Tag Archives: sourdough bread

Simple Sunday

Posted in books, bread, cancer, ikea by

A different morning. We went for a walk as usual but then I wanted to go to Ikea for a Hemnes that was on sale. It’s the 2 drawers one and I’ve been waiting for them to come back into stock. Plus they were 15% off so a very good deal. I plan on using this in my office area to corral odds and ends.

So there was no gym day and that’s okay. I wasn’t feeling it anyway.

This week is crazy with appts, which is my least favorite thing. But I’ll persevere through.

We’ve been watching ‘Slow Horses’ with Gary Oldman and it is sooo good. A little confusing at first but then you catch on. I just finished reading Ina Garten’s memoir and like it a lot. What a talented woman. Maybe a little over the top with a Type A personality but still I have a lot of respect for her.

I’m reading the new Thomas Perry book, ‘ Pro Bono’. Also excellent.

My son stayed overnight and did a deep clean of my car. It really needed it so I appreciate his effort.

After getting home, I started another Meyer lemon rosemary sourdough. This is a great recipe and seems to work every time.

Here’s the recipe:

88grams of starter

360 grams flour

236 grams water

11 grams salt

1 tsp yeast

Note: I think this recipe would work without the sourdough and just adjust flour and water for the 88 grams of starter and use more yeast.

Mix together to form a loose ball of dough, it will be shaggy. Let rest for 30 minutes and then start your fold and turns. Basically lifting one end of the dough over to the other side. I do this on all four sides if that makes sense. Let rest for 1 hour or so and repeat. I usually forget and just do a few more folds and turns when I remember.

Put in a bucket or bowl and refrigerate overnight. The next morning heat your oven to 475 and keep your dutch over in the oven to heat up. Then take the dough out of the bucket put on parchment paper and do a few tucks and turns( rolling the dough into a ball and turning to create some tension). Then I make a few cuts on the top and put it in the Dutch oven with the top on for 35 minutes. Take the top off and bake for another 15 or so. You can take an internal temp to check if it’s done. anywhere @ 200 degrees is right.

B is not feeling very well so I’m hoping it’s only a passing stomach thing but he’ll call down to Stanford tomorrow and explain what he’s feeling. Hopefully, it’s just a bug.

Well, back to house stuff and reading:)

Frugal Friday

Posted in bread, California, cash envelopes, cooking, frugalism, Uncategorized by

Groceries at Costco were $200. I bought a few things on sale like the breaded Talipa which is a great easy dinner option. Mostly things like milk, and eggs ( no shortage at Costco). I bought the organic 2 dozen pkt for $8.69. I also bought French roast coffee, seaweed snacks my daughter likes, Triscuits, nuts, cheese, asparagus, and a few items I wanted to try. One is a garlic spread( Toom)that’s supposed to be very good.

With that and my TJ’s trip, I’m already at $400 so I’ll need to be careful for the next couple of weeks.

Next week I have a dental cleaning so that’s out of pocket. But I am going to sign up for their dental plan which is $400. That covers 2 cleanings and other stuff so it seems like a good deal.

Today is the national No Spend Day. I hope it has an impact, especially on Amazon, Walmart, etc. During the pandemic, I liked Walmart’s pickup service and used it a lot. But since then I haven’t even been back.

I got gas at Costco so that’s always a savings.

I bought a Christmas gift for my son. An Easton Press copy of ‘A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs’s Court. ” That was Ebay and was $28.00. I haven’t started my Christmas envelope yet, but I’ll write this down. This year is going to be even more minimal as nobody really wants anything. So I’ll do a few gifts each like the Easton Press and East Fork Pottery.

This is the Lemon Meyer rosemary Sourdough. Wow was that good.

This is the newly rearranged office area with the couch on the opposite wall so I can open the sunroom doors.

Here are two of the newly reupholstered Heywood chairs. We got all 5 done. One is my office chair.

This is the dirty cover. Uck!! I guess it’s been about 3-4 years since I did these. I use painter drop cloth material.

They are certainly not professional but work for us.

Today is Dex day and I don’t have a lot planned but I am going to try and wash the inside sunroom windows.

