Fresh Bread and a Farmer's Market

This morning I finished making a loaf of homemade bread. I tried to beat the heat, but the recipe called for pre-heating a dutch oven to 500 degrees F so it made the kitchen pretty hot anyway. And I set off the fire alarm a couple of times while the boy was still sleeping. Oops. That alarm is so sensitive!

Anyway, we both agreed it was well worth it because it came out amazing!

I've got to work on my camera skills. Anyway, here it is in all its crusty glory:

The dutch oven method allows the bread to cook using a lot of steam which keeps the middle really soft and the outside nice and crusty. This did take me over a day to make though. After mixing the flour, honey, beer, yeast, vinegar, and water it has to sit for 8 to 18 hours. Mine was about 21. It's hard to get the timing right for something that has to sit that long. For the beer it said to use a "mild-flavored lager" (aka Budweiser which will probably never enter this house) so I used this:

Sierra Nevada Glissade. It's a lightly colored bock beer.

I only needed about a quarter of the bottle but don't worry, nothing went to waste ;)

Yesterday was also our local farmer's market so I went and got a bunch of vegetables because I also picked up these babies:

Oh yes, there will be canning. Lots and lots and lots of canning.

After having a deal on Craigslist fall through, I just went over to my local True Value Hardware store and picked these up. They were not expensive at all.

Best part: Made in the U.S.A.

So with thoughts of filling these up soon I picked up the following from the Farmer's Market:

Pickling cucumbers,

 "B" Grade Tomatoes,

Giant zucchinis (50 cents a piece!),

And raspberries. I froze these because I didn't feel like making jam.

I am just waiting on a canning pot that will fit the jars I bought. Once that arrives I'm going to start canning the tomatoes and zucchini and pickling the cucumbers. I got a book full of canning recipes that I've been flagging for ones I want to try. It's going to be exciting!

Now I'm off to look for a good bread recipe that doesn't require me to drink 3/4 of a bottle of beer every time I want to make bread!