The Patient Path to Perfection: Why Small Adjustments Work.

I tweak recipes often, trying to get a better or healthier product for my family.

This morning I was driving my husband to the train to go into the city. He asked me what I had on my plan for the day. I immediately said I would be baking bread, as we'd been totally out of yeast bread for a couple of days, and I had used my morning two days ago to clean house for his homecoming, then grocery shopping in the morning yesterday. So I put off baking bread until today. 

Okay, so ramble, ramble, but that's how the convo went. He then asked if I would be making 100% whole wheat again. While away, he'd really missed my homemade bread. He said even though he had 100% whole wheat bread over the week, it just wasn't how he liked bread.

My reply was that I thought I'd scale back on the whole wheat flour just a bit, to the level of whole wheat from the previous baking, 1/2 cup white flour to the rest whole wheat for a 3-loaf batch.

Over the course of the last few months I'd been increasing the proportion of whole wheat to white flour in my bread recipe. I began at about 2/3 whole wheat to 1/3 white flour. Each week I would adjust the amount of white flour just a hair lower. In the last batch I had been down to 1/2 cup white, so I thought why not just go all whole wheat in this next batch. After all, how much difference can 1/2 cup of flour make? But it did make a difference, and we all noticed it. That batch dried out faster after baking.

This morning I used the 1/2 cup white flour version and was pleased again with the results. I don't use added gluten because, well that would cost a bit more and also my digestive issues. That 1/2 cup of white flour seemed to help strengthen the bonds developed in the dough. Sliding back up to this small amount of white flour instead of all whole wheat helped me produce a good batch of bread while meeting health goals.

This is how I go about changing the ways I do things. Sometimes it's a recipe that I want to improve.  Sometimes I want to see how short I can make my showers without being uncomfortable. And sometimes I want to see how many stops I can make while out running errands without exhausting myself going in and out of businesses. 

You could say that I'm trying to optimize how I do things. To do this, I make small incremental changes with each time I make a recipe or perform a task. At the point that I'm unsatisfied with the result, I slide back to the previous recipe, time allotted, or elements of a task.

This works especially well with recipes, as recipes use specific amounts and times of processing with each batch. I can also do this with time-related tasks, like shortening my showers, by using a timer. But there's still that subjective observation about how satisfied I am with a shorter shower, or how tired I feel running 4 errands while out instead of 3. A batch of bread can suffer from unfavorable conditions, like a cooler than normal house or moisture content in current batch of flour. But all in all, recipes seem to give me objectively quantifiable results, such as length of time until going stale.

If I were to make one large change in my bread recipe, we may find the result completely unsatisfactory and have to suffer through a bad batch of bread for a week. But by making small changes incrementally, we feel fairly confident that the result each time will be somewhere between okay enough and tolerable. I don't have to be a baking genius to figure out a better bread recipe. Incremental changes are safe mode for tweaking a recipe. It does take more time to tweak a recipe bit by bit over several months. But patience eventually pays off with a pleasing end result.

My bread is still not perfect. We would like a slightly lighter loaf while maintaining our new whole wheat flour to white flour ratio. I'll be working on other variables, such as the type and quantity of fat I use, or how much or little sugar and salt goes into the dough. I tackle one element at a time so I can know which change either had the affect I was after or resulted in something we didn't care for.

I started today's batch of bread around noon and worked on it through the afternoon. My husband walked through the door just as I was pulling the loaves out of the oven. The house smelled fantastically like baked goods. Not meaning to toot my own horn, but I think the aroma of freshly baked bread is a nice way to be welcomed back home at the end of a work day.

10 Foods I Wish I Could Grow in My Garden but Can't

a garden that's just starting for the season

It's sometimes fun to imagine what a garden could be if I had the right conditions. There are so many yummy foods that are grown somewhere on this planet. So I came up with my list of 10 foods I wish I could grow, but can't. Number one and two could possibly be on your list too, or maybe not. I had a hard time deciding which should be which place. Here we go. (starting at 10 and working to my most wished for)

10. Camellia sinensis, the tea plant. You actually can grow a tea plant in my area, if done in a pot. Camellia sinensis requires a minimum of zone 8b. I'm just a little too inland to leave this plant outdoors in winter. If I had a greenhouse, I absolutely would grow a pot or two of camellia sinensis. Of course, what I would be harvesting is green tea. I don't know if I'd want to put the time and work into turning green tea into black tea, which is what I prefer. But it can be done. 

