Sourdough Waffels

About three weeks ago I traded for a sourdough starter. I've been wanting to try sourdough pizzadough and waffels. I'f fed the starter on Saturdays. I've kept it in the fridge other than that. I was worried that it wouldn;t work, and the pizza dough didn't. Then again, I didn't really use a recipe.

Don't get me wrong, I liked the pizza dough. It was just really flat. The DH didn't like that. So we disagree, that means I'll do my homework, find a recipe and try again in a while.

The WAFFLES oh the waffles. They did turn out. I did follow the recipe and it was amazing. They were definitely still whole wheat and needed fruit and maybe even whipped cream. OOHH! That'd be good.  (By the way, the obsession with food is NOT pregnancy related. I just have an excuse to be more verbal about it.)

The recipe is form King Arthur Flour. It is truly amazing. The batter DOES start to bubble when you put the eggs in. It is amazing. I was afraid that string it to combine, which I needed to do aggressively, would be a problem, but it continued to bubble through the second waffle. The batter only made two Belgian waffles, but they were perfect. Here is the link. 

April Baby Belly

Is it just me or do I look like I have a volleyball hidden under my shirt? For comparison sake. Last month's pic is the one with the pink shirt. (It took me a while to see the difference too.)

Baby and Musings.

We've made it another month. Unfortunately this one promises to be a long long. For Justin things are "Warp speed ahead". Which means he is putting in 18 hour days and I am at home or school becoming deprived of my honey. However, I knew this was part of marrying him and am glad that it only happens twice a year. Plus, he is generally home when or before I am in the winter which is very enjoyable.

We are praying that God continues to bless us through April as He has shown me that He is truely to be trusted with my care and is truely loving as He has provided for us time and again in unexpected ways. He continually guards our health and safety. Baby continues to do well and we just got our test results back that we are not anemic and not currently diabetic. These are not a surprise, but do reassure my Dr. and the many others who seem to believe that something horrid is about to happen. I choose to believe that instead God is faithful. He made me to made and have Baby and He made Baby to live here till Heis ready for something else. Also, He had promised both to bless us and not give us more than we can bear, so whatever else, we are in His hands and have nothing to fear. (Thank you also Lord for blessing me with an attitude that is not uptight and that does not need to be in control!)

However, as yet we have no new baby belly picture. (I'll try to put one in above or in a separate post.) We are due for one it is April. Our loving photographer is MIA. We do however have nursery pictures. You can really see the subtle stripes of our walls in some of these. Sorry for the bad quality. Also, I need to reapply a few of our dots, but many of them remain.

We are hoping to get a dresser to put against the wall with the door.  Right now I have the small three drawer tower there. I may want to put it into the corner where the bouncy set it. We intend to use it as a changing table as well. I also need to get my diaper stuff set up. I need to do a bit more shopping in DSM first. I've also decided that I'm not so sure if the bookcase will work but I do want a couple of shelves  on the wall. Just small ones. Maybe I'll make a few floating ones. I do still intend to make some wall art that has a frog, turtle, duck and butterfly on it. I may do these on

square canvases and put them together somewhere. Where, I have not decided. I also like the current tend of name art, but we can't do that until Baby is born since we won't know until then what we are calling Baby. I do have some prototypes but they are top secret, sorry. 
Below you can see that someone (not me) was very anxious to put together my birthday present/ baby gift. (Thanks Mom and Dad/ Grandma and Grandpa H.) It arrived two nights before busy season did. (He really likes it too by the way. He says that it is very user friendly- folds and adjusts easily.)
We are starting to get very excited but at this point content with waiting two more months (about) to meet Baby. Justin did tell Baby the night he put the stroller together, "You just stay right where you are until Daddy is done pulling smoke." (For those of you who do not live in the corn belt this means applying and/or orchestrating the application of anhydrous ammonia, a chemical in the gaseous state knifed (squirted into the ground through knife like tubes) when the soil is at a temperature (not too warm nor too cold) and state (not too muddy) that the nitrogen in the compound will stay in the ground in an state that is available to the corn as it grows. At least, that is my current understanding of it. I will have to see if that is accurate. (There are still many things that I am learning about farming.)

