Does anyone else feel like they are dragging their husbands along on the natural living path? It is funny that I even feel this way because when we met he was the natural one. It was my husband who introduced me to aloe, natural deodorants, going to the chiropractor, and so much more. Yet over the years the roles have reversed. He fully supports most of it but it is the food where we bump heads. This really shouldn't shock me because when we met he NEVER cooked. Him and his son had a routine of Burger King for breakfast, fast food or school food for lunch, and usually an Italian or Chinese restaurant for supper. My stomach hurts just thinking about all of that!

A few years back when I discovered the Weston A. Price Foundation and the cookbook Nourishing Traditions I thought our meals would be easier since after a decade of being a vegetarian I decided to go back to meat. Interestingly our food fights have gotten worse. The more I push, the harder he resists. One example would be bread. As I was building my sourdough bread skills I stopped buying bread, I wanted everyone off of store bought bread. What does he do? Starts bringing home his own bread from Kwik Trip!

The other night I made a fritatta for dinner and he happened to be out of his gas station bread so I toasted up some spelt sourdough for everyone to enjoy. Well, they all did except for my husband. It was then that I realized that maybe I need to move a little slower for him. It is probably asking a bit too much for a 56 year old man to switch from his soft chemical bread to a more dense, very sour loaf. I would be making huge progress if I can make a loaf of bread that he prefers over store bought. So, I made the decision to bend a bit and buy yeast. GASP!!! Well, my bending has been met with him bending. He really likes the bread and this is huge! This microwave meal man is hard to please, I can probably count on one hand the things that I make that he likes. I feel like I have made a huge breakthrough in the fact that now his morning egg sandwich that is made with a pastured egg and raw cheese will now be on a much healthier bread. Yes, you read that correctly...I make him an egg sandwich every morning. We now live right next to the feed mill that he manages and when the kids and I get up I make him an egg sandwich and one of the kids walks it over to him. I would call him spoiled but I'll keep my mouth shut since this has kept him from stopping at McDonald's for breakfast. Now, I just need to work on what he eats for lunch...

I went back to this King Arthur recipe that I used to use as I was just venturing into sourdough bread.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup "fed" sourdough starter
• 1 1/2 cups lukewarm water
• 2 teaspoons instant yeast
• 1 tablespoon sugar(I use turbinado)
• 2 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 2 1/2 cups whole wheat
• 2 1/2 cups spelt

Mix all of the ingredients together and knead until it is smooth. Place dough in a well greased bowl that allows for the dough to double in size and cover with a damp cloth. Allow the dough to rise until it has doubled in size, about 2 hours. Once it has doubled, punch it down and divide into two loaves. Shape loaves and put each loaf into a well greased bread pan. Cover with damp cloth and allow the loaves to double again, about an hour.

Heat oven to 425°F. Once heated rub the top of each loaf with water and cut two slits into each loaf about 1/4 inch deep. 

Bake for 25-30 minutes. I checked mine with a digital thermometer at 25 minutes and the internal temperature was only 68°C, by 30 minutes the internal temp was 94°C. 

You may need to allow them to cool quite a bit before they will pop out of the pan. Once I was able to pull them out I let them cool completely before cutting.

If there is one thing that this past winter has taught me, it is to enjoy the warmth. After six years of WI winters I still find it difficult to deal with and this one was the worst! I swore that after all of our below zero days that I would not complain about the heat. I have pretty much stuck to that except for maybe one complaint that my stuff was fermenting too quickly in our non air conditioned kitchen.

It saddens me that July is half way over but so far this has been a fabulous, lazy summer. We have been busy working on our new home but have managed to fit in a few trips, foraging for food, a new hobby of geocaching, lots of trips to the farmer's market, and many days at the park.