There's been a lot going on and I've spent more time with my nose in a book or my hands filled with yarn and knitting needles.
And honest truth, I've been thinking about a lot of things lately and never quite reached that point when I could distill those thoughts into anything resembling a coherent blog post.
But, while I've been away, some good things have been happening.
A few weeks ago, okay a month or so, I wrote about the book Cooked.
In that post I made some vows. I'm quite happy to report that so far, I've kept most of them and am continuing to work on them.
In the last month, I've cooked more, even if many times it was the same recipes I've fallen back on for at least five years. Can't go wrong with old favorites.
But, I've also experimented with crock pot recipes and made a few that I haven't made in awhile. M has been cooking too so we're doing pretty great on that front.
A few weeks ago, I baked muffins and bread. People, I MADE BREAD.
And both were very good. A coworker said it was the best muffin he'd ever had and while the bread was super dense, it was delicious. And beautiful.
Who knew I'd get so much personal satisfaction from baking.
The recipes weren't especially difficult, just a bit time consuming, but if I can do it, anyone can do it! (I'll post the recipes in a separate post later this week so you can try it too!)
For the muffins, I used 100 percent whole wheat flour. I'd made cookies earlier when I tested the whole wheat flour as half the amount required. I stuck with all purpose flour for the other half.
Bread required bread flour, so my range of ingredients has been expanding slowly and I love it.
It's a funny thing. I could buy a loaf of bread at the grocery store for a few dollars, but there's something about slicing bread I made myself. The recipe also made such a dense, hearty loaf, that I feel less like I'm eating cabs and more like I'm eating something wholesome and satisfying.
We're getting started on our vegetables for the season too. M started seeds for tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, beans, broccoli and more over the weekend. I also went a little crazy and decided we should try watermelon and cantaloupe too.
There's still an awful lot I don't know about farming, agriculture or baking or food in general, but I have to admit, I'm excited about learning.
My reading list on farm/agriculture/food books is coming soon as well since I've been cranking though some of those and have a massive pile I need to get too.
Oh, and a sneak peek at what's coming in my life soon. I've decided that I want to have sheep and spin my own yarn. Yeah, that's right. I'm going all in at this minifarm thing.
More on that coming soon. Here's to hoping the slightly warmer weather helps me stay motivated and better able to put my all over the place thoughts into mildly coherent blog posts.
Happy April everyone! And hopefully it's spring where you are! It snowed in Montana today and more is on the way.