Sunday, January 18, 2009

Fighting the darkness of the North- why not hibernate?

Sometimes it feels like I would rather hibernate over the winter, and I sort of did that today. Woke up this morning with the kids, content as they were playing with their toys, I sat down in the kitchen with a good book, Livstid (=lifetime) by Liza Marklund. Martin came down and we baked some ciabatta, namnam. While the dough was yeasing (do you actually say that?) I continued to read. Some food and other stuff has also been part of the day but the outdoor time was limited to a short period just because I had to install a new element (heater) in our shed to keep the temperature above zero in there. The old one was keeping the temperature at 17 degrees Celcius, no matter what I put the thermostate on. Not very cheap and not very climate friendly either.

It´s dark outside again, no sun was seen today, and as one of my sons said today, "I long for the summer". I can only agree. Now, snowfree as it is, and the ground frozen solid, it´s no fun, except on the lakes where the ice is thick and glorious. I did skate for 40 minutes yesterday, but it was a bit late and the sun disappered behind the woodline and it got cold.

3 comments:

LS said...

I know, this is the season of 'cocooning', staying inside and make bread and soup and such. We have had it really, really cold here, -20 degrees Celsius one night, and now everything is thawing again. Ciabatta, that sounds great. I would like to learn how to make focaccia and sourdough bread.

Tell the kids that it will be summer soon! And I like the seasons, just not the darkness (and we have less of the darkness than you do in Sweden).

EH said...

I have a tip for you LS about the dried yeast. I have started to put the dried yeast and the right amount of warm liquid together with a about a teaspoon of suger in a bowl. Then I let it stand for a bit before I add the flour and other things. You can see when the yeasing start, you get little bubbles in the liquid. It works great.

Sourdough bread I have never tried, but I think it would be fun. I like to eat it.

LS said...

That sounds good, about the sugar. It will be extra food for the yeast and should work. I'll try that! Also, we say that the bread raises, not 'yeastes', when it gets bigger and better by the yeast. It is pretty amazing that you can put living cells into the mix and then they multiply and create fluffy bread.