Thanks, everyone! I didn't have computer access yesterday afternoon and had to come to work this morning and log in to discover that you all put me over the top on my goal!! As the ticker shows, I have enough to pay to attend the training.... whoo, hoo!! You will also notice that the "Donate" button has been removed as promised. I will be donating the amount I have raised over the course fees to the instructors to help anyone else with a shortfall (*added after checking with PayPal - "and the PayPal fees"... I hadn't realized...).
I will be pre-writing my Sustainable Sunday posts, especially since our current home-computer-crash (repair-son addressing this weekend) brought home home fragile technology can still be, so you can expect the first one on Sunday, addressing eating locally! DH and I have spent some time getting ready for a family gathering that will need to be shifted to an outdoor room rather than our usual 'grove'... some will recall photos of BBQs in the grove of four towering cedars that we have on one corner of our property, and where we have developed an outdoor kitchen and firepit. However, the weather has turned from spring back into winter this week so look for pictures of our 'outdoor room', with canvas walls, next week. We also did our food shopping yesterday afternoon, during a break between storms. I come from a Portuguese Catholic upbringing, and therefore share this recipe with you... there's still time to make it before Easter:
Portuguese Easter Bread
5 pounds flour
1-1 ½ cubes butter
2 ½ cups scalded milk
3 cups sugar
8 eggs
2 tsp. salt
3 packages baking yeast
3 tsp. vanilla
1 potato
Preboil one small potato. Scald the milk, but remember to let milk cool down to room temperature- important! When cooled to just warm, add the yeast and a small amount of flour and stir in pan. Let set until it rises (will look all bubbly). Mix in all the other ingredients and knead dough well. Punch down and let rise again. Shape into a very large round loaf. Make four indentations and place an UNCOOKED egg (in the shell) in each. Place on a cookie sheet and let rise for another hour or more. The dough will rise around the eggs in their shells and hold them in place. Bake at 375 degrees. This loaf will take anywhere from one hour to one and half hours to bake. Use a cake tester to check for doneness… will be moist but only a few crumbs should stick to your tester when done. Allow to cool before slicing.
Thanks to my Great-Grandmother and a long-time-ago fellow Portuguese descendant, Frank Tash.
