We had an early morning visit from this wee beastie …
A Mistress of Camouflage
I took it as a sign that it was high time I did a bit of flower-gazing. Since it started to warm up the wildflowers around these here parts blossomed overnight. Much to the delight of all the pollinators who’ve been patiently waiting for them.
We are surrounded by the most delicate of wild rose bushes. They flower in a day and the next day the petals have fallen to the ground, but while they’re here they are a delight to see …
Intermingled with the roses were these little ‘five-leaf-clover-ish beauties …
A Five-Leaf-Clover-ish – on a stem, on a bush
… and these Magenta Two-Toes …
Magenta Two-Toes … I have no idea of the names of any of these flowers so I’m making them up as I go along … as usual
The RV/camping spaces behind us have been left to their own devices and this is the result …
When you stare at the fruit and the fruit stares back …
Wot ch’oo lookin’ at?
It grows on this bush, and I have absolutely no idea what it is …
Probably best not to know
What about this one. An Elven hat-rack perhaps?
Elf hats – cheaper by the dozen
Self-explanatory …
I hope, because I have no idea, except that it’s not a wildflower
-oOo-
In the film ‘Stranger Than Fiction’, Will Ferrell’s character brings the woman he’s courting, played to perfection by Maggie Gyllenhaal, a ‘box of flowers’, which turns out to be a box of flours. (the entire movie is worth a watch, or in my case, several re-watches, but that moment struck a chord with me)
When I was thinking of a title for this post which is a collection of photos of flowers and Mrs Widds latest baking effort, (she is pleased, and like all artists – if you think bread-baking isn’t an art then you’ve never made it from scratch – she’s very hard to please when it comes to her own creations) that scene came to mind, because the main ingredient in bread is, of course, flour …
The buns in the foreground were dipped in melted butter and maple syrup before being baked – divine!
Fresh bread burgers for dinner … (with potato salad on the side)
Bread this fresh is notoriously hard to cut evenly. I’m rather proud that they all look like decent slices
-oOo-
May your wildflowers bloom and grow, bloom and grow for ever, and your bread slices never be too thin.
I’ve been cutting my own hair with a fabulous set of hair clippers since 2019. I got tired of not being satisfied with the cuts I was getting from a salon, and as my styling needs are simple, (#4 blade on the back and sides, #9 on top) I decided I could do a better job, or at least have no-one but myself to blame for a bad haircut. It took me quite a few try’s to get it right, (trimming the back of my head using a mirror took some mental gymnastics) but now I can knock off a decent cut in about 10 minutes.
The other day I decided it was time to do the deed once more. Only this time I didn’t have the privacy of a nice big bathroom, (our bathroom on Widder Island wasn’t all that big, but compared to what we have now …) in which to be naked. (for purposes of jumping straight into the shower to wash all those stick-to-your-skin tiny scraps of offcuts)
No, this time I stood outside, (with all my clothes on – we may have a secluded camping spot but it ain’t that secluded) and a split black plastic garbage bag pegged around my shoulders. With clippers in one hand, hand-held mirror in the other, I proceeded to trim my flowing locks.
This would’ve all gone swimmingly had not a brisk breeze suddenly blown in from the south-west. Scraps of leaves and pine-needles fled before it, my be-pegged cape began to flap as it tried to escape its be-pegged confines. The (empty and dry) plastic wash-basin I was capturing the majority of my shearings in also shimmied across the picnic table and tried to make a run for it.
The end result of all this wind and free-standing/flapping plastic was that my off-cuts, now being thoroughly electrified, stuck to everything … everything. Believe me static electricity is not your friend in the tonsuring business.
-oOo-
On to the bread baking.
Mrs Widds too, has had to make some adjustments to her usual modus-operandi, being bereft of the kitchen as we knew it.
All she needed though was our handy folding table, a fabulous silicone pastry sheet (the blue thing underneath the dough), a bit of nice weather, and away she went …
Ah, the benefits of an outdoor kitchen
Speaking of nice weather … a heat dome is supposed to descend on our heads in a day or two, so one could reasonably expect the temperatures to start leaving the single digits, couldn’t one?
It was 4C last night. Today never got above 9C, and tonight is forecast to be a luxurious 7C. Apparently we can blame this on La Nina deciding to stick around for a while longer. However, as Ms Scarlett O’Hara was wont to say, ‘Tomorrow is another day’, and it just might be a warmer one than today!
