Planning

I've spent the past week creating garden plans and rough meal ideas. I've realized that the amount of food I will need to store away is considerable. To think that our cold room will actually be filled with food is exciting! Right now it holds camping gear, empty jars, cola and beer.

I've become quite good at making egg noodles over the past year and I've started to make homemade bread. My sister gave us a Romertopf clay baker about 10 years ago and I used it for the first time this week. I have to say that it baked the best homemade loaf of bread that I have ever made. I was so impressed that I went out and bought a second Romertopf clay baker today so I can bake two loaves at once. I have two loaves baking at this very moment (edit: see picture above).

The biggest challenge of this journey will be finding the time to make all the food we need. Baking bread seems to take about 2.5 hours or more from start to finish. That's quite an investment when you consider I work full time and have a heck of a commute to contend with. By the time I get home, eat and catch up with the family I have very little time left to do much more than brush my teeth and head off to bed. I joked with my wife that I hope she likes making bread because it would be so sweet to come home to fresh loaves cooling on the counter :). But alas, this is my obsession and not hers. At least not yet.

I can only hope that this process will become routine. It has to. I do like being in the kitchen. That helps.

Our last frost date isn't far away so I have to keep planning the garden layout and timing. The garden I'm planning to put in will be atleast 5 times bigger than any garden I've ever had before. It will be a lot of work but I'm sure it will be worth it.