Blog ends
It's back to work tomorrow, and I'm not looking forward to it. I'm really enjoying mucking about at home, and could easily continue doing it for a few weeks yet. But that's not to be; it's back to the dreary humdrum workday, though admittedly there'll be some interesting challenges ahead while the country negotiates its way out of lockdown. But this is my final entry: if I continued to give you an account of my daily movements, it would be even more boringly repetitive than what I'm currently posting.
With one day left to get a few things done, I finally got out into the garden again. There wasn't actually all that much that needed doing, just the lawn and a small stretch of garden that hadn't been attended to in a while. I spent the morning hoeing, weeding and trimming in leisurely fashion, completed a few odd tasks like spreading fertiliser, removing the bungs from the planter troughs so they don't hold stagnant water during the winter, tidying up the detritus of broken pegs under the washing line, and of course, collecting more feijoas.
I'd picked up perhaps a dozen fallen feijoas when I first went out to the garden. By the time I got the lawn mower out, there were more. I duly collected these so I didn't run the mower over them, and once the lawn was finished I had to grab the ones I'd knocked off with my mowing activities. I now have another two heaped bowls of feijoas to deal with - I think these ones can go in the freezer.
After eating the last of the soup and tiny bread, I set another batch of dough to rise (yeast to use, remember?) and went out for a walk. By the time I returned, it was nicely risen. I wanted to do something a bit different this time, so I squished the dough out flat, spread some pesto and cheese, rolled it up, then cut and formed it into a twist.
I suspected the twist might need a little more proving than a standard loaf, so I left it for an hour or so while I ticked off a few mundane tasks to get the place tidy(ish) before I go back to work: dishes, vacuuming, mopping, folding and putting away laundry, that sort of thing.
By the time I'd done this, the twist was looking good, so I brushed it with milk and put it in the oven. This time it only took about 12 minutes to cook, I guess because the dough is spread out flatter than it is in a tin.
While the bread was baking, I decided to see how the feijoa fizz had turned out. It didn't look especially interesting: I had been led to expect a certain amount of fizz, but there wasn't much. There might be a good reason for that. I happened upon a similar recipe that mentioned the powdery coating on a fresh feijoa being an agent for natural fermentation. I wasn't aware of this, and since the feijoas had garden dirt clinging to them, I washed them.
I thought I would try out one jar and leave the other for a couple more days. I strained the liquid through the muslin I'd used to cover the top, which worked fine until it slipped and dropped a bunch of skins in the jug as well. I fished them out and anchored the muslin more firmly after that.
My cheese and basil twist came out looking beautiful. Tastes pretty good too: it's not going to take much effort to eat up this one. And the feijoa fizz? It's ok. Somehow, it tastes a bit like apple juice, which is not a beverage I'm especially fond of. It'll be interesting to see if the second jar is any better. Maybe I'll even try another batch, just to see if the 'powdery coating' makes a difference.
So that's that. I'm set for another evening's crochet and TV watching, with a view to an early night and (hopefully) a decent night's sleep before tomorrow's early start.
To anyone who is still following my not especially interesting account of ordinary life under lockdown: thanks for reading! I've had fun writing it, and almost certainly achieved more than I would otherwise have done during lockdown, through needing something to write about each day. Look after yourselves, stay safe and keep smiling.
With one day left to get a few things done, I finally got out into the garden again. There wasn't actually all that much that needed doing, just the lawn and a small stretch of garden that hadn't been attended to in a while. I spent the morning hoeing, weeding and trimming in leisurely fashion, completed a few odd tasks like spreading fertiliser, removing the bungs from the planter troughs so they don't hold stagnant water during the winter, tidying up the detritus of broken pegs under the washing line, and of course, collecting more feijoas.
I'd picked up perhaps a dozen fallen feijoas when I first went out to the garden. By the time I got the lawn mower out, there were more. I duly collected these so I didn't run the mower over them, and once the lawn was finished I had to grab the ones I'd knocked off with my mowing activities. I now have another two heaped bowls of feijoas to deal with - I think these ones can go in the freezer.
After eating the last of the soup and tiny bread, I set another batch of dough to rise (yeast to use, remember?) and went out for a walk. By the time I returned, it was nicely risen. I wanted to do something a bit different this time, so I squished the dough out flat, spread some pesto and cheese, rolled it up, then cut and formed it into a twist.
I suspected the twist might need a little more proving than a standard loaf, so I left it for an hour or so while I ticked off a few mundane tasks to get the place tidy(ish) before I go back to work: dishes, vacuuming, mopping, folding and putting away laundry, that sort of thing.
By the time I'd done this, the twist was looking good, so I brushed it with milk and put it in the oven. This time it only took about 12 minutes to cook, I guess because the dough is spread out flatter than it is in a tin.
While the bread was baking, I decided to see how the feijoa fizz had turned out. It didn't look especially interesting: I had been led to expect a certain amount of fizz, but there wasn't much. There might be a good reason for that. I happened upon a similar recipe that mentioned the powdery coating on a fresh feijoa being an agent for natural fermentation. I wasn't aware of this, and since the feijoas had garden dirt clinging to them, I washed them.
I thought I would try out one jar and leave the other for a couple more days. I strained the liquid through the muslin I'd used to cover the top, which worked fine until it slipped and dropped a bunch of skins in the jug as well. I fished them out and anchored the muslin more firmly after that.
My cheese and basil twist came out looking beautiful. Tastes pretty good too: it's not going to take much effort to eat up this one. And the feijoa fizz? It's ok. Somehow, it tastes a bit like apple juice, which is not a beverage I'm especially fond of. It'll be interesting to see if the second jar is any better. Maybe I'll even try another batch, just to see if the 'powdery coating' makes a difference.
So that's that. I'm set for another evening's crochet and TV watching, with a view to an early night and (hopefully) a decent night's sleep before tomorrow's early start.
To anyone who is still following my not especially interesting account of ordinary life under lockdown: thanks for reading! I've had fun writing it, and almost certainly achieved more than I would otherwise have done during lockdown, through needing something to write about each day. Look after yourselves, stay safe and keep smiling.
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