Tonight I used my discard to make a beautiful thin crust pizza dough. I slathered it with homemade pesto (made from basil grown in my tower garden) and grilled chicken. It was wonderful. The recipe made enough dough for 2 crusts so I have one frozen for another day.
Filed under Cooking adventures, sourdough
I think this is my favourite sourdough discard recipe so far. Sourdough pretzel bun bowls filled with steaming Irish Beer Cheese Soup. Delicious 😋
Filed under Cooking adventures, sourdough
This morning I used our discard to make this delicious sourdough Dutch baby with mixed berries. I think next time I will try a savoury one and have it for supper.
Filed under Cooking adventures
Did some more experimenting with my sourdough discard. How about sourdough everything bagels? OMG they taste amazing with the garlic forward “everything” spice mix on top. They lost their hole in the last rise so aesthetically they aren’t great but they have the sourdough flavour I really love.
Filed under sourdough, Uncategorized
We went out to a local man made lake for what could possibly be our last swim before it gets too cold. Brodie just loves the water.
Filed under Brodie
I did it!!! I finally used my sourdough starter for its intended purpose. The dough rested in the fridge overnight and I popped it into the oven at 6am this morning. Isn’t he cute? How can something so silly give me such pleasure. The recipe says it has to cool for 6-7 hours before cutting it. That was never going to happen. As soon as I finished walking the dog’s I grabbed my trusty bread knife, some unsalted butter, my jug of Maldon and tucked in. It was amazing. Lovely crunchy crust and that soft, airy and sour inside. Thank you Cathie Allan for sharing your starter with me.
Filed under Cooking adventures
We sure had a great harvest of peppers this year. Last year I got lazy and never transplanted all of peppers so a few of them hung out in the greenhouse for the summer. Sometimes it pays to procrastinate…..leaving them in the greenhouse gave me the most peppers I’ve ever had. This year I didn’t even bother putting any in the garden. Not only did I get tons of peppers but this is the first time I have had them ripen enough to turn any colour other than green.
I can’t believe that it is September 30th and we haven’t even had a light frost yet never mind a killing frost. Came close this morning, it was 1 degree when I walked the dogs. This is the first time since I moved to Alberta that I can remember not having a frost in September.
Filed under Garden
This morning Spirit and I participated in a CKC Tracking Dog test put on by Wild Rose Tracking Club. I am over the moon proud of my big, black hairy girl. Out of all of her titles and ribbons, this one means the most to me. She is just shy of her 6th birthday so that makes it even more special for a breed with a average lifespan of 8 years. We were very lucky and had first draw but I pulled track #6….the last one. The weather forecast was for a cool, very dry and windy day with gusts up to 50km….the later the track the stronger the winds.
Only two of the 5 teams before us were successful so I was pretty nervous at the start. Spirit started well but about 80 metres into our track her head came up with her muzzle up high obviously air scenting, her body went stiff and she started racing back and forth in front of me. It clearly wasn’t a loss of track/turn indication, she was anxious about something that she smelled in the air. It took a while but I got her focused and back on track. From then on it was a blur. She was head down and pulling like crazy. I had to run most of the way just to try and keep up with her. She did a beautiful down on her leather and just like that….it was all over.
Big thanks to Wild Rose Tracking Club, their track layers, volunteers and Judge Greg Martin.
This is how Spirit likes to celebrate her titles:
We had fun today at See Spot Run Doggy Daycare & Training Inc’s Back to School C-WAGS Nosework Trial. Thanks to Anneli Hilton and Judges Robbi Bitner, Deb Proc and Christina. Both dogs Q’d in Ranger 1 and Ranger 2 and Don Ho made his debut as a timer.
Although I haven’t actually made a loaf of sourdough bread yet, I’m still having fun using up the discard rather than just throwing it out. Today we got to enjoy organic whole wheat/spelt sourdough raisin nut banana 🍌 bread. Mmmmm
Filed under sourdough
Last Thursday (Sep 10th) I moved my seedlings to my Tower Garden. It is now 7 days later and there has been some growing going on.
Filed under Tower Garden
For the second year in a row I was privileged to be a track layer for the Wild Rose Tracking Club’s urban tracking tests. Donna Brinkworth graciously made last minute plans to substitute for an out of province judge who had to cancel. It is so rewarding to work for a Judge like a Donna who’s love and dedication to Tracking is so obvious. I learn so much from her by studying her tracks, why she chose them and then getting to see a team run the track. On Saturday, 3 of the 4 UTD teams were successful but sadly all 3 UTDX teams struggled from the start flag and were quickly disqualified. Sunday was a day of success for almost everyone. 2/2 UTD and 2/3 UTDX with one team earning their Tracking Championship.
Filed under Tracking, Wild Rose Tracking Club, WRTC
I have to admit I am a late comer to the Sourdough bread phenomenon that has developed out of COVID-19 quarantine. I’m a big lover of sourdough bread but I only indulge a few times a year because carbs are not my friend. Cathie generously shared some of her starter with me. I spent a couple of days feeding “George” making sure that he was happy and bubbly in his new home. Each time I fed him I had to discard part of the starter. I collected the discards and used them to make a delicious organic sourdough chocolate cake. The recipe that inspired this cake called for 1 cup of maple syrup. I was worried it was going to be too sweet but it turned out perfect for me.
