Sponge:
½ teaspoon                            instant yeast
9 ounces                                  unbleached high-gluten or bread flour
7 ounces                                  water at room temperature

Dough:
1/2 teaspoon                         yeast
9-10 ounces                            unbleached high-gluten or bread flour
1 ½ teaspoons                        kosher salt
1 cup                                         pure, canned pumpkin (no additives)
1 1/2 tablespoons                   sugar
1 teaspoon                                pumpkin pie spice

To Finish:
1 tablespoon                           baking soda
1 whole                                   egg white, mixed with a little water to emulsify
Cornmeal or semolina flour for dusting the pan

Instructions: Day 1

1. To make the sponge, stir the yeast into the flour in a large mixing bowl. Add the water,  stirring until it forms a smooth, sticky batter. (The regular bagel recipe calls for 10 ounces of water, but because the pumpkin has a significant amount of liquid, I started with 7 ounces). Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise at room temperature for two hours or more. It should swell to nearly double in size and collapse when the bowl is tapped on the countertop.

2. To make the dough, in the same mixing bowl (or in the bowl of an electric mixer), add the additional yeast into the sponge and stir. Add the flour, sugar, salt, pumpkin and pumpkin pie spice into the bowl and mix until all the ingredients form a ball. Because you want a fairly stiff dough, you should check it often (see Windowpane Test below) and continue to add a little flour until you get the right consistency. The original recipe calls for 8.5 ounces of flour, but I probably ended up with 10-11 ounces, added a teaspoon at a time.

4. The Windowpane Test: At this point, your dough needs to pass the windowpane test, which is a reliable method to decide when gluten development is sufficient (also called membrane test). The test is performed by cutting off a small piece of dough from the larger batch and gently stretching, pulling, and turning it to see if it will hold a paper-thin, translucent membrane. If the dough falls apart before it makes this windowpane, continue mixing for another minute or two and test it again. The finished dough should feel satiny and pliable but not be tacky. If it seems too dry and rips, add a few drops of water and continue kneading. If it seems tacky or sticky, add more flour to achieve the stiffness required.

5. Immediately after kneading, split the dough into 6 small pieces around 4 1/2 ounces each. Roll each piece into a ball and set it aside. When you have all 6 pieces made, cover them with a damp towel and let them rest for 20 minutes. Because I added quite a bit more flour to this recipe, I ended up with 8 bagels at 4 1/2 ounces each.

6. Shape the bagels–there are a couple of methods for shaping the bagels:
a.    Poke a hole in a ball of bagel dough, gently rotate your thumb around the inside of the hole to widen it to about two and a half inches in diameter. The dough should be as evenly stretched as possible.
b.    Roll out the dough into an 8-inch long rope. Wrap the dough around the palm and back of your hand, overlapping the ends by several inches. Press the overlapped ends to seal.

7. Place the shaped bagels on a lightly oiled sheet pan, with an inch or so of space between one another. If you have parchment paper, line the sheet pan with parchment and spray it lightly with oil. I also add a sprinkling of semolina before placing the bagels on the pan. Spray the bagels with a little oil and cover the pan with plastic and allow the dough to rise for about 20 minutes.

8. The suggested method of testing whether the bagels are ready to retard is by dropping one of them into a bowl of cool water. If the bagel floats back up to the surface in under ten seconds it is ready to retard. If not, it needs to rise more. If it floats, it means you passed this test, too! Place the bagels in the refrigerator (covered in plastic) and retard overnight. If the bagel does not float, return it to the pan and continue to proof the dough at room temperature, checking back every 10 to 20 minutes until a tester floats.

I’ve found that this makes the dough a bit too wet, so I skip this step and  just wait 20 minutes or so and stick them in the fridge.

Day 2

1. The following day, preheat the oven to 500F with your rack set in the middle of oven.

2. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add one tablespoon of baking soda to the pot to alkalize the water. (Most of the time, I forget this step and it doesn’t seem to make any difference to the result). When the pot is boiling, drop a few of the bagels into the pot one at a time and let them boil for two minutes (if you like your bagel extra chewy–one minute if not).

