No-knead bread tutorial - Rustic, crusty, tasty, yum!

3 posts today- I think that's a record for me!

Inspired by Jacqui's post last week, I just had to give this a try. (Thanks Jacqui!)

Check out this youtube link to watch a how-to-make No Knead Bread.

Basically it is a simple flour/yeast/salt/water recipe, mixed up and left overnight (or at least 12 hours) and baked hotter than usual. The link will tell you more, but I also wanted to add a few hints and my own result.

It produces a fabulous ciabatta style loaf, and I am very proud of my first effort!

Yes, it is supposed to be cracked and rough!

I have baked bread before, both hand baking and using my bread machine (picked up on freecycle) but lately my machine-bread has been collapsing in the top (no reason) and my hand baking has always been a bit hit-and-miss. Edible, but not worth shouting about. Or blogging about. And while I find the whole process enjoyable, I rarely have the time to bake from scratch.

But THIS .... THIS I like. It has that real rustic home-baked look, a super-crusty crust and soft, holey middle. Perfect for drizzling olive oil on, or for jam to fall into those holes!

A few things I did that I think the youtube video may not explain -

I covered my mixture loosely with cling film and a tea-towel when it sat overnight (room temp)
I very lightly 'punched down' when shaping and flouring it
I let it sit for another half hour, didn't rise much then, but did HEAPS in the oven.
Then baked at 250c in a preheated pyrex casserole dish (lid on)

and don't be surprise if it doesn't look like usual bread dough when you first make it - it is really, really gooey!

My dough after overnight rise - looks like glue! Even after turning out, it was sticky and gloopy. Hmmm, I was worried....!

Looking better -shaped into a rough round and a generous dusting with wholemeal flour

Still hot in the dish -baked seam side up to get that cracked crust!

If you haven't baked bread before, give it a go - this is SO EASY ! Honestly, young kids can do the mixing (if you don't mind some serious mess!) First part takes less than 5 minutes, next day takes maybe another 5 mins, then into the oven. I am going to try to make one every weekend, evening prep for lunch the next day.

Beats supermarket bread anyday. You'll even have the local baker worried!  

Wyandotte update!

Feeling a bit chooky ..... feel the need to post some new pics ...... :-)

Wyandottes taking shelter from the rain last weekend on our back deck.

Check out Silvie the fluffball at the front! Not even laying yet but I'm sure she looks like she'd make a fine broody hen, all puffed up like that, I can just imagine her guarding her clutch of eggs...... !

Here she is again, just to prove she can walk upright, and is not infact, just a ball of feathers. And she does have a neck.

Perfect lacing, such a beauty. Looks very straight backed for a wyandotte on this photo, but she is actually curvier.

Wyandottes are "The Bird of Curves' according to poultry standards, and should be basically 'soccer ball' shaped, with their tails, legs and head outside the circle. Maybe she was practising in the first photo!

B.G. - the original gold chick, who then turned completely black, who then decided to grow some gold again. Reminds me of someone dyeing their hair, trying different colours to see what suits!

 

Mostly her lacing is quite 'peppery' in breeders terms, but her chest is lacing up lovely, and she is still molting and deciding just how much gold she would like.

 

And the natural blonde, like a true blonde is getting a little darker as she ages and also a sprinkle of grey LOL!

Lastly, here is Mr Handsome himself .... growing some beautiful gold hackle and saddle feathers, and his 'blue' in his blue-laced-gold is so truly blue. Legs so yellow you'd think I'd painted them (another Wyandotte standard) Hopefully the girls won't be able to resist his charms.....! And still not crowing - I can't believe my luck, though probably jinxed it now.

They are 17 weeks now, the girls looking much redder than they did even last week, in their combs and little wattles. Getting ready for laying.... a few weeks away maybe, but definitely getting ready.....!

Recent rains

It is a little late, but I thought I'd post a few photos of our recent downpours .....

This is what happened to our backyard (and has again several times since this photo was taken) The photo doesn't show very well, but we had gushing surface water spilling down our backyard.

