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This is a story in which I make the same bread three times and decide I need more bread-baking experience. It's also cross-posted onto my blogger blog,Communist Cheese Fairy. So this is my official Xanga farewell - see you all later, and read my new blog!
I joined Daring Bakers after seeing their delicious works time and time again linked to via tastespotting (which you MUST go visit!) Tanna, of My Kitchen in Half-Cups, challenged us with a savory potato bread recipe. I've been making a lot of whole wheat bread with help from Laurel's cookbook, I'm damn skilled with english muffin bread, and who can mess up no-knead bread? So off I went!
I made the recipe three separate times with minor variations, none of which changed the deliciousness drastically, and each of which I learned what to do or not do. Unfortunately even the ones I considered failures I don't have many pictures of, as they were all eaten pretty quickly, with the exception of the first "artisan-style" loaf.
 I shaped it similar to Laurel's bread book - roll it into a circle and fold in the edges somewhat like a flower, let it rest, and repeat. It rose on well-floured towel. I preheated my old 1970's corningware 4 qt dish at 450ｺF, dropped the risen loaf in, spritzed it with water, threw on the lid, and baked it next to the loaf in the pan. I unfortunately didn't think to turn down the temperature (as others noted, they baked at 450F for 10', then 375F for the remaining time - which I did on trials 2 and 3.)
 The second time around I made a loaf and some rolls. They were going along swimmingly until someone texted me and said "Hey, let's go to the diner and get dinner!" I threw the bread and rolls into the fridge, hoping the rising would retard just enough to get me through an hour or two of enjoying tea and company. The bread over-rose a bit but the rolls didn't rise at all, and sadly I had to throw most of them away. (the loaf of bread is almost gone, but here's a picture I got of its crumb yesterday before it was finished off!)
The third time I made rolls for Thanksgiving and turned the rest into a loaf (no-knead style again). Rolls had fresh chives from my garden (now relocated to pots for the winter); loaf had fresh chopped garlic. Before the proofing stage, I rolled each flat, pressed the chopped garlic or chives into the dough, then rolled it up and cut or shaped it accordingly. The rolls this time were beautiful; I forgot to take pictures before they got eaten! The artisan-loaf was frozen until last night when it was the side-dish for my homemade tomato soup, since the boy was sick.
I learned a few very important things -
* Make sure the room is WARM ENOUGH for rising!
* Dissolve the yeast entirely in the warm liquid to make sure none is left behind
* Add the salt to the second cup of flour, not into the first (according to Baking911. I did this with the third trial, and I swear it was the magic step for the rolls!)
* If you accidentally butter a pan you won't use and can't bring yourself to waste the butter, press saran wrap onto all the edges and store the pan in the fridge until it's time to bake the rolls. :) It will be FINE.
I'm looking forward to my next Daring Bakers challenge! I'm hoping it's something that won't interfere with making dad's holiday bread, which I MUST make. Oh, and biscotti. I made Moosewood Restaurant Low Fat Favorites biscotti, and it is delicious. Maybe Santa will bring me a new digi-camera so I can take lots more pictures of things I'll make...
The picture at the top is what I did with the first loaf -- the crust was overbrowned on the pan-loaf, so I sliced it and used it for toast. Since Jared was off on a business trip I had fried-end-of-the-season-green-tomatoes, mozzarella, garlic, and olive oil toasted atop homemade potato bread with a glass of Rhubarb wine, and SHARED NONE OF IT. Yum!
The recipe is posted here on Tanna's Blog. Thank you for such a great challenge! | | |
| Grandpa Scott gave us Guitar Hero II for our wedding present, and I love it. We've played hours upon hours. I've beaten it on Medium, gotten through most of it on hard (damn you Free Bird), and played at least half on expert (then Halo 3 came out and we abandoned the game for a bit).