3. Use a large, slotted spoon or spatula to gently flip them over and boil them on the other side for another 2 minutes.

4. Before removing the bagels from the pot, sprinkle a little more cornmeal on the sheet pan. Remove them one at a time, set them back on the sheet pan, and spread a little of the egg white on the top of the bagel. You could be adventuresome and add some coarse grain sugar to the top at this point.

5. Repeat this process until all the bagels are boiled and topped.

6. Place the sheet pan into the preheated oven and bake for 13 minutes until the bagels begin to brown.

Remove the pan from the oven and put bagels on a rack to cool.

I always make a full batch of bagels at a time (double the recipe above). A tried and true version that I make out of the other half of dough is sesame bagels.

Note: the pictures embedded in the recipe are from the sesame ones. The pumpkin bagels have a rich golden color.

And how did they taste? Pretty darn good! The spice wasn’t over-bearing and the texture was good and chewy. (If you like more spice, you could add another 1/2 teaspoon to the dough when mixing.)

My first venture, the Chèvre, was quite successful. Now I was ready to try something harder. I finally settled on Mozzarella, and I didn’t do the “easy” 30-minute one. I went for the biggie–the traditional method, which is a rather long and involved process. Especially for a newbie cheese-maker. And, of course, I didn’t have all the ingredients. I found the lipase powder locally (after signing away my identity that I wasn’t making meth) along with pH strips. Yes, you need all that stuff along with direct-set thermophilic starter and liquid rennet.

Those of you who are cheese-makers are probably laughing about now, but it takes a lot to get me down! So, on to the cheese making!! I couldn’t find this particular recipe free on the web, so I won’t add it here. It’s in the book.

I started early in the morning (good thing); warmed the milk to 90^o F. (32.2 ^o C.) then added the lipase and starter. After 75 minutes, I had something resembling yogurt! These were cut into  soft curds and I let them sit for another 20 minutes.

After heating the curds to 100^o F, I let them sit for a few more minutes. I then drained the whey and put the curds in a stainless-steel bowl in the sink. Temp of the water in the sink surrounding the bowl is now 102^o F.

After 2.5 hours of maintaining 102^o F; draining the whey and flipping the curd, I ended up with a nice, firm curd. Of course, I’m checking the pH throughout the process with those strips I found locally.Next comes the stretching and forming process. this is where my mozzarella sorta “lost it”. Or, maybe I did! Who knows. You are supposed to work a portion of the curd (while in a 170^o F water bath) into a ball. My curd acidity was right on, but obviously I was doing something wrong.

The curds mushed together just fine and they seemed to have some elasticity, but just not quite enough. I guess a little more research is necessary there! After working the rest of the curd, I soaked the mozzarella balls in some brine while I ran the dogs over to the local dog park.

I had to do a little taste test afterward and found them quite tasty, albeit a bit off in looks. All right, way off…… I decided they sorta looked like my brain felt right then!

All-in-all, it was a good experience. I just need to work on that last step.

The bin was put in place and we started filling it. To this point, we had never taken anything out and I really wasn’t sure how composted things had become. Until the rat or whatever vermin started getting in recently and making a big mess. Needless to say, I wasn’t going to let it continue. Of course, it meant a lot of work, because we didn’t just have to clean up what the critter dug out; we needed to put a base on it so it would not happen again (hopefully).

But, it meant shoveling everything out of the bin; cut a base; reinstall the bin on the base and refill it. And it was half full. I certainly didn’t want to spend my weekend doing this! But, what are you going to do…. When we started taking the material out, what I saw was really good black compost. It smelled good and was full of worms. I was happy-composting worked! There wasn’t much that wasn’t broken down.

I had the handy-dandy sifter my husband built me last year to sift the dirt out of the rocks. Now I had to sift the uncomposted material from the composted material.  He shoveled it out onto a tarp and we got to work. My husband constructed the base while I sifted. Teamwork got it done!

Drilling holes to tie the bin to the board

Wow, what nice compost! I filled two very large bins where I plan to leave the compost until next spring. Then I’ll work it into my raised beds before I plant. After a couple of hours of hard labor, we were finished. The compost bin was on it’s new base; replaced back on a level surface and we put the little bit left over back in.

