...And Back Again

Back And Forth, But Crocus!

It's official, spring is imminent in Wisconsin.  Today was beautiful, sunny and getting into the mid-50's this afternoon, so I took a walk around the back yard today after arriving home.  I was hoping for, yet still surprised to see, the purple crocus coming up in the back yard.  Only three small clumps like this one, but surely many more to come.

Our weather has been back and forth recently, occasional bits of snow and/or cold mixed with sun and above freezing to very pleasant days like today.  As it usually is for us in spring, more so than fall, it seems.  Tomorrow is colder with rain expected, but the forecast is very encouraging, though still with some of that back and forth.  

I know the crocus are probably the first really encouraging sign of spring for me, as snowdrops are for others.  Aside from the better temperatures, there is spring training baseball, March Madness basketball, maybe seeing buds on the trees or the first robin, or in my case, Mom coming back home. What other occurrences help you change your mindset from winter to spring?

1500 Posts!

Woohoo!  This is my 1500th post on this blog.

Well over half came within the first five years, many frivolous.  Took me that long to figure out what I wanted to do, I guess.  I've now posted 669 times since 2015, around 5 times a month, on average.  Hopefully a better read as I've gone on.

This is prescheduled.  I should currently be relaxing with my Mom the snowbird after fetching her from the airport this afternoon and driving her home.  Friday is/was a busy day for both of us, but this night we can relax.

Thank you.  That's all, you may move along now.  Nothing else to see here.  : )

Baking And Making Homemade

I may not write about it all the time, but I'm still enjoying baking as much as ever.  I'm looking at being able to make more things here at home rather than buying at a bakery or grocery store.  And I'm finding how simple much of it is.

I now have three very good pizza dough recipes that I make every so often, which has very much lessened ordering out and I can't remember the last time we even thought about buying a frozen pizza.  A thin crust recipe that uses fine 00 pizza flour to make four dough balls that I make ahead and freeze.  A pan pizza dough that is similar to a focaccia that I make ahead and can wait in the refrigerator for 12-72 hours before baking.  And the newest is similar to a hand-tossed crust, uses course-ground semolina flour and sits in the refrigerator for a day before baking.  

Any of the pizza doughs I can add King Arthur's Pizza Dough Flavor, which is basically cheddar cheese powder with salt, onion and garlic powder and a few other things.  I did get some plain cheddar cheese powder, which is much cheaper, so I can make my own soon if I wish.  KA also sells a Pizza seasoning that can be sprinkled on pizza, but also makes a very good pizza sauce, that I've made many times, with crushed tomatoes, garlic and olive oil.

I bake them (not pan) on a pizza stone and peel that we've had for a long time and stopped using for some reason, but now it gets a whole lot of use.  We've definitely stepped up our home made pizza game in a huge way.  I could put a pizza picture here, but I have a feeling that will be its own post someday with more detail on all three crusts.

I had also been thinking about making my own tortillas as we do often enjoy Mexican food at home.  I've already made my own homemade taco sauce a few times now.  Just tomato sauce and spices we already had in the cupboard.  On a recent day off I decided to give tortillas a try.  It was unbelievably simple.  For the fat you can use oil, lard, shortening or butter.  We normally have oil and butter in the house, so I tried with oil but will try butter next time.  I rolled them out, a bit too thin, and dry fried them on the stove.  They turned out pretty good for a first try, enough for me to buy a tortilla press for my next batch.  I can see these becoming a staple in this household soon.

I still make baguette often enough to keep some available in the freezer, but I've been making baguette the longest and have written about it often here.  My go-to recipe has changed a bit, as has my technique.  I no longer care about making 16 inch versions of a French baguette and am more concerned about taste and form for our uses.

And it had been a while, but I made a couple batches of cheese pennies yesterday.  Cheese pennies are a fun snack, so I made a roll of parmesan and a roll of sharp cheddar - with added cheese powder.  So tasty.  This pan pictured was pretty much dinner last night, along with a loaf of what I'll write about next.  These could have used another minute or two in the oven, but still good.