This having been said, please pray for the safely of the farmers and the other ag sector workers as NH3 is a chemical that needs to be handled with great care and can cause serious damage if a person is exposed to it (the damage being proportionate to the amount of exposure) and as there are many more slow-moving vehicles on the road even during dark o'clock.

Happy Easter! He is risen! Hallelujah! (It is already Sunday in most of the world.)

Bottling Kefir "Pop"

I've decided that I really like kefir. Both milk and water kefir. I have to be more careful with milk kefir because it becomes sour much more quickly than water kefir does. But it does make a good tangy drink. I've been adding fruit to mine to make it more palatable and it will be a while before I even try to give any to my DH. However, when it is too sour for me to drink, I use it for soaking. I love it when healthy things have more than one use!

- Side question- Could I use water kefir to soak things? Is it as helpful digestive as milk kefir? Is it as healthful?

Moving on, I love water kefir, it is really tolerant of things that you do- like forget it for a while. Lately I've been distracted by school and baby stuff so cultures and kitchen have been on hold for a while. My water kefir is so fogiving as long as i refrigerate it.
I recently took a batch of kefir juice to two different parties. It was a big hit at both where plenty of people (and kids) at the combination of the too who eat Standard American Diet. At one party I brought the Kefir (Raspberry Apple) in a 1/2 gallon mason jar, but to the other I contained it in a pitcher. For my own use I have decided that if I can, I like to put it into screw-top glass soda bottles.  (I prefer these because they fit on the kitchen shelf with my glasses.) I use a funnel to get the kefir in once it is mixed. After which I cap them, often using a towel to hold tight. Then, I leave them on my counter top for about a day (when it is cold in the house sometimes it goes two). I like to do a two part kefir to one part juice ratio for most juices. This also enables the kefir to eat the juice's sugars without making it too tart. They do become carbonated, so I always open them over the sink if they have been sitting for more than a day. I have not taken enough notes to find out exactly what time and ratio and whatnot equals what result (note that Kelly suggests 18 hrs), I also try to store them in the cardboard carrier. They do start to hiss if they are ultra-ultra carbonated, which is a serious warning to let out some "steam" and refrigerate them immediately if they are capped properly. This I know from experience because one exploded on me. The picture above shows what happened to the bottle. Since it was in a carrier, there was no glass anywhere else, the kefir created a little sticky mess, but significantly less than I anticipated when I discovered the explosion which occurred while the house was unoccupied. 

Let it be noted that I have found a new favorite mixture- Strawberry Lemonade! I love real strawberry lemonade which is nigh impossible to get anymore. (Though really Applebees does have a version that I enjoy). I avoid lemonade when we do go out because usually it is powdered junk full of imitation flavored high fructose corn syrup.  Sadly, lately I have been craving some. (That and I am too cheap to buy lemons). Though this is not quite the quality of my dad's really strawberry lemonade [made with 1 cup freshly juiced (not crushed) local lemons (usually thawed from when we home froze it), 1 cup white sugar, 1 gallon water, and crushed and sugared fresh strawberries].  This is pretty good. It is dark since I tried the kefir with rapadura instead of evaporated can juice. It has (when the quart was about full) roughly a quarter cup of lemon juice (I didn't measure I poured and tasted) and cut strawberries in their juice (thawed from this summer when I cut and froze them). I think that it will taste better with kefir made from cane juice so I did half and half for the batch that I will be making tonight or tomorrow morning. You can see the strawberries in the jar on the left which I used for a glass. One of the best parts was eating the strawberries when the juice was gone. It was fantastic.
[By the way Mom, this is really easy. I'm hopping that when you visit you can make kefir if I am incapable. It will be on preferred help list.]
 If you are wondering about why or the safety of this venture, check out Kelly the Kitchen Kop's posts on kefir. She is the one who got me started. By clicking on her name you can see the post about how the amount of alcohol that the product contains is extremely negligible. 
Have a blessed Good Friday and Easter!