Yes, solar cookers really do get hot and cook food! My Sun Oven reaches 350°F easily. The boiling point at sea level is 212°F. The boiling point at 7,000 feet elevation is 199°F.
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I grind my own whole wheat flour
Fresh flour tastes sweet. Wheat germ oil goes rancid quickly. Store whole grain flour in the freezer.
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Kneading sourdough bread dough is easy!
In this three-minute silent video, Lisa Rayner, author of “Wild Bread – Handbaked Sourdough Artisan Breads in Your Own Kitchen,” demonstrates how to knead the dough for whole wheat sourdough bread. Visit Amazon to purchase my new Kindle version. The link below takes you to the paper version. Use my index and search box below left to look up sourdough blog posts.
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Blue corn pancakes for Christmas dinner
Here in the Southwest, Hopi-bred blue corn is a staple food. Blue cornmeal makes the most delicious pancakes. Sourdough pancakes are very easy and the sourdough adds an even greater depth of flavor. Of course, my pancakes are vegan.
My newest book is about weaving
When I’m not baking, cooking and gardening, I’m often weaving. I have published a 20-page, full-color booklet as both an instant digital download ebook and as a printed booklet called The Mermaid Scarf Pattern & the Freeform Overshot Technique. The booklet is for sale in my Etsy shop. I wove my Mermaid Scarf on my 25-inch-wide Schacht Flip rigid heddle loom. Handwoven magazine published my short article on my Mermaid Scarf and put the scarf on the magazine cover of the Nov./Dec. 2015 issue.
From my booklet: Do you wish you could weave fabric with complex Jacquard-like patterns? Do you like tapestry motifs, but want to weave wearable, drapeable cloth? You can weave such fabrics on any loom, from rigid heddle looms, backstrap looms, and even full size inkle looms, to simple shaft looms, multishaft table and floor looms, and dobby looms using the freeform overshot technique.
This booklet contains:
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Close-up photographs of the back of my Mermaid Scarf showing design detail.
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A description of my creative process and reinventing freeform overshot.
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A detailed, easy-to-follow description of how to weave a Mermaid-style scarf.
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Excerpts and photographs from blog posts I wrote while I was weaving the scarf.
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Directions on how to apply the freeform overshot technique to any weaving project.
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Photographs of freeform overshot scarves and comments from five other weavers.
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How to use weaving software to design freeform overshot patterns.
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How to weave freeform overshot-style patterns on a dobby loom.
A Wild Bread cook book fan makes sourdough whole wheat & rice bread loaves
Santa Fe resident, vegan, and bicycling advocate Jackie Shane baked these sourdough whole wheat/rice bread loaves and took their picture. She says, “Got the idea from Sandor Katz author of Wild Fermentation, and the awesome starter from Lisa Rayner, who authored Wild Bread.”
Wild Bread: Handbaked sourdough artisan breads in your own kitchen
The first rose of spring
My wife loves roses. She is growing two plants for their flowers, especially their scent, in containers on the south side of our house in an especially warm microclimate. Roses are marginal here. She’s been putting the roses in the garage on especially cold nights for the last month. Older rose varieties, like Rugosa roses and wild rose species, handle our cold spring nights at 7,000 feet better; some have large rose hips (rose fruits) that make excellent tea and can be preserved for jelly/jam.
