I Had a Dream

Last night I discovered that this whole plan to buy grains and grind them in my coffee grinder is a lot better in theory than in practice. My bread machine had trouble stirring the heavy chunks of grain, and the dough never really rose. Plus it is very crumbly. I had to eat my sandwich with a spoon today!

I realized the bread was probably going to turn out weirdly, but what can you do at that point, other than go to a bluegrass jam session? I brought my mountain dulcimer Bubba Sue, since it was a "beginner" jam session and I don't really know how to play ol' BS. In fact, the only thing I had to use for a slide was the rabbits' hairbrush, since it has a round wooden handle. To my surprise, the jam was very crowded last night, and besides the usual guitars, fiddles, banjos, and mandos, there was a guy playing a horn, and he was good! I sat by a couple of older ladies who were fascinated by Bubba Sue and who told me I had a very lovely voice. I was kind of on the edge of things, so only halfway through did I realize the guy blowing the horn was someone who used to sing in a choir with me, and I had a little crush on him at that time. Then - it gets better - after the jam it turned out the older ladies who adored me so much were his mother and her friend! (Talk about making a good impression on your future mother-in-law!) And since the place was so crowded, nobody could really hear how atrocious Bubba Sue and I were.

But do you think I had dreams about that wonderful jam last night? No, of course I dreamed about my less-than-successful attempt to bake bread. Guess I'll be going back to using flour from the supermarket.

Here are some more totally awesome pix from Palm Tree Fan's trip to Arizona. She was bored in the car, so she took a picture of the mountains reflected in the rearview mirror:


Then she took what might the coolest photo I have ever seen in my life, of her car reflected in the back of a tanker truck:



And this has got to be the biggest saguaro cactus I have ever seen! If it takes 100 years for them to grow each arm, how old is this thing??? And do you suppose all the junior saguaros around it are jealous? They don't even have any arms yet!

Famous Hat

Singin' the Bread Machine Blues

Oh, I got me a bread machine, and it makes some real fine bread,
Said I got me a bread machine, and it sure makes some real fine bread,
It will bake day or night, even while I'm in bed.

Sometimes my bread is weird, but that's my own fault.
I said sometimes my bread is weird, but that's all my own stupid fault,
Because I'm the one who puts in the flour and water and salt.

One day I was sick, too sick to go buy food.
You know I was so sick, too sick to go buy food,
And I was almost out, so things weren't looking good.

I made me some bread, but my flour was not enough.
Yeah I made me some bread, but my flour was just not enough
So I used masa tortilla flour because it's similar stuff.

My bread didn't rise, no it didn't rise at all.
I said that half-masa bread didn't rise, it didn't rise at all
But it tasted just like corn bread and was just about as tall.

Once my bread wasn't rising because I forgot the yeast,
Yeah, once my bread didn't rise because I went and forgot the yeast
So I added some and started over, and it wasn't affected in the least.

The other day my bread came out all crumbly and dry,
That's right, the other day my bread turned out all crumbly and dry
So I sat myself down and asked myself why.

Maybe not enough water, so I poured in a whole bunch.
Yeah, not enough water, so I went and poured in a whole bunch
Because I couldn't eat a pile of crumbs for lunch.

I put in more yeast and stirred the whole mess around.
Said I put in more yeast and stirred the whole mess around
Then I started over again and guess what I found?

That twice-baked bread came out as pretty as could be,
Can you believe that twice-baked bread came out pretty as could be?
It was moist and yeasty but that's just fine with me!

Yesterday someone asked me, "What kind of bread is that?"
You know just yesterday someone asked, "What kind of bread is that?"
I said, "It's stupidity bread, and that's a fact!"

My bread machine loves me, it fixes all my mistakes,
Said that machine truly loves me, it fixes all my mistakes,
And I always enjoy the bread that it bakes.

Famous Hat

Delicious Bread

Last night I finally experimented with the bread machine.

The first loaf of bread I had made was a recipe Richard Bonomo had given me, and he exhorted me to put the ingredients into the bread machine in precisely the order he listed them. The bread machine then produced a very yellow, crumbly loaf that was more like cake than bread, except that it was not sweet. It tasted very good but made a huge mess.

The second time I made bread, I used the "basic white bread" recipe in the manual Hardingfele had given me with the bread machine. This manual amuses me greatly, partly because it depicts both the bread machine and the loaf it produces as having happy, smily faces, but mostly because it always inserts the adjective "delicious" before bread, so that instead of giving you instructions on how to make bread, it tells you how to make delicious bread. I dutifully followed the recipe for white bread and noted that my machine wants the ingredients in the inverse order that Rich had listed them. The bread turned out fine but was still kind of crumbly.

Last night I thought about making Rich's recipe using my bread machine's preferred ingredient order, but what I actually ended up doing was combining the recipes. And it made DELICIOUS bread!! Bread that doesn't crumble! Bread that is off-white and rich and tasty! So for all my faithful readers, here is the Famous Hat Bread Recipe:

one cup warm milk
6 tablespoons of olive oil (extra virgin, natch)
2 eggs
3 tablespoons of sugar
1.5 teaspoons of salt
2.5 cups of flour
package of baking yeast

One caveat: it does kind of mushroom up on top and make a mess of the bread machine, not to mention how undercooked the top is. Which is only a problem if you don't like undercooked dough. (Since I LOVE it, I don't consider this a problem!)

Famous Hat

I've Got Herpes AND Tuberculosis!

... and blue-green algae, and now I have a basketball-sized rhinovirus! It is bright blue with big black button eyes - very cute. The other plush viruses I have are the basic size, which is supposed to be one million times life size. They look surprisingly like the actual photos of the microbes they represent, except that they are in cheery colors (herpes is sunshine yellow and TB is lime green) and have bright eyes. I gave my father hepatitis and my mother mad cow disease last year for Christmas, and my niece and two nephews got the small-sized giant microbes that come three in a large "petri dish." They got neurons. This year I gave my brother Black Death (at his request) and my sister-in-law a red blood cell, since she didn't want a nasty disease. Now they have come out with GIANT Giant Microbes, so I took my 20% off coupon and went down to the bookstore to choose a big giant virus. It was a difficult choice between the cold and the flu, but the round shape and vibrant blue color of the rhinovirus won me over. Next time I have a cold, I can cuddle up with my giant cold virus!

Last night I made bread using a bread machine Hardingfele gave me when she upgraded. Since I started this project at 10 pm, I thought my neighbors might shoot me. First it sounded like a helicopter was landing in my kitchen for 45 minutes while the bread machine went through its "knead" cycle. Then it was quiet as the dough rose, except for two brief shakes as it pressed the air out of the dough. I fell asleep as it was baking; just before two in the morning it let off a series of beeps to tell me the bread was done, but I just rolled over and went back to sleep. This morning I took the bread out and made a sandwich for lunch today. It tasted pretty good but was awfully crumbly and messy. I will have to try some more recipes and see if I can find one that stays together better.

Now that I have succeeded in making my own bread, the next frontier is granola. Someone at the Farmer's Market this summer told me it is ridiculously easy to make. Who knows? Maybe with Plant World I can start growing my own wheat and oats and sugar cane and really make all this stuff from scratch! Or why don't I just train for a triathlon? Which goal is more realistic? I'll tell you after I run another three miles tonight...

Famous Hat