(unfortunately, as I’m writing this and preparing to publish it, our campground Wi-Fi is nowhere to be found, so you won’t be reading this until tomorrow anyway … I’ll let you know if we have sunny skies or cloudy ones … )(Update: We had sunny skies and now we have clouds. I’ve given up even guessing any more)
Chemistry in action – the dough riseth
The last outside action is to knead the dough one last time, form it into loaves, and place in a well-oiled bread tin … and wait …
The dough riseth some more
You see what the pans are sitting on? That’s pretty much the extent of our kitchen. Roomy eh?
The raw dough has been turned to sheer golden deliciousness by the application of heat – Chemistry for the win, again!
Actually, it has taken Mrs Widds five rounds of bread baking to get a feel for how the propane gas oven works in order to have that all-over glow-y crust. A genius, is she not?
-oOo-
May static electricity never intrude upon your haircuts, and may your bread rise perfectly.
However, on one memorable day towards the end of 2019 our heater broke and Mrs Widds put her culinary skills to a darker, more nefarious pastime – evisceration!
She eviscerated, she repaired, she reconstructed, until the heater worked again, and continues to do so to this very day.
In 2018 Mrs Widds acquired a dashing scooter to pootle around the highways, byways, and backroads, of our tiny corner of the world.
The thing about vehicles, of any sort, is that after a certain age, things start to deteriorate. (as it does with all of us) And so it was with the shiny little scooter.
The battery died, the carburetor had a hissy fit and turned up its toes, other assorted ills came to the fore, until Mrs Widds was forced to do this …
The Eviscerated
The Eviscera
Mrs Widds assures me patient will recover in the fullness of time.
-oOo-
In other news …
The editing continues, slower that I, perhaps unrealistically, hoped, but none-the-less moving along happily.
Editing starts with a print copy
I have recovered fully from my interesting week, but it’s taken me another week to get back on my feet. Mrs Widds even had to take over my lawn-mowing/weed-whacking job the other day.
Summer has arrived. The temperature yesterday was a tolerable 25°C but by this afternoon my poor antique thermometer had a fit of the vapours when its mercury topped 33°C …and presumably got hotter. I don’t know how much hotter because the thermometer refused to countenance any further indignities. I don’t blame it one bit. It always takes me a few days to adjust to these sudden shifts from one season to the next. Which is how they’ve turned for the last five-or-so years now.
Well, the sun is now well under the yardarm and it’s time I put on my editing hat and get to it!
She’d been shopping for Christmas ‘baking needs’ galore, When I thought she was done, she went out and bought more. Thank goodness for social distancing and masks, Because I really thought she’d never finish her tasks.
Not quite bare but close enough … let’s see if our old kitchen table is up to snuff
Back at home the kitchen table was laid bare. Empty of ‘stuff’ it gave me quite a scare. But magic can happen, so closer I peered, Then a bag of sugar and two basins appeared
That’s me with my camera, upside down and reversed … a candid shot, ne’er rehearsed
In the bowl went ingredients for choc-chip dough, Round went the spatula, going with the flow. The best bit for me was licking the spoon, After so much sugar I felt I would swoon
Swoon-worthy effects makes the picture glow … no more sugar for me – ‘til the next batch of dough
Next came Ginger Snaps, with treacle that oozed, Right out of the carton, and (not-so) sparingly used. And cinnamon and nutmeg into the batter were spun, Then three sunny eggs … and all was done.
Baking’s a mess, that’s for sure … but t’was much more in the bowl than dripped on the floor
Although no pictures of cookies all baked do exist. I’m not Ebenezer, (Scrooge) The dough was packed up and stuck in the freezer. Bound for the offsprings (2) and delivered in a hamper, Then back home through the pouring rain we did scamper.
Home again, home again jiggity jig, Time to bake Christmas cake, all round and big. Take all that lovely fruit for days soaked in ale, Add nuts and batter and we’ll see who’ll prevail.
I must confess I snacked on these too … I’m not one to resist such a delectable roux
Baking’s an art with successes oft blurred, Because Hestia and Demeter* have the last word. From the oven the cake came with center all gooey Mrs Widds language contained phrases like, ‘oh phooey’.
But being a woman of spirit, staunch and resolute, She took the concoction of pudding and fruit, And chopped and added it, to batter ready to bake, Thus creating the forever now famous, Mrs Widds-Twice-Baked-Cake!
Emegherd! It’s delicious, I’m having a slice … it’s fifty-eleven-squillion times better than ‘nice’!
These are the hands of the Baker Supreme, After ‘Quality-controlling’ her creations, a smile she did beam. For the bread was all crusty, the cake a delight, Her Christmas Baking all done, she wishes you all, Good night.’
The hands of an Artist are Art manifest … she’s my Mrs Widds, and she’s the best.
