Phew...bubbling nicely now and you should get a good acidic aroma when you open the lid. Repeat yesterday's steps.....remove 3/4 mixture and replace with 100mls warm water & 125g white bread flour stir well lid back on leave until tomorrow when the bread making begins...yum
You should be able to see the fermentation today and the smell should have an acidic tang.
First you need to remove 3/4 of the mix from the jar and disguard this.
Add 100mls warm water and stir the mix well
Next strain the mix through a tea strainer to remove any fruit, then put the strained mix back into the jar......
Add 125g strong white bread flour
Stir thoroughly until you have a smooth paste, cover and leave at room temperature for another 24hrs...phew almost there. One more day and we can start using the leaven to make some bread.
As you can see there are lots of little holes on the surface indicating that there is some fermentation going on Hoorah....Today you need to add the following
4 tsp rye flour
4 tsp strong white bread flour
100mls warm water
Give it all a good stir cover and leave for another 24hrs....
The leaven after 24hrs, as you can see not really much change but hopefully some of the yeasts will of mulitplied.
Next step add the following ingredients in this order
50mls warm water
2 tsp rye flour
2 tsp white bread flour
Stir well til all the ingredients are combined, cover and leave at room temperature for another 24hrs
Day 1
Add the following ingredients to your kilner jar
2 tsp rye flour
2 tsp white bread flour
2 tsp natural yogurt
2 tsp dried fruit (sultanas, dates, raisins or currants work well)
+ 50mls of luke warm water
Give it a really good stir...........
Cover and then leave at room temperature for 24hrs. I leave mine on the hearth over night as the kitchen tends to get quite chilly but try to leave in somewhere where the temp stay constant
Step 2 tomorrow.....Rx
A very quick post to say that I am going to start my leaven this afternoon and thought I would take pictures and post them here as I go.....If anyone wants to join me the ingredients you'll need are as follows.
A Jar - I use a kilner but any will do..needs a lid
rye flour
strong white flour
raisins
natural live yogurt
I'll be back later after my shift at the library with pictures & instructions..
ttfn Rx
One of the best things about working in a library is that I can get my mitts on a whole wonderful range of books……try before I buy so to speak. As many of you no doubt share the same addiction for buying and stashing books, leaving our shelves bulging and our purse somewhat short, will have experienced the disappointment of some books not being quite what we expected. So I am working through my books 'wanted' list by ordering at the library and then deciding whether it would be a good purchase or not. These are my latest acquisitions and I shall be giving them a quick review here over the following weeks.
This cupboard has been my latest project…It did house my fabric stash but after moving the bedrooms about I now have a bigger one for fabric and decided to bring it downstairs into the kitchen, a quick lick of 'slipper satin' by farrow and ball, slosh of blackboard paint and some creative chalk work. I have filled the inside with allsorts of stuff including my sacks of bread flour which have caused a storage dilemma for sometime. My other project for now is my crochet blanket which is nice to work on in the evenings when it gets a bit nippy as its just getting long enough to cover my knees…having to tighten our belts this year so I am trying to use up some of my yarn stash before buying anymore!!!
I have been drooling over Jane Brocket's fab socks in her book, they are so fine, looking particularly good with gold high heels (although tend to side with Jane on the Birkenstock front). I wish I could get to grips with those little needles. Sandra (Jenny Scott's sister) at Beckside Yarns in Clapham, the little village I live in is really helpful and has said she will help whenever I need it. This is really generous of her and to be honest what more could I want, a waterfall outside my house and a fabulous yarn shop 2 mins from my door with a really helpful owner! Bliss but I am afraid the ball of sock yarn keeps being buried at the bottom of the stash so maybe when it's the last ball left alone and sad I will give it a go!!!
So despite my good intentions in early January to blog daily I have already been a bit slack. ….but do have a good excuse it seems. We finally took delivery of our new washing machine old one went bang a week before Christmas, so I have had a washing pile the size of a small country to deal with plus the added bonus of rearranging the entire top floor of the house. This includes my fabric stash which has been a major operation.
I was going to take some wonderful pictures of the mess I had made but decided against it as it was all a bit much.
Meanwhile I have been reading avidly other peoples blogs (instead of working I might add) and they have been inspiring me loads esp Cherry's Blog 'Tales from Pixie Wood' A lady after my own heart especially when it come to dealing with the vacant stare of my OH when I have been up to mischief whilst the men of the house have been at work & school….
I have also been contemplating my future career as an artist. 2007 was a nightmare for me with the 2nd half completely wiped out with the flooding, just surviving everyday with a wrecked ground floor and then the rebuilding stage and keeping some normality of everyday life was not exactly conducive to creative production. I have one exhibition booked next year and I am reluctant to book in anymore as finding the space in my head to think/create work that I am happy with has been increasingly difficult. Being an artist, at least a successful one for me means selfishness, solitude and the space to work when I want, these don't go hand in hand with a family life and running a household. This and Jane Brocket's book 'The Gentle Art of Domesticity' have got me thinking about how I could mesh the two parts of my life together into creating work that I am both happy with but also gets the jobs done on that long list of 'to do's.