I made glass bread (Pan de Cristal) yesterday.  I had made it once before, but I was a less experienced baker then.  This was before I got a baking stone so they were baked on the round pizza stone and also I overcooked them.  I know I wrote about it here, I'm just too lazy to look it up to link.  Glass bread is a 100% hydration bread, so the dough starts out like pancake batter and is very delicate.  Big bubbles form in the crumb making the bread so light and airy.  I wish I could get more of that in my baguette - maybe someday.

The glass bread dough gets stronger through coil folds and time, with the last resting period about 2 hours before going in the oven.  This made 4 loaves, three of which went into the freezer.  Mine may be slightly less done than usual, but that was on purpose so we can throw one in the oven for 5-10 minutes sometime and have it taste like fresh.  I suppose you could make a sandwich out  of it if you cut it the long way like a bun, but as far as I'm concerned it's a wonderful snacking bread.

I skipped over a lot of details here for brevity, but the details do change as I go.  Many are a combination of flours, like the 00 recipe I use half AP flour, etc., and the ratio may change on my whim.  As may the hydration percent I use in some doughs.  My tools, techniques and dough handling have also improved a lot since I started baking a few years ago.

I get great satisfaction from making these thing at home rather than buying them, though my wife would tell you I'm never satisfied.  I'm getting there, I just like trying to improve whatever I'm making every time I make it.  We all need something, right?

Valentines Day Weekend

Yesterday was Valentines Day, so a card, some candy and a nice lunch out.  We again went out to lunch today, followed by a walk around the neighborhood.  Most of the snow has melted, but that leaves the grime from winter and the drab, brown flora everywhere.  It will be nice when things start to green up again but that will take some time yet.  Our stretch of beautiful weather for this time of year continues, and should until Friday when we go back to more seasonable temperatures.  

Still not a lot happening that's been worth writing about other than the weather, but let's see what I can think of - a mini This-and-Thats:

I finally created an account on the King Arthur website and tried to put in an order, but I got an error every time I tried to submit this weekend so I went back to order from Amazon.  Not sure why the error, but I may try again sometime in the future.  Oh well, it's disappointing even though I'd have to pay for shipping there.  Most available KA flours I will continue to buy locally, but my thought was some of their seasonings and other ingredients might be fresher directly from them.  Maybe I'll find out for sure sometime in the future.

I bought a new dash camera for my car, one that also has a camera pointing back into the inside of the car.  I'd like to get one that has a rear-facing camera, but I don't want to have to run that wire back there somehow.  The interior view will show some out the windows and I thought might be a good idea as I have to transport clients often.  The dash camera that I had, forward view only, I moved to my wife's van but ran into an issue.  There are two plug-ins for it in front, one that is always on and one that is only on when the car is.  I can't use the one that is always on or it may run down the battery and the other is inoperable for some reason.  My wife said there is another one in the back that is within reach that I will have to try, but another day.  The rest of the weekend is now for rest.

It is now light out when I go to work and stays light later in the afternoon/evening.  I entertained the thought of a fire last night but the ground is very wet so I decided against it.  We have a little more than a month until the spring equinox, March 20, which is a Friday so maybe I can have an fire pit then, if not sooner.  

We don't have snowdrops around here that I'm aware of, but we do get crocus early spring in the back yard.  Still too early, I guess.  At least it feels like we can make it to there, now.

Watching The Snow

... Before it all melts.  Up to 50ºF this weekend?  But beware - it's still mid-February, after all.

Groundhog Day

Yesterday was Groundhog Day.  Primarily a North American tradition that stems from the European tradition of Candlemas, though it seems there are similar weather-predicting folklore around the world.

Locally, Jimmy the Groundhog in nearby Sun Prairie did not see his shadow so predicted an early spring.  More famously, Punxsutawney Phil was frightened by his shadow and predicted 6 more weeks of winter.  

I never realized there were so many groundhogs making predictions until I did a search for this post.  Groundhog-day dot com seems to have a comprehensive list, but only shows 4 (of 89), including Jimmy, that have been predicting for over 50 years with many more being added especially in the last couple decades.

So what does this mean?  Pretty much nothing except that people love a goofy tradition.

