Copper Kettle Farm: Starting Seeds, Baking, and Mud

RECIPE: BLUEBERRY BANANA BREAD

1 1/4 C Sugar

1/2 C Butter, softened

2 lg Eggs

1 ½ C Mashed bananas (3)

½ C Buttermilk

1 tsp Vanilla

2 ½ C Whole Wheat Flour (regular or pastry)

1 tsp Baking Soda

1 tsp Salt

1 C Blueberries (cranberries)

*Adjust recipe up or down according to the amount of mashed banana you have. ( I had 4 1/2 cups of banana, made 5 loaves).

1. Adjust oven rack so tops of pans will be in the center. Heat oven to 350.

2. Grease bottom only of 9x5x3 pan (2 8x4 pans). Coat with cinnamon sugar, shake out the excess.

3. Cream together sugar and butter in large bowl. Stir in eggs until well blended. Stir in bananas, buttermilk & vanilla; beat until smooth.

4. Mix together flour, baking soda & salt. Stir into batter just until moistened. Stir in blueberries.

5. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake 1 hour 15 minutes (1 hr for 8x4 pans) or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes in pan on wire rack. Remove from pan, cool completely. If you turn the loaf out onto a sheet of waxed paper on the cooling rack, it makes it much easier to turn it upright without injuring the loaf.

*You can mix up the batter the night before, store it in the refrigerator and bake in the morning, just bake a few minutes longer.

I also oiled my wooden mixing spoon and lemon juicer this weekend. Regularly oiling wooden cooking utensils and cutting boards seals the wood making them easier to clean, and helps them last longer. I coat the piece in butcher block oil, let dry for 6 hours, recoat, and let dry for 24 hours before using. I need to get more wooden spoons in various sizes. I often use my long handled plastic spoon for stirring dough and batter, but the handle is too flexible when mixing large batches and I must have used it for cooking since the tip is melted off flat. As you may notice from the picture, I do not have kitchen counter tops yet. I have beautiful hickory cabinets with 1" plywood countertops covered with contact paper. It is beautiful contact paper however, it is not as resistant to scratches, heat, or water as say granite. Unfortunately, counter tops are rather far down the list of priorities. But I do have a marble board for rolling out dough, it works much better than my previous dough board which consisted of tinfoil taped to the dinner table.

I am a perfectionist. When I set my mind to a project I like to take my time and do things just so. Last night I made Chicken Pot Pies for dinner. I have never made pot pies before. It was much more involved than I anticipated. The Betty Crocker recipe used frozen carrots and peas and premade pie crust. The recipe also was for 1 large pot pie casserole. But I wanted perfect little individual pot pies made from scratch.

I mixed up a double batch of dough so I could use some later in the week. Then chopped and cooked the chicken, and the carrots and celery - I was going to include potatoes as well but couldn't stand the thought of chopping and cooking anything else, I also left out the onion for the same reason. Then I made the gravy and stirred in the chicken and vegetables, adding frozen peas. All that was left was to line each jumbo muffin tin with foil to easily lift out the pot pies (I could just envision the disaster of trying to dump them out like muffins), roll out the dough for the bottom and press into the muffin cups, fill with the prepared filling, roll out the dough for the tops and seal the pot pies. Then bake for 35 minutes.

I started making the dough at 5:00 pm and dinner was on the table by 8:30. But the pot pies were too hot so we didn't actually eat until almost 9:00. Darren said they were the best pot pies he has ever tasted-and it only took 4 hours to make 6 pot pies! I am working on moving faster.

SEED TIME: I already have tomatoes, cucumbers, melons, peppers, and asparagus started. But I am way behind on starting everything else. I got 1 tray of Snow Crown and White Sails Cauliflower and 1 tray of Goliath Broccoli planted this weekend. I didn't get finished all that I needed to though. Since I never get around to transplanting the seedlings after the first true leaves appear like a good gardener is supposed to. I cheat and fill the bottom of the seed tray half way with potting soil and then top it off with seedling mix. That way, the seeds can sprout in the seedling mix but still get some nutrients from the potting soil as the plants grow. I bought some soil blockers a couple years ago, but have never gotten around to mixing up the special soil blend needed to use with soil blocks. I would still like to try it someday.

What? We weren't doing anything...