On our trip last weekend to southern Pennsylvania, we enjoyed a delicious addition to our breakfast spread…Apricot Bread! I knew about banana bread, blueberry bread and raisin bread but had never had apricot bread! It was a delicious, colorful bread!
I was told the recipe came from a cookbook written by James Beard…Beard on Bread. I just so happened to have that book on my shelf!
I typed out the recipe because the small paperback would not lie flat and I couldn’t weight it down without covering the recipe! (It’s on page 175, if you also have the book.) I’ll include a photo of the recipe below.
When I start a recipe like this…with several ingredients needing additional preparation, I try to prep them before I start…in this case chopping the nuts and soaking the apricots.
I did not take pictures of mixing the bread up. By the time I thought of it…it was mixed! It was really pretty simple and made the whole house smell good!
It made a pretty loaf. Perfect for breakfast or dessert! Give it a try! Enjoy.
For many years, our property was surrounded by 27 Blue Spruce trees. When we first moved here in 1970, we had a huge garden. We had some tiny spruce tree seedlings that we planted in the garden. When they were big enough…took several years…we transplanted them around the property line. They gave us some wonderful privacy for 50 years.
2019
By 2019, we noticed several of the trees were unsteady in high winds and had to be removed. We didn’t want to be responsible for a large tree landing on our neighbor’s roof! Eventually, we determined it just wasn’t safe to have any of them. Plus, they weren’t looking too health. Looking at the trees was more like looking through lace; it was just too risky to leave them up.
2019
The process of taking them down by professionals was the only way to go. It was a pretty sad day.
2019
It did leave us with a huge pile of logs that Bert worked on for several weeks…a little at a time! The picture below was just a small portion of the pile of logs.
2019
This was just the beginning of the final wood pile!
2019
In 2022, we decided it was time to replace the trees with…something! Anything huge would not have time to grow big enough to enjoy. As much as Bert dislikes plants that seem to grow where ever they want, he agreed forsythia plants would define the property line and be pretty in the spring in a year or two. We invested in 65 plants and Bert, with a willing friend, managed in a few long hot days to get them all in the ground. Whew!
The first year they just looked like a bunch of sticks in the ground. In 2023, the plants tried their best, so we had a few yellow flowers.
2023
2023
2023
This year, 2024, we can really see the potential for pretty spring flowers.
2024
2024
2024
So, even though we still miss our Blue Spruce trees, we’ll now have pretty forsythia to look at each spring…and we won’t have to worry every time the wind blows! I don’t think the forsythia will ever get so big it will block our view of the mountains. Happy Spring!
(The dreary rainy weather is prompting me to bake bread today! I especially wanted to remind you about this recipe that starts with grinding the wheat to making the bread. I always feel like The Little Red Hen in the children’s book! This was posted in May of 2022, so forgive me if you remember it. Sometimes I just need to do it again!)
Baking bread has always been my favorite activity when I want to do something that reminds me of my mother. I learned the “feel” of a well-kneaded loaf of bread when I was young and carried that skill over to my family when I became a mother. When sticky buns made an appearance in my mother’s kitchen, I was always glad I had hung around and could try the first batch.
Fifty years ago, we had few choices at the grocery store…white bread was everywhere. There was much in the news about how white flour had lost much of it’s nutrition by sifting out the wheat germ and bleaching it with chemicals. Of course, then we used wheat germ in cookies and added the bran back to our diets with Bran Cereal! When I cruise the bread aisle today. I’m always struck with how many choices I have of whole wheat and multi-grain artisan bread and buns. However, I still enjoy the process of making my own bread.
I’ve already shared my Oatmeal Bread recipe (https://marykisner.com/marys-oatmeal-bread/) but I’m still struggling to find a good whole wheat recipe that tastes good and isn’t as heavy as a brick. Last week, I did an internet search with “the best whole wheat bread recipe” to see what came up. Lo and behold, a recipe called, “The Very Best Whole Wheat Bread Recipe” was at the top of the list. The recipe was from https://www.fivehearthome.com/. It looked pretty simple so I thought I’d give it a try.
The day before I was going to bake, I went to the health food store and picked up about 10 lbs. of white whole wheat berries and a small bag of Vital Wheat Gluten. This powder will add more wheat gluten so the loaf sticks together better.
I set up my wheat grinder and got it running. Within an hour or so I had about 10 lbs. of beautiful flour ready to go.
