It's time to think about the garden

With Summer officially over it is time to start fantasising thinking about the cooler weather ahead. It is hard to imagine when it's tipped to reach 37 today.

The garden beds have been cleaned out and are now ready with new layers of straw, manure and compost.

I have my beds in the front yard for a few reasons.

• With the chickens out the back, the leafy greens wouldn't stand a chance.
• The front yard gets much better sun most of the year, although it makes summer growing almost impossible.
• I encourage the neighbours to help themselves to the excess as the rocket, spinach and silverbeet generally go crazy.

Last year I continued to have a great crop of rocket. I had let the plants go to seed and then harvested the seeds. I did the same at the end of last year ready for that time when the cooler days would come. The seeds have dried out and are just about ready to be planted straight into one of the beds. I'm sure there will be some scorching days in the next few weeks but hopefully these will only be here and there.

I will just scatter the seeds into the bed with some compost and cover with straw. It will pretty much sort itself with a bit of water.

Thanks to cityhippyfarmgirl for mentioning the recent bread post. A big hello to those who have come across via her post.

Once again cityhippyfarmgirl has inspired me to get baking and a foccacia dough is sitting, proving as I type. It's not sourdough but I have promised myself to get it up and running again. 

Take care

Back to the Real World

Having been home a week and the kiddoes having finished their first week of school is leaving me with the feeling that we had never been away. Only for the fact the Mr Mouse is still to return I know that not everything is back to normal yet.

While we were away there was no need to bake bread as there were amazing artisan boulangeries on just about every corner. But the experience left me totally inspired by all of the talented bakers/artists and had me really excited to get back in the kitchen.

I spent some of my evenings away researching different types of bread and looking at ways to vary basic loaves. Knowing that school would be only days away once we returned, I wanted to have some morning and afternoon tea ideas planned out. (Nerd!)

Onion and Cheese Filled Loaf

I wish I could remember exactly where I first saw these loaves. I have always loved the idea of a plaited loaf, but to me, this is much better in that it is easier to fill. 

There are so many different ways out on amazing websites, so this is really just to get you thinking and heading across to those who really know what they are doing.

I made up half of the Jamie Oliver Basic Bread recipe letting the bread maker do all of the hard work for me. 

While the dough was doing its thing, I cut up some onion and cooked these for about half an hour. After these had cooled, I added them to some grated cheese and added some salt and pepper. That was the filling done.

After it had proved I divided it into 3 equal pieces as I wanted to make 3 little loaves. (In hindsight, 2 larger loaves probably would have been a little better.)

The first piece was rolled out very gently to about half a centimetre thick. At this stage I very carefully transferred the dough to a piece of baking paper. It is too tricky to move the dough once it is filled.

Spoon the mixture in the middle third of the dough leaving some space that the top and the bottom.

Cut the corners out, making sure to cut on an angle.

Make and equal number of angled cuts on both sides of the filling.

Pull the top over.

Start folding alternate sides over the filling.

Before you fold the last two pieces over, fold the bottom up then fold the last two pieces, tucking the last one under the loaf.

There are so many fillings, sweet or savoury, that you could use depending on tastes and what you have in the fridge. I was thinking that puff pastry (pâte feuilletée) filled with fruit would also look, and taste, really good done like this.

Take care