Menu Monday

Posted in bread, cooking, home stuff, meal planning by

Last week ended up kind of a mish-mash of my menus. I did some and not others. Oh well, I’m flexible.

Last night I made a Mexican chicken dish and veggie Chicken patty dish. I grilled the chicken and then when it was done dumped the rest of the salsa in the pan and topped it with Monterey Jack cheese. I did the same in another pan for the veggie chicken patty. We had salad on the side. BTW, Wico has these new chicken veggie patties and for the price point, you can’t beat it compared to Quorn or another name brand.

Monday- I’m either doing fish or the Costco Slice beef, which is sous vide. The reason I’m not sure yet is my son is spending the night so I’ll see which he prefers. I have salad either way.

Tuesday: Quesadillas, beans, and cheese. If there’s any beef left over, I’ll toss that in, too. I bought 2 bags of avocados from Costco so if there are any ripe I’ll top with that. BTW, once the avocados start to ripen put them in the fridge. They will last weeks in there.

Wednesday- Vegetable Barley soup from Costco with homemade sourdough

Thursday- ravioli with marinara sauce with salad

Friday – pizza of some sort.

Saturday- TBD

The sun is out today and it’s a lovely day to be home.

I’m still showing ( apple watch)somewhat elevated sleep dist indicating sleep apnea. There doesn’t seem to be any pattern as to why one day it’s not elevated and the next it is. Does anyone have sleep apnea and what did you do? If I could lose some weight I’m sure that would help:)

I probably should start on our taxes, but not today. 🙂

This was my last boule!

Friday things

Posted in bread, California, cancer, cooking, library by

So the colonoscopy went great and of course, he only had one tiny polyp. Figures. That’s after 15 years since his last one. Leave it to Barclay to only have one small polyp but some strange rare cancer. ( still source unknown). So nothing was conclusive. They did do the endoscopy and again everything was ok. So that leaves us with what does the PET scan show? As of now, Friday pm, we haven’t heard so ???

I went to the gym in Roseville and then picked up my hold at the library. It’s the Jaqueline Winspear book so I didn’t want to miss it.

Then I came home and processed more tomatoes but didn’t can them. I’ll do that tomorrow. I have 2 more boxes of tomatoes but they’re not quite ripe yet.

This weekend should be mellow. I don’t have any plans except maybe the Auburn gym on Sunday. I need to write out a fall ‘to-do list’, like washing the outside windows, etc. If I don’t write it down it doesn’t happen. I don’t think I need any groceries but do need to make a menu up. I started to do the monthly menu again so I’ll go and finish that.

I also made a loaf of sourdough gruyere and pumpkin seed bread. Sounds odd but it’s pretty yummy. My starter is doing great!

Simple Sunday

Posted in Blood test, books, bread, California, cancer, canning tomato salsa, cooking, home stuff, reading by

Update: B called the NP and she said it could take up to 2 weeks to get results. I kind of doubt that especially if there are cancer cells. So maybe soon. I don’t think that there’s going to be any surprise as it seems to be peritoneal cancer which basically is cancer masses in the abdomen. Hopefully, chemo and maybe some surgery will help and extend life. Who knows,? right?

So I opted to not go into the Auburn gym so I could do my first batch of salsa.

I only got 3 pints. The recipe called for 3 lbs cored tomatoes which I did but I think after baking they shrunk down so next time I’ll make more and then weigh the 3 lbs.

Then I got the bread going.

All in all, I started at 7 and I’m done now at 10. So, a good start to the week.

Tomorrow I have my labs and then I’ll go to the Roseville gym. So I’ll get my weights done for the week.

I just finished this book. It was good and I think by him writing stuff that was so emotional will help others. Worth reading.

The next book was about Judith Jones. What an amazing woman and what an amazing life she had.

There were so many books she helped get published including”Diary of Ann Frank”.

Truly a remarkable life.

Here’s a Gus picture;

I think that’s Cherry Ratski under the chair.

Well, I’m off to read or collapse one or the other. Probably read.

Friday things.

Posted in bread, California, cancer by

B will call today since it’s day 6 waiting for the biopsy results. He may or may not get any answers but he’ll try. What a PITA.