-oOo-
* Hestia – Goddess of Home and Hearth … Demeter – Goddess of Grains and the Harvest
-oOo-
A bonus (short) stanza because you know how I go,
We had a White Christmas, Hooray for SNOW!!!
The tree, shed, lake, and dock, all in white … somehow I think the new year just might … be alright
In my own defense I do a lot of stuff around here too, but it seems that Mrs Widds is on a roll so it’s only right that credit is given where credit is due.
(As an aside, we have a good working relationship with our landlady and if we can fix things ourselves, she has no problem OK-ing it, and paying for parts, etc)
On the 23rd of December, right at the tail end of the baking frenzy that is part of our year-end gifting to the offspring, (from Mrs Widds loins they sprung, not mine. I can’t think of anything more horrifyingly painful than trying to squeeze a whole, albeit small, human being out of my vagina, and I have the utmost admiration for all the women who do) the oven stopped working. Well, not completely, just the bottom element, the most important one.
Only the upper one remained, which left to its own devices, proved that it had the capacity to burn everything to a charred wasteland if left unattended for three seconds. Mrs Widds was not amused.
Once the Christmas festivities had concluded, the last ‘do’ was on Boxing Day, Mrs Widds, true to form, eviscerated the oven and discovered this …
Ring connectors, lightly fried
Ring connectors are the little thing-a-ma-jigs that transfer electricity from the wiring to the heating element itself. Tucked away behind the back wall of the oven. Tightly secured. Really tightly secured. So tightly secured that we had to cut the wires to get the bloody things out.
Take one trip to Canadian Tire, add a small packet of ring connectors, stir in Mrs Widds to reassemble, and turn the oven on again.
Heating, heating …
BOOM! KAPOW!
This happened …
It looks like Kane’s chest after the alien exploded from him… Emegherd! There was an alien in our oven!!! …Alien (the movie) reference, in case you missed it
Out into the pouring rain we went, again. (it’s been raining, heavily, here since the end of November)This time to our local hardware store who had the exact right replacement element.
And now the oven looks like this …
Working perfectly, and a whole lot cleaner
Mrs Widds bakery on Widder Island is back in business!
We did pick up a couple of loaves to tide us over, they were OK, but nothing compared to the real home-baked thing.
… licked your fingertip and picked the crumbs off your plate because 1 – you’re an adult now and you just can and 2 – you know that the crumbs of what you just ate contain the distilled essence of all that is good and fine in the world?
Nah, me neither.
Shortbread – shorts, or breads, or cookies?
Ginger Snaps … before and after
Mrs Widds cuts the mincemeat with apple – means you can have more than one, even if you’re not doing quality control
AllysNotebook Ginger Ale fruitcake recipe – still warm from the oven
Please bear in mind that this is Mrs Widds Secret Recipe, so don’t tell anyone, (without attribution) especially Great Uncle Algie. We all know what a gossip he is when he’s got a bit of eggnog under his belt
-oOo-
BUTTER TARTS
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
TASTY TIP: Place foil in bottom of oven to catch any spill. (preferably before you turn the oven on!)
Spray 12 cup tart/muffin tin very lightly to enable easy removal of tarts if your filling overflows as it melts.
INGREDIENTS:
FILLING 1 egg ½ cup butter or margarine softened 1 cup brown sugar 1 tbsp milk 1 tsp vanilla extract 2 cups raisins or pecans or walnuts
PASTRY ½ tsp salt 2 cups Flour ¾ cup Shortening or lard 1 tbsp vinegar 5 tbsp cold water
MIX IT ALL TOGETHER AND WHAT DO YOU GET:
Filling:
Beat together the first 5 ingredients until creamy, not grainy.
Chill the filling to make it easier to work with – not necessary but less messy.
TASTY TIP: I usually make up a batch of filling early and freeze it until needed.
Pastry:
Mix dry ingredients together, add liquid and mix together lightly.
Roll out the pastry on a floured surface.
TASTY TIP: Dust the rolling pin with flour to stop the pastry sticking to it.
Experiment with thickness, (I prefer my pastry to be fairly thin) but thick enough to hold the filling.
Pastry and filling and butter, oh my!
ADD THIS TO THAT:
Cut pastry to fit your tart/muffin tin, leaving enough to create a fluted edge around the top of each tart. Experiment with sizes. Add a few raisins, walnuts, or pecans in the bottom of pastry cup just before you put the filling in. The tarts are delicious with or without them so adding them is at the discretion of the baker.
Fill each pastry cup approximately 2/3 full.