Now I’m ready to bake! I did notice that the grocery store carries King Arthur brand of “White Whole Wheat Flour” now, so I shouldn’t have to grind my own if I don’t want to.
Here is the recipe:
Here are the rest of the ingredients:
Directions:
Step 1: Measure out the flour, vital wheat gluten and yeast into the mixer bowl.
Steps 2-3: Add 2 ½ cups of very warm water. Mix up for 1 minute (I did this by hand) and let it rest for 10 minutes.
In 10 minutes, the yeast is going to town!
Step 4: Add salt, oil, vinegar and honey. Mix for 1 minute.
Step 5: Add and mix in 2 ½ to 4 cups of flour, 1 cup at a time.
Step 6: Knead in the mixer until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl and feels smooth rather than sticky (5-15 minutes). Turn the dough out on to floured surface. Form into a smooth ball.
Steps 7-8: Grease 2-3 bread pans. Divide dough into three oblong loaves and put them in the pans. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. for one minute and then turn the oven off. Place the pans in the warm oven and allow them to rise for 20-40 minutes, until the dough is nicely domed above the tops of the pans.
Step 9: Without removing the pans from the oven, turn on the oven again to 350 degrees and set the timer for 30 minutes. The oven will go through the whole preheat cycle now, which sets the crust.
Step 10: The bread is done when the tops are golden brown and the internal temperature reaches 190 to 200 degrees F.
Step 11: Once the loaves are baked, immediately remove the hot bread from the pans to cool on a rack.
Delicious!
I think this recipe will be my go-to recipe for whole wheat bread. I was so happy with it that I ordered a 25 lb. sack of white whole wheat berries from Amazon! Beats trying to bag it up myself at the health food store.
As much as we’d like to think that Spring could emerge any time now, here in central Pennsylvania we hope it holds off a few more weeks. How many of us remember huge snowstorms returning mid-March and killing frosts in April. We all hope fruit blossoms are not fooled into opening too early…which would mean no apples, peaches or pears this year!
Two weeks ago, this was our backyard:
Today it was 42 degrees around lunch time and all the snow is mostly gone:
Even the grass is trying to turn green!
The forsythia bushes look healthy and have many buds ready to pop. We should have a beautiful border around the back of our property if a late frost doesn’t kill them before they open!
The lavender in the garden is a silvery green and looks like it did well this winter. Hopefully, it can hit the ground “running” this year! We’ve never had lavender plants winter-over and do well the next year.
The echinacea is still dropping seeds. We’ll trim out the dried stalks in a few weeks.
Bert pulled out the package of garden seeds for this year and separated the packets of seeds that he wanted to start early in the shop under grow lights. He’ll probably start them around mid-March.
We’ll try not to push Mother Nature…even a Spring on time is just fine. Every day it stays light just a little longer and that feels hopeful! Enjoy!
(This is a repost of a story from February 14, 2022. A few of you may have read it then, but when I saw it today I just couldn’t resist sharing it. I wrote it with my grandkids in mind.)
Ruth Lowry, 1930, 18 years old
Growing up, I had heard my mother share stories about her experiences being assigned to a rural one-room school for the 1932-33 school year. She had graduated from High School in 1930 and went on to get a teaching certificate. It was definitely culture shock for her. She grew up in “town” with the many conveniences of the times…like indoor plumbing and central heating (probably coal).
Besides having to live with a nearby family, she had to walk a distance to the school, start a fire in the stove, do general maintenance for the school building and get the classroom ready for 23 students from grades 1-8. The living experience by itself was new; then she had the challenges of her first year of teaching! She was a small, shy woman…barely 5’4” tall. The older students (boys especially) were tough farm kids who often didn’t want to be there. Learning to teach a class of mixed ages was a challenge in the first place. Over the years she would share little tidbits of experiences that wore her down by the end of the year. She taught only one year!
One room school house, stock photoby Wendy White
From my memory of her stories, the whole year was a traumatic experience for her. Recently, I was going through a small photo album of hers from that time and saw a photo of that class. Her note on the picture says it all!
I also came across a box of valentines she had saved from that year…very interesting collection! Most of the valentines were signed politely on the back with, “To Miss Lowry” and signed with a full name, most in neat cursive writing! Maybe by February 1933 things had settled down in her classroom!
I thought you might like to see how clever some of the valentines were:
#1 Front
#1 Inside
#1 Back
#2 This one came flat…
#2…and opened to be three-dimensional!
