Montana: Day 1 and 2

So I have always wanted to go to Montana. After my niece studied Montana for a school project we all decided this summer to take off and finally visit Glacier National Park before all the glaciers melt. So come with me on a virtual journey to the state of Montana. Today we drive.

Eastern Oregon has some interesting rock formations. This is all basalt.

Beautiful beautiful light.

I like geology. I need to get more books on geology. This was all from one GIANT lava flow

Hello Thunderstorm! Thanks for washing the bugs off the car!

We made it to Washington!

Now we are in Idaho! Yaaaay! Almost there!

!!!!

Paradise on Earth

THIS is what I imagined the Rockies to look like

Aw, picturesque!

I have lots more pictures, but not enough time to wait for the computer to load. We are spending the night in Kalispell right outside of the national park. Tommorrw expect beautiful pictures. and lots of them.

How to: Make Jam

At this point, I am an Oregonian. So when the end of spring rolls around I can't wait to get my summer on. One way to celbrate is with berries. Yes, fresh Oregon berries. Few places can compare to our strawberries that are full of flavor and have to be eaten as quick as possible because they will litterally disintegrate before your eyes. This spring was so horribly wet and cold that we didn't get any berries until July! All the while I was languishing think, worry, waiting about missing out on my fresh berries. Luckily I got let off work early one day and went out with my family to pick strawberries. Yup, u-pick farms are quite common in the Portland area, and its great! In half an hour three of us picked 14 lbs of beautiful, perfect strawberries and it only cost $16.75

Perfection

So....what am I going to do with 14 lbs of strawberries? other than an orgy of strawberry related foodsits time for some fresh jam!

squish squish squish

I cleaned them and tossed a bunch in a big pot and gave my niece a chance to crush the bottom layer of berries. This year the berries were kinda sour because of all the rain. But its okay, because the high acid content make them store better and when they are a bit sour all the sugar in the jam balances out perfectly to make a not-to-sweet jam. I gently reduced the berries to inhance the flavor (normally you dont need to bother), then measured out the liquid once it was cooked (I had 5 cups). For this recipe it is equal parts sugar to equal parts berries so I poured in 5 cups sugar.

 Supposedly its better if you heat the sugar before pouring it in, I never have had trouble using my cold sugar.

Many recipes say to add a tsp. of lemon juice per cup of fruit to raise the acidity and stability of your jam. I added a dash because it seemed a pretty high acid content already.

After adding the sugar I cook it gently until it get hot enough to jel (if you boil too hard it will destroy the natural pectin). I never use a thermometer, I just look at how it drops off the spoon and then test it coolded down on a plate. When it is jelled it falls off the side of the spoon in two globs, not one stream. Additionally, I rarely ever use commertal pectin. If you can process you fruit within 24 hours of picking it usually retains some of the natural pectin in the fruit, and if you want to borrow some pectin from another fruit go ahead and use apple peals-they are chock full of pectin! Just dont forget to fish them out later... When using the natural pectin you jam wont be as solid as store-bought jam, but i think its a bit to gloppy anyway.

Once the jam has jelled drop it into sterilized jars and process in hot water for the right time period for your recipe. (Mine was 10 minutes)

Beeeeeautiful.

Awe gee...what to do with all these strawberries....?

Maybe...fruit leather?

Recipe for fruit leather:

Put your fruit in a small pot and heat to 190 degrees. After it is heated transfer to a blender and puree. For 1  cups of liquid add 1 tsp lemon juice and 1/4 cup sugar. Spread 1/4 inch thick on a lined sheet pan (don't use wax paper! it will stick to the leather. Use either a silicon pad or plactic wrap) and leave in a vented oven at 140 degress until dry.

yum.

Bake time: Croissants

I am not entirly sure why, but today I decided to bake, of all things, croissants. Well, I have done it once with mild success before so I guess I figured it would be no problem. Croissants are made with a laminated dough-basically layers of dough between layers of butter. To start off the butter has to be prepared. it is beaten from its stick form into a rectangle with a bit of flour incroperated into the butter (my recipe called for 3 sticks of butter, and 3 tablespoons flour)

Today I was be careful and actually sifted the flour before I measured it out, then i spooned it into my measuring cup. I am glad i did, because though I sifted three cups (i think) there was a alot more flour left over.

Let's spoon

The dough required a very quick kneading then sat for a bit in the fridge 

Gotta roll out the dough into a BIG rectangle

after making a nice 18x8 inch rectangle I took my big butter rectangle and covered 2/3 of the dough. Now the layering starts. The 1/3 that is uncovered gets folded over part of the butter slab.

then the top 1/3 comees down on top butter side down creating three layers of dough and butter.

Turn the dough 90 degress, gotta pinch down the sides it says.

Then we roll it out to another 18x8 rectangle and fold it the same way again.

if you can see though my arm, you can see how its folded.

 After rolling it out and folding it twice it needs to go into the fridge to relax the gluten and chill the butter again. After folding a total of 4 times (and resting again) it is ready to be rolled out. I gotta roll it into a 24x12 inch rectangle.

It was too big for my board i was working on so i switched to the laminate countertop. I cut the rectangle in half, half for croissants half for pan au chocolat. I cut my lovely triangles

Now to rolling. Cut the back a little.

Start rolling from the inside corners out

Tee da! now dont forget to shape it

Look, I even made a video of how to roll a croissant!

 So look: the one on the left is my first one and the joy of cooking method, one of the right is one of my last ones after looking up how to on youtube and coppied the guy who i could not understand.

Now pan au chocolat is simpler with just being squares all rolled up with an egg  was at the end seam to seal things up.

 Chocolate on one side, roll over

 and make sure the seam is on the bottom or it will unravel

 I tried to do it with strawberry jam, but the jam is a bit runny. its still really really pretty.

 After rolling eveyone out have it sit at room temp for an hour and a half-dont stick it in the oven on the bread proofing setting or the butter will start to melt. Also, dont forget to give it a nice egg wash for a beautiful golden color.

Nom. It turned out quite good. I am saving them for breakfast, but boy do i want some now!

I saved a couple and put them raw in the frezzer for later. all i have to do is pull them a day before and left them defrost and ill have fresh croissants later.

Really not that hard, I used the Joy of Cooking recipe...anyone have a favorite croissant recipe? I'd love to hear how it goes if anyone is brave enough to try!

Erikas Design Process

I make no claims to be a trained artist. Infact, most of my sense of design is purely instinct. When I work on a new piece i have several days of designing: sometimes i draw out the idea, sometimes i just move around the stonest themselves. I had a nice turquoise i wanted to pair with an opal, but i hade a bit of trouble figuring out what to do and how to so it. I did a small sketch, but it wasnt enough to fill in all the design holes. So I played with the stones i had until i saw something I liked. Here are three possibilities:

 I still like this one....

Ever so slightly different

But I went with this one. 

Now the question: where to I put the chain?

Tippy top?

Middle of the top?

Through the accent stones? IF i went with this design I would have to have the opal stationary-and my problem was I couldn't see how to connect the opal to the turquoise.

Finally, I decided to go through the top and connect the two stones with a rod....this also created lots of design possibilities. Big rod? Small one? Beads on the end? Gold or Silver? Though I almost went with gold accents out of nowhere i decided to use two rhodocrosite garnets.

Here is the setting waiting for the stones.

Finished piece. Well, almost, still needs a final polish but its not to bad for an afternoons work.

BTW This is the original piece of opal I cut that one from. I actually got THREE different pieces of jewelry from this one stone.