I found myself with a load of milk yesterday. I had my own plus that of a friend who had been out of town and had given me her CSA share. Today is pick-up day again and I had no room left in the refrigerator. I needed more mozzarella so I began with that. As long as I had fresh mozzarella id decided to make some sourdough pizza. It’s such an easy recipe and I think of sourdough starter as a must-have in every prepared kitchen. All it takes is a 1/2 cups of starter, a teaspoon of salt and enough flour to make a kneadable dough. I don’t knead long, maybe 4-5 minutes. That went into the microwave to rise. There’s a light over the stove that keeps the temperature of the microwave just right for rising bread. Next up was yogurt. Again, easy, easy. Heat the milk to 160 (a little steam will be rising from the top but don’t let it get away from you.)Add a couple of tablespoons of starter and let is set for several hours. I used the microwave space for that too as the light is on anyway. For dinner I preheated the oven and the pizza stone to 400 degrees while I fried up some peppers, onions and spinach in a bit of olive oil. I give the crust about 7 minutes in the oven before I top it. Some olive oil brushed across the top with keep the crust from getting soggy. Now just put the pizza together with canned tomatoes and herbs chopped very fine and topped with veges and cheeses and in another 7 minutes, dinner is served. It was terrific. Even Phoebe didn’t complain about the onions.
This sounds like a lot of work but the hands-on time is really not that long. The food, with exception of the olive oil and the wheat was from less than a mile away and the food was healthy and fabulous. There are worse ways to spend my time. The folks who own the raw milk dairy are putting in wheat patch this year with the goal of adding a grain CSA to the village. I’ll be their first and best customer. Now if we could just grow olives. I should be careful what I wish for. The climate models looks as though that might be possible in my children’s lifetime and it will cost us the maples.
It’s time for me to get serious about water. I have never purchased a good water filter as water is so easy to access around here. Or is it? How do I feel about hauling buckets from the river? How do I feel about in January? I am exploring water catchment systems. It’s either a good catchment system or finding and re-opening our well. that’s an intensive and expensive project. Barrels are easier. Of course, having rain would be necessary and that’s in short supply just now.
The earthquakes have been crazy the past few days. Lot of quakes both large and small. It is disconcerting. If you live on one of the big fault lines please take this seriously. I know. I’m preaching to the converted again.
April 13, 2012 at 8:07 am
Have you ever tried making your pizza on the grill? OMG. Nothing compares. Nothing. Especially when it’s hot outside and you don’t want to heat the house up.
April 13, 2012 at 10:05 am
That sounds like a good idea!
April 13, 2012 at 2:58 pm
You also have to think about HOW you’ll be fetching water. My grandfather said that the best thing he ever did was get on town water. No more hiking through the snow the 200′ to the creek to prime the pump with bare hands whenever it froze. That was the closest water to his house (and he tried digging three wells — it was either dig a cellar and build a house or keep trying for wells.)
So keep that in mind — simple pumps require that kind of maintenance often.
And thus ends my knowledge of water systems.
April 15, 2012 at 10:32 am
We are also thinking about our water supply. We have a small river about 1 mile from our house which we could get to many different ways. But the thought of hauling that river water over the fields in the snow seems an impossible task. So we too are looking into a hand pump for our well. The hand pump system would actually be set up to pump water into the house and seems like the perfect solution. But the work is so expensive, I’d have to take out another job to finance the project! A secure water source is such an important piece of our family’s well being in a grid down situation- maybe it’s time I take another look at that second job.
April 16, 2012 at 7:38 am
I too have been “thinking” more about water… for some reason it is really on my mind lately. Putting up gutters on the barn this week to catch water for the livestock. I love my city water, we put in when we first bought our place, so convenient that I would hate to go back to any other way but sometimes we may not have a choice in the future. We have water filtration and a pond but the thought of having to haul water in buckets… Ugh! but whatever will be will be. Trying to think though all the alternatives. My son has a well but it goes dry when we have drought type weather so they have to pump from their pond. I’m not the most mechanical of people and pumps seem to always have problems too.. and of course the require electricity or generator to run. So many things to consider.
We live in the general New Madrid fault area zone, so I too am always concerned about that too… felt my first earthquake a few years ago here in Indiana…not too big but really weird feeling, just really strange.