HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!!!

 Well GOOD MORNING she said through scratchy tired eyes, the likes of which just make you want to close them permanently!  HAPPY JULY FOURTH!!  It's Independence Day, for which I am eternally thankful.  We live on the greatest continent with our neighbors from Canada, in one of the greatest countries, if not THEE greatest, in the world.  We are truly BLESSED.

I thought the nighttime celebrations on July 3rd would look like this in my back yard.  Amazingly, that was not the case.  I'm shocked!!  I only heard one big bang all night long.

HOWEVER ... life with the ghosties in this house did NOT let me sleep.  At around 2:30 in the morning, I heard this horrible noise.  What the heck?  WHAT IS THAT?  I walked out the bedroom door to find this screeching at me, sometimes LOUD and sometimes not quite so loud.  

This is my doorbell that has not worked in five years.  Why oh why are you screeching at me now?  I went outside, thankfully remembering to turn the alarms off first, and hit the doorbell several times.  I knew it didn't work, so why is it buzzing?  Nothing ... that did nothing.  It continued to wail.

Really you guys?  It's 2:30 in the morning.  I grabbed my ladder and my trusty screwdriver, not having any idea what I was going to do with it.  I loosened the red wire and pulled it off.  Ahhhhhhh ... quiet.  I've no idea what went wrong, or how to fix it, nor do I really want to learn how to install doorbells.  UGH ... back to bed I went, only to lay eyes wide open!!  Well that was fun!!

Back to yesterday and my bread making career ... but first, let's gather more vegetables.  Had I known this was going to turn me into a vegetarian, I might not have planted ANYTHING.  What am I going to do with all this stuff??

Maybe some morning French bread with jam and butter will bring on some ideas.  You know, carb loading like I was going to run a marathon!  Oh Nancy, this is SO SO bad for your diet.  I have to admit though, ANY homemade bread is good, even if it's bad.

Now for the REAL CHALLENGE.  I turned my oven on to 500 degrees like the sourdough recipe said.  Trouble is, my oven won't heat up that high any more.  It's been sick for maybe 8 years and the doctor is too expensive.  I just use my little Breville oven instead.  Anyhoo, I set the oven at 550 and hoped for the best.  In went my little cast iron oven to preheat.

Once close to temperature, or at least as hot as the oven was going to get, I took the bread out of the fridge, dumped it unceremoniously on a piece of parchment paper, then dropped it into the screaming hot pan.  Score the top ... but the problem was with WHAT.  I didn't have a sharp knife in the drawer, so I got out my box cutter.  Not exactly sanitary, but it worked.  Cover ... bake 20 minutes.  Take the screaming hot lid OFF and bake another 20 minutes.  The wait was excruciating!

BUT WOOHOO ... LOOKY HERE!!!!  WE HAVE SOURDOUGH!!  And it looks pretty darn good if I do say so myself!

Of course the taste will tell ... but you have to wait FOUR HOURS for it to cool completely before slicing.  What happened to instant gratification?  I waited not so patiently.  Slicing it up to eat brought about another problem.  You know sourdough has a hard crust and is very difficult to slice.  Hmmm I need a bread slicer.  

I nibbled the corner.  Well what do you know.  In spite of mixing the recipe completely backwards, it actually tasted just like sourdough bread!  And the texture is PERFECT!

SUCCESS!!!  But the REAL taste test was a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch.  I threw all caution and my diet out the window.  It was beyond delicious!

I spent the afternoon basking in the aura of my new title ..... Sourdough Bread Maker .... while cutting up a new quilt.  I'm at a standstill on the Veterans quilts until I find backing for two, which means a trip to the quilt store.  

In the meantime, I kept wracking my brain about what to do with all those veggies that I was being forced to eat.  GIVE ME MEAT!  White or red, it doesn't matter.  Finally, while watching the rodeo channel, I had a brilliant idea.  COWBOY CAVIAR!  

Yessiree ... the perfect answer to a tiny garden that's producing like crazy.  Can-o-corn, CHERRY TOMATOES, red onions, chopped CUCUMBER, chopped ZUCCHINI and a can of olives.  Mix it all up with Italian dressing, which in this case magically turned into sweet onion dressing.  Top it off with a piece of toasted homemade French bread because I didn't want to throw it away.  YUM!!!

And so my friends ... today I suppose I'll have to hit up Amazon for a doorbell ... or maybe actually drive to Home Depot.  I'm really not hot on replacing this thing.  I mean what if I hook another one up and it STILL doesn't work?  I really don't want to replace the actual push button thingy either.  

I would call my Elks Handyman friend, but he's already on the hook to weld a locking mechanism on my back gate, so I hate to ask for more.  Besides, he's off on a two month motorcycle ride to Alaska.

Instead, I'll just eat slice after slice of sourdough while mixing up another batch to bake tomorrow.  That one will go in the freezer before stashing the starter in the fridge to sleep for a few weeks.  

NO, I'm NOT getting on the scales ... I killed the diet for two days, there's no use killing my enthusiasm along with it!!  I'll be in the garden!!