Basement Walls and Root Cellar

This morning, Jon and I worked on putting up boards for the basement walls.  The cement walls have insulation and studs up and rough planed boards will make up the final wall.  This corner of the basement will someday be my weaving studio (as well as home to a hot water heater).

The middle section of the basement will be root cellar/pantry.  This section will be walled off on three sides with insulation.  The left side has drawers and shelves and the right side has shelves floor to ceiling.  I am waiting on a quote for a countertop.  All of the extra kitchen supplies will be kept here and I am very excited to have a place to stock up on bulk items and keep canned goods.  The temperature stays steady and cool.

The last section will be closest to the door and will be Jon's workshop.  There is only one wall to go now, and the weather keeps getting warmer!

No Knead Whole Wheat Bread

It has been five years since I have written here.  So many things have changed and some are still the same.  We have started to build a house, we have animals.  But I am once again a housewife baking bread and using an ancient laptop with several broken keys.

 

Rising bread in a brotform

I hope to start up this blog again to share new recipes, progress on the house, as well as other events on our growing homestead.

Ready to go in the oven

To celebrate restarting this blog, I am sharing the bread recipe that I have been using, adapted from this recipe for no knead bread.

Smells so good!

No Knead Whole Wheat Bread

1 1/2 TBSP active yeast

3 cups plus 2 TBSP lukewarm water

1 1/2 TBSP salt

1 TBSP olive oil

2 cups whole wheat flour

4 1/2 cups unbleached white flour

Proof yeast in water.  Add in whole wheat flour and mix in mixer.  Add in salt  and oil and mix.  Add in white flour one cup at a time, mixing after each addition until flour is entirely incorporated.  Do not add in any additional flour.  Let rise for approximately 2 hours.  It will get very big!  After the first rise, punch down very carefully, it will be sticky.  Remove 1/3 of the dough, refrigerate the rest lightly covered for bread later on in the week.  Flour a brotform well.  Form the reserved dough into a ball and place into the brotform, it will be very sticky.  Cover and rise for  45 min to 1 hour if warm, 1 1/2 to 2 hours if cold.  Preheat oven to 400 F with a tin on the lowest shelf and heat up a kettle of water.  Invert bread carefully into a cake tin lined with parchment paper.  Cut top with pattern as desired.  Place in hot oven and at the same time pour hot water into the hot tin to create steam, closing the oven quickly.  Bake for 30-35 min until browned and hollow sounding when tapped.  Let cool on a rack.  The remaining refrigerated dough contains enough dough to make two more breads and should be used up within about a week.