Shoveled out compost

I was able to sift out enough to partially fill two very large plastic containers (I think they are 40 gallon). Not a bad haul! I’ll let this winter-over (covered of course, because of all the rain in Portland) and then work it into my raised beds.

My compost--ready for spring!

This year, I found a place that might just work outside the fence and in more sunshine.  After filling two half wine barrels with good soil, I planted a starter pickling cucumber plant in each barrel. To ensure the powdery mildew didn’t get a toe-hold, I sprayed the plants with Neem Oil several times in the early growing process. (See the post below “Planning the Vegetable Garden”). Now the cucumbers are growing and some are ready for harvest.

I picked 3 3/4 pounds of cucumbers today

and will prepare them for pickling using the following recipe:

Ingredients:
2 1/2 pounds pickling cucumbers (fresh from the market or your garden)
1 pound white or yellow onions, thinly sliced
1/4 cup pickling salt (can use Kosher salt as a substitute, regular table salt has additives in it that will
1 1/4 cup white distilled vinegar (5% acidity)
1 cup apple cider vinegar (5% acidity)
2 1/4 cups sugar
1 Tablespoon mustard seeds
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
3/4 teaspoon celery seeds
1 inch cinnamon stick
6 whole allspice berries plus a pinch of ground allspice
6 whole cloves plus a pinch of ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon turmeric

Instructions:

If you are planning to store pickles outside of refrigerator, you will need the following canning equipment:

* 5 pint-sized canning jars, clean, unused lids, metal screw bands for the lids

* 1 16-qt canning pot with rack

* Jar lifters or tongs

1. Carefully rinse the cucumbers, scrubbing away any dirt that may have stuck to the ribs. Slice off 1/8-inch from the ends and discard. Slice the cucumbers in 1/4-inch thick slices, place in a large bowl. Add the sliced onions and pickling salt. Stir in so that the salt is well distributed among the cucumber slices. Cover with a clean tea towel (thin towel, not terry cloth). Cover with a couple of inches of ice. Put in the refrigerator and let chill for 4 hours. Discard ice. Rinse the cucumber and onion slices thoroughly, drain. Rinse and drain again.

2. If you are planning to store your pickles outside of the refrigerator for any length of time, you will need to sterilize your jars before canning, and heat the filled jars in a hot water bath after canning. If you are planning to eat the pickles right away and store them the whole time in the refrigerator, you can skip the water bath step. It’s still a good idea to sterilize the jars first, you can do that by running them through the dishwasher, or placing them in a 200°F oven for 10 minutes. To sterilize the jars for canning, place empty jars on a metal rack in a large, 16-qt canning pot pot. (Jars must rest on a rack in the pot, not on the bottom of the pot). Fill with warm water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to warm to keep the jars hot and ready for canning. Remove with tongs or jar lifters one by one as you can the cucumbers. Sterilize the lids by bringing a pot of water to a boil and pouring water over a bowl containing the lids.

3.  In a 4 qt or 6 qt pot, place the vinegar, sugar, and all of the spices. Bring to a boil. Once the sugar has dissolved, add the sliced cucumbers and onions. Bring to a boil again. As soon as the sugar vinegar solution begins boiling again, use a slotted spoon to start packing the hot jars with the cucumbers. First pack a jar to an inch from the rim with the vegetables. Then pour hot vinegar sugar syrup over the vegetables to a half inch from the rim. Wipe the rim clean with a paper towel. Place a sterilized lid on the jar. Secure with a metal screw band.

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4.  If you are planning to store pickles outside of refrigerator, process the filled jars in a hot water bath for 10 minutes. Return filled jars to the same canning pot with its already hot water. Water level needs to be at least one inch above the top of the cans. Bring to a boil and let boil hard for 10 minutes. Remove jars from pot. Let cool down to room temperature. Jars should make a popping sound as their lids seal. If a lid doesn’t properly seal, do not store the jar outside of the refrigerator.

Makes about 5 pint jars.

Start with the freshest pickling cucumbers you can find; your pickles are only going to be as good as the produce you start with. The fresher the cucumbers are, the crispier your pickles will be. Since I had 1 1/2 times the recipe, I ended up with 6 pint jars of yummy pickles. Hopefully my vines will continue to produce and I will be able to do another batch soon.

