Big Yellow Zebra Tomatoes

This is the first heirloom tomato picked this year.  It is a Big Yellow Zebra Tomato.  This is my first time trying this variety.  The tomato plants are large and so are the tomatoes.  It looks like they are going to be good producers.  There are lots of green tomatoes out there!

Sliced up for lunch.

Peppered turkey with Swiss Laughing Cow, red onion and Big Yellow Zebra tomato on fresh bread.  Yum!

Whole Wheat Bread

This is my yeast proofing.  It is nice and foamy.  I always proof my yeast.  It is easier to start your bread again during the first step than after you wait for the first rise and nothing happens.  If your liquid is too hot (140 degrees or more) you will kill your yeast.  The perfect temperature to activate your yeast is between 80 and 90 degrees.

A nice and neat ball. Cover and let rise 30 minutes or until doubled.

Here it is a little more than doubled after just 30 minutes.  It is hot here in this part of the world.

On the left the dough has been punched down and shaped into a loaf, then placed in a greased loaf pan.  After 35 minutes my bread was ready for the oven.

Whole Wheat Bread

• 
  
  1-1/2 cups warm water
• 
  
  1/4 cup demerara or honey
• 
  
  1 T. yeast
• 
  
  4 cups whole wheat flour
• 
  
  3 T. gluten
• 
  
  1 t. salt

Pour warm water in the bowl of your mixer and add sugar or honey.  Stir until dissolved.  Add yeast and let proof for 5 to 10 minutes, until foamy and as my brood would say "Smells like beer."  Once yeast is proofed, add flour, gluten and salt. Knead in your mixer for 5 minutes. Form into a ball and place back in mixing bowl. Cover and let rise 30 minutes or until doubled. Once doubled, punch down and form into a loaf.  Place in loaf pan prepared with nonstick spray. Cover and let rise for 30 minutes more or until doubled. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bake for 35 minutes. Remove from oven. Let sit in pan for 10 minutes, then remove to a wire rack to cool.  It is easiest to cut bread once it has cooled completely.  It will tear really easy if it is cut hot.  For the best cutting success a sharp knife is key.

Homemade Chicken Feeder

Rowdy made this chicken feeder.  

 

Getting ready to go nighty-night.

Peaking out of the roosting box. 

How to make a chicken feeder:

1. Gather your supplies.  You will need a plastic flower pot, size depending on how many chickens you are feeding.  You will need a plastic saucer that is at least 2 inches in diameter bigger than the bottom of your pot.  Any wire or coathangers you have lying around and 1 eye bolt.  You will also need a handful of screws, utility knife and a drill.
2. Carefully carve out some holes on the sides of the pot, at the bottom, about 2 inches square.  Poke three equally spaced holes at the top of the pot for your hanging wire.
3. Turn pot upside down and place saucer on the bottom.  Screw the saucer to the bottom of the pot with the screws going up through the pot. You don't want to let your chickens get scratched up.
4. Cut three equal lenghts of wire, measuring from the roof of your coop to the heighth you want it from the ground, adding a couple of inches for twisting the wire.  Put a piece of wire through each hole and twist it a good many times so that it will holdup with the weight of the food.  Pull the wire up together at the top, like a tepee and secure to the top of the coop. We used an eye bolt, screwed into a rafter. 
5. Rowdy suggests hanging the feeder chest high to a chicken.
6. Fill with food!

That's it folks.  We also feed our chickens scraps. Raw fruits and veggies, like lettuce leaves, watermelon rinds, tomatoes that have been poked by birds (dumb birds!), whatever we might not want to eat.

BBQ Pizza

Here is the grill.  Notice the charcoal is set up for indirect cooking.  The hot coals are only around the edge of the BBQ and none directly under the pizza.

Prosciutto, pepperoni and red onion.

Cheese!  Look at those yummy bubbles.

Tomato and basil...fresh from the garden.

Tonight we had BBQ pizza.  BBQ pizza is pretty simple.  You can find my crust recipe here.  Once you have your dough rising, you should get your charcoal going.  We use a chimney and it takes about 40 minutes for the coals to get hot. Meanwhile, divide the dough into three pieces and place each on a piece of parchment paper big enough to accommodate the pizza.  You will need assemble the pizza on something sturdy so that you can carry it to the BBQ and remove it from the BBQ.  I was making three pizzas, so I used one pizza peel and 2 round pizza pans.  Pat each piece of dough into about a 14 inch circle.  This made a thin, crispy crust. Today we had red sauce on our pizza.  You can use any jarred sauce.  I just use a small can of tomato sauce and then season with garlic salt, oregano, basil, whatever smells good. Put your toppings on your pizza.  Of course I used Jack cheese.  This makes good pizza people!  Top as you please.  Once the grill is ready slide the pizza carefully to the center of the grill keeping it on the parchment paper.  The pizza will take 6 to 10 minutes, depending on how hot the grill is.  Since it was about 100 degrees outside when we were cooking the pizza, our pizza only took 6 minutes.  You can check the bottom of your crust by lifting up the side with a spatula.  Removing the pizza can be tricky.  A pizza peel is your best bet, since you can just slide it quickly under the pizza to remove.  You can also carefully remove it using a spatula, holding your pan close to the grill, carefully lift pizza on to the pan.  Give it a try, you won't be sorry.

This post is linked to Works For Me Wednesday.

More Skirts!

Finished the last skirt.  Now to see if I can get pictures of all the chicks together.  You know that the more kids you have the harder it is to get a good picture. 

Baby Chick's Skirt

My little baby chick is very hard to take a picture of.  She moves at the speed of light!  I finished her skirt today.  It turned out really cute and she can spin like crazy in it.  I used the Emerson skirt pattern.  It is a really fast skirt to make.  Even a beginning seamstress could whip this skirt up in a couple of hours.  I am off to finish the first born chick's skirt. 

Pepperoni Rolls

Yummy!!!

This is the crispy cheesy bottom. (The best part.)

These are delicious.  They are great served along side pasta or salad.  You can serve them with marinara for dipping or just eat them as the are.  We had these last night with pasta and corn on the cob. 

Pepperoni Rolls

• 1 cup warm water
• 1 T. yeast
• 2 t. sugar
• 1 t. oregano
• 1 t. basil
• 1 t. salt
• 3 cups flour
• 1-1/2 cups jack cheese, grated
• 1 cup pepperoni, diced
• Marinara sauce, optional

In the bowl of your stand mixer combine water, sugar and yeast. Let proof for 5 minutes.  Add flour, salt, oregano and basil.  With the dough hook combine and knead for 5 minutes.  Once your dough has finished kneading, shape into a ball, place in an oiled bowl, cover and let rise for 1 hour.  Punch down dough and pat out into a rectangle about 17x12 inches.  (I use my cookie sheet as a guide and pat out my dough in my cookie sheet, just like pizza and cinnamon rolls.)  Sprinkle with cheese and pepperoni.  Roll up starting on the longer side and pinch seam together.  You will now have a roll about 17 inches long.  Slice into 16 pieces.  Spray a 15x10 inch Pyrex with nonstick spray and place rolls in pan.  Cover and let rise 30 to 45 minutes, until just about doubled.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees and bake for 25 to 30 minutes.

Today's post is linked up with WFMW.