#3 This is signed by Gertrude Lee. She was Ruth’s best friend all through high school.
#3 Back
#4 Front
#4 Back. Maybe this one came from my dad who was teaching at a different one-room school in the area??
#5 Front
#5 Inside. No signature.
#6 and #7 Front
#6 and #7 Inside
#6 and #7 Back
It’s been a long time since I bought a box of valentines for a whole class, but I suspect none of them have such poetic ways to say, “Be My Valentine!” I wonder if kids today could write poems like these? What a treasured memory of my mother! Enjoy!
The weather folks sure had fun yesterday predicting up to 2 feet of snow for Central Pennsylvania! Of course, last night schools were cancelled for today (even Penn State classes were delayed), garbage pickup was delayed and my lunch with my high school friends was postponed. Not a problem, but we woke up to 3 inches of heavy, wet snow and 32 degrees. Made for some beautiful scenery in the trees in our backyard!
With a day to stay inside, what should I do? Our big mixer is still sitting on the kitchen table so I could make another big batch of Oatmeal Bread or sticky buns, like I did yesterday.
…or I could spend the day designing beaded bracelets that I hope to sell this summer at a craft fair;
…or I could read a good book; or I guess I could always clean the house (boooo…never my first choice!!).
So, you can see, on this EMERGENCY snow day, I have choices! I hope when you have to shift gears and change up your schedule for an “emergency day,” you have lots of fun choices ready to go so you aren’t stuck cleaning the house! (smile)!
Over the last week or two we have received at least 6 seed catalogs. So many beautiful pictures! These three catalogs I saved because the covers were so striking. They are from Maine, Wisconsin and Iowa.
They were fun to look through, but we plan to stay with Burpee, which is located in Pennsylvania.
The garden spaces in our yard will remain the same as previous years.
I have my raised planters on the patio that work best for lettuce and radishes. I may throw in some spinach seeds left from last year. We tried a sweet potato in a pot last year…the deer loved the vine and leaves. We did actually harvest a few sweet potatoes. I think if we decide to put something in the big pot, it might just be a chocolate mint.
2023
We have two fenced beds just off the patio. Last year we planted potatoes and beets. The potatoes did well…the beets did not. This year I think we’ll dedicate the space to flowers and a small yellow tomato plant.
By the end of the summer, the potatoes looked “done” and the beets did nothing after the deer grazed the tops down!
2023
Up on the hill we have 4 rows available for planting…with a row of lavender at one end and a bed at the other end dedicated to the Echinacea.
2023
So, our seed hunting is pretty simple this year: green and yellow beans, carrots, tomatoes, radishes, lettuce and flowers. Bert will start the tomatoes and flowers in early March under grow lights in the shop. We really try not to plant tomato plants outside at least until the middle of May.
Our garden certainly is not a massive truck farm…just big enough to keep us busy enjoying the outdoors. I suspect a few years from now the whole garden will be planted in flowers!
The pictures in the catalogs really tease us…every picture promises our garden produce will be especially beautiful this year!
Here are the seeds we’ve chosen…don’t they look perfect! We’ll see this summer!
Super Sauce tomato
Baby Romaine
Marigold
Zinnias
I’ll start writing about the garden progress in April or May! Enjoy!
Looking for a fun activity to do with a group of people…kids, teens or adults? Making raised pretzels is pretty simple and you end up with a snack to share! Here’s one of my favorite recipes to make that is sure to get everyone involved!
This is a simple yeast bread recipe…great for new bakers to start with. It is a small batch recipe and can be mixed up by hand. My directions are pretty detailed because this recipe will be used by a few young people in the family that are new to baking yeast bread.
Most of the ingredients are pretty standard to have around, except maybe the Pretzel salt. I recently ordered some from Amazon just to have on hand.
Collect the rest of the ingredients as shown below:
Making the Raised Pretzel Dough
Step 1: Preheat the oven to 400 Degrees F. Spray baking sheets with oil (or use parchment paper or a silicon mat).
Step 2: In a medium bowl, measure out 2 Tablespoons of yeast (or 2 packages). Add 1/2 cup of very warm water and stir. Let it stand until dissolved and foamy (about 10 minutes).
Step 3: Add the milk, sugar, salt and gradually add 3 cups of flour, mixing after every 1/2 cup.
When the dough is too stiff to mix with a spoon, it will still be pretty sticky. Scrape it away from the sides and dump the whole pile out onto the floured surface. You will use about another cup of flour to knead the dough.
