Coffee To Chaos

For the past couple of years my hubby has been becoming a gardener.

It's not the type of thing one becomes overnight.

It takes work and lots, and lots, and lots of reading. Not to mention the fact that he's doing organic gardening which takes more time and more reading.

It's worth it in the long run to know that we are not poisoning our kids with pesticides and we are being environmentally responsible with any runoff that might come from our property.

I help when I can but my cake business keeps me pretty much married to the kitchen during the week and I work a part-time job on the weekends.

Given how busy my schedule is I'm rarely able to get out by myself for any length of time. Meeting a friend for coffee is such a treat that I can't really describe the enjoyment I get from it.

Last week I arranged to meet a girlfriend of mine in the evening at Starbucks for a much, much needed break. We were there barely 30 minutes when hubby started blowing up my phone with panicked messages about the corn going bad. I joked about having a big party over the weekend and he informed me that the corn wouldn't last that long.

Evidently, the bugs had gotten to it.

Bugs are an organic gardeners nemesis. We don't use the high powered deadly pesticides that others use and therefore our 'crops' are more susceptible to infestation.

So...there I sat at Starbucks, desperately trying to enjoy my caramel Frappuccino, researching methods for freezing corn while not ignoring a friend that I haven't seen in six weeks.

Fortunately, the information isn't in-depth because the panicked text messages kept coming and it was nearly impossible to hold a conversation or concentrate on what I was trying to read.

We agreed that my assistance was needed at home so I hugged my BFF and headed home to calm the hubby and get to work.

The good news is that it looked pretty simple. There are basically 9 steps and most are not difficult.

1. Pick
2. Husk
3. Clean
4. Blanche
5. Cool
6. Dry
7. Remove from the cob
8. Bag
9. Freeze

Easy? Yes.

Messy? Very.

I returned home to a wheelbarrow full of corn and a totally freaked out hubby desperate to save all of his hard work from this summer.

I showed him what I had found and got him to settle down and relax we got to work on the, more than, 6 dozen ears of corn that needed to be saved.

We make a great team!

He husked, I scrubbed, blanched and cooled the cobs in an ice bath. After they were cool hubby did the drying, cutting and bagging.

After hubby husked the corn I scrubbed that silks from the cobs and put the pots of water on the stove to blanche the corn.

Once the water was ready I put four ears in the pot and removed them after the water returned to a boil.

The ears were then put in an ice bath to stop the cooking process and then inspected for silks that I missed when cleaning and moved to a towel to dry before cutting.

After they were dry hubby hubby cut the corn from the ears and we bagged it for the freezer. We kept the best looking ones to freeze on the cob so we could enjoy a little summer during the winter months.

Once the corn was bagged, it was submerged in water to squeeze all of the air out before the bags were sealed. This will prevent ice crystals from forming around the corn which would give it freezer burn. Contrary to popular belief it is not "protective ice." 

The end result is a freezer full of delicious sweet corn that we can enjoy once the weather gets cold. 

Hopefully this week, I'll be able to go back for coffee with my girlfriend. Maybe this time I'll be able to finish a sentence! 

A Pile of Rocks

My hubby has become obsessed with baking bread because of a pile of free rocks.

Yes, you read that correctly.

Go ahead, read it again, I'll wait :)

Now let me explain...

Late last fall a stone building located near his office was knocked down and a sign that said "Free" was posted on the rubble.

Hubby began bringing home the rocks with the intention of using them for landscaping purposes. Before long he had amassed a large pile of rocks in the backyard and had decided that he needed to do some research.

Hubby is accomplished on all of the trades, save for one: Masonry.

So he set out on the information highway called the internet and in addition to researching outdoor patios and fireplaces he found information on summer kitchens and outdoor bread ovens. Knowing nothing about bread or baking (or the kitchen) in general he decided that in order to properly build an oven he needed to know how to bake bread.

I thought he was kidding. I mean really, bread? Some of the most accomplished cooks I know don't make bread. It's time consuming and difficult and can result in something akin to a baked rock if done wrong.

It's taken me seven years to get him to understand that you bake bread but cook dinner and now he's just going to jump into baking bread?!

My mother-in-law is a fabulous cook and has never attempted bread. Some people just know better.

I guess the good thing about having little, to no, kitchen experience is that hubby didn't know enough to be afraid.

Hubby doesn't read for entertainment, he reads to learn something.

He can do this for hours if uninterrupted and can be so involved in his reading that the boys can be screaming around him and he is oblivious.

I am not criticizing, I am jealous, but I digress...

He read and read until he felt confident enough to make his first attempt at making bread but as we all know reading and doing are entirely different things.

I brought home pizza sauce and cheese...The whole rising thing didn't go as planned and his first attempt ended up making really good pizza dough.

He tried again and we got a loaf of something that was a mistake but very delicious. Another loaf of something that could be used for sandwiches and a third loaf that he added blueberries and walnuts to that was out of this world!

Having had some success he opted for some Amish Friendship bread as a starter. This is the stuff that you add things too over time and then divide it up to give to people you hate to make them add stuff to it for a week and then they can make bread.

This was good but the breads that come from using this starter are all sweet bread like banana, pumpkin, etc.

Hubby was still reading.

He discovered sourdough.

Sourdough starter is a massive undertaking that requires "feedings" twice daily for a week before it is ready to be used. Before feeding one has to dump half of the starter into the trash, add the and flour and then cover until the next feeding when the process is repeated.

You do this for a week.

It smells like beer but the bread tastes like heaven.

When the starter is really active it gives off a gas that blew the lid off the container while we were coloring Easter eggs and scared the daylights out of the entire family.

One day he called first thing in the morning to tell me that he'd forgotten to do the morning feeding and when I reached up to grab the container the lid was gone. Evidently the gas had blown the lid off sometime during the night and it took two days to find the lid!

Hubby has become obsessed and smells the starter multiple times a night...yeah I thought that was weird too.

The sourdough starter can be used for pancakes, conventional sourdough, regular bread and pretzels.

Yes, pretzels!

His first attempt at pretzels was so good that I can't wait for the next batch! Auntie Anne's has nothing on this hubby. Those pretzels were out of this world!!!

We have a great relationship with the Amish family that lives behind us. We frequently drop off treats for each other's families. He dropped off pretzels as a thank you for the pumpkin pie they gave to us.

The wife was so impressed that she came over just to tell us how much they all enjoyed them and that she was impressed with the flavor!

Huge props as that woman can cook like there is no tomorrow!

His obsession has progressed to making 100% organic bread. He is very proud of the fact that we are no longer buying bread from the store and that we now have a freezer full of bread that we can use for any number of things.

It's been fun to watch him evolve into a bread man. The man who could only cook eggs, fish and steak is now making some of the best and most difficult bread on the face of the earth and I couldn't be more proud.