What a pleasant surprise, snow in October! Not just a dusting but a regular snowfall downloaded from the flour sifter in the sky.What to do when the pretty white stuff confines me to the house? Make bread and pea soup, of course! The aroma of baking bread is especially wonderful when you enter a house sniffing the air and stomping the heavy white stuff off your boots.
I have an old recipe book from my mother dating back to the 1950's.The cover has been missing for as long as I can remember. I love the recipes in it , especially the bread recipes.The 'WHY' of things are explained in detail.For example , 'WHY' you have to sift biscuit recipes 3 times instead of once~ because unevenly distributed baking powder will leave you with yellow specks scattered throughout the finished product.(And you wondered why Beulah won the blue ribbon in the biscuit contest and you didn't.).
I only have one of the 2 volume set of this recipe book . I should probably search the websites for its' mate.The pea soup below turned out scrumptious.I added a tablespoon of pearl barley to each jar to add substance since I didn't have as many carrots as I would have liked.I cooked up a 15.5 lb cured ham the other day from a pig we had butchered awhile back,divided up the left overs into zip lock bags with gravy and stored them away for future quickie dinners.The ham bone became pea soup and I was able to get 15 qt jars to store up for the winter & spring.Yummy! Hot bread and a bowl of pea soup , sitting next to the wood fire and watching the snow fall. (:>