Barking Dog Farm

“Acorns were good till bread was found.”

- Francis Bacon, English philosopher, statesman (1561-1626)

~

These past few days of lingering warmth that will surely soon tuck itself in for the oncoming winter, remind me of the final nastursiums that scoffed at the frost warning weeks ago. They were glorious, and the next day they were gone- the frost had come, and the season was over.

The garden now has turned crisp and dry, the colors fading into shades of brown, rust, and buff. Its really beautiful, and after a very challenging season where excessive rain pummeled everything to the ground more than once, and assisted the rapid spread of the awful tomato blight (which stole our beloved fruits, and harmed our farmer friend’s bottom line) I have to say the quiesence is a little bit of a relief (I must remind myself of this when the snow finally does come!) Until I can really sign off on this year’s garden, there is a lot of work to be done. It is a mess, a lovely, disheveled mess.

The bread baking obsession continues, I am training myself to create a variety of different delicious loaves because as you must know my delightful husband is going to open a butcher shop called The Meat Market which will specialize in local and pasture raised meats…he is an accomplished chef, and will be sampling his wares to customers so they can experience the quality of his products, what better medium than very delicious breads???

I have been experimenting with sprouting grains, to varying success. Some didn’t rise properly due to inadequate sugars or too high moisture content without good gluten structure (hello mung-beans) others are just too dense… but two partially happy results have in one case (1/3 rye, 1/3 spelt, 1/3 red wheat) created a nutty, textured loaf perfect for toast and honey, and in another case (1/4 rye, 1/2 wheat, 1/4 mung beans) produced a very dense, somewhat vegetable-tasting barely-risen loaf great for canned or cured fish- like smoked salmon or canned sardines (Jeremy’s addiction.) A recent try with 100% Triticale (grown at our local and beloved Wild Hive Farm) had an amazing scent of maple, was a total failure- producing a dense wet lump, good thing we have chickens!

Despite the failures, I love the process of experimentation.. Ultimately I wind up back with my beloved French style loaves, these are made with a pate fermente that I have frozen for use on a whim. In this case the pate fermente had about 30% whole wheat four, when I made the dough I continued the theme, using about 60% whole wheat, some course ground, some more refined. The result was a pleasantly nutty loaf with a nice crumb, not too toothy as we have been really exercising our masticatory muscles on those sprouted loaves! A much deserved mouth break!!