If I decide to try something like that again, there are some natural formulas that are suppose to work if caught early. The operative word here is EARLY. Unfortunately, I let it go too long and the plants were goners. However, for future reference, here are a couple of these formulas:

Baking Soda

Baking soda increases the surface pH of the leaf making it unsuitable for the growth of powdery mildew spores. Be sure to spray once a week and get the undersides of leaves as well as the upper surfaces.

1 teaspoon baking soda
1 quart water
A few drops of liquid soap

Before treating your plants, test the spray on a few leaves to make sure they are not too sensitive.

Milk

10% milk (any kind, even skim) and 90% water sprayed weekly.

This is a treatment I didn’t try, but it sounds promising.

Of course there is always organic Neem oil, which can be pricey. Neem oil is extracted from the nut of the neem tree and has been used for years on a variety of skin and other health issues. I haven’t tried it, but supposedly you are able to spray it on vegetables up to the day before harvest. There are varying opinions about toxicity, so, before using it, read the article in the link above.

I have three raised beds and after a couple of years growing vegetables in Portland, I have settled on a few winners. Tomatoes are clearly one of my favorites, so a whole bed is dedicated to them (that means 6 plants, generally). I’ve had wonderful results with an heirloom tomato, Cherokee Purple, and, for canning, it seems San Marzano, a roma type tomato, works best. Since tomatoes shouldn’t be planted until sometime in May, I bought some seeds and got them started in the house.

Another bed will have some early spring plants–sugar snap peas and cranberry beans–for now. Since I didn’t get sugar snap seeds started, I’ll put in some starts from the local market. I found that I can just stick Cranberry Bean seeds right in the ground sometime in April. They germinate pretty quickly. I rigged up some wire for support for these plants to keep them off the dirt. I’m not sure what I’ll plant in this space after they are harvested, but it’s something to work on!

The third bed has some onion sets I planted last fall. They are little green onions right now, but should mature now that the weather is getting warmer. I have some leek seeds I want to try, as well as parsnips! Of course, there is always lettuce. I planted a 6-pack I bought at the Portland Farmers Market last Saturday. The next day, our 4-month old puppy was on a racing craze, jumped into the raised bed, grabbed a lettuce plant and took off across the yard. Fortunately she dropped it and I was able to replant it. Shortly after that, I saw two squirrels digging around these same poor lettuce starts looking for buried walnuts. Somehow, the lettuce has survived both assaults and looks pretty good! For now…….

Before any more plants are put into the garden, I need to supplement the soil. This will be the third summer with the same soil mixture, so it will need some new nutrients. Some good sheep/cow/whatever manure will work just fine, so I will get some and work it into the soil this week. Then I’m ready to plant!

When we moved in 3 years ago, plants around this house were either greatly over-planted or in the wrong place. I moved some bulbs (mostly tulips) last year into the strip and they are doing well. I also had several azaleas that I moved, with two going to the parking strip. Well, they died.  So, there was not much left except the tulips and a volunteer rose. And, bark, of course.

I receive monthly emails from Portland Nursery and the latest one talked about Epimediums. This peaked my interest, so I made a trip to check them out. I described my situation to a knowledgeable employee and she said the azaleas probably died because they require a lot of water and were competing with the tree. The tree won. She suggested I should concentrate on drought resistant plants and showed me several choices. I tend to go for perennials, so I selected several varieties of the Epimediums and a plant called “Majestic Lilyturf”.

The Lilyturf has violet flower spikes in the summer (aha, summer color) and grow to about 2 feet tall. They look kind of grassy, and stay evergreen! I bought two of these.

I picked up six of the Epimediums. They are also called Barrenwort and are considered a tough, long-lived ground cover. Epimediums prefer moist, well-drained organic soils in light to dense shade. They will tolerate dry shade and tree roots once they get established and grow 12–15 inches tall. Late spring to early summer bloom. Good choice!

The strip is planted for now. I’ll tweak it as time goes on, especially as I see how these plants fare with automobile exhaust, a huge tree that sucks up all the water, etc.!