I’m on dex 8 mg and it’s really manageable. My BP went up some but nothing outrageous and after taking my lisinopril it went down to 134/86 so that’s very good. Today I’ll do the 4mg and see how that goes. I actually slept well last night without Ativain so that’s also good.

Today I’m doing the usual Dex stuff which is when I see little jobs around the house I’ve either ignored or didn’t see that dust before:)

I’m also making another boule and this one looks good so far. I’ve mostly stuck to my menu plan this week which is good. Tonight I’m not sure what I’m doing. I have some pork in the crock pot for pulled pork but I may not have that tonight. I’m not sure I have any buns for it. I went out to the farm yesterday and did buy some salad stuff. I haven’t been going there weekly because it’s just too expensive for us. I bought radishes, 2 small zucchini and a bag of spring mix and it was $11. That’s rich people’s lettuce. Still, I wanted to go and support them but probably won’t be back for a while now.

I went to Costco on Wednesday after swimming mostly because I needed HP printer ink. But then I added some fruit, shrimp, olive oil and, a few other things. This new Costco is so great. No one was hardly in there and all the registers were empty. How is that even possible???

Well, I’m off to vacuum and whatever else. I’ll update if we get any results:(

Monday Musings

Posted in bread, California by

I’m baking another loaf of the Lost Dutchman’s sourdough. The baguette came out wonderful. This one is probably overinflated so it may not poof up. That’s okay. I have lots of starter and it’s really active. It did take almost 4 days to get fully active again so that’s something to keep in mind.

Today I’m meeting my library friends for coffee. One is recently widowed( from myeloma) and the other’s husband is in treatment for myeloma. Very strange.

This week is Velcade so that shifts how my week goes. And then in May, I have my colonoscopy. So that will change my week for sure. But you gotta do what you gotta do. Or, the fun of getting older. 🙁

On the menu this week is

  • white bean soup with homemade bread ( the beans are Marcella from Rancho Gordo
  • grilled chicken/veggie burger with potato salad
  • falafels in pita bread or just tortillas if I don’t get to Trader Joes.
  • pesto ( from last summer) pasta and a salad of some sort
  • pizza night(maybe a frozen one if I’m lazy)
  • grilled shrimp with some rice or pasta
  • ?? something from the freezer or??

We’ve been eating out on the patio which we do all summer. Right now the weather is perfect.

I repotted a fiddle leaf fig yesterday, hoping it will spur it on to put out some new leaves. Does anyone have tips for that? I bought this large fiddle leaf from the nursery but it hasn’t put out any new growth at all.

Simple Sunday

Posted in bread, California, cancer, cooking, decluttering, husband, minimalism, swimming, Uncategorized, Walking by

So far we’ve made it through the ‘blizzard’ although we didn’t have the blizzard here but lots of rain and wind. Fortunately, we didn’t lose any trees. A friend from way back in the library days had 2 trees fall on their house. Yikes! I’d be breaking out. They live quite a ways up I 80 and I think the wind was worse up there. It looks like today is still stormy so I’m not going to go to the Auburn gym. Plus I’ve kind of felt ‘off’. It’s probably the residual of Dex and Velcade. My blood pressure was high yesterday even with taking my Lisinprol so I’m attributing that to dex too. It’s always something.

I have a loaf of sourdough in the oven and I’ll pull a frozen lasagna out for dinner. the other day I was able to get 4 lasagnas prepped. I think I have some salad stuff to use up too.

Yesterday, I cleaned out a few kitchen draws and probably will do a few other kitchen things today. I need to order propane too. That’s all done on line now so I can do it and pay that way.