LET THE ALCHEMY COMMENCE:
Bake for 15-20 minutes or until filling is set and pastry a golden brown.
TASTY TIP: Once baked IMMEDIATELY remove the tarts from pan … or you will have to hack them out with a jackhammer!
TASTY TIP: Scrape overflow into tart. To remove from tin, slide a fork down side and slide to one side gently lifting the tart as you go. Tart should lift easily out of tin.
Makes about 12, depending on the size of your tart/muffin tin, but the recipe can easily scale up for even more deliciousness.
The tarts can be frozen after baking, and reheated as desired.
Mrs Widds rose a little earlier than I yesterday and put her nefarious plans in place.
Because we live in such a little cottage I awoke to a tantalizing toffee-and-melted-butter aroma that gently lifted me from my recumbancy.
Although I’m not at my best before my first cuppa tea, I hastened to the kitchen to be greeted by this …
Pastry and filling and butter, oh my!
She waved her magic rolling pin, and in a great act of alchemy transformed these base elements into ….
BUTTER TARTS!!!
I quelled my beating heart for I was about to face my greatest test ..
Quality control …
I girded my spleen, also pancreas, and bravely hoisting my tea, sallied forth to do my duty …
Going …
Gone, in a sugar induced haze of glory … if I should fall in service to the season, bury me where the wild tarts roam!
One of the ‘playlists’ on our ‘Wunder-Lusters’ video channel is going to be about cooking these sorts of things with a propane oven, dutch oven, campfire, all sorts of RVcooking in general really, because we do love our food, we does.
Every year at around this time Mrs Widds goes into a bit of a flour-induced frenzy. For those of you who don’t know what I’m referring to, it’s probably worth checking out these mouthwatering posts:
This year she’s baking up a few favourites, and a few twists, that I can’t go into because I know that the recipients of our ‘goodie’ baskets occasionally read this blog.
However, all is not lost. My friend Ally, of Ally’s Notebook posted this wonderful 3-ingredient cake recipe that Mrs Widds had to try. All it is, is dried fruit, ginger ale, and self-raising flour.
We had all sorts of dried fruit left over from various snack-a-lots, so in went some dried papaya, (pawpaw) prunes, dried apricots, craisins, (sweetened dried cranberries) raisins and all the other usual suspects, and some roasted pecans for crunchyness.
Once everything was assembled it went into the oven and came out looking like this …
Crisp and crunchy on top …
… and perfectly baked everywhere else
We (the Baker, and the quality control expert, which would be moi) decided that next time we’d like it to have a tad more cake and a smidge less fruit, but other than that, it was truly scrumptious. Thank you, Ally!
-oOo-
The very next day … this happened …
Look at that. Some leftover pastry and a bit of roast chicken. Whatever shall I do with it?
Throw some veggies and gravy on top …
… cover with a bit of pastry and into the oven they go
And this is what comes out the other end. Perfect one-person chicken-pot-pies
We grabbed one each and retreated to our separate corners where a tastefully controlled amount of snarfing occurred.
It’s that time of the week in the Widder household, and as promised, or threatened some might say, I finally managed to remember to take pictures of the process from start to finish … so without further ado, Mrs Widds bakes bread.
First up, boil up ½ a potato with the skin on, until it’s cooked. Drain the water off and set it aside.
Taters about to be boiled
Mash the taters, and set them aside too.
Then assemble your dry ingredients.
“Ingredients, Assemble!”
In a big measuring bowl, add …11½ cups of flour/ grains mix (can be whole wheat/white/unbleached, whatever takes your fancy) Mrs Widds uses unbleached. 11½ cups go into the dough mix and 1½ cups (flour only) will be used in the kneading.
Grains: Mrs Widds throws in a handful of oats, some sunflower and pumpkin seeds, and some flax. You can experiment with all sorts of things, but don’t overdo it. There has to be a whole lot more flour than anything else.
Mrs Widds says: Different flours will change the texture/consistency and taste of the bread. You might need more flour during the kneading process, it depends on how the dough feels.
Add, 1 tblsp salt – the salt helps with the leavening process. i.e. helps the dough to rise.
Add 4 sachets of bakers yeast, or 4 slightly-less-than full tblsp.
Next … toss into the bowl 2/3 cup of sugar, or whatever sweetener takes your fancy – honey. maple syrup, molasses.
Mrs Widds says: Any liquid sweetener you use needs to be added to the total amount of liquid you put into the mix, and will also alter the texture/consistency and taste of the bread.
Which brings us to the liquid part of the equation:
You need 5 cups of liquid – including any liquid sweetener you might’ve added – use the potato water you set aside earlier.
