Amish Farm and Gardening Today.. 7/16/2011

I went to the Amish farm this morning to pick up some cantaloupe, fresh onions, white corn on the cob, peaches, and a few other vegetables.  I just wanted to post a few pictures of what Amish farms in our area look like at this time of the year.  Most of the Amish do farm the old-fashioned way and different Amish farms do grow different crops.  When I stopped at the Amish farm, the farmer was in the field with his horses, plowing between the rows.  The corn is growing taller at this time of the year. There are soybeans planted right next to the cut hay.  The field corn is grown for livestock and other things.  We also have the greatest sweet corn that is white.  I really enjoy this time of the year and eating sweet corn.  Our peaches aren't free-stone yet, but soon will be.  I also took a picture of the hay that was just cut.  The smaller corn is sweet corn.  Field corn does grow much higher, but sweet corn grows much smaller.  The Amish farmer also has tobacco planted.

I did gardening most of the rest of the day, pulling weeds and generally anything outside that needed finished.  It was really a nice day in our area without much humidity and it wasn't really hot.  Those are my favorite kind of days.  More flowers are blooming, and my tomatoes and eggplants are also growing.  I found one hornworm on my one tomato plant today, but when I went inside to get a paper towel to take it off the underside of the tomato leaf, I couldn't find it when I went back outside.  That darn tomato hornworm will have to go..lol   It does have the parasitic wasps larvae on it.  I had those darn tomato hornworms last year, but I guess I will get rid of them, just like I did last year.

I made some meat balls and used the last of Les's sauce I had frozen from last year, from the tomatoes I grew.  I don't know if I am going to add spaghetti to the meat balls with the sauce or not.  I am a little late eating again, but that is okay.

All in all, another great day! :)

Norma

Our Trip to Knoebels and Cesari’s Pizza 7/14/2011

We visited Knoebels Amusement Park to 7/14/2011 and ate Cesari’s Pizza.  My one daughter, granddaughter,  great-granddaughter and I all went to Knoebels.  Knoebels amusement park is an old-fashioned amusement park with a lot of great food.  It also is America’s largest free amusement park, where it doesn’t cost anything to get in or park.  I wanted to go and taste Cesari’s pizza again and also go on the two roller coasters they have at the park.  I did get to eat Cesari’s pizza and also rode on the two roller coasters.

These are some of the pictures traveling to Knoebels from where I live, also pictures of Cesari’s and a video of a pieman opening a dough ball.  There also are blacksmiths at the amusement park and an old engine that cuts wood. .

Video of pieman opening a dough ball.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqXoX5hzK_Q

If anyone is interested in the “Twister” roller coaster, my granddaughter and I rode on at Knoebels, this is a video of a ride on that roller coaster, from another person http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1Q1zWK0JCc   I kept saying, “O My Word, this thing is sure wicked” I wondered when I got off the “Twister” if my neck was still intact..,,lol

If anyone also wants to take a ride on the Phoenix, like my granddaughter and I did, this also is a video of a ride on the Phoenix posted by someone else. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMuYCsJEIcQ  The Phoenix had me laughing so hard, the people in front of me looked back to see why I was laughing so hard.  The Phoenix does take you out of your seat many times. If anyone wants plenty of air time off your seat, this is the roller coaster for air time.  Only a standard bar comes down, so you do lift out of your seat many times. The Phoenix does take you though a dark tunnel first.

Two of my favorites things are pizza and roller coasters, so having both in one day was great for me.  The day at Knoebels also was my great-granddaughters first trip to an amusement park. :)

Knoebels also has delicious fudge.  Of course, I had to buy some before I left Knoebels.  I started the day eating healthy, but that sure went downhill fast, with the pizza, fresh cut french fries, ice cream, fudge and all the other junk food I ate yesterday.

If any member ever is in the area of Knoebels, it is a great family park, good pizza in my opinion, with decent prices for food and all the shade trees are nice.  People can even take their dogs into the park.  They even have a big pool and many other nice things to do.  People can camp at Knoebels or rent small log cabins, if they want to be there for more than one day.

Norma

Adventures in Finding Wheat in Our Area and Then Using the Wheat Berries for a Pizza

"Norma’s Farm to Market Pizzas"

My starter from the fresh wheat berries did leaven the dough.  The second dough with the starter and the ground sprouted wheat also turned out well too,

I left both doughs sit at market temperature of about 95 degrees F for about 7 hours.  I had left the one dough ball sit out last night for 2 hrs. at home, then cold fermented the one dough ball until the next morning and removed it from the refrigerator about 6:00 am the next morning before I went to market.  The second dough ball went right into the refrigerator right after I mixed and balled it last Monday evening, and also was taken out of the refrigerator at about 6:00 am this morning.

Both Lehmann dough balls were easy to open.  The dough on both dough balls were so soft and smelled so good.  Both pizzas had great tastes in the crust and had some oven spring.

First set of pictures are of the Lehmann dough with the wheat berry starter only, and the second set of pictures are of the Lehmann dough with the fresh wheat berry starter and the ground spouted wheat berries.



This adventure was fun!  If anyone is interesting in seeing the whole process of finding the wheat berries fresh from the field and going forward from there to make a pizza, it is at the link below.
http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,14554.0.html