I’ve been thinking about how having injured my knee in a split second of stepping off the step ladder wrong way. I think things like this do affect us in deeper ways than we realize. All of a sudden I couldn’t do what I had been doing at all. No walking, swimming, house stuff etc. It really did have an impact on me and with that some sadness of what was lost. I’m certainly much better now and am walking about a mile a day and swimming. But it’s not back to where it was and I’m not sure if it will ever get there realistically. But I’m grateful that I can see forward and keep trying. Yesterday, I used the PT band for a few exercises and it really stressed my knee out so today I’ll skip that part. The other thing I’ve noticed is my routines were more or less disrupted as I couldn’t do the same things such as swish and swipe daily. I’m back at it with more regularity but it definitely impacted me and one has to wonder how things will be in 5 years. I guess the whole point of minimizing and streamlining things was exactly the place I’m in now. My house can handle not getting dusted for a few days, or vacuumed because there’s less to take care of. Daily though, the dishes get done, counters cleared. laundry done, bed made, house tidied. My husband does the laundry daily. He also cleans the kitchen after dinner so it’s a good system. Because of this, I think I will start looking around the house to see what things are taking up space or require some maintenance and then probably get rid of them. I guess this really does comes down to Swedish Death cleaning.

Frugal Friday

Posted in Blood test, books, bread, budgeting, California, cancer, cash envelopes, cooking, frugalism, Uncategorized by

I stopped at Trader Joe’s after the infusion and spent$70 on food. Mostly it was bread, some chicken shwarma( TJ’s has this all seasoned in the meat section and for a great price)my son wanted, pita bread, and a few things I’d been looking for. One was Harrisa and I found it on a bottom shelf. It’s used in some vegan dishes in the new cookbook I got a while back,

Also, the YouTuber Vegan channel, Madeline Olivia, made some black bean meatballs with Harrisa and she said that’s what gives their kick, so I thought I’d try that.

Here’s my copycat Panera Broccoli cheddar soup we had for dinner. this was before I blended it in the Vita-mix. I used most of the leftover Costco bag of broccoli I had in the freezer. It was quite good with this loaf of sourdough. My starter is doing really well after a few days of feeding.

The rain is back and so is the wind so no gym or anything today. Plus Dex is still in my system and my face is still a little red. Boy, I looked like a beet yesterday:)

I bought a pair of Levi’s on eBay at a good price. NWT and only 29.99. On the website, they’re $60 so I thought that was a great deal. Right now I only have one nice pair of Levi’s I use to go out on dates etc. And then only 2 sort of beat-up ones for going to the store or around the house. I never sweat pants at home, only right after getting up and we walk, otherwise, I dress in jeans and Bombas T-shirts or my yoga pants to go to the gym. So I will take that cash and put it back in the bank when I’m in town next.

Next week I have labs so that will give us another picture of what the myeloma cells are doing. I have one more infusion at the end of March before I see Dr. L, so I guess ,depending on this one, I’ll decide to either wait or message him about adding in the second dose. Other than that I have PT on Tuesday and then no other appts. I really do prefer my schedule open and flexible but medical appts are necessary at this point.

I don’t have any meal prep to do today so I think I’ll concentrate on the kitchen zone.

Simple Sunday

Posted in bread, California, camping, cooking, Flylady, home stuff, Lake tahoe, seasonal things, Uncategorized, Walking by

I made it around the park 3 times so that’s a big improvement. My knee is definitely improving. I didn’t use the treadmill though at the gym as I thought that might be too much. I did the weight machines twice.

We’ve been having supper out on the patio all week and even had 3 evenings of a fire in the fire pit before we come in to watch Bosch. I only watch TV for an hour or an hour and a half is pushing it. Even movies, we split into 2 nights. We watched Otto this week for 2 nights. It’s a good movie, maybe not a great movie, but still enjoyable.

After the gym, I put the bread in the oven. This is a new sourdough recipe from ‘Everyday Sourdough’ and it uses whey from yogurt making. Since I had just made yogurt I saved the whey. It uses a Pullman pan which sadly I do not have yet. So we’ll see.

Then I did the bathroom zone, vacuumed, tidied the bedroom, and dusted the LR zone. That’s about it for zone cleaning.

My daughter harvested most of the basil and I made four 4-ounce jars of pesto for the freezer.

The next batch of tomatoes you see behind the pesto, I will freeze till I have enough for sauce.

This coming week looks light. No appts, but we may go to Costco. I’ll wait and see what I need. I know I’ll go before our Tahoe trip so I have 2 weeks.