Two blunders, three lessons and a reprieve

First, the marshmallow root saga.
This was part and parcel of cleaning up my messy garden before putting it to bed for the winter. Half the backdrop to my garden is my pride and joy, a dozen or so tall and increasingly voluptuous marshmallows that I started from seeds some 6 years ago. For the past two years they’ve reproduced baby marshmallows throughout the garden, which I’ve transplanted into one of the swales that divides my pasture. This year, however, I decided to try modifying a throat-soothing remedy made by simmering thinly sliced marshmallow roots in honey. Having never made this on a conventional stove, you’d think I’d have carefully used just some of my marshmallows and closely tended by pending creation. Instead, disappointed by how little marshmallow root actually came out of the earth once I dug the babies up, I charged ahead with slicing up the entire crop. And emboldened by my early successes, instead of closely monitoring events, I headed as usual with the dogs to the pond.

When I returned, everything looked inviting, with a deep golden brown batch of soaked marshmallow coins nestled at the bottom of the pot. And then I tried to scoop them up and discovered, to my dismay, that you really can cook things right onto the pot with just the heat of the sun.

I attempted to pry the solid mass off the pot with a spoon, to no avail. Fortunately, a brief soaking released chunks of honey-baked marshmallow root. I discovered some of it was even soft enough to chew, only to realize that some of the first year marshmallow was actually second year, with fibrous, inedible tangles of rope. But soaked in honey. Yum.

Thus three lessons:
1. It turns out you really can burn stuff onto pots cooking solar

2. When you’re experimenting with untested recipes, don’t be so sure you can "just head to the lake and let it all take care of itself”

3. When you’re experimenting with untested recipes, don’t shoot the whole wad on the first try. Be patient. Stick to mini-batches and leave yourself something to adjust and work with. Trust, but verify.

And then came bread
With no marshmallows left to harvest, I turned to making bread. I decided to start easy, with a recipe picked up from a co-worker for “Scottish Oat Cakes.” I should have realized I had a problem when I had to modify the recipe to include five times the suggested water. But I forged ahead, and proceeded to cook a salty, dry, crumbly mess. A quick google for Scottish Oat Cakes and I determined that I had stumbled on the correct amount of water – the recipe, apparently written by someone from a far off memory – was a mess. Of course, I’d made the full batch and, being at times overly frugal, I wasted an entire morning’s sun cooking more of the dry, crumbly mess.

And just where have I heard this before?
Oh, that's right:
 Lesson #1.When you’re experimenting with untested recipes, don’t shoot the whole wad. Stick to MINI-BATCHES!!!!

There is an upside, however, to eating your disasters. Yes, the first recipe was just awful. But in it, I found the seeds to another oat recipe that I’ll be experimenting with later.

And the reprieve?
While harvesting for a tincture, I discovered one slender stalk of baby marshmallow root hiding in the midst of the St. John’s Wort. And with it, a second chance for the marshmallow-honey lozenges! And in the meantime, I’ve got the Oat Cakes down pat, extended that trial to a sweet treat of Raspberry Oat Cakes, completed a semi-successful first pass at chicken n’dumplings and a totally successful version of solar corn bread.

Onward and upward
As soon as time allows, I’ll be trying some yeast breads. Since it's been 40 years or so since I attempted yeast breads with a "real" oven, this could prove to be interesting and possibly entertaining. Time will tell!