Baking Sourdough Buns

I finally had time to use my sourdough starter monster to make some bread. I call it a monster because if you don't use the starter, it multiplies and multiplies. I wrote about it here, my one starter turned into 4 jars of starter! It was getting bad, you open my fridge and all you see are these mason jars of starter! So I looked for an easy recipe that I could try and found this one on King Arthur's website. The recipe was for buttery sourdough buns. The best part, you could use unfed starter for this recipe. So the prep time was minimal. Just the kind of breadmaking I like! I followed the instructions and made the dough. Then I set it aside to let the dough rise.

An hour later, it doubled in size! Awesome, it was time to roll it out and make buns!

I cut the dough into two halves and rolled out each half.

Then you roll it and cut it into 2 inch rolls. You put it in a buttered pan and put a little more melted butter on top.

Here's how it looks right out of the oven. It was so good straight from the oven. Slightly crunchy crust, and soft doughy in the middle. The only thing I would do differently next time, I would add an egg wash over the dough so that it gets more color. The buns didn't get much color so I cooked it for longer so that it would turn a little browner.

Here is one single bun. As you can see, it made a perfect dinner roll. I ate this up. And 2 more at once. Y U M.

Raising Another Queen

This week I ordered new front feeders for the beehives because our bees seemed to not care for the top feeder. The ones I ordered are just plastic cap holders that you screw on top of mason jars. At $3 a pop, this will work just fine. I like to use Mason jars as feeders because you can clean them easily and get all the gunk out that builds up when the jars are in the sun.

The main goal for this hive inspection was to look for Queen cups or evidence of a new Queen. At the start of this season, this hive was Queenless. Then we raised a virgin Queen which died. So we moved fresh brood over to attempt to raise another Queen. Since it's still early enough in the season, and we have another hive that is very strong, we decided to take the risk of raising another Queen instead of buying a mated Queen.

When we looked closer, the hive was brimming with activity, so this is definitely a good sign.

The first frame I pulled from the middle of the top box had a Queen cup. Woohoo! And all that spotty brood are drone cells. That means there is a laying working somewhere in the hive as well.

Here's a closer look at the frame. At this capped stage, the Queen should emerge in 7 days, and then hopefully a week after that takes her mating flight. I saw around 4 Queen cells in the hive so the first one to hatch will kill the other Queens.

 

Here's a look at the new blue hive. It's just waiting for my new Nuc to arrive. I spoke to the Beehive Barn and they said with the cold weather we were having this spring, they are about a week late with the Nucs being ready. I am hoping that we can pick up the Nucs the last week of May. I'm eager to get the Nuc installed so that I can get this hive up and running.

Since the day was a bit overcast, the bees were super aggressive when I inspected. I suspect that most of the bees were close to home because they sensed it was going to rain. I actually got stung 3 times! Twice on my legs, (one sting on each leg).

AND... I also got stung on my neck. Somehow, a bee got into my veil and stung me square in the neck. Oh man, did that one hurt! It got pretty swollen and my neck pretty much "disappeared". I get a really bad reaction to beesting. My doctor says I have a mild allergy to bee venom so I carry around a prescription bottle of Cetirizine, which is an anti-histamine that my doctor prescribed for me for times like this when I really need a strong dose to calm the swelling.

After getting stung 3 times, I went straight home to take a relaxing shower. I found a bee stuck on my clothing. She must have been one of the bees that stung me. Poor bee. If you ask me, she got it worse than I did.

Guerilla Gardening in My Dad's Backyard

I was home last month visiting my parents and I saw at Home Depot they were selling blueberry bushes for an amazing price! 3 bushes for $12.00! Wow. $4 for a 6 inch pot. Can't beat that price since it was originally $9! That's more than half off. Although... I was imagining who would have the space for 3 bushes of blueberries! Wouldn't that be nice!

On a whim, I decided to buy the bush for my parent's backyard. I didn't even ask them for permission to plant it. A little guerilla gardening at home! Hahahahaha. I bought it and decided just to find a place to plant it and then tell them later. I've done this before, where I just plant things. It's not new to them. I picked out this healthy looking plant. It had no leaves, but there were lots of buds. So hopefully it will just take off.

I found a sunny spot near the fence. I dug a hole and plopped it in with fresh potting soil.

The soil in my parent's backyard is very hard and has lots of clay. So I added a good dose of potting soil. After I planted it I told my parents and they said, "hope the squirrels don't eat all the berries!"

Last week, I went home again to see my mom for Mother's Day. I went to the backyard to see how well the blueberry bush was doing. It looked great! It grew lots of leaves and started blooming with flowers! We just might get blueberries this season afterall!

Here is another view of the bush. It has grown a lot in one month! I'm so excited! I can't wait to see how it grows in the seasons to come!

Sourdough Starter Monster

6 weeks ago, my co-worker asked me to take care of his sourdough starter while he was out of town. All I needed to do was to feed the starter every 2 weeks. In the instructions, it said that you take out a half cup of starter and add back a half cup of flour and half cup of water. The half cup of starter that you take out, you can either make something with it like bread, pancakes, waffles etc, or you throw it out.

I haven't had time to bake bread or make pancakes, so I've been taking the starter that is supposed to be used or discarded and feeding that half too. So fast forward 4 weeks, and what was one jar of starter is now 4 jars of starter. I can't bring myself to throwing the extra starters away, so I keep feeding it and they keep multiplying! I have to make pancakes this week with it because this is getting a little out of control! I should start giving some away too! This is not the first time this has happened to me. I once had sourdough starter that multiplied like crazy. I've written about it here.
This week I should also try to make sourdough bread. It's very good right out of the oven. I can't wait!