Well, after this last cold spell most around here would welcome an early spring.  I know I'm over winter, especially recently having a bad cold (which is why I am home from work today).

So far I seem to be asking a question at the end of my posts this year.  Here's another one:  Do you have a local groundhog or similar tradition?  If so, what was the prediction?

Cold Spell

By early yesterday afternoon schools and businesses were starting to announce closings for today, Friday.  Including my work, so I get a free day off today.

When I got up this morning temperatures were around -18ºF (-28ºC) with wind chills nearing -40ºF (-40ºC).  The high today is only -8ºF (-13ºC).  Let that sink in.

We are stuck in a bit of a cold spell, for sure.  Even the extended forecast only shows highs in the single digits to low teens.  Kate's birthday was earlier in the week, so surely the start of deep winter for us.

Today's picture was taken from inside, for obvious reasons.  While it appears to be a beautiful day outside we will not be leaving the house.  I forgot to turn off my alarm so I was up early to see the ugly numbers above, that's enough.

I just got up from a nap a bit ago since I stayed up late last night, and have no real plans for the day.  Later we'll make home made pizza for dinner, and if I get bored soon enough I may even make another batch of pizza dough for the freezer.  In fact, I'll be in for most of the weekend so I should figure out something interesting to bake.  Any ideas?

Beef 2026

Early last November I ordered another quarter of beef from the same place we always use, Wisconsin River Meats.  They were about to shut down for the next several weeks for deer processing so we were expecting a call around the middle of this month, which was not a problem for us.  In fact, last weekend my wife used the last of our beef, a round steak, to make beef jerky, then we got the call on Sunday afternoon that our beef was ready for pickup.  On Friday, my wife drove up to retrieve it.

Now, beef prices have risen quite a bit just like everything else at the grocery store so we knew we'd be spending quite a bit, but still expected it to be better quality and a better deal than any local grocery store.  We got 4 boxes of meat instead of the usual 3, so it was a bigger cow, too.  About 16 pounds bigger than our previous biggest, two orders ago in 2023.

Total cost was $1439.13 for about 159.1 lbs., to make it around $9.05 / lb.

Quite a jump from the last time in August of 2024 ($906.54 / 136.8 lbs. / $6.63), but about the same price per pound currently for a good, lean ground beef from the grocery store, so still a good deal for all cuts of meat we received.  (That would be 77 pounds of ground beef and 82 pounds of steaks, roasts and more.)  Not only cheaper but so much better quality than grocery store beef.

She didn't get too many of their processed meats this year; two pounds of dried beef, regular and garlic ring bologna, and some wieners.  But she did get some super fresh cheese curds just made that morning that were super-squeaky fresh and absolutely delicious.  If you know, you know.

We've gotten a quarter of a cow now every year since 2016, skipping 2020 and 2025 since it tends to last us for a bit more than a year.  We did have to look at some grocery store meat last month which just reaffirmed our choice to buy in bulk from a quality meat supplier.

So far it has been a pretty quiet start to the new year.  There's been a few things I've  thought about writing but nothing spectacular or of note, until this.  I do have a few pictures I may share later this week with other ramblings, but no one is missing anything.

How is your year so far?

Happy New Year 2026

Happy 2026, everyone.  I slept in this morning, New Year's Eve day, and it was nice.  I was awake for a bit early, but stayed in bed and looked at my phone until I finally slept a couple more good hours.  Chasing a good, full night's sleep has been a constant for me in 2025.

Kate and I went out and had a nice lunch today, then came home to get into comfy clothes and bump up the thermostat.  It is a very gray day today (again), with snow flurries as well. The plan for us is to make beef tenderloin steaks with potatoes or pasta for dinner, with the newer Spinal Tap movie and a sweet treat to follow.  She is feeling a bit under the weather so will likely go to bed at a normal time or earlier while I will try to stay up and ring in the new year.  I may watch Dick Clark's Rockin' NYE on television or find some other interesting show for the countdown.  Anyway, just a quiet night in for us and likely the same for tomorrow.

How did you ring in the New Year?