bad bread day

so here i am. another friday night at home with ray and the fur kids, still reeling from the really horrible bread day i had last weekend.

(mr. keebs resting on the back porch. those mutts have a really nice 7 foot Room & Board couch to nap on out there. at one time was my favorite couch and one of the first big purchase ray and i ever made together. now, many years later, belongs to the dogs.)

i have yet to grasp the basics of bread making. i'm trying to use organic yeast and
whole wheat flours. unfortunately neither of which i can find produced locally. not to long ago i was super glad to come across this blog where someone was making their own yeast/starter for their homemade bread. basically fermenting the naturally occuring yeast that is on fruit. so i tried this. placed organic raisins in a jar full of water, and let sit for a few days. was supposed to get nice bubbly, slightly cloudy yeast water to use to start bread. what i got was yucky funk water with mold spores. i ain't going there folks.
anyway, i started my bread like always with a poolish that i let sit in the garage over night.

(a girl and her poolish)

worked nicely, and then that's when it happen. being ever so big for me britches, i decided, i don't need no stinking recipe. i've done this enough times, i'll wing it.

(trying to mix the bread by hand)

(as if, time to mix this bitch with my favorite machine)

(1st rise)

(2nd rise - before)

(2nd rise - after - ready to bake)

(ugly pic, ugly bread. i will NOT be defeated. not by no stinking bread. watch out yeast and flour, i'm coming for you!!!)

on the bright side, the fall garden is off to a promising start. most to the seeds i planted have started to sprout. the spinach and carrot sprouts are finally popping up. some herbs are doing the same.
last night we had a fine diner of some lettuce/greens from the garden cooked in butter and oil, local egg omelette with the peach salsa that i made the other day. yummy.

(time to make the salsa)

(yummy greens)

(my foods my not be pretty, but they sure taste good)

and then of course, we ate the last of the homemade sour cream cake and organic ice cream.
now i need to start scanning in more film and taking more pics. i think i will try to put in a nice artsy fartsy pic for each post. some will be random, some will need some work/editing, some will be from new series, some will be from old/ongoing projects. lately i have had a number of project idea going around in my head.

here's my first pic.