Pretty Nose Smells Bread Baking

There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray,
love, remember: and there is pansies. that's for thoughts.
Ophelia to Hamlet, Shakespeare
Boil a giant pot of rosemary, your house will smell clean. Rosemary lifts your mood and clears your thoughts, your skin will have clarity, and it helps move lymph.
The uplifting fragrance of course brings us to noses. Noses are cartilage, so it keeps growing.  It has muscles, and these muscles need to stay toned, for your nose to stay slim and looking like your nose. Lightly pinch your nostrils with thumb and forefinger, while the index and middle finger gently push up on your forehead. Flare your nostrils 10 times, repetez this three times for a toned and defined nose.
Does your beau's nose love the scent of baking bread?
This Irish Soda Bread is not very diffiicult, and perfect with Apple Butter. Keep your hair off your face with pearls pushed back as a headband, an Odile Gilbert pin if your hair is longer.
Irish Soda Bread

3 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup all-purpose white flour (4 cups for a white bread loaf)
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon salt
1 level teaspoon baking soda (3/4 teaspoon for a white bread loaf)
¾ teaspoon baking powder

1 cup chopped walnuts, toasted lightly on pan in oven to bring out the flavor

1 tablespoon caraway seeds

1 currants

1 ½  to 2 cups buttermilk
Butter for the baking pan, softened

Preheat oven to 375°.
Combine the flour, sugar, salt, baking soda, and baking powder.  Add  half the buttermilk a little at a time until you have a soft dough, like biscuits.
Soak the currants in the other half of the buttermilk, it plumps them nicely. Or the rosemary tea if you prefer. Then add to the above mixture.
Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface for 2 or 3 minutes, until it is quite smooth.

Form it into a round cake. Place it in a well-buttered 8-inch cake pan or on a well-buttered cookie sheet. Cut a large cross on the top of the loaf with a very sharp floured knife.
Place it into the oven and bake for 35 -40 minutes, until it has turned a nice brown and sounds hollow when tapped . The cross on the top will have spread into a sort of deep gash, a characteristic of Irish soda bread.
Apples are abundant! Apple Butter is easy!

Apple Butter

Drambuie

Fizzy Water

8 pounds of apples.

You have had enough tea, pour yourself a nice Drambuie and fizzy water.

Peel, core, and chop the apples.
Put in large pot on stove, or if you live in Spokane, a crockpot. 

Add 2 cups sugar, and generous amounts of allspice, cloves, grated lemon, peel and cinnamon. Cook on high, stirring for about an hour. Add one cup Drambuie.

Cover and simmer for about eight hours. I find canning a lot of work, this recipe freezes well.

While the Apple Butter simmers, bring joyous color to your entry way with pansies. Pansies are very hardy and can last most of a winter. Buy several flats and plant thickly around your front steps and walk, with  several large pots of them on your porch for a welcoming burst of color.
You never know when UPS  will bring the Pendleton Ultra Merino crew neck sweaters!

So, planting didn't take 8 hours.

How about a seaweed body wrap and oxygen and microcurrent facial, hmmm?
This bread keeps well, serve for Notre Dame game.
Bon week-end!