I made bread

Ok does anyone else think that I should add bread making to my title list? Sorry it is long enough as is so I think I will keep it the same. This is the continuation of the Bread in Five Minutes a day from my last post.

This was after the dough sat for two hours at room temperature. I was worried that it would not do anything, but it did! It filled half of the 3 quart container. Bubbly doughy goodness.

The book recommends that you refrigerate the dough for three hours, to make it easier to handle. The unrefrigerated dough was quite ooozy. Yes I think ooozy is a real word.

I cut off a grapefruit size chunk and let it rise as directed.

It did not rise as much as I hoped, but I baked it anyways.  It does make a very cute little loaf.

I did what all bread books tell you not to do.......I cut the loaf while it was still hot. I smeared on butter and ginger preserves. No picture because I do not allow myself to operate the camera when jelly is in the room. Oh and by the way ginger preserves are a good thing. I felt a bit Scottish at the store and wanted to try something new.

So the verdict, while I enjoyed making bread a different way and I look forward to baking the second loaf, it was a bit flavorless to me. D thought it was fine but I found it lacking. I am hoping the dough still in the refrigerator will develop more and make a more flavorful loaf.

I do think the method deserves a second go around with another recipe. I'll let you know how it all turns out.

I make bread

I've been experimenting with bread making over the last year or so.  I started with making the dough in the bread machine and shaping and baking in the oven. Then my bread machine went kaput.

I thought they looked good and I know they tasted fine! Then I went on to making dough for pizza too.

Turns out my favorite toppings are chicken, onions, and green peppers. Can you tell I lean more to the Chicago style rather than the thin NY style pizza.

I discovered cheese as a bread topper. Man do I love cheese on almost everything.

More recently I've been experimenting with a different style of bread. Instead of mixing everything and letting it rise a couple of times, you mix the liquids and part of the flour and yeast, cover it with the rest of the flour and yeast mixed and let it develop for a few hours. The liquid portion bubbles up through the flour layer. It feels a bit like chemistry class, although I don't remember baking bread in chem. lab.

The theory behind this method is that the flavor develops more. Now the first time I made this type of bread it took all day! Now it is not like I was in the kitchen working all day, but I did not feel like I could make other plans while making this. Every few hours it wants your attention.

As you noticed there are no photos of the bread. Hmm I wonder why?

I'm looking forward to making more. And we discovered last night my bread makes excellent garlic toast too. I wonder if I can make good French toast too?

Snow day

So I think winter finally got me. 

Work let us off early on Tuesday to avoid traffic troubles, hopefully. I made a quick trip to the grocery store since it is only a block away from my house. I wanted to get some things so I could cook on my snow day, Wednesday.

So I pull up facing my driveway with food in the trunk and I see way too much snow plowed in the end of the driveway and proceeded to have a conversation with myself. "I can make it to the garage, No I will get stuck, I can make it" then my car screamed at me Nooooooooo, I will get stuck and it will take way longer to dig me out! Remember the food in the trunk. 

I trudged my way to the garage on foot and fired up the snow thrower. No matter what way I turned the chute, snow flew at me. It took me a bit to realize it was forming a snow helmet. Man, snow helmets are cold!

This is what I am referring to as the never ending sweater, with Gus giving his opinion. Turns out he did not like it just about the same amount as his Daddy. 

D did not like the gold stripes so I am re knitting again. I will be so happy when I finish this sweater! No really, words can not describe how much I want it done! Why do you mock me?

This is what bread looks like when you make it the long way. It did taste good. One loaf went to work with me and was consumed there and the other was consumed at home with chicken spaghetti. Took 9 hours from start to pulling it out of the oven. Most of the time was waiting for the bread to do its thing but still that is what I call slow bread, or in this case snow day bread.

Oh and my first Central Park Hoodie class was canceled due to road conditions. I would like to start on something else now. Maybe I should just go work on one of my four in progress socks instead. I need to finish something soon!

Day off?

So I decided last week that I wanted a day off. A day that I could maybe keep Christmas from sneaking up on me. I always make big plans when what I really want to do is just sit home and knit. But when I sit home and knit it does not really make the day special and I did so want to have a special day, even if it was only a little bit special.

