The Baking Season is Here

With the beginning of cooler weather, my wife decided to fire up the oven and bake. She made the first pie of the season: a peach pie with a lattice top crust. No, the peaches were not from the ranch - we do not have any fruit trees on the property. Goats are real hard on small trees because they are browsers, not grazers. While they will and do eat grass, they will first eat leaves from tress and bushes. Some of our herd have a real taste for the berries of the Juniper, or Mountain Cedar, tree.

My wife also baked bread. Yes, I mean real, raised using yeast, bread. That, of course, is in contrast to a "quick bread" which rises due to baking powder, or a "soda bread" which rises due to the action of baking soda.

Of course, with the oven running, we also tossed a pork shoulder into the oven. We sliced up a head of red cabbage and cooked that. We also mashed some sweet potatoes. As you can imagine, this made for a fantastic Sunday dinner.

Yes, we actually sit down together for Sunday dinner. In fact, we sit down together for almost all of our meals. Weekend breakfasts give us a chance to plan the day. Breakfasts during the week allow us to make sure the homework is done and to make sure we know who has which after-school activities and when they will let out. Dinners allow us to recap the day and raise any other issues which may be bothering us. It is also the perfect time to ask for help with homework for those who need it.