the emotional life of sølje

Happy Fall, everyone! I took some pictures of our Japanese Maple yesterday. This one little leaf was back lit nicely by the sun. I love how it turned out. I wish the photos I took looking up into the tree looked as rich.

I was planning to make a loaf of bread using some Italian sourdough starter, but after the first rise I decided to go a different direction. I haven’t been able to find any directions on making "sourdough" monkey bread, so it was basically a shot in the dark using some other recipes I had found online.

The bread is delicious! Absolutely no "sour" flavor detected (though this Italian starter is pretty mild), and the bread is soft.

The basic recipe is
3.5c flour
1c starter
1c water
2tsp salt

mix, knead, let double. create little balls (abt walnut size), dipped in butter, and tossed with cinnamon sugar. I buttered a pan and added a cin/sugar coating before placing the balls within.

I let the dough rise a second time (abt 2hrs), prepared a brown sugar/butter topping (melted 1/2c butter w/1c brown sugar in a saucepan, let boil for about a minute while constantly stirring, drizzled over the top of dough) and then baked at 350-375 for 35 mins.

I am positive that there are hardly any calories in this bread whatsoever

Tags: Cooking by Solje
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We went to the South 47 Farm today to pick our pumpkins. Every year more and more people show up. I guess its good for the farm, but it was once less crowded for our own convenience. I checked out the produce, but for the most part our weekly CSA share has everything we need. I had briefly thought of getting some pumpkins for making a pie (winter something pumpkin? can’t remember the name… seems like “silky” was in the name), but when it came time to buy our pumpkins, Darrin was grumpy that we weren’t letting him push the “pumpkin barrow” around (sorry guy in front of us who’s heels we clipped… oops), so I let Kev do the deed and I took the boys over to see the animals.

Like last year, the weather was perfect. Sunny and blue skies. We definitely chose the right weekend! Daniel is going to be Harry Potter for Halloween. We bought the costume stuff yesterday, and today he wore his glasses to the pumpkin farm… Can’t wait until he’s 20 and I can say, “Remember when you wore HP glasses to the pumpkin farm?”. He’ll love me for it.

Tags: A Family Affair by Solje
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