Hi - My Name is Elizabeth And I am Addicted to Books

I should never go to a bookstore without a chaperone to make sure things don't get out of hand.  I adore books and magazines are nearly impossible for me to walk away from if they are about paper arts.  They are my guilty pleasure.  

This Wordpress book was particularly appealing since it was 8 in 1 and about 750 pages.   I have been working on moving this blog over to Wordpress and actually have quite a bit of it done.   If you get a minute go to atinyhomestead.com  and let me know what you think.   I was sure I wanted to move the blog but I'm finding I've become attached to Blogger and am not so sure anymore.   It's just so easy compared to Wordpress. 

I know it's been confusing to some people because they are trying to get here and they forget to add blogspot to the url and end up there which is atinyhomestead but not quite.   

It was a wonderful afternoon in a bookstore with a cinnamon hazelnut coffee and arms full of books to browse through.   I can't remember the last time I did this but it was an indulgence thoroughly enjoyed.

Elizabeth

Pinterest

urbanfarmerseward.posterous.com

I have fallen in love with Pinterest.   

All the photo's in this post have come from there.   If you haven't been to Pinterest  I would highly encourage you to visit.  It's an amazing site that lets you upload pictures from your computer or from any site you visit that allows Pinterest to scoop it's pictures and I've yet to find one that doesn't.  That may change as more blog and web site owners realize their pictures are being scooped but for now any site you go to you can just hit a button you install on your link bar after you join and it pins the picture you want to your account on Pinterest.   It then becomes available for everyone else on their too.  Others repin your photo's to their account and you can repin theirs to yours.   

It ends up being a treasure trove of idea's for you.   I searched homesteading and came up with some great pictures.  You can go see them using the link in the sidebar or here.   I actually found some from A Tiny Homestead already on there.  For site owners it tells where the photo came from so it brings more people interested in what they are about to their site.   For people just looking for idea's it amazing.  I think it's a win / win.  It's free too.

If you are a site owner and you don't want your pictures showing up there, they to have code you can add to your page that prevents anyone with the pin it button from pinning your pictures btw.

lindycottagehill.blogspot.com

hgtv.com

Proper Pinterest etiquette is to always use the link back to original post when using a photo.   Cool huh?

Win/win for sure.

Jalapeno Cheese Bread

I love cheesy jalapeno bread.   I have it with my morning coffee, as a snack during the day or occasionally with a mexican meal instead of tortilla's. 

Yield 2 Loaves

• 2 cups warm water
• 5 tablespoons olive oil
• 6 cups bread flour or all purpose flour
• 3 teaspoons sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon active dry yeast or 2 pkt of instant
• 2 1/2 cups of cheddar cheese shredded
• 2  finely diced  jalapeno peppers (I used bottled this time)
• cornmeal for baking sheet
• 1 egg white, slightly beaten

                    

                                                   

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375°F.
   Add warm water, sugar and yeast together in a small bowl.   Let sit till foamy - about 5 min.
   Take 1/2  tbsp of olive oil and coat the inside of a larger bowl. I also coat my dough hook when I use my Kitchen Aid mixer  to mix.   Put the yeast mix in the larger bowl.  Add the oil and salt to the yeast mix.  Slowly add  5  1/2  cups of flour to it.
   When thoroughly mixed dust a cutting board or your counter with a bit of flour and empty the contents of the bowl onto it to work the dough using the last 1/2 cup  of flour to make a firm dough.  Can use more if needed.  Knead it until it's  smooth. 
   You can either cover the dough with a clean dishcloth and let it rise on the board or counter  or put it back into a covered  bowl to let it rise.  I use a bowl  so I can put it in a place that is warm.   Let it rise till it has doubled in size.   
   When it has doubled put it back on a floured board and punch down.  Knead again to get all the gas bubbles out. 
   Sprinkle cornflour or cornmeal onto a baking sheet  ( I use parchment paper on a cookie sheet with cornmeal on it) 
   Roll or stretch dough into a long piece.   Sprinkle the cheese to cover retaining a small amount for the top.  Do the same with the peppers. 
   Starting at one end roll up.   When all rolled cut it in the middle to make 2 loaves.I use a serrated bread knife to do this.  Place the loaves on the pan cut side up.  
   Cover and let rise for 25 more minutes.
2. It should be doubled again by this time.
3. Brush all over with the beaten egg white.  Sprinkle with remaining cheese and peppers. 
4. Bake 25 minutes to 35 minutes, until hollow sounding when tapped on bottom.
5. Cool.

The recipe was originally for Italian bread and I just adapted it.  I'm sure if you have 

a favorite bread recipe you could use that instead.   The loaf behind the Cheesy Jalapeno 

loaves was the original recipe.   I just formed it differently, added black poppy seeds,  sesame 

seeds and chopped dried onions to make it into Everything Bread.   

Enjoy!

Favorite things - Diffuser

With goats I find I am constantly heating milk.   I heat it to pasteurize for yogurt only but most cheeses require milk to be heated as well.   I have very large stainless steel pots with heavy bottoms for larger batches of cheese but for smaller amounts I love my smaller Pyrex pot but the glass bottom requires me to use very low heat or stir constantly so as not to scorch the milk.   I found a diffuser a couple of years ago that makes heating milk and many other things that easily stick to the bottom of a pan so much easier.   I find I use it for all kinds of things now 

Favorite things - Johnny Seeds

After spending the past week catching up on all the garden chores I sat down last night to put together an order of things I will  need soon.  I pulled out my stack of catalogs and immediately opened Johnny's first.   I am always drawn to Johnny's first.   I love Johnny Seeds.   I mostly love there catalog.   It has so much info on growing each seed / plant they offer,  it rivals many gardening books.   For vegetable gardening I've relied for 20 plus years on Crockett's Victory Garden's first edition.  It's served me well over the years.  But Johnny's catalog has so much great info in it I find myself going to it now instead of my old stand-by.  

If your not familiar with their catalog, it offers all kinds of veggies, fruits, herbs and flowers.  It also has green manures,  various cover crops and pasture mixes for different animals.   It has some great tools and all kinds of supplies.  

On the top of my shopping list is agribon row cover for this fall / winter.   I'm going to do some low tunnels for extended season growing.   I am also going to get the pipe bender to bend galvinized conduit pipe to hold the agribon and poly up.   After last years snowy winter I want to make sure my tunnels can stand up to the weight of a snow load.   Johnny's is located in Maine so they know snow.

The only other things I need are some seeds.  I'll get pea's to get in now, onion seeds to sow now for spring harvest and garlics.  I may try a few new lettuces too. 

Johnny's also has a number of video's on their website.  I watched the one on their pipe bender yesterday.  BTW... I am not compensated for this review.   I just really like them. 

http://johnnyseeds.com/