Step 4: Knead the dough. Make sure the pile of dough is sitting on about 1/2 cup of flour. The flour will be incorporated into the dough as you work with it. You can add more flour under the dough as needed to keep it from sticking to the table.
Carefully lift and pull the outer edges toward the center of the pile using the flat of your floured hand. Don’t poke into the dough…it will be too sticky.
Continue to pull and press the edges of the dough into the middle of the pile, pressing down with the heel of your hand. You will be working your way around the edge. Soon the dough will look smoother, although it will still feel sticky if you poke your finger into the dough. Knead the dough like this for about 5 minutes.
After 5 minutes of kneading, tuck all the edges into the center and turn the ball of dough smooth side up. Let it rest on the table a few minutes.
Step 5: Shape the dough. For this batch, I just made pretzel sticks. You could call them bread sticks. After cutting off chunks of dough, I gently stretched each piece, rolling them to make a long stick that fit on my baking sheet. After I made about a dozen sticks, I made a small round loaf of what was left of the dough.
Step 6: Finish the pretzels, by brushing them with milk and sprinkling salt on them. I did the same with the small loaf of bread.
Step 7: Bake 15-20 minutes until golden brown.
I’m sure anyone could do a better job of making pretzel shapes than me, but I think the “pretzel bread” could be interesting toast!
I hope these instructions are useful for Emily, Anna and others as a simple yeast bread recipe. Enjoy!!
Christmas celebrations this year were spread out over several weeks with luncheons with my Fire Company Auxiliary friends and a group of my High School friends. Decorations in the neighborhoods were either understated or “over the top.” Ours were pretty simple outside:
Even our inside decorations were understated:
When I’m asked if I decorate for the holidays, I usually mention that during the month of December I’m often sewing greyhound coats and other assorted Christmas gifts. I have the Hallmark Channel on while I sew. That means every two hours I have a chance to watch folks decorate a tree, sing Christmas carols and eat Christmas cookies. By the time Christmas rolls around, I’m decorated OUT!
Ted’s family didn’t travel east this year because he had a 3-week opportunity to fly to the Atacama Desert in Chile to help set up a telescope at the Simons Observatory. It’s at 17,000 feet, so everyone had to wear “oxygen concentrators” mandated by Chile’s equivalent of OSHA. Quite the adventure!
This year we drove to Kathy’s home on Christmas Eve day and enjoyed 24 hours with her family.
Anna was almost awake to notice her new bike!
My notebook of Favorite Recipes was a hit!
Kathy managed to capture “selfies” of us!
Of course, photobombed by Ben!
Perfect gifts for Grandma! New scissors and a gift card to JoAnn’s!
My usual request for a photo desk calendar came through!
An adorable tiny arrangement with wood flowers from Anna!
And of course, my Christmas card from Bert…plays the song from “A Charlie Brown Christmas!”…with cash inside…so it could be my favorite card!
I hope you had a wonderful time with family and friends!
Rest up for 2024! It’s predicted to be a wild ride!
I’ve managed to give away most of the stuff I’ve made so it was time to see what I should make next. Here’s how I check my inventory…very low tech!
I basically have three bins on my shelf, one for lotion bars and sunscreen salve; one for assorted other stuff, like lip balm, cuticle butter, bruise balm and healing salve; and one bin for soap. When laid out, here’s what I have at the moment:
Bin #1…Lotion Bars and Sunscreen lotion
Looks like I have 9 lotion bars and three tins of sunscreen lotion. The sunscreen lotion will need to be pitched and attempted again…it was too firm to apply.
This is my favorite soap and a complicated soap to make so I’m pretty stingy with it.
Assorted individual soaps to share. These seem to be individual large and small soaps that I use for gifts when needed.
What to make next?
Now that I see what I have, after Christmas I’ll want to make some tinted lip balm, cuticle butter, nail serum and bug bite serum.
After I did my inventory, I had a request for some of my Calendula Healing Salve so I thought I’d make a big batch today. Bert took the time this week to make me a wooden holder to hold the small oval shaped containers I use. It sure made the process easier so the tubes didn’t fall down as I filled them. After Christmas I’ll post the details how to make the Healing Salve…great stuff!!
I sure hope everyone has a wonderful Holiday weekend with lots of hugs from family and friends! If you are traveling, I hope your travels are smooth and safe!