I love the songs and their diversity. There are rock songs I didn't like and hadn't heard of. There are "country" songs (Jessica, Free Bird, Carry On My Wayward Son, Tattooed Love Boys), pop-ish songs (Toadie's Possum Kingdom, Message in a Bottle, Dead), and of course techno-things that really aren't real guitar songs but still awesome (Less Talk More Rokk, Jordan, and of course TROGDOR!). In other words - lots of songs I like, and songs for everyone.
The characters are fun to pick from, at least from my perspective as a white chick. I adore Judy Nails. She's chipper and cute and keeps smiling (yaay!) without flashing cleavage constantly.
So GHIII comes out and off to the store we go! And let the complaining begin...
We set up the game and picked our characters. The new revamped Judy Nails is just ugly and seems like she is too good for life and hates everyone. I wanted a chipper girl. Let's see who else. Well, Casey Lynch is back but I didn't care for her the first time around either - she's anorexic and wears naught but pants and a bra and her tattoo. Oh look, a Japanese chick. Who is trying too hard to be an anime character and LOOKS HORRID. So I'm stuck with the unhappy big-breasted girl.
Off to the songs. For ones in the set - I don't know most of them (which isn't abnormal - I didn't listen to rock growing up). I enjoyed the songs in GHII (see above list), but the ones in GHIII seem to be more... well... hard-rocky. In other words, there is an awful lot of growling and screaming and songs that aren't songs but instead just noise with some notes stuck in them. There's nearly no songs sung by women (Hit me with your best shot and Barracuda are about it) and nothing country-ish in the least that I've found so far. I don't mind Santana at least, and I've found a few I like, but not nearly as many as in GHII.
So I said to myself, "Well - you just aren't a rock girl, and maybe I'm just too harsh on the music," and kept playing.
This morning I look in my "Gaming" RSS feeds, and notice that Cerise has updated! (cerise.theirisnetwork.org) Cerise is a woman-oriented gamer webzine. It's comforting to read, mainly because they put to words things I notice and brush off since "I'm not a hardcore gamer," or "I'm overreacting," or whatever else my brain says to justify my unhappiness with whatever gaming things it notices. And look - two entire articles saying the same things I noted about Guitar Hero II vs. III! They also note that Axe had a big hand in the game, apparently - I'd noticed their advertising throughout the game but had completely forgotten what the company was (Axe Body Spray, anyone?) Between that, and RedOctane being in charge of this round of GH, I'm no longer surprised at the difference between II and III...
Harmonix, the company who worked on GH, GHII, and Rocks the '80s, did not work on GHIII. Instead they've been creating Rock Band, which comes out in a few days. I'm so hoping that it has more awesome rock chicks and happier songs. I'm also tempted to just return what we already have and buy Rock Band, even if it is almost 2x as expensive...
Side but related note-
I went to play Halo 3 with grandpa scott. I had the headset on, and we were in the middle of talking about something, and we entered the lobby of whatever multiplayer team game we were about to play. And of course this happened in the middle of a sentence that I was speaking. The rest of the group falls silent, and I do too.
One of the other players pipes up - "Hey, are you a girl?"
I respond. "Yeah - so what? You have a problem playing with a girl?"
The entire board starts flipping out. "Oh NO but you're a girl but we have no problems playing with girls but WOW a GIRL etc etc etc."
I mute them all and proceed to actually kick their asses. It was a good game.
Later on we join up with our pals (so it's myself, Scott, Heller, Brandon, Brian.) We all say Hi and are picking out what sort of game we should play. Then scott of course asks, "Have you guys ever played with a girl?" and proceeds to tell the others how rude the other folks online are when they figure out I'm a female.
I've been told that I must be fat and ugly because I play an online video game. I've been called some horrid names by kids who I'm nearly old enough to be their mother (if I'd gotten pregnant at age 14!) I don't even put the headset on now unless my team consists of people I know. It's just disgusting.
