by Jo of greensprings0.

I love Artisan bread but rarely buy it as it costs $4.00 a loaf. My daughter found this recipe in Mother Earth News and shared it with me. It originally came from the New York Times. I have made it many times and it always comes out great and everyone raves about it.

No Knead, Artisan Bread

1/4 tsp active dry yeast
1 1/2 cups warm water
3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting. I use half organic white, and half organic whole wheat
1 1/2 tsp salt
Cornmeal or wheat bran for dusting

  1. In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in water. Add the flour and salt, stirring until blended. The dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let the dough rest at least 8 hours, preferably 12 to 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.
  2. The dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it. Sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let it rest for about 15 minutes.
  3. Using just enough flour to keep the dough from sticking to the work surface or to your fingers, gently shape it into a ball. Generously coat a clean dish towel with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal. Put the seam side of the dough down on the towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another towel and let rise for about 1 to 2 hours. When it’s ready, the dough will have doubled in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.
  4. At least 20 minutes before the dough is ready, heat oven to 475 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in the oven as it heats. When the dough is ready, carefully remove the pot from the oven and lift off the lid. Slide your hand under the towel and turn the dough over into the pot, seam side up. The dough will lose its shape a bit in the process, but that’s OK. Give the pan a firm shake or two to help distribute the dough evenly, but don’t worry if it’s not perfect; it will straighten out as it bakes.
  5. Cover and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the lid and bake another 15 to 20 minutes, until the loaf is beautifully browned. Remove the bread from the Dutch oven and let it cool on a rack for at least 1 hour before slicing. Yields 1 1/2 lb loaf.

From MotherEarthNews.  You can find the recipe and article here.

by Stacy of fluffnflowers.

Brenda of NaturalStar, a founding member of the EtsyOrganicTeam is saying goodbye due to the demands of success!  She played an integral part in the forming and reforming of the team, and we hope that she has continued success with her business off and on Etsy.

Thank you for all of your hard work, congrats on developing an irresistible product line, and good luck in this new stage of your business!  We hope you're able to pencil us in some time in the future. ;) 

by Maura of GreenWorks

It's a fresh start and new website and structures, so to help everyone find their way around the organic mansion and answer the "What do I now" question after your application has been approved, here is a wee itinerary of the key things to do and places to visit after you join.

First thing is please pay the entrance fee. It's very good value and you can stay for a whole year - unless you start acting like a rock band and dissing the place that is!  Pay here

Then, if you can pop by reception and click on the category or categories you sell in, you'll see the info we need for the team directory.  Look here  Email stacy@etsyorganicteam.com to submit your information.

Just down the corridor we have the forum meeting halls where you can meet the other members and your team mates, exchange views and tips, or ask for directions if you're lost. 
Please call in and say hi and let people know a little bit about you.  Find the forums here

That's the main house covered. The art gallery is just a short walk away. Here you can post 6 of your photo's every day to be hung on display in the slideshows you will have seen around the mansion. We may have to reduce this down from 6 daily if we have a full house later. Make sure you tag them so the rss feed can find them.  You can find the tags for your categories at the bottom of each category page under the slideshow.

There are also Treasuries and the more of these the merrier! Again don't be shy let us all know if you make one so we can promote it -- we have to make the Front Page someday.

If we've missed anything or you need a more detailed tour let us know.  Our forums are open for questions and comments! :)

Hi all

well it's been a very busy few weeks but we're ready to announce that as from today the EOT is open again.
Below is a synopsis of the key changes.

We have acquired the domain name www.etsyorganicteam.com and this will be the new EOT site for our blog/business/forums etc. It also has a shop front that feeds back to members shops and we will have 2 items per member in there. Those items and our blog will feed into the EOT twitter as well as manually feeding in organic blog entries that members may wish to submit.

Re: the etsyorganicteam twitter and Etsy Earth.  We are aware that there has been some confusion.  To make it clear - Etsy Organic Team and Etsy Earth are two seperate teams. The EOT twitter is now being run by Stacy.

We will retain the Flickr group for photo's which will feed into the slide shows on the website.

We are going with the concept of organic teams - i.e teams by category and each team will be headed up by
Category Wizards. A key part of the Wizards job will be to approve or deny applicants for their category. You can find the handbooks that detail all the admin roles/responsibilities under the members area on the site: http://www.etsyorganicteam.com/eot-discussions.html

What we have agreed is that each category needs at least one Wizard - i.e no wizard = no category.

We are also going to be taking dues as well as having an application form that everyone will be asked to complete. The dues will be $12 for new members and $10 for the 1st year for previous EOT members. All admins will get the discount rate each year.

As we are now taking dues, and because trying to monitor incremental increases in the % of organic listings was too time consuming, we are reverting back to the original criteria of one organic listing being eligible for team membership.

Applications for B&B are being capped initially and limited to sellers who were members of the old EOT.  Wizards from that category will ultimately decide when to re-open their category to the wider Etsy community.  Currently there is only one Wizard for this category.  As this was a huge category we ask B&B applicants to be patient as there may be some delays in processing their applications.

Any questions?  Please post in the forums on the site.

Thank you all for you patience with this and we hope you will find that it was worth the wait.  Onwards and upwards EOT!