Rye Bread

I baked some rye bread last night.  This was with dough I had prepared nearly 2 weeks ago.  I'll probably bake the rest of it today as 2 weeks is the maximum they say you should store it.

The first thing I noticed was that the dough was very wet and sticky.  I also wasn't paying that much attention to the instructions so I forgot to dust the top of the ball of dough with flour before I started stretching the surface dough.  I also put it directly onto my peel (aka bamboo cutting board) with what was apparently not enough flour or cornmeal.  I should have put it on the counter first, making sure to throughly flour the sticky outside, then put a ton of cornmeal on the peel, and finally only put the dough on the peel when I was sufficiently ready.

Well, that wasn't the end of it there.  Only after I made cuts in the top of the dough did I realize it was sticking to the peel.  I slid a thin spatula under the dough, trying to cram more cornmeal there as I went.  Given that the dough was already rather formless and soft, it just started to deform more and more.  Plus, the cuts on top were spreading and starting to become part of the outer skin.  Finally I was able to slide it easily - and in the oven it went.

The fun didn't stop there - no...I had my cup of hot water ready to pour into the heated baking pan sitting in the oven.  For some reason I didn't pull the rack out, instead I thought it would be perfectly fine to pour the water into the pan through the upper rack (the one that the stone & dough were sitting on).  In my haste, I missed and ended up pouring hot water on the stone and the dough.  Uarahghggh. I tried to brush it off with my oven mitts, but it was hot in there.  The water was steaming from the heat of the stone, so I thought screw it and closed the oven door.  The water did evaporate pretty quickly, which was good.  I left the bread in for about...25 minutes I think.  The internal temperature was 205F when I took it out.

Now for the bread itself - it's got a nice brown crust.  The part where it split was not the place where I cut it.  Because of all the smooshing around, I turned out this weird shape.  The cornmeal on the bottom gets rather hard and crispy - maybe I should go for a finer ground cornmeal next time.  The inside is cooked through (yay!).  There are a few large holes, but the crumb is mostly small holes.  It tastes kind of like rye bread, but the flavor is not very heavy.  I didn't add any caraway seeds, which might make a huge difference.  Lawrence doesn't actually like caraway seeds.  Next time I'd like to try adding molassses for a dark, or maybe even marbled rye bread.

I've never eaten my bread toasted.  I tried putting some butter on it, but the bread needs to be warm for that to work (to melt the butter and all).  In the end, I go back to dipping slices of the bread in olive oil sprinkled with freshly ground sea salt and black pepper - YUM!

Hydroponics - continued.

Tonight I bought a better gallon-sized water bottle for the reservoir.  The bottom is mostly flat.  We stuck the tubes and the bottles in, and were briefly disappointed when we realized it wasn't reaching the top of the bottles.  I asked Lawrence if the pump was turned up all the way - it wasn't.  So, we turned it up and WOAH, it pumped better than it did yesterday.  The most influential factor may have been the higher water level in this bottle.  We speculate it may produce more water pressure, letting the water rise more.

In any case, it turned out perfect.  We used some more zip ties to hold the water bottles to the dowel/air tube.  I also planted my seeds in the starter cubes.  Our next step is to wait for them to germinate, sprout leaves, and grow roots.  As soon as that happens we can transfer them to the water bottles!  :D

Here's the entire setup:

Here are a few close-up shots (ok, so they're not THAT exciting...but I'M excited!):

Garden materials bought

Less than $30 for a single vertical system?  Maybe if I shopped around for the best deals and already had half the initial supplies, or was able to get some of the materials in smaller quantities.

Ralphs
3x - 1.5L bottles of Fiji water = $2.35 x 3 = $7.05
1x - 1G bottle of Arrowhead water = $1.10

Dick's Sporting Goods
1x - 3-pack of Inflation needles  = $2.73 (+tax)

Orchard Supply Hardware (OSH)
1x - 7/8"x48" circular poplar dowel = $3.47 (+tax)
3x - packets of seeds (chives, cilantro, thyme) =  $1.89 x 3 = $5.67
1x - utility knife = $2.40 (+tax)
1x - 1/2" x 260" pack of plumber's tape = $1.20 (+tax)
5' - 3/8" vinyl tube = $0.39 x 5  = $2.14 (+tax)
1' - 1/4" vinyl tube = $0.32 (+tax)

BetterGrowHydro
1x - Eco Air 2 pump = $14.87 (+tax)
6x - Rockwool Cube = $0.12 x 6 = $0.79 (+tax)
3x - 3" Round net pot = $0.42 x 3 = $1.38 (+tax)
6' - Airline tubing = $0.25 x 6 = $1.65 (+tax)
1x - 1qt Pure Blend Pro Grow = $19.54 (+tax)
1x - 1qt Pure Blend Pro Bloom = $19.54 (+tax)
1x - 10L Hydroton Rocks = $9.55 (+tax)

Total Cost so far: $93.40

However, I'm going to have a lot leftover of the hydroton rocks, plumber's tape, and seeds.  The inflation needles also came with an extra 3rd needle.  If I made two more units, it would probably be a lot more cost effective.  The nutrients cost a lot more than I expected.  I could probably also get away with a thinner dowel.