Although we do have a lot more grass than we did last year when the chooks made a moon-scape, we still had a huge amount of run-off and it all pooled when it reached the brick wall of our house .....

There is only so much water the earth can hold before it is totally saturated, then of course the rest gets washed down the slope as run-off.

Mother nature does not like patches of bare earth, and the recent rains have shown how much more destructive they can be without anything to slow the speeding water. Although we have a lot of tree canopy cover, we also have areas with nothing beneath the soil to drink up the water.

So now, where our grass was successfully growing back, it currently looks like this .... little tufts hanging on for life among the sandy, gravelly soil.

We were also affected, like many other mountain residents recently, by the landslides due to the rains, and the resulting road closures and train derailment. Fortunately no major problems from these, just inconvenience.

Still, on the upside, our local park, which usually has a trickling waterfall at the top, is now in full-flow and looks fabulous.

Australia Day - Mountain Wildlife style

Since moving here 12 years ago, we have celebrated Australia Day every year with all the enthusiasm of new immigrants proud of their new home! Since we arrived in early January, 1998, yesterday was actually our 13th Australia Day.

We decided to stay local and have a pretty low-key day .... however, that doesn't mean quiet! We managed to see some live music, go to a lookout, drive up a mountain track, followed up with a cafe visit for scones and milkshakes all round, and finally time for a play in a park.

The Blue Mountains - with distant views of the famous 3 Sisters

And in true Mountain Wildlife style - we started and finished with some true-blue aussie wildlife.........

While we were getting into our car to start out, Miss 4 screamed out "Aarrgghhh!! Look - a big giant spider on the car!!!" And boy was she right - a huge huntsman spider had taken residence on the rim of the hatchback. (For those non-locals - a huntsman is a horrible hairy beast, complete with monster eyes and big boots. OK, maybe that last bit is my imagination) I don't normally advocate the destruction of any animals, but anything that comes into my car and threatens my family is fair game in my book. So hubby did a quick-flick-with-a-big-stick, and that was the last we saw of Hunty.

And at the other end of our day, we met another scary local (karma perhaps?) We were in a park in Medlow Bath, when Miss 4 tripped over a tree root and landed too close for comfort in front of a snake. Now apparently, these snakes are supposed to flee at noise and commotion, but this one was more than curious to see what was going on, and slithered on over. Luckily our daughter screamed "SNAKE!!" and hubby (hero again!) grabbed her up and moved away. Less than a minute later, we couldn't see the snake anywhere (not a good feeling) until hubby and Miss 4 came back to the car and snakey decided to make an appearance yet again, right in their path!

A quick detour and we were all out of harms way, but I couldn't resist getting a photo or two.... no, I'm not THAT stupid, I used the max zoom on the camera, I was actually a fair distance away!

It was obviously after some water, there was a tap and bubbler nearby and someone had left a dish of water underneath (for a dog maybe?)

Anyone wanting to ID this slithery creature for me is most welcome - I can only guess at a red-bellied black, even though it was more cream-bellied-grey! they can look like this too.

When we left it was sliding into the grass, happy with it's cool drink, and seemingly unaware of the effect it had on our heartbeats!

It was a good opportunity to have a talk with our kids again about safety and what to do when we see snakes.

Happy Australia Day everyone!

Bye Big Red, and other comings and goings.

Big Red before he left home today!

Today we said goodbye to Big Red, one of our two Wyandotte roosters. He is such a lovely rooster it was sad to see him go, but on the upside -he hasn't gone very far away and he has gone to a good home.

Xena has taken him to live with her existing chooks and her stunning new Silver Laced wyandotte pullet. Big Red is the result of a Blue Laced Gold (BLG) rooster and a Silver Laced (SL) hen, so he could happily make beautiful chickies with either Silvers or Golds.

"You looking at me?"

It was a very difficult choice between the two roosters we have (which is why Big Red left today at 13 weeks old, not as a young chickie!) In the end it came down to which one was better suited to our wyandotte hens, and which one we were more attached to. We kept Racey, who was initially quite flighty but has since calmed down a lot, and he is very happy to sit and have cuddles! He seems very close to Blondie too, so it would have been mean to break up their little romance! I think he is going to be stunning too.