Normal propagation of a plant like this is to cut off a leaf (the green part) and let the cut end dry for a couple of days. Some people put the cut end in water to start the rooting process; some put them in a good potting soil. I do the latter and keep the plant start moist by watering it a little twice a week. Since I live in the Northwest, my plants are all indoors until probably late May/early June. I keep my Epi in my kitchen, which has many windows and gives it good indirect light. In the summer, I put my Epi outdoors in a shady area. Too much sun will scald the leaves and could kill the plant (did that once–it took a while to recover).

Anyhow, to the task at hand. Normal propagation wasn’t what I wanted to do–it needed a serious whack job. It was a nice sunny day yesterday, so I took the plant outdoors, removed it from the pot and proceeded to cut it in half. Probably an unorthodox way of doing it, but there seemed to be several plants in that one pot. It was a bit of a chore, as there were roots everywhere. I used a sharp knife and my plant clippers and got the job done. I suppose a horticulturist would tell me I did it all wrong, but that’s what I did! Hopefully, it lives…..

I potted both halves with some new potting soil and watered them well. Then I cut off some of the woody stems and cut back the smaller one fairly severely.

Back in the house they both came and now I had to find somewhere to put another plant!

I had a plant stand for one and put the other heavier one on a plant roller I had bought earlier this winter. Unfortunately, it was too low to the ground and our new puppy, Sage, decided that eating the dirt out of the pot was a great thing to do–especially since I won’t let her do it outdoors. Best laid plans, but there’s always a plan B where the pots are higher off the ground. I have a great cat pot holder that I put the smaller one in and the larger plant went back on the plant stand. So far, it’s been successful and hopefully she’ll soon outgrow the dirt eating stage!

Now I just have to wait and see what happens this year. I  may not get many blooms, but it will be much better for the plant in the long run.

Check back later for updates and hopefully good news about blooms!

The first order of business was learning how to go outside to “pottie”, instead of wherever she decided. This means many, many trips outside, but she seems to be getting it. I’m using a small training treat so that when I say the word and she does what she’s suppose to do, she gets a treat and praise! Of course, there are times where she goes outside and sits there expecting the treat without doing anything. Perseverance wins and she realizes she has to produce before getting any rewards. By day 3, she only had 3 little mistakes in the house and has learned to go to the back door when she needs to go! Big step for a little dog. We just need to watch for her signals!

The first night in the crate was really scary for her and she cried pitifully for about 10 minutes before settling down. I think we were up every 3 hours that night. But, you can’t give in no matter how pitiful she sounded and she finally figured out that she might as well go to sleep. Fortunately the instances of crying lessened each time. I want her to feel like her crate is a safe place where she can go when she needs. So, sometimes she gets fed her mid-day meal in there; sometimes just for a nap. I had Maggie’s old crate that we use at night, but it’s way too big to move around. I borrowed a smaller one from a neighbor that we keep close to where we are during the day. Fortunately, being retired means someone is home most of the time. This is working well and she goes in there when we leave the house or needs a good nap. By the third night, she was able to stay crated for 7 hours! What a good puppy.

Toby has had a lot of patience with Sage. Thank goodness–he’s an old dog and has never been exposed to puppy antics. What a good boy he is, and he’s teaching her some dog manners. She started jumping at his face and that was a bit annoying, so he gave her a little correction. She yelped and stayed away for a while. It may take him a few more times for her to get the message–she’ll learn! She cuddles up near him when they nap (when she’s not in the crate) and loves to steal the toys out of his mouth. Fortunately, that is OK.

The cats are slowly coming around. They were very comfortable with Toby and Maggie, but we knew they’d have to get used to Sage. She’s such a live wire! Today (Day 4) they actually came into the kitchen for breakfast and their usual drink out of the kitchen faucet. They seem to know when Sage is resting and are venturing closer and closer. He hasn’t been slapped in the face yet (by the cats), but I expect that’ll be coming! Just learning his place in the household is such a big thing!

All is quiet now but there’s more to come in the exploits of Sage growing up!

Age 13–cancer came.
She fought.
Cancer won.
But I know she’s having fun.
Playing frisbee with her friend, Fellini,
in that big dog park in the sky!