A loaf for YOU and a loaf for ME

The bread baking goes on. Today was the big day Billy used his wild yeast starter for the first time. He made two loaves... they are both a 5 grain sour dough base and one has roasted garlic and fresh rosemary added, the other blue cheese and walnuts. We cracked into the garlic loaf to eat with our home made split pea soup for lunch today and it was pretty fabulous. The sour dough starter will develop more flavor as the weeks pass but there was a definite hint of the flavor even in this first batch.

On the subject of food, last night we had a dinner worth mentioning. I pulled two recipes off 101 cookbooks and whipped up these salads...




The first is called Sunburst Carrot Salad and is made with shaved carrots, lemon juice, toasted pumpkin seeds and cilantro. You can find the recipe HERE. The second is a pan-fried chic pea salad. I added in some kidney beans because I was short on chic peas. This is made with a curried yogurt sauce, leeks, lemon zest and red onion. This recipe is HERE. Both salads were really delicious and we will be making them again for sure. The carrot salad was really pretty so it would be fun to serve at a dinner party or picnic if you want visual impact along with unusual flavors.

In other news I have gotten nothing done today. It's cold and windy outside which is keeping me from going out and working on any projects that I have going. The wind keeps me from photographing vintage and the cold keeps me from sanding wood for my photo block project. We did take Rudy for a walk over to the day use area of the park. It's really sunny so these pics are deceiving. You would think it was 70 degrees outside.



I am bundled up like The Michelin Man with about 4 layers of shirts and sweaters under my overalls.


Is it just me or are Billy and Rudy starting to look alike? Maybe it's the beards...



At the end of the road we live on there are a bunch of huge eucalyptus trees. The leaves are a really lovely red hue and they smell fantastic. I gathered up a bunch on our walk home to make a little Andy Goldsworthy tribute out in the yard. I did not put a whole lot of effort in to it because the wind was ruffling my feathers the whole time. Maybe I will try again on a more calm day.