Trail Seeker

It is that time of the year, time to make some soap. The first soap I made was laundry soap using tallow and lye, it was a hard soap that I would shred and use with hot water in the wash machine. This soap was really nice stuff too. We raised our kids on cloth diapers, it seemed the right thing to do and maybe less expensive too. The nice thing about this soap was that it left the diapers very soft. I know because I changed more diaper on my little girls bottoms than my wife ever did.

I have not made that soap in a long time, now I make bar soap, I still use tallow, but much less. I also use olive oil and coconut oil. One batch makes quite a bit of soap, sometimes the wife will wrap some up some special and sell some at craft bazaars. This year I am not sure we will have enough time for the soap to cure for the Christmas bazaar. I am still refining the soap making process, but it is satisfying to make and use your own things.

I am the one that makes the bread too, I make a whole wheat bread because I have all this wheat. The idea of storing wheat became ridicolous to me when I wasn't using it, so I set out to use it. If the day came I needed it, I wanted to know how to make use of it. Here is the recipie I use:

1.5 cups plus 2T of warm water
2T butter
1T molasses
2T honey
3.25 C whole Wheat flour
.5 cups White flour
2T Dry milk
1.5 T gluten
1.5 tsp salt
1T active yeast

This recipe was given to me, I was told it originally called for 100% wheat, but that a little white flour made it better. You can make this in a standard bread machine by the way, I do as it saves alot of labor. Some times I like to put this on a tray or bread pan and bake it that way. The girls like it and after a while they thought white bread was bland! Another recipie I use is a modified french bread were I substitute half the white flour with wheat, it turns out much lighter than the recipie above. I use an older electric stone mill that was handed down to me to grind the wheat berries, but I have a hand grinder, I just hope the day never comes where I "have" to use the hand grinder.