I hate going into a gaming store most of the time because the male shop-owners or register people assume I'm a moron. You know what? Just because I check out all the new DS games, or because I'll play Katamari for hours, am addicted to Lumines, and don't care for games without a plot doesn't mean I'm stupid. There's no way I'm going to pay full retail for this crappy game when I can pick it up used for $5.00. When my DS dies I'm going to take it apart and replace what is broken. And I so don't need your five year coverage plan for it. GRR.
Off to make some potato bread - Jared's on another business trip for the week and I have to do something to keep myself occupied. And after all this, I am so just not in the mood for online gaming.
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| I've been saying for ages now "Oh, I'm leaving xanga, I'm just not bored enough yet, etc etc." Well, I'm now a cylon, and I have a plan.
I've joined a blogroll which requires posting! Yes, that's right - REQUIRES POSTING. So that means I will have to start posting. But I don't like xanga, and I haven't made the time to test out the alternatives.
So here's the plan:
* For the first month on this blogroll I will post on Xanga (because that's what is listed)
* I'll also format my posting for Wordpress and Blogger and put them up (on private)
* Whichever looks best and is easiest to edit wins, and you'll be stuck RSS-feeding or visiting another website if you want to know my life
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Unrelated note - I bought a 250gb hd, stuck it in the lappy, and installed OS 10.5. It's alright - I don't like some of the features and adore others. Right now I'm running a full SMART scan on the drive - it's making odd noises. I kept the old one and am booting off of it. Also, if somehow the new drive really is bad, I still have all my old stuff quite easily...
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| still haven't left xanga.
I am so upset by the stupidest thing ever - there are television shows i want to watch.
* Battlestar Galactica - early next year (and rumor says also early 2009). I'm addicted and impatiently waiting for next season so I can finish the series and have one less show to traumatize my brain with.
* Bionic Woman - starts Tonight (Wednesdays) at 9:00 on NBC. Yet
ANOTHER redo. But it has Katee Sackhoff, better known as Starbuck, in
a few episodes as a villain, and it sounds like fun. Jared already set
it to record w/o telling me!
* I'm tempted to watch Pushing Daisies, as it sounds amusing - starting October, Wednesdays at 8 on ABC.
* The Sarah Connor Chronicles - coming early next year. I'll watch at minimum for one thing - River Tam is a Cylon. I mean Summer Glau plays a Terminator. Yeah, that is going to be fun. Fortunately I haven't a problem with re-imagining shows or movies (thusly BSG). Starts early next year, so I've got time.
* Heroes. Jared and I are planning on waiting until the series is over and catching on DVD. I've heard good things from trusted sources but we just can't bring ourselves to jump into the middle!
* Dr. Who. Can't bring myself to watch the new episodes. Hell, I don't like the old ones as much if it isn't TOM BAKER (he just rules). Need to retrieve these from netflix so Jared can be exposed to the beauty of jellybabies.
* The Prisoner. I mean OLD SCHOOL BBC. We've got it (thx netflix), want to start watching it soon...
* Trying to avoid Journeyman (whoo Quantum Leap reboot), Chuck, Moonlight, Mr and Mrs Smith, and Torchwood, otherwise I'll never get off my butt. Maybe I should just go buy an iPod nano, rip me some TV, and play at the gym.
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| Grr i hate myspace's blog thing and I hate xanga's blog thing so EVENTUALLY i will switch, when I care enough. Which is getting closer and closer.
I've been futzing with twitter; feed is here: http://twitter.com/larabair
I'm plotting a fondue fete in mid-October; if I haven't sent you an invite and you would like to attend please drop me a line thru myspace or emailing me at
(my first name)dot(my maiden name)at(gmail)dot(com)
A slideshow of wedding pictures is available here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/laura.prickett/LauraJared04August2007
If you would like a DVD of ALL wedding pictures I've collected so far, please email me
(BECKY THIS MEANS YOU)
AARON AND EVERYONE ELSE GIVE ME YOUR PICTURES (if you have any)
And on that note, it's time to do more domestic goddessing and bake me some bread! Ja~! | | |
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