Cranberry Pumpkin Seed Bread

It’s the first day of summer!

And weird stuff has been going on here.

I bought 8 goldfish last Monday to put in my rain barrels to eat the mosquito larva and to help keep the algae down. I have 2 large rain barrels and 1 small one. In each of the large ones I put 3 fish and in the small one I put 2. The next morning the 2 in the small rain barrel were gone. I felt pretty bad for them as I figured a raccoon had made them dinner. While it would have been somewhat hard for the coon to scoop the fish out of there, had the coon been big enough, it was possible. I spent days peering into the barrel hoping they were down there, but there was nothing. No movement, no flashes of gold. The barrel was empty.

Then one from each of my other barrels died. I was now down to 4. By this point I was thinking this had been a pretty bad idea.

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Everything that I had read said you shouldn’t have to feed them, but in a moment of weakness (and guilt because everyone was dying) I broke down and bought a container of fish flakes. When I got home I dutifully fed my remaining fish. 3 goldfish and 1 black fish who I only ever see as a shadow that darts through the dark water. I have named him Toothless for two reasons. One: because he is and two: because if you have seen How To Train Your Dragon you’ll remember that a night-fury dragon is never seen. It’s just a dark shadow that passes over just before something explodes into fire. While my fish has never breathed fire (thank goodness) he is just a dark shadow that I occasionally see.

I went back inside and was changing out of my work clothes when Hubby yelled from the yard into the open window something about fish. I didn’t quite catch it because my head was stuck in my shirt. Classy.

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What?! I yelled, trying desperately to get my tangled hair unstuck from the collar. I was slightly flailing around at this point, shirt over my head, belly fat roll completely exposed and flapping in the breeze that I was making from the shirt flying around. I would like to take this moment to formally apologize to my dogs for having to witness that.

When I finally broke free I went to the window to see what he was yelling about. The conversation went as follows:

“Did you get more fish?” He yelled up at me.

“No…why?”

“Well there’s 2 in this rain barrel.”

“I know”, I said. “There’s two in each of the big barrels.”

“No not the big barrel, the little one.”

“WHAT?!”

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I had to experience this for myself and sure enough there was 2 fish swimming around in the little barrel. I have no idea where they have been for 5 days, but they’re back, so I sprinkled some fish flakes in for them too, and stared at them for a good 5 minutes to make sure they were real and I wasn’t having some heat induced hallucination about goldfish.

So, what does any of this have to do with bread you ask?

Well nothing.

The moral of the story is life is weird sometimes. But bread is good.

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Cranberry Pumpkin Seed Bread

You Will Need:

2 cups of all purpose white flour

1 cup of whole wheat flour

3 tablespoons of organic cane sugar (or honey)

3 tablespoons of butter (or oil)

1 1/2 teaspoons of salt (I use pink Himalayan salt)

1 cup of water

2 1/4 teaspoons of instant yeast

1/2 cup dried cranberries

2 tablespoons of raw hulled pumpkin seeds

1 1/2 teaspoons of flax seed

1 tablespoon of sunflower seeds

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Directions:

Put all of the ingredients in the pan of a bread maker in the order listed by the manufacturer (in my case dry first then wet).

Put on dough cycle.

Once cycle is done remove dough from bread maker and shape into a loaf. I knead mine briefly first to get any air bubbles out.

Place into a well greased bread pan and allow to rise for an hour or until loaf has doubled in size.

Bake in a 350°F oven for 30 minutes.

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This bread makes THE. BEST. turkey sandwich in the world!

First day of summer and I’m craving Fall food.

Figures.

Eat, enjoy, and keep an eye on those goldfish. They’re rascally little things.

And amen.

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shared with: mix it up monday, create and crave

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April

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