Hubby asked me to come have lunch with him so I said yes. It was nice to see some of his coworkers again.  I thanked his formerly Russian coworker for my Russian yarn. She did tell him that the store in Russia tried to talk her into a couple of other types of yarn. She held firm and told them it had to be Russian yarn. Who knows I assume it is probably a blend of wools some Russian, some not. Anyway I am happy.

I used google translator to write a sentence in Russian saying thank you and I love the yarn. Hey did you know that in Russian they have two different words for love one is toward an object and the other is towards a person. I know this because I used the wrong one. So a thought crossed my mind the other day what if I learned to read a foreign language like Russian? Not so much to speak it but to be able to read it. Since I am a visual learner not an audio learner maybe that would be better for me. I found a couple of books at the library so I will be giving it a try.

From there I stopped by the library. You know how I love the library. A trip there always makes my day special. I borrowed The Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns by Ann Budd. I would like to make some mittens from one of my many skeins of sock yarn but many of the patterns I found were for thicker yarn. Now I just need to decide with yarn sacrifices its sock status for mitten status.

I also learned that the wine store is a hot happening place the Tuesday before Christmas. The lady in front of me bought $300 worth of wine. You think that maybe that is just a normal Tuesday for her? I bet her liver hopes not.

My bread machine decided not to work today so I mixed it in my Kitchen Aid instead. The loaf looks fine. It is even a bit on the crispy side the way D likes it. Potato bread called out to me. Maybe this long weekend I will even make the no knead bread finally. What do you mean you have heard that story before?

I meant to take pictures of some finished objects but the light fades so quickly now. Seems like I am not alone in photography procrastination, as I am reading about it on several of the blogs I read. The lack of light will get you every time. I should have taken them with me and taken random pictures during my errands but I did not want too special of a day that included being questioned by store security.

My boys even got in a bit of cuddle time, which makes my day very special.

Palm Sunday

As we were walking into church today I was flooded with a memory from my childhood.

I grew up in a small farming town in rural South Dakota. We did not have much in the way of exotic things. The coolest car in town was a Trans Am complete with the eagle on the hood and T top. You know like the Smokey and the Bandit car. The most exotic place I could dream of living was Texas. It was as far as my imagination would take me. Granted it was pretty different from South Dakota, at least in my mind it was.

I can remember one year for Palm Sunday the children received a palm leaf frond. Not the whole leaf like we received today, but one single frond from the leaf.

Yeah our Church did not have a lot of money. I think, I thought the frond came from Jerusalem. I remember them telling us the reason it is named Palm Sunday. Jesus was welcomed into the gates of Jerusalem by all the people laying palms on the street before him to honor him.

I remember keeping my frond for a long time. I think that was the exotic and mystical thing I owned in my childhood. It alway struck me that you could be welcomed with such honor one week and persecuted and dead the next.

On a happier note I managed to make bread correctly today, Mediterranean Herbed Bread.

I was looking at the book store this week for a new bread book. I had found it the last time I was in and the idea intrigued me, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. I like making bread so I decided to buy the book the next time I was in the store. Well I researched it a bit further and it is a slow rise method, or some such name. Basically you mix the dough and leave it for 16 to 18 hours unrefrigerated then you can cook it or store it in the refrigerator and bake up bits as you want. You allow natural bacteria to do the work that kneading does in regular bread dough. The bread is supposed to be more flavorful and convenient for cooking. (Plus you don't need a bread machine to make the dough.)

I've got to be honest I know that there is beneficial bacteria and what not, but it totally grossed me out to think of bread dough sitting on the counter for the day. I know that we lived for hundreds of years with bacteria, and I hate antibacterial soaps. But come on my stomach did a flip. I think this may be the reason I've not yet attempted making sourdough bread.

Now after reading a book I have from the library, it is not a new concept to do bread this way. I'm a bit more intrigued, I may even purchase a book about it. I mean it can not hurt to try new things, I hope. I am interested in making more bread and different breads too.

What do you think experimental bacteria anyone?