Add ½ cup (10 tblsp) marg/shortening/butter to the still warm water, and once it’s melted add the mashed potato.
Mrs Widds says: Butter makes a ‘shorter’/richer loaf.
Now comes the fun bit:
You put the liquid in the dry ingredients, and you mix ‘em all up … to the tune of this song …
Heh, heh, heh … love the Muppets!
Mrs Widds … mixin’ ‘em all up
Make sure all the ingredients are wet.
Mrs Widds says: It looks more like a thick batter than dough at this stage.
Batter-y dough, or doughy batter – ahh, semantics
Cover with a light cloth and let it ‘rest’ (everyone needs a nap now and then) until it doubles in size.
Mrs Widds says: As a rule of thumb, each ‘rest’ period ought be long enough to allow the dough to double in size.
Voila, doubled in size
Mrs Widds says: All the liquid has been absorbed and the gluten has been released.
And it looks like this
Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Use the flour from the 1½ cups you set aside at the beginning.
All floured up and ready for my close-up
It’s nice to be kneaded
Still a bit sticky
Sprinkle more flour on and knead some more. Until it looks like this …
Ahh … that feels better
At this point you’ve probably used up a cup-ish of the flour, but it’s OK if it’s still a bit sticky-ish.
Mrs Widds says: Side note … you can put all sorts of ingredients in your mix, but be aware it will change the dough. e.g. dry cereal (Corn Flakes, Cranberry Crunch, yum) for instance, already has sugar and salt in it, leftover porridge (oatmeal) has liquid in it. But, don’t be afraid to experiment.
Next step:
Pour 1-2 tblsp light oil (not olive oil) into your mixing bowl, place your dough in the bowl and turn it a few times so it’s coated in the oil.
Mah oily self
Cover and let it rise/rest until it’s doubled in size.
And then: Don’t do this, but if you do, it’s OK, neither you nor the bread will be harmed. (We got into a discussion about something or other and forgot about the dough)
Overinflated
Underinflated
Time for another kneading.
Mrs Widds flying hands
Mrs Widds says: When in doubt, more kneading is better than less. And, pop any bubbles. That’s where the holes in baked bread come from, unpopped bubbles in the dough.
Then, back in the bowl, coat in oil, you know the drill.
Waiting to rise
All risen now
It’s ‘Kneadin’ Time again … to the tune of this song … and it shouldn’t be sticky anymore. If it is add more flour as you knead.
Your dough is never going to be the same because now, it’s time to make some loaves!!!
Lightly grease/oil your baking pans. (that’s my job. Gorgeous Assistant Extraordinaire! I use the same type of oil that goes on the dough in the mixing bowl)
Mrs Widds says: I divide up my dough by weight, but you don’t have to. Go with what feels right.
Hack off a piece, throw it on the scales and add or cut off bits until it weighs about 700g (about 1lb 8oz) then knead into a loaf and set aside.
Hacked up and set aside – Le sigh
A’kneading we will go, a’kneading we will go. Heigh, ho, the derry’O, a’kneading we will go
Once all the dough is hacked up and divided, re-knead and set into your pans. Lightly brush with oil.
Mrs Widds says: If you have a bit of dough left over, divide it between the loaves. If there’s too much, flatten it out and put it in a smaller baking dish, drizzle olive oil on top, and sprinkle with rosemary, thyme, oregano, (whatever you fancy) and it’s ready to go too.
Snug as bugs in … erm … loaves, in their tins – Note to Self: must get around to re-gluing that poor little Snowperson back together again
… and guess what? You wait for them to rise. Bwhahahahaha
Before
This might be a good time to preheat your oven to 350°F. Usually about 5 minutes before the loaves go in the oven.
After
Clean-up time:
A B-B-Q scraper is great for lifting the dried dough and left-over bits of flour. NOTE: Focaccia loaf in the background
Focaccia loaf all rizzed up – The peek-a-boo version
Baking:
Bake for 20 minutes-ish, or until the bottom of the loaf makes a hollow sound when you tap it.
Mrs Widds says: The focaccia loaf will take less time to bake so add it to the oven accordingly. Every oven has its idiosyncrasies. With ours I need to turn the loaves about halfway through their bake time.
Still warm and half of it already eaten
– Here we are, back at the beginning … All baked and ready to be ‘et’
One final task:
The washing-up
Which is usually my job, (Gorgeous Assistant Extraordinaire) unfortunately I had a nasty encounter with a vegetable slicer.
Owwie … Never a dull moment in the Widdershins household
Widdershins Worlds 