Bread

I've been waiting to write this post for a while. In fact, I even started writing it a week or two ago and then realized I wasn't ready. You see, my beloved Tom has been working out of town since January 15th. That's right folks, 48 days of 100% dirty (cloth!) diaper changing. Tom, although he may not realize it yet, owes me a lot of dark chocolate.

I am a bit of a sulker when it comes to Tom being gone, prone to sit around and read magazines during Piper's nap time and apt to drink too many glasses of tea to make myself feel better. But that cannot continue, praise the Lord, for 48 days. At some point, (the exact time of this point I'd rather not calculate since it did not happen quickly enough), I pulled myself together and started thinking of all the "projects" I've halfheartedly researched and set aside in despondency. One of those, I am delighted to say, I officially completed as of 12:00 a.m. last night. I am also delighted to have taken some photographs of it (photography being another "project" in itself) which I will post here for your viewing enjoyment.

I call this project                              
                                                         "A Protest Against Winter" 

To protest this unusually cold and long Texas winter, I warmed up my house with a 475 degree oven full of, you guessed it, bread! My grandfather gave me a cookbook called "My Bread," by Jim Lahey, which teaches a no-knead bread baking technique. I haven't ever made bread with yeast in it before this, but the idea of not needing to knead definitely appealed to me. I was also intrigued by the use of a dutch oven to bake the bread. Because my grandfather gave me that too, I had zero excuses.The time had come to bake. Although it was 28 degrees outside two days ago, I bundled up sweet baby Piper Joy and headed off to the grocery store to pick up some bread flower and cornmeal (overall cost of bread baking: $5. Amazing!). We ran through the parking lot both ways because there is no way I will walk anywhere in 28 degree weather. Piper Joy didn't seem to mind it though. She kept saying, "Windy! Windy! Windy!" while shaking her head back and forth in the biting wind.

Putting the three ingredients together in a bowl with some water took about 30 seconds, and then the waiting began. Because this is a no-knead method, the rise time for this bread is really long. It was also freezing cold in my house despite the heater's best efforts, so, I let my bread rise for 24 hours. Then you make it into a cute little circle and let it rise again for 2 hrs. Then you put it in the dutch oven and cook it with the lid on and off for a total of 1 1/2 hours and, voila! You feel like a champ even though your husband is never around and you often don't use your time all that well.

Then you take pretty pictures of the bread with some yellow flowers you picked before all the blooms died in this last freeze. Winter may have struck again hard, but spring, however slight, is on my blog. Take that, Winter!

I am now sitting at my kitchen table eating bread with a lovely, thick, crunchy crust and a soft and almost sticky inside. Mmmmm...

Here's to springtime a-coming and the sweet smell of bread in the oven! May there be many more loaves to come!