day 266 and day 267.

The final weekend before school begins. I’m ready and I’m not ready, I guess. I really tried to make friend time a priority this weekend while also emphasizing low-key, solitary times to get my head in the game for school. I had an epic brunch full of delicious home-grown and homemade food with Lisa, a crafternoon with Jessika and Kernan, baking time, a fatty picnic with lovely folks, reading for pleasure, and time chatting with a few out-of-town dear ones.

Saturday Brunch:

eggs benny with hollandaise,  collards, and tomato on challah, fried purple potatoes, arugula salad with apple, fennel, asiago, and a basil vinaigrette and homemade chai. (most of it came from our respective gardens!)

Sunday Baking:

my first apple pie! apples are from the tree in my front yard!

pear and granola muffins. These are so good! We had some pears going bad and I whipped these up super quick to make use of them. I will definitely make them again.

Now it’s off to bed early in preparation for my 14 hour day tomorrow!

Also, how is it that there are less than 100 days left in this year? Seriously, how did that happen?

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day 84.

We made bread!!

Spent the day with my fermentation/pickle club putting our first sourdough starter to use!

The day in pictures:

First, brunch. With strawberries, sourdough hot cakes, marion berry compote, oj, and bacon:

Then, bread making. We chose to make a rustic sourdough using this recipe (for the most part anyway).

Here’s our starter, post-use and replenished. I had been tending it for a few weeks before we finally got a chance to use it:

Combined the starter with more flour and warm water to make a leaven, which developed overnight for about 13 hours or so:

Combined the leaven with more flour, water, and salt to make the dough:

An action shot of the dough being folded:

Forming the dough into rounds (next time I think we’ll   do this part a bit differently):

The bread resting for 3.5 hours before being baked:

After 20 mins. in the oven:

getting there:

Done!:

Cutting into our first loaf:

Look at that!:

Forgot to get a shot of it being eaten, but let me just say, incredible. So delicious.

Making sourdough bread was quite the all-day experience. It was so much fun and I learned a lot. I can’t wait to try it again and apply what I learned. It filled me up so much to dedicate an entire day to a project like this, with folks who have become sweet friends. I’m looking forward to our next meeting and whatever we get up to next!

day 81.

Wednesday. Midweek self-care for real.

Today I treated Wyatt and I to brunch at gravy. Brunch is my favorite meal. Seriously, there is something so special and decadent about brunch. Maybe it’s the jew in me (we really value a good brunch, I feel), but brunch will always have a delicious spot in my heart.

Then I had counseling. Which was great and it was really nice to be talking about some different things for a change. I feel like I’ve been processing the same situation for months when I go there (which basically I have been) and it feels really good to be moving on a lot. I’m proud of myself for the work I’ve been doing.

And then acupuncture. Oh how I love acupuncture. One of the best acts of self-care I have prioritized for myself in recent months. It just does wonders for me.

Next Wednesday I’ll be on spring break and headed out of town, so I won’t have my usual midweek replenishment. I’m really looking forward to being off work and school, but I’ll also be looking forward to my next Wednesday self-care extravaganza to come.