Racey the Blue Laced Gold Wyandotte Rooster

As a little parting gift, The Boys decided to have a last lie in the sun together, how funny do they look? They lay in the exact same position looking exactly the same way! And stayed like that long enough for me to get a few photos. Thanks boys!

I am just thankful he will have a new home as a breeding rooster, and not as chicken soup! :-O

Luckily for me (and him!) he turned out handsome and healthy! I hope he looks after your girls well Xena.

In other comings and goings, we said goodbye to some lovely friends last week who have headed out west for a new career and new life. At least we had a lovely morning with coffees and cake, for grown-ups and kids to say our goodbyes. And there are promises for cafe mornings mid-way between mountains and the west when school starts again.....!

We also had a lovely time on the weekend seeing Jacqui and Mick again (more coffees and cake involved- do you think this is a problem?!!) It is so good making new friends with similar interests, who- if it were not for the wonder of blogging- I would probably never have met, even though we live nearby. You made quite an impression on our kids too!

And hello to K&L ! more locals who have been reading my blog, and who appear to have been drawn into the wonderful world of chook-keeping and the wonder of wyandottes..... beware .... you will never have enough!

Our son feeding Big Red this morning

I smell Autumn.....!

I know it is far too early, but I truly smell Autumn in the air today. Everything tells me it is already here today -the temperature has dropped, the wind is blustering and the sky is that super-intense blue with the sun blazing but the heat is just not quite reaching the earth. And mostly, I can smell the crispness in the air.

All of these are typical of our early Autumn weather here. Strange thing is, it is only mid January! Spring doesn't start officially here until March.

Yesterday we were slapping on the sunscreen and hats, today it was socks and hoodies just to play outside in the backyard! When I was younger, it could never be too hot for me, 40 was bliss. But now, by the end of summer I am pleased to see the back of the scorching heat and searing, bushfire-risk temperatures.

The highest temp this afternoon outside has been 21 degrees c, what a change from the high 30's of last week. Apparently they are on their way back later in the week, but hey, I've seen a glimpse and I'm telling you ...... Autumn will be here before we know it. I'm looking forward to it already!

2010- Oh what a start....!

I've been out of blogland for so long it is getting a bit silly now.... I had intended on a short break over the Christmas hols, but with some lovely festive words to wish you all well and share the joy, however circumstances once again overwhelmed my intentions.

First let me be positive - We had a really lovely Christmas, a great day during which we opened some beautiful gifts, our children were excited and amazed and full of the joy that only children can bring to you on Christmas morning, we enjoyed a scrumptious lunch of cold meats/prawn and mango salad/other salad-y stuff (great food, but not too much that we regretted it!) and laughed a lot together as we tried to play on our new toy, a wii we received from my husbands parents. Really enjoyable.

Then ...... New Year's Eve.

It came with a bang, actually several bangs. Some moronic neighbours closeby thought the best way to see in a New Year is clearly with some explosive noises in their backyard. Not fireworks, just the ear-ringingly loud explosions. Clearly these must be people without children or animals, (and without any consideration for anyone elses). So our start to 2010 was divided between trying to comfort our dog, (who was shaking uncontrollably and so scared he didn't know where to hide), checking our sleeping children to make sure they weren't doing the same, and outside in the dark chook pen with a torch making sure that they hadn't all died with the shock (which apparently is more common than you'd think).

The following day at least we had some friends over for a coffee/ kids play/ wii time, which was heaps more fun than the previous night. We had planned a BBQ with more friends, but wet weather put the dampers on that.

Then it all went wrong.

I managed to get myself a hefty dose of food poisoning (my own fault- I left some fancy cheese out of the fridge too long, put it back in and had some the next day) Nothing like a dose of listeria to turn you inside out. I'll spare you the details, but I lost about 5kg overnight (which ironically WASN'T one of my resolutions this year). After the dehydration and meal-missing for 2 days, a migraine kicked in which lasted nearly 3 days. Could it get worse?
We all know when your immune system is down, colds come from nowhere to seek you out, and so it did.

