I miss making bread! I never did try sourdough. I love it though. If I could only choose 2 breads for the rest of my life, one would be sourdough, the other rye.

I do most of my breadmaking in a bread machine these days. It's good, but not nearly as fun as when I could still knead bread. There is something that satisfies the soul about the way bread changes under your hands as you knead it.

Wish I lived closer, Sharon, I would bring you some raisins! To dry here this year for black walnuts. The walnuts and hickory nuts were just dried up things inside the shells. Not good at all. I could bring you some of the apple butter I made last year - I still have a few jars in the freezer. Made it in the crock pot and it is GOOD!

Oh, well, looks like you won't have enough of that bread left to make bread pudding. Feed that starter so you can make more!

Oh boy. Rye! I love rye bread. That might have to be next.
And you're right, Juli, there might not be enough left for bread pudding.

But it sure is good; maybe I'll have another baking moment pretty soon. I'm still craving those applesauce raisin walnut muffins though, going to have to take a drive and find a walnut tree. They aren't quiet ready to eat yet here. Another month of drying then maybe. If I can keep the squirrels away.

And now I'm thinking about gingerbread . . . another day for sure.

I so enjoy your blog, Sharon. I use to like to bake in my younger days when the rains came. That way I could warm up the kitchen at the same time. Of course, my boys were young and they did like my cookies. I'm ready for your gingerbread, so don't forget forget......another day for sure.

I'm ready for my gingerbread too, I just have to dig out my grandmother's recipe.
A pinch of this, a pinch of that, but usually I get it just about right.

I haven't made it in several years, Pegi, but maybe this year!
Thanks for reading the blog, it's good to have friends along on my journey!

Hmmm, sounds to me like you need to make a run to the liquor store and get some bourbon to soak those dried up raisins in, plump 'em up a bit. You'll be good to go then, Sharon.

With the cooler weather coming on I imagine it will be "baking season" each week for a while. I don't bake much but I sure love a stew pot simmering on the stove during these cooler seasons, or at least the crock pot going to town, smelling up the place as delicious as fresh baking does.

Shoe

I think you might be right, Shoe.
Yep, when the weather gets cooler, things start cooking around here, too.

I'm not much of a meat eater but I do love good soups. Too bad I didn't make a pot of soup to go with my bread today.
I'm not very good at timing things. All I could think of was how good it would be with honey.

And it was!!

Sharon, it seems like every blog post, I find myself saying "me, too!" And here i am again -- not all that domestic, but LOVE to bake. My specialty is banana bread, although I've not made any in the last year or so. Used to be, I made a loaf every month and sent it to my dad. I think I've made it twice in the last 3 years. *sigh*

That sounds good too, banana nut bread. I'll have to add it to my list.
When I find the walnuts the squirrels buried.

I have never really been much for baking. As a housevife with 4 children I did bake all kinds of bread and cakes for weekends and birthdays and so on. I always told myself that it was my big Kenwood Chef el. mixer - the noise almost made me crazy. I have had it for almost 40 years. Then last spring it died and I felt relieved. I can bake if i want to. I have always had fun making bread, kneading the dough with my hands, especially with yeast and sour dough, feeling it come alive in my hands.

Once we bought a bread machine. We thought it was very nice and everybody loved the bread, but soon I found out that we ate far too much bread so I hid the bread machine. So now I either knead the dough of use a small mixer for vaffles and pancakes and such things and sometimes make cakes that don´t need much whipping of the eggs.

Then a week ago my daughter got the idea to bake some fancy cakes to take to the office where she works. I didn´t tell here that the Kenwood Chef was broken. So she put everything in and started it and the old noisy thing sprang to life. So now I just say that I and the Kenwood Chef are divorced. I´m not going to use it unless my life is at stake.

Sharon I like your blogs as I do everything you write.
Take care and keep warm.
Magga

P.s. this is a blanket i made for my husband from old rags.

SharonI forgot to ask: What is apple butter?? I have never heard of it.
Magga

Oh YUM Sharon - home made bread is just one of my absolute favorites!

That bread looks yummy and I hope you share the recipe for applesauce walnuts muffins and apple stack cake as well.

And the starter too

Bake, I love to bake....

Rye bread is one of my absolute favorites too!

Magga!! What a gorgeous blanket. I love the way you trim your quilts and blankets with deep colors! Very beautiful, as is everything you make.

Funny about the mixer, divorced!!

Apple butter is made from dried apples that are rehydrated then cooked till they are creamy and mushed all together with cinnamon and a few other spices. It's very very good. I'll find the recipe and send you. Don't let me forget.

So good to have you here. Thanks for finding the blog!

Oh shoot, Vic. Now i have to get into my cooking mode. Sigh.
OK, I'll dig out some of those old recipes.
Just keep reminding me, OK??

No worries there...I'm a GREAT nag

Heh!!

Whoever has the crockpot apple butter recipe could post it.... save me from using my google-fu

I made it without a "recipe." It is one of those some of this and some of that type things. A neighbor that has an orchard makes it and she told me how. I just used cut up apples, some apple cider, a couple tablespoons of lemon juice, and a little pumpkin pie spice. I used a mixture of types of apples - just ones I had left over from buying various types at the neighbor's orchard. Neighbor said to use either cider or apple juice to get them started. You want just enough liquid to get them going and keep from sticking. The apples will start to make juice of their own once they start cooking. Let that cook down for a few hours, then tasted for sweetness. Added some honey, brown sugar to taste. I don't think it took very much. Added more spice as it cooked. Kept cooking down and cooking down until it got to the right consistency. I started it in early morning, finished that night. I used sterilized jars, but did not "can" it. We usually freeze our jams. So I put the hot apple butter in the jars. Left them sit out for a couple hours till they cooled. All sealed. Then I put them in the freezer. When we get them out to use, we just make sure to use it within a week or two, and keep it refrigerated.

I made "pumpkin" butter the same way, just used cut up butternut squash in place of apples.

I used what I call pumpkin pie spice - I make it up myself. Cinnamon does not agree with me very well - so I use less of that, more of ginger, clove, allspice.

Juli, I am used to cooking without recipes, so I might try this some time soon. You cook the apples for a very long time,- will the apple butter get very thick? Sharon you said you use dried apples, you must then add more juice or cider?

It can be done either way, Magga.

When I was growing up, if we ran out of apple butter before winter was over, we always had dried apples. We soaked them long enough to rehydrate them (water or apple juice or cider) then cooked them for hours and hours (stirring often) till they were mushy tender and till all the liquid was evaporated, so that only a thick paste was left.

Earlier years, everybody brought their apples to one house and in an huge old iron pot outside on an open fire, they cooked those apples down. Everybody took turns stirring with a sort of wooden paddle, I remember, looked a little like an oar.

There are lots of recipes out there now, but there are none as good as what my grandmother and great aunt made outside in that iron kettle. That apple butter was flavored with just a hint of hickory smoke and a whole lot of family fun. The spices are pretty much the same, but there's nothing like that outside flavor!

Magga - I just kept cooking the apples down until the consistency was what I wanted. It is just like we would buy in the grocery.

Sharon, I live an hour or so from a place called Roscoe Village. http://www.roscoevillage.com/ It is a "restored" old town, with shoppes and blacksmith etc. Touristy. But, they have a thing each year called Apple Butter Stirrin' Festival. http://www.roscoevillage.com/p... They make apple butter then in the big kettles over open fires. I think it is just for show - they don't sell it. Probably to many food laws or something against selling it cooked out in the open and not in controlled conditions. The festival promotional flyers etc. all say Smell the apple butter, none talk about buying or tasting it.