Planting my first seeds and the hens are laying eggs!

A week ago, one of my new hens laid her first egg and after that, we got an egg every other day. So, after a long time without chickens and without eggs now we finally have them again. There is nothing above going outside and get some eggs and take a slice of the very best homemade bread with butter and scrambled egg, yummy!

Every year we try to have al the work with the firewood done before Easter. So, in December and January Sander cut some trees and now he will saw them in pieces and cleave the wood with the cleaving axe. For sawing he used a crosscut bowsaw. They have their saw teeth bent out on either side of the blade. Therefore, the teeth create a channel which is a little wider than the wide of the saw blade. Which makes it much easier to saw the wood. But after a while the teeth bent toward each other again and need to set, as it is called. To set a saw is to bend the tip of each cutter tooth away from the blade in a slight amount. Just as alternate teeth are sharpened opposite each other, they are set opposite each other to. You can buy special tools to it, but we do it on a more basic method, with two small adjustable wrenches.

I have got all the seeds I need for the coming seasons, most vegetables but I did buy some flower seeds to. One plant I like very much is Lavender, and I bought some seeds to it. It is not the easiest seed to plant. These seeds need a cold period to sprout. Most you should sow them in the autumn or put them in February, in a bit of earth, in your freezer for at least one week. But I couldn´t do, nor the one nor the second method, for we don´t have a freezer and I hadn´t my lavender seeds last autumn. But it is still very cold here and we do have a cold spot on the loft and it´s there I put them. I hope it works and I get at least one lavender plant after all my 1000seeds I sowed.

The kitchen, the heart of the home, part 2

Last Monday I received my package with seeds from the USA.  A long time I wanted to plant beet sugar to make our own molasses and maybe even sugar. But I could not find seeds in Sweden and I looked in other European countries as well, but no one did sell seeds in small portion. But at last I find a shop in Missouri the "BAKER CREEK HEIRLOOM SEEDS” and there I got them! I ordered also some other seeds, an early sprouting broccoli, it´s an English heirloom variety and it produce a lot of purple broccoli sprouts in the early spring. You plant it in the autumn and all the winter it grows till the harvest in the early spring. Of course, I bought some beans as well. I love beans and eat lots of them. The Jacob´s cattle bean is an old variety from America, and as the name says the look like a cow. A light-colored bean with dark spots. I´m curious how it will taste… I was very surprised that I found one more seed package. It was a gift from the shop. A Black Vernissage tomato. I had actually decided that I would not plant tomatoes anymore, but it seems my fade decided differently…

But let´s baking a Dutch oven bread for now!

Often I bake bread in my Dutch oven. This is not an electric oven or something like that, but it means I bake in a large pan in my wood oven. I preheat this pan in the oven and put the dough in it and it bake it for 45min. I create a sort of mini oven in the oven. It makes it easier for me to handle the temperature and the bread become so nice brown and crispy…  

You need for one bread

500gr flower (whole meal flower or all purpose, what you like.)

½package dry yeast

Lite sugar

250-300ml water (37℃)

A little butter

1 ½ tsp. salt

- Tip the flour into a bowl and mix in the yeast with the salt. Stir in the water, butter and sugar Now bring together to make a soft dough – I use my hands, but a wooden spoon works fine too. Tip onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 10 mins. It is worth putting in the time to do this as it will pay off later with lovely airy bread.

- Put it in the bowl again a covered with a wet towel put I a warm place to rise, it takes most an hour the first time. Push gently the dough flat and form it in a bal. Put it in a little basket or bowl with the same measure as your Dutch oven pan. Let rise another half an hour or so.

get the fire going before baking

put my Dutch oven in the oven

- Put it in the Dutch oven which have preheated for at least 30min, covered with the lid, bake for 45min. in a hot oven.