed trays. It's Maine in March (Zone 5a), and I wasn't 100% sure it would be warm enough yet to keep seedlings outside. The bin makes moving the seedlings very easy.

Week One Seedlings

The trick is to keep the temperature inside the bin somewhere between 60-75 degrees Fahrenheit and to give the seedlings enough sunlight to thrive. My south-facing porch seems to be working so far.

I bought a $3 thermostat to keep inside the bin. That helps me track the temperature. Sometimes, despite the 30 degree (or below) temperatures outside, the inside of the bin reaches 85-100 degrees. When this happens, I just prop the cover open to let things cool down a bit.

As soon as the sun starts going fading, the temperature inside the (uninsulated) bin drops quickly. I've just been bringing the bin inside for now. Hopefully, in a week or two, I'll be able to leave the bin outside even at night.

After a week, the kale, shallots, and basil have decided to show themselves. I'm still waiting for the peppers and parsley. Still a long way to go before these babies can be planted, but I'll keep you posted!

Holiday Shipping Deadlines

Holiday shoppers, please keep in mind that postal shipping times slow this time of year. While we're happy to ship world-wide throughout December, international orders placed after December 3 and US/domestic orders placed after December 14 may not arrive in time for Christmas. Please email us or convo us through our Etsy shop for expedited shipping. Hope your holidays are joyous and fun!

Common Ground Fair

The Common Ground Country Fair is September 21-23 in Unity, ME. Our booth will be in the same spot as last year, so we hope you'll stop by and say hello! For a schedule of events, ticket information and more, please click this link. See you at the fair!

Math in Bread Making

Yup, there's math in bread making. The amount of flour used determines the ratio of all the other ingredients in the bread. There's an actual formula professional bakers use to figure out their recipes.

Until recently, I've always just made bread by "feel"--adding water or flour to the dough as needed, but after reading up on bread baking, I purchased a scale as an experiment. I wondered if this would take the fun out of bread making for me. I want bread making to be relaxing and enjoyable, not dogmatic.

What I learned is that I'm, generally, heavy handed with the flour. For example, my 3 1/2 cup of flour is quite a bit more than 16 ounces. I always wondered why I end up adding much more liquid to the dough than called for in recipes. I guess one of the tricks of really good bread is to use just enough yeast to make the dough rise effectively. Changing the flour and liquid ratios affects the yeast's ability to do its job. So, by weighing out the flour, liquids and other ingredients, my doughs are more consistent. I'm moving over to the "weighing the ingredients" camp. It doesn't take that much extra effort and I do think it's making a difference in the quality of my bread.

What do you think? To weigh or not to weigh? That is today's question!

Cheers!--Janyce

The Bread Shack

Look for a sunny yellow building on Rt 4. (Grabbed these pictures in the afternoon sun, so the colors are a bit washed out).

Managed to get all the way back to Old Town without digging into this olive loaf. So looking forward to din-din!

The variety of loaves, soups, sandwiches and baked goods offered at The Bread Shack  make it difficult to choose a favorite. Definitely worth the trip!

Ciabatta al Formaggio

Another foray into pre-fermentation! The recipe I used for ciabatta al formaggio called for poolish: a flour, water, yeast starter with the consistency of very thick pancake batter.

This sits in the refrigerator overnight bubbling away and fermenting slowly and, then is added to the ciabatta dough recipe the next day. I added cheddar, provolone and romano cheese to the dough first by layering it on top of the dough.

Then by folding it in. (The dough can actually be wetter than this and still work).

Here's the dough ready for its second to last rise (before it's shaped and ready to go in the oven.

The shape of this bread is supposed to resemble a dancer's slipper. I need some practice...but here's the dough ready to pop into the oven.

And...here are the finished loaves of ciabatta.

I think I worked the dough a little too much when I was getting it ready for the oven...This bread, characteristically, has large holes in it and I'm sure I popped some of the bubbles when I was shaping it, but, still I'm happy with the final outcome...a tasty addition to tonight's dinner. The cheese filled in some of the air pockets for a nice little burst of flavor. Definitely going to try this recipe again.

Enjoy!--Janyce

BTW, you can find the recipe I used in Peter Reinhart's "The Bread Baker's Apprentice." This is the second recipe I've tried from the book...loving it so far! The instructions are clear and the illustrations make it easy to know what the bread's supposed to look like at various stages.