9. Olea europaea, the olive tree. If I did everything just right (amended soil to drain better, site the tree against a south-facing wall, and be vigilant against fungal disease), I could in theory grow an olive tree. However, my yard is too shady to ripen olives, even if I could coax it to set fruit. Despite this, a few people in the Seattle area have been able to grow and harvest small amounts of olives. Growing up in California, we had two olive trees in our yard. My parents never did anything with the fruit (and my father was rather annoyed by the purple staining of fallen fruit onto the concrete walkway). But these made great trees for climbing. 

8. Arachis hypogaea, peanuts. You likely know this, peanuts are not a true nut but a legume. What we eat as a "nut" is actually the seed of the peanut plant, borne in pods like peas or beans. Native to hot tropical climates, peanuts need long hot summers with more warm days than we get in a season. If I could grow peanuts, I could pair them with item number 1 for a lovely homegrown and homemade treat.

7. Prunus amygdalus, the almond tree. Almond trees can be grown in my area, but our wet spring weather here leads to blossom rot. In addition, almond trees bloom too early for reliable pollination in my area. Almond trees thrive in Mediterranean climates, not cool maritime ones. There are a few types of nuts that cannot be grown in my area. I chose almonds because they are the only common tree nut that I am not allergic to. 

6. Ipomoea batatas, sweet potatoes. Sweet potato plants need long, hot summers to produce large tubers. My area has a slow start to the hot weather each year, typically waiting until after 4th of July to warm up. Sweet potatoes can successfully be grown in a greenhouse. But if I had a greenhouse, I think I would use that space differently than to grow sweet potatoes. 

5. Citrus × tangerina, tangerine tree. Technically I could grow tangerines here. However, they would have to be a dwarf variety grown in a pot. The opot would have to be moved outside to a very sunny spot on our property in May each year, then moved back indoors in October. As it would be a very small tree, it wouldn't yield much. I do have a neighbor who grows lemons in a pot on casters. She moves the pot outdoors each year, then wheels it back inside for fall, winter,  and early spring. I've only ever seen 8 or 10 fruits on her little tree. 

4. Citrullus lanatus, the watermelon. You can grow watermelons in the Seattle area, but my yard is too cool and isn't full sun. If I had a very sunny spot I could grow melons on black plastic mulch. 

3. Persea americana (or avocado pear), the avocado tree. Most avocado trees prefer a temperature range between 60 and 85 degrees F, typically found in zones 9-11. There are some cold-hardy varieties that can be grown in zone 8b. My husband lived in southern California for a year when he was a boy. Their rental home was adjacent to an avocado orchard. His mom was told she could pick up any fruit that had fallen for their use. My husband hated avocados as a child, unfortunately, He missed out on a golden eating opportunity. I also lived in California growing up, but we didn't have a handy avocado orchard nearby, and my father didn't like the mess that fruiting trees produce.

2. Coffea, the seeds of which are known as coffee beans. Coffea needs the climate of the tropics to grow and produce. Colder climates slow growth and prevent flower production. A frost will kill the leaves and a freeze will kill the plant. Hawaii is the only state in the US where coffee is grown commercially. The Coffea plant could in theory be grown in a greenhouse in my climate. However, it would be more along the lines of a horticutural experiment than a way to get my daily beans.

1. Theobroma cacao, otherwise known to us as the cocoa plant. Cacao is an evergreen tree, grows up to 39 feet,  It grows in the tropics, which are far from my area. Theobroma cacao gives us cocoa butter, chocolate liquor (used to make baking chocolate and chocolate candy), and cocoa powder. Chocolate anc cocoa contain two stimulants, caffeine and theobromine. Theobromine tends to be less stimulating, but its effects last longer. Some of us experience sleep disturbances if we consume chocolate later in the day.

The primary challenges in my garden are cool, wet springs, followed by short warm (not hot) summers. We don't receive enough heat hours to grow many foods, and my yard is partly shade. As it is, I choose cool season vegetables to grow in peak summer months, foods like kale, mustard greens, Swiss chard, spinach and lettuce. I do grow a few heat-lovers, but those are restricted to the sunniest and hottest spots of our yard, like up against the black asphalt driveway or surrounded by brick walkways. Some of my top 10 wish foods are in the just dreamin' category. I'm guessing none of us live where cacao trees could grow and produce. And likely only one or two of us live where coffea grows. But the rest of my list would be possible to grow in at least some parts of the US.

If you had a list of foods you wish you could grow in your garden, what would be on it?