Filed under Uncategorized
Just two weeks after seeding, my cute little seedlings have roots poking through the grow cubes so that means they are ready to move into the tower.
I just love the vibrant colours of the rainbow chard stems and how the tiny Merlot lettuce leaves are already turning red.
All the seedlings are now in the tower and hopefully they will produce delicious greens throughout the fall and winter
Filed under Tower Garden
Spirit had a great morning tracking and Brodie got to play disc dog. Now they get to enjoy a frozen Toppl with a sardine stuck in the middle. Mmmmmm
Both Brodie and Spirit got some bling in the mail. They both earned their Scent Ranger Level 1 titles. For the first time Spirit actually beat her brother by earning her title with 4 straight Q’s whereas it took Brodie 5 trials to earn his. Spirit also earned her Scent Detective Ace title which required 14 Q’s. Both dogs just love to play scent games.
In order to keep motivated to continue my daily workouts, a bunch of us joined My Virtual Mission to walk the 773km Camino de Santiago. I finished it today, two months early.
I still have my 2020km in 2020 challenge to keep me going for the rest of the year. I’m at 1500+km now with 4 months left
Filed under Fitness
Just getting ready to take the tower apart and clean it before replanting it with new seedlings for the fall. We have a jungle of mammoth basil leaves just itching to be made into pesto.
After procrastinating for weeks I finally got the food processor out and made a batch. After harvesting 9 cups of leaves I’ve got enough basil left for several more batches 😫
I’ve started my seedlings. Look at how cute and colourful the rainbow chard is.
Filed under Tower Garden
Another great day at See Spot Run doing C-WAGS nosework. Thank you to Anneli, our Judges and the wonderful volunteers. Both Brodie and Spirit Q’d in Level 1 Ranger and Level 3.
It is 32 degrees on our deck yet my sweet Golden boy still wants to snuggle on top of me. As hot as I am, I can’t bring myself to ask him to get off.
Filed under Brodie
Pretty happy with our garlic harvest from the cloves I planted last fall. Still have a bunch more to harvest but they were planted in the spring so they still have some growing to do. Mmmmmm 😃
Filed under Garden
Brodie and I spent the day at Dynamo Dogsports participating in a COVID safe barn hunt fun trial put on by Badger Barn Rats. It gave us the opportunity to try every level. We passed Instinct, Novice and Open but he false alerted in Senior and Master. It was nice to be back participating again and Brodie loves hunting gerbils (no rats 🐀 allowed in Alberta)
Last week we joined a disc league. You get 1 minute to throw a disc as many times as you can. You get points for each catch and more points for longer tosses. Poor Brodie tries so hard to catch my wonky throws and he is awesome at running back to me to give me the disc to throw again. Hopefully my skills will improve.
Filed under Uncategorized
Our small cherry tree ( I’m pretty sure the variety is called Romeo) has given us a wonderful harvest this year. There was a lot more fruit on the tree but the birds love to take a small bite out of lots of cherries rather than eat a whole one. I don’t mind sharing our harvest with the wild life in our garden, I just wish they would share nicely and not waste so many lovely berries
Filed under Garden
Big thank you to Barb Burgess and her volunteers for welcoming us into Calgary’s C-WAGS Scent League. We enjoyed a very Covid safe trial and Judge Kelly Ladouceur rocked it running ahead of schedule. The dogs went 6/6 and we got to try Ranger level 2 for the first time. Pretty proud of them considering it was 30 degrees and they were still able to sniff despite their heavy panting.
It looks like we are still on track to meet our updated goal of 2020km in 2020. We’ve moved up to the top 2%, not bad considering there are 270k participants.
Filed under Fitness, You VS 2020
Big thank you to Samantha Freschette of Canine Coaching and all of her amazing volunteers for putting on a socially distanced SDDA trial. Thanks also to Judges Richard Hatchman, Lou-Anne Lambert and shadow judge Shanna Chynoweth. No Elite dogs titled on Saturday but 2 were successful on Sunday (#4 for Tracy Woroschuk and Max and yahoo Darla your 1st elite title). Although we struggled all weekend, I was so pleased with our final search today. Not because we were successful but because it felt like we were in unison functioning as a connected team. A positive end to our weekend. Thanks to Kerri for the pix.
Another fun day playing C-WAGS nose work. Not a stellar day for either dog but it was nice to be out with fellow dog sports people having fun. Big thanks to Anneli Hilton of See Spot Run Doggy Daycare & Training Inc, our great Judges Deb, Robbi and Christina, the wonderful volunteers and fellow competitors.
Filed under Brodie, CWAGS, Nosework, Spirit, Uncategorized
We are now overrun with beautiful ripe tomatoes and we have our first strawberry starting to turn red.
Filed under Tower Garden
