Sweet Cecily, Samosas, and Starters

Daily Blue Ledger

Today was a Wednesday, so it was my day off...yay!  I slept until 7:30 and then got up and made quinoa porridge, which was really quite yummy.

Barn Swallows I

Quinoa Porridge

1/2 cup quinoa

1 cup rice milk

Banana slices

Maple syrup

Ginger powder

Flax seeds

Put quinoa and rice milk in pot and bring to boil, simmer for 15 minutes until liquid is absorbed.  Put in bowl and add sliced banana, maple syrup, flax seeds, and ginger powder.  Stir and eat!  

Then I spent about 2 hours downloading contemporary folk music off Limewire...should I not say that on the internet?  Whatever...the RIAA already caught me once.  I'm a bad girl.  I got some great stuff, though...it's cool, the iTunes store gives you a whole playlist of suggested artists that they think every modern-folk-lover should have.  So it's like, David Gray, Lucinda Williams, Beth Orton, The Weepies...and I downloaded a few top songs from each.

After that, I felt like I should probably go outside or something, so I went to visit Molly at Sweet Cecily, where she works.  Sweet Cecily is a store on Middlebury's Main Street that is probably the cutest thing I've ever seen.  It's similar to Blue Tulip...but just much better.  It has all these fairy knick knacks and soaps and cards.  The best part is the view; there's a balcony the overhangs the waterfall.  It's gorgeous.  So after I visited her, I went to the co-op and got a multi vitamin, just to make sure I'm getting all the right nutrients, and some fruits and veggies.  Then I came back to the farm and looked up a recipe for samosas, which I had never made before.

Barn Swallows II

Vegan Samosas

Dough:

2 cups whole wheat flour

2 Tbs oil (I used 1 T sesame and 1 T olive)

3/4ish cup warm water

3/4 tsp salt

Mix together until forms a ball with a "pie-crust texture" (that's what the recipe I used said, interpret as you will).  Let rest for 30 minutes.

Filling:

3 potatoes, peeled, boiled, and mashed

1 small onion, diced

1 cup peas

A medium-spiced chili pepper, minced (I didn't have one, so I used a red bell pepper)

Garlic

Oil or Earth Balance

Spices: Nutritional yeast, curry powder, garam masala, paprika, salt, cayenne pepper

In the meantime, saute onions, pepper, and garlic in oil until soft.  Add peas and mashed potatoes and combine.  I added a little Earth Balance at this point.  Add all spices, blah blah blah...

Ok.  Preheat oven to 375.  Divide dough into 8 pieces.  Flatten each piece into a square a 1/4 inch thick and about 4-5 inches across.  Put some filling in the middle and fold diagonally to make a triangle.  Pinch edges together firmly.  Place on greased baking sheet and put middle of oven.  Bake for about 20 minute?  The recipe said 40-50 but I think that's incorrect.  Just make sure they're not burning.  Let cool a bit and enjoy.

Greg knocked on my door tonight to ask if I wanted to make sourdough starters for bread.  And of course I did, because cooking's my thing and I love bread.  It's a 14 day process to grow a culture, and it starts very simply.  You sanitize everything, then mix together flour and water in a big container.  To start off the fermentation, you use some type of organic fruit...we happened to have apples.  So you put apple slices in cloth bags squish the juice into the starter and put in the entire bag in the mixture.  Then the lid goes on tightly and it sits until the next step.  It's really a growing thing, and it has to be fed like an infant.  It's sitting next to my bed and I'm going to sing to it every night so it feels loved.

It's getting late and I have to go to sleep...night night.