So now I sit here, full of cold, worn out and red-nosed as Rudolph himself. All of this in the first week??? And let me tell you, the combination of 7 days of rain, being sick, and 2 children at home does not make for domestic bliss!

I had such high hopes for this year too. It is a year of big changes for us - our children start 'big' school (kindergarten!) and we are hoping to finally build our home and move in before the end of the year. (I'll do another post on that some other time, as that is a story in itself!)

Well, I am hoping that all my illness this past week is getting itself out of the way for the rest of the year so I can enjoy good health for the other 51 weeks!

Finally, I wish you all a belated happy, healthy and prosperous New Year, and hope 2010 brings all that you need!

:-)

Chicks, chooks and cock-a-doodle-doo's!

Time for a well overdue chooky post ...... WARNING - this has turned out to be a LONG update!!!

Remember our little fluffy chickies last seen here and here - well they have grown unbelievably and are now 9 weeks old today! A couple of weeks ago I finally managed to post some photos and questions on Backyard Poultry, and had some great feedback on my flock of many colours.

The BEST NEWS is that 'Big Grey' (who Mick the breeder told us at day 1 was a cockeral because of his colour) is actually a female !!! Whoooo hooo! I have had a soft spot for Big Grey since day 1, and when we thought it was a 'he' it was tough as we had no silver girls to justify keeping 'him' for breeding. But Mick admitted he was wrong with that one - so now the chicky formerly known as Big Grey is ..... SILVIE ! (ok, maybe not that inventive for a Blue-laced Silver, but at least the name fits and it is girly!)
He also said she has incredible lacing for a young chick and will grow to be stunning! Well, we knew that already ;-)

'Silvie'

Speaking of name changes, the chick formerly known as 'Goldie' (because she had such a golden head) grew up to be almost totally black! My daughter thought of the name B.G. (kids cartoon character), which we thought fits perfectly, since she is actually a Blue-laced Gold! Her lacing is not quite correct, very thick for a wyandotte, which is why she is very dark with gold highlights, but we love her so much that doesn't bother us at all.

She is the most incredible chook I've ever known (ok, thats not that many, but still...) I swear she is like a pet cat or dog!!! She will come up to us straight away looking for a pat and loves sitting on my lap being stroked. Yesterday she even JUMPED ON MY BACK when I was bending down- honestly!!! She hopped right up to my shoulder! I was freaking out a bit, but she thought it was great!

Meet~ B.G. !

Blondie is still called Blondie (at my son's insistance!) She is beautiful, a Blue-laced Gold 'Sport' which basically means she is unusually light. White, pale grey and gold and beautiful lacing already. She hasn't changed her flightiness since she was a chick, I am sure she hatched thinking she was a budgie! If she doesn't settle down soon (whick she might as she is getting much bigger and heavier) we will probably have to clip her wings to stop her flying over the fence!

'Blondie'

So..... that's the hens.

Now, the 2 boys. Oh, yes, did I mention we have TWO roosters-in-training?!!

And here we hit a problem. We love them, really- they are gorgeous! When we didn't know what we would end up with, we were hoping to be able to keep one rooster so we can breed our own lines in the future (in our area the council allow roosters, but only if your neighbours don't complain). We even have someone wanting to buy a surplus rooster if we ended up with more than one (hi Xena!)

But how do we pick one to keep? They are very different, but both lovely, and its sooooo hard to let one go! I asked on BYP which would be the best for matching up with our girls, but apparently they are both winners!

We haven't renamed Big Red or Racey (even though Racey no longer has his racing stripes!) in a weak attempt to lessen the attachment..... yeah.

There is a glimpse of Big Red above with Blondie- a Blue-laced Silver with some mysterious red in there too. He has the most amazing colours and patterns -black, blue, white and deep reddish brown. Initially thought his colours made him no good for breeding, but it turns out he would be good for Gold-laced or Silver laced hens, (which we have both of) and he will produce an amazing array of coloured chicks. (This info from a breeder with a LOT of genetic knowledge!) Apart from that, he is the best natured cockeral I could imagine. He is very placid, happy to be stroked and I reckon really handsome too!