I was awarded a grant from the arts council in early 2007 to research & develop new work and to move my career forward but it seems to have cast a shadow about my artistic future. Now my calamity of a life has begun to level itself out I am back to the drawing board.
So the question I am asking myself is ' How can art become my daily life????' More later……..I need to contemplate & sip tea!
After reading Erica Knight's excellent book 'Simple Crochet' I decided to make a rag crochet rug from my hoard of old denims for my sons bedroom. Pleased with the results so far but as always denim is hard going on the hands and I have some sore fingers....am resting a while to post here.
I have also decided to have a complete change about in the house. The boys have decided that they want to share a bedroom again which means we all get to switch about....and along with the lack of washing machine which is going to now be delivered on Monday the house is a bit of a wreck! Still it gives me a chance to have a good clean and get in those dusty corners.
I got my new magimix kettle today...now my kettle decision has been a rather long time in the the making. Orginally I really wanted a Dualit but I read so many awful reviews and after my short lived affair with my last expensive purchase didnt want to get caught again so I have spent ages looking for something I liked, got a good write up, I could boil a small amount of water in for eco reasons and wasn't made of white plastic. In the end the 'which' report sealed the fate of my shortlist and the kettle was bought. There's a matching toaster as well but I shall have to wait a while for that one.
Today i went to my favourite fabric shop and purchased some wonderful pieces to get me started in 2008. A selection of Liberty, Cath kidston, Designers Guild all for £20 what a bargin. I also picked up some black & white gingham for my crochet rug I am going to make for the kitchen more of that later...
One of my pledges this year is to try to make everyones birthday gifts starting with my son Jakes 10th birthday. Found some great camo fabric and am going to make him a pencil case, a new ugli doll and a bag for his sports kit and anything else I can come up with. In fact I shall be having a look at some of the great blogs I've found to get some ideas. Family will give him money which will wing its way into the bank as he's a saver....not sure where he gets that from ceratinly not his mother or father come to think of it....maybe his aunty Sue she was always a squirrel with her cash until her nasty older sister made her spend it!
I have also decided that I shall have a good sort out of my current fabric stash tomorrow as I have a heap of curtains to make for a friend house which I started before our dining room turned into a building site, so now xmas is done & dusted time to get things rolling again.
I had simple ambitions as a child of 5…one was to be an artist and the other was to own an aga! Well I am well on my way to achieving the first but the aga still alludes me. Maybe one day one will arrive on freecycle, all the planets will be aligned in my favour and the cooking phenomenon will be mine! Til then my ambition is but a dream!
The aga scenario has strong links with my grandmother Agnes Gertrude Webb, a formidable woman, a force to be reckoned with but the owner of a fabulous cooking contraption. Memories of childhood are infused with flashbacks of suet puddings, toast & beef dripping with too much salt and the comfort & safety of this great big stove! Everything seemed okay with the world at the age of 5.
I love freecycle ……. today I have collected 2 children's chairs, the wooden chair & the fantastic map chest in the picture above from a likeminded couple who are emigrating to New Zealand. The map chest had a quick rub down with some sandpaper and it can stay where it is for now, I shall leave the old wooden chair as it is. The children's chairs are crying out for a lick of farrow & ball, but sadly they are rather low on my list of priorities at the moment. (Promise some pictures when completed)….
The whole idea of savings someone else's junk from the tip is rather exciting. You never know what's going to be up for grabs or if you were quick enough off the mark to get it and then there are the logistics of collecting certain items and whether we brought the right vehicle. I usually send my husband who is very patient with my excitement for others peoples junk. It also fits nicely in with the eco/thrift/need 'new' things ethos that I try to live by. Our most exciting collection was a marvellous bedknobs & broomsticks king-size bed for my eldest son's room (with a virtually brand new mattress). They lady who so kindly gave it to us was really sad to see it go but her husband couldn't sleep on it as it was too soft. As well as receiving we also feel it's really important to pass stuff on as well. Things that I have hoarded far too long & recently a flat screen TV that we could easily have sold but gave away to bring about some balance to the whole affair. Sadly there are a lot of people who just want to snaffle everything up to sell it on and make a few bucks but you quickly get wise to those kind of replies and it becomes easy to spot the genuine ones.
I was going to put the map chest in my studio but it fits quite well in this end of the kitchen and will be a great place to hoard also sorts of precious things.
So finally I have decide to plunge myself into the word of blogging. I have thought about it at various times in the past and even half heartily begun a couple of random blogs but have never been inspired enough to carry on. So the decision to start came after 2 days of suffering in bed with a horrid winter sickness bug that had taken out the entire family over Christmas. Balancing laptop on a cushion I spent 48 hrs reading through page after page of a cornucopia of amazing info shared by some pretty cool people. What an inspiration….How could I not join this wonderful community……
So here goes………………
