Beautiful Sunday morning

It is not as early as we usually start our day, but it is the weekend. And, it is winter. For some reason the cold brings out the carb loading menus. Last night we had meatballs, gravy, roasted carrots, potatoes and garlic and yes, of course, some nice white home baked bread. I have to emphasis the white because my husband thinks white is the best. I rarely make an all white loaf. First off, nothing left in the grain but the bad stuff. Although truth be told, when you have to eat white bread, it really should be homemade. The recipe I used yesterday was a small batch, two loaves and quite easy to prepare.
The recipe comes from the Harrowsmith Country Living Baking Book. Mixed in with all the hearty whole grain recipes is this one:
Old-Order Amish Bread
1 tablespoon yeast
1.5 cups warm water
5-6 cups bread flour - which I really never have on hand
2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup canola oil
Proof the yeast in the water for about five minutes. In the meantime mix the sugar, salt and oil with 2 cups of flour. Add the yeast water and mix well. Stir in enough additional flour to make an elastic, but not too sticky dough. Knead until smooth and wonderful. There's nothing I enjoy more than wrestling with bread dough; well, except hanging sheets on the wash line.
Let rise covered in a greased bowl for about an hour. Make two loaves, place in well greased bread pans, allow to rise another 40 minutes, bake and serve... preferably hot.

It was well received and there's a loaf for sandwiches for lunch next week. I really like homemade bread made into toast and the covered with homemade jelly or jam.
We are nearly out of potatoes from the garden. I do have carrots left and they are still wonderful, but they are showing signs of spring because a few are sprouting new green shoots. So we will be eating fresh carrots this next week and then we have to move on to frozen ones. Still, not a bad choice.
On top of that, I'm searching through seed catalogs; finding seed in every corner of the house and trying to get organized for our spring planting day in March. With my ever growing troupe of home gardeners... family home gardeners that it is, I should have lots of help folding paper pots and filling soil for our seedlings.
And speaking of blooming, my Amaryllis bulb has a two foot stem with an ever budding flower at the tip. I am watching it grow it is changing every hour. So, as soon as they blooms, I will post a photo. I am very excited. Never have I been successful at something like this. Could it be my house with all the windows. If you overlook the cleaning part of the windows, it's great. We spotted our buck last night - the snow is deep and the deer are everywhere searching for food. I finally filled the bird feeders yesterday. I was hoping the blue jays would move away so the songbirds would come back, no such luck. They are still here and they are very large birds.
There's a rabbit behind the shed, the recipient of a couple of wilted carrots from last night's supper preparation. The pheasants are in the spruce trees to the north... we are surrounded. It's a good thing.
Today is baby shower day. It will be fun and my first granddaughter will be gifted by friends and family... I'll tell you more about that later.