DIY Window Farm

The resources out there are rather spotty.  I want to document this process in written & video form, perhaps coming up with a better instructional manual as well.  Being completely new to the hydroponics scene, the details are a little confusing and I could imagine that being a hindrance to others as well.

Workout & Food

Sunday was Melody's Kettlebells 102 workshop.  It involved more complex kettlebell exercises than the 101 workshop.  We did cleans, squats, presses, snatches, windmills, and push-ups.  We also learned a few variations on each and some two-kettlebell versions.  I did a double kettlebell snatch on the 8kg bells.  :)

Yesterday night's workout, just 3 exercises repeated twice:

x15 - One-legged inchworms
x15 each side - Lunge, touch ground with 10lb dumbbells, step back, lift dumbbells to shoulders and press
x15 each side - Renegade rows (hands on dumbbells in push-up position but with feet wider apart, lift one dumbbell to armpit, put it back down and lift the other to armpit).  I was technically supposed to do a push-up between each row, but I guess that was a little too much. :(

Ended with 15x - 1kg medicine ball crunches where I lift and lower my legs and hands, alternating passing the ball and extending the limbs.


Food
So I was good last week, and this week I got really lazy again.  I didn't cook over the weekend even though I had been planning to.  It's really going to take some dedicated planning time.  I have a spaghetti squash I want to do something with, plus the ground pork and green beans I bought last Thursday but still haven't cooked.  Lawrence's mom came over yesterday so now we also have a pineapple, Chinese long string beans, and some brussel sprouts.  Talk about random.

Vegetables are carcinogenic?

Apparently, way before humans ever thought to create pesticides, plants already had their own internal mechanism to deter animals from eating them.  I was surprised when I read on the food site I linked to a couple days ago that celery produced carcinogenic compounds.  You're not supposed to eat bruised celery because the bruising starts a process that increases the production of that carcinogen by 100x.  The same is true of several other vegetables apparently.

I found these next two pages while I was looking for more information about this:
http://mathforum.org/~josh/alfalfa.html
http://potency.lbl.gov/herp.html

Bruce Ames, a biochemistry professor at UC Berkeley was the one who started research into the extent of this.  It's rather scary looking at all that and seeing what produces carcinogens - potatoes, spinach, coffee, peanut butter, raw mushrooms, coffee, alcohol, anything that's been browned...

However, Ames conclusion is not to severely restrict your diet but to realize that you probably encounter many more carcinogens in your diet that are naturally produced than are residual chemical pesticides or food additives.  Go ahead and be aware (don't eat bruised vegetables!), make sure you take in foods and nutrients that have anti-carcinogenic properties ("cruciferous" vegetables, vitamins A, C, E, and selenium), and eat high fiber foods so that food does not stay in your system too long.

Hydroponics - "Window Farms"

Today I read an article on re-nest about Window Farms.  The idea is to let urban dwellers grow hydroponic gardens inside their apartments all year long using vertical, hydroponic, modular, low-energy, high-yield edible window gardens built using low-impact or recycled local materials.  These structures are DIY, although the developers are in the process of putting together kits for sale.  They have a blog they use as a forum.  The site is not an ideal medium for communicating and for growth as specific information is sparse and hard to find.  But, they do have pdf files on the site with material lists and step-by-step instructions on how to create your own vertically-hanging hydroponic garden.  I never realized it would be so cheap, but the site claims you could get it all together for less than $30.  I did some research and some math and without any special deals, it is nearly that low.

I proposed to Lawrence that we give it a shot and he agreed.  Now my biggest difficulty is figuring out where to put it.  The reason this idea really appealed to me was that one giant wall of our studio is all window.  We've got 4 sets of blinds.  I want to put the plants at the window on the opposite side of the room from our bed.  There's also an Ikea bookcase in the corner.  Actually, that corner of the room has long been a logistical problem for me.  We've too many things that need to take up the space there.  Currently, it's effectively a 5'x8' space in our room that's completely useless.