As you will recall from my post 24 Hours – Is It Enough?, we don’t always accomplish what we want in a week. That happened this week because of a great “deal” I got.
A friend told me about a nearby farm that sells Sweet Potatoes for six dollars a box. Now, this isn’t your ordinary box. This is 40 to 50 pounds of Sweet Potatoes. The catch is, you can’t select the size. So, many of them are small fingerling potatoes while some are WHOPPERS!
So what do you do when you get more food than you can eat? CAN IT! I realize home canning is mostly out of vogue, but we generally can one or two items a year. Earlier this summer, we canned a dozen pints of peaches. Yum, yum! Now we are canning the Sweet Potatoes, which are almost the same color.
Anyway, I have been helping my wife, Kris, peel, and cube the potatoes. In doing so, I also discovered that raw sweet potato tastes very much like a carrot. Crunchy, orange, and sweet. So I sliced some French Fry-sized pieces and put them in water in the fridge. So far, so good as a healthy snack.
Along the way, we needed to insert the rubber seal into the lid of the pressure canner. As you can see, it wasn’t going well. Fortunately, Kris had a new replacement ring and that fit easily into the groove.
The point is, peeling and cubing the potatoes have taken time away from posting the next chapter of Mirror Mirror. My goal is to have it ready for you in a couple days. You may have also noticed that I don’t have any pictures along with my chapters. I’ve been thinking of creative ways to provide a bit more visual effect, while not making assumptions about how the characters look. Writing is hard enough. I need a graphic artist for the rest of it.
Yeast cells (Candida albicans) on the epithelial cells within the ridges on a finger. Thorough washing of the hands can help prevent the spread of such pathogenic organisms. SEM X8500 (based on 4 x 5 )
Quick update. My yeast has been condensed and dried and I will be trying to reconstitute and grow more.
BTW, you have to be impressed with the state of imaging technology. Scanning Electron Microscopes (SEM) provide an extraordinary level of detail.
The research into World Religions – Islam is progressing. There is a literal world of information that I am condensing for you. My goal is to post next weekend.
OK, I confess, the title is a bit of a teaser to get you reading. But we will start exploring the question today.
JD Rockel
Mostly, I want to bring you up to date on what has been happening here in JD Rockel’s life. I am writing solely off the top of my head and will likely miss some things but that gives us space for more posts. I’m also working hard at taking selfies. It’s the smiling part that has been rough. I had to activate muscles in my face that have been dormant all my life. LOL
One of my many hobbies (another subject for further discussion) is brewing. My first choice of alcoholic beverages is beer. All types from old world classics (Pabst, Schlitz, Hamms) to the microbrews that have sprung up around the country. My home for many years, the Milwaukee, WI area was a great place for brewery tours.
I am blessed not to be drawn to alcohol. If you can’t stop at one drink, please seek help. Any and all addictions can ruin you life and the lives of those around you.
I just finished a batch of Dark Irish Stout. It was a new brewing adventure as the roasted grains make a dark mess that needs to be cleaned up throughout the process. But again, a subject for further discussion.
I am also a science geek. So the chemistry of brewing and the science of the ingredients fascinate me. In particular, I’m fascinated by yeast. Yes, the little buggers you put in bread that makes the airholes inside. There are many, many strains of yeast and the little guys are everywhere. If you mix up some instant mashed potatoes, leaving the result juicy, and then let it sit on you kitchen counter, you will see bubbles on the surface in a few days. The bubbles are carbon dioxide being made by yeast that settled onto you mixture out of your kitchen air.
Hope I didn’t just freak you out, but it is true that you have millions of yeast cells living in your body as well. According to webmd.com, yeast in the digestive tract keeps it healthy and in balance. “It can help you absorb vitamins and minerals from your food, and even fight disease.” Of course, yeast in the wrong places is a disease and must be cared for. The same is true of bacteria and viruses.
But for bread making and brewing, yeast literally comes in many varieties and supplies different tastes to your food. Sourdough yeast is different from Italian bread yeast is different from French bread yeast.
“Wait a minute”, you say. When I make any kind of bread I just use the bread yeast I get in the store. True, some of the difference in bread comes from the ingredients and method of mixing and baking. But the classic example of a taste difference coming from the yeast is Sourdough bread.
A good website to learn how to make a sourdough start can be found at theclevercarrot.com. Using different ingredients than I mentioned above, you collect the yeast needed to make bread. Your sourdough will be unique for your area. Take pride it your bread’s special personality.
Growing Nottingham Yeast
As for beer and wine, there are dozens of yeast strains from around the world. One of them is Nottingham. I have used this yeast in light Ales (beer fermented at room temperature). As it happened, I saved a very small number of grains of yeast from the bag in my frig. A few days ago, I made a starter of that yeast. The results were hundreds if not thousands of times more yeast volume. Indeed I may be grossly underestimating the results. But I now have more Nottingham yeast for future brews. And at six to twelve dollars a packet (one packet = five gallons of beer), it was worth the effort. (I will provide more details on my process of yeast growth later.)
So what is truth? In the case of yeast, truth is that yeast is everywhere. It is both beneficial and harmful depending on where it lives. It can be grown in a jar and collected out of the air. You are breathing in yeast right now. Thankfully, it is not taking root in your lungs.
Every area of life has a source of truth. I hope to expand on this subject in the future as well.
Do you have yeast stories? Please share them in the comments below. I’ve had some reports that creating a comment is a bit challenging. The settings I have in place are that you provide your e-mail address once. Then, for your first comment, I review it to ensure it is not nasty. After that, you should be home free. If this is onerous to you, please let me know at info@jdrockel.com.
More Than a Writer 