Big Red

The other cockeral is Racey, a Blue-laced Gold. He is the more obvious choice to keep because his colour and lacing are very good, much more typical wyandotte so may breed more true-to-type. The breeder I bought the eggs from reckons he will be excellent knowing his stock lines. He is a bit more flighty, way too heavy to fly anywhere but not so much into playing the pet and having strokes. Like Big Red, not aggressive, just a bit more nervous.

Racey

So, what to do......? Neither is crowing yet, so not sure which (if either) will be noisier. Neither is aggressive. Both fine for breeding.

We have thought (naively possibly) that we can keep them both..... but the problems with that may be -

1. We don't NEED 2 roosters (could be said we don't need one...)

2. The crowing may increase if they set each other off

3. Which may not go down well with neighbours! (or us)

4. Extra chook to feed who is not keeping themselves in egg production!

5. Aggression problems if they fight over position or over the hens (will be 2 roo's to 5 hens)

6 ..... Jacqui from lifeinthedome pointed out that the hens may well be exhausted from all the ...erm.... roosterly ..... attentions!!! Crikey I never even thought of that!

So for now, they are still together, with the occasional mild and gentlemanly hackle-raising and STARING contests (honestly, it is hilarious!) And while they are smaller, they are still being bossed around by the long-standing chooks Ruby and Lady ---

         

Who knew that we would end up here? Wondering how many we can keep? I didn't think I would even like roosters! Just over a year ago when we got our first chooks, I couldn't even hold them, I was terrified of them flapping! Seems hilarious now :-)

I can see why people end up with a crazy amount of chooks LOL! Especially raising them from chicks, they are so friendly and much more like pets, I love them! And I'm not the only one .... hubby wants to keep them all too, and of course our kids do too.....

Oh well, Christmas time is too busy  be making such decisions.......!

:-)

PS - Just as an afterthought ---- it turns out that apart from being thrown off the scent with Big Grey/Silvie, my first instincts were right about all the other chicks' genders! And they say you can't tell with wyandottes until they start laying or crowing.... ;-)

Christmas crafting

Here are just a few of the many things now adorning our home......!

Our children made these beautiful snowflakes at preschool. They were laminated and given pretty Christmas ribbons, and then given to us at the preschool party last weekend to take home.

Our advent calender with a difference ~ instead of taking gifts out of pockets, the idea is to add a gift to the tree each day. All the decorations are numbered up to 24, and a little piece of velcro makes it easy for little ones to attach them. I really liked the idea of giving to the tree, rather than getting a cheap chocolate or plastic toy. They are happy to takes turns each day too, and good at keeping track of whose day it is!

I bought the panel from ebay, added padding, bit of quiliting with spare fabric on the back, and then the kids and I got to work adding lots of glitter to 'highlight' toys and candles etc. Actually by the end, almost everything has glitter on it! The joys of being 4 :-)

I made this cushion from a panel I bought on ebay too. The photo doesn't show it well but I padded the front and quilted a little around the borders. I backed it with red corduroy and a matching strip across the back.

And these ones for the grown-ups.... I bought a huge panel with 2 cushion fronts and 3 stockings on it from.... yep, you guessed it -ebay! The whole panel only cost me $2 and I think the cushions have come out great! I backed them with some lovely upholstery fabric from my stash, one gold and one cream. I have never done anything padded like this before, so it was a great experiment. I kept it simple and just sewed around the borders and star lines to make it appear quilted. There are beautiful gold angels and words to carols around the centre, I love them. 

Our home is becoming so colouful and Christmassy with kids decorations on the tree and on the walls and doors. Less than 2 weeks to go which is just as well, we are running out of room!

From the mouths of babes.....

Whilst listening to 'Little Drummer Boy' on a Christmas CD ~ our daughter (4) singing along ....

"Come they told me
Barumpa-pum-pum...

.... me and my MUM. "

Priceless.

:-)