:insert something clever:

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Semester's beginnings...

So, the semester has started, as of Tuesday. I enjoy my classes so far and have not yet decided whether or not to clep out of government. In the meantime I'm in Boren's class, along with about....199 freshman. One of these today thoroughly disgusted me. I've seen people text message during class before....especially in a class so large. What I have never seen is this: said freshman was text messaging and did NOT have his/her phone on silent!!! And it wasn't one short little text message. The beeping lasted for well over a minute, with slight pauses. AAAAAGH! *ripping-hair-out motion*

Anyway, I have to pack before going to my next class. My whole (well, not quite, immediate plus a few) family is getting together this weekend in Mississippi. It's Josiah's first birthday on Monday! So, maybe I will post later, but no promises as Josiah's cuteness may keep me far from a computer.

Wednesday, January 02, 2008

Bread update

The bread turned out rather well.

Whole Wheat Oatmeal Bread -one 8 x 4-inch loaf

  • 2 cups unbleached white flour
  • 1 cup whole wheat flour
  • 1/2 cup unsweetened oat bran cereal
  • 2 tablespoons brown sugar
  • 2 and 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1 and 1/4 cups water
  • 2 tablespoons unsalted butter

In a large bowl, whisk together the flours, oat bran, brown sugar, yeast, salt and cinnamon.

In a small saucepan, heat the water and butter until warm (105 degrees F to 115), then gradually stir the water mixture into the flour mixture.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, about 6 to 8 minutes. Cover the dough with a clean dish towel and let it rest for 10 minutes.

Lightly oil an 8 x 4 inch pan.

On the lighlty floured surface, roll the dough out to a 12 x 7 inch rectangle. Beginning at the short end, roll up tightly as for a jellyroll. Pinch the seam and ends to seal. Place, seam side down, in the prepared pan. Cover the pan with the dish towel and let rise in a warm place until it doubles in size, about one hour.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean. Remove from the pan and cool completely on a wire rack.

From Bob's Red Mill Baking Book, page 90.

Instead of unsweetened oat bran cereal I used Raisin Bran (more or less attempting to avoid adding in raisins) and reduced the brown sugar to about one and a half tablespoons. And instead of heating the water and butter in a saucepan, I just let the tap water heat up until steamy, added the butter and stirred until it melted and let it cool to the point where it was still quite warm, but didn't hurt to stick my finger in it.

Also, who waits until the bread is cool to taste-test? Especially the first time through a recipe? I know I don't have that patience and rather enjoy my bread still warm from the oven. :-) It has a nice dense grainy texture and a good, slightly crunchy crust. Yummy. The cinnamon isn't overpowering and it's not particularly sweet.


Happy New Year!!

Well, it's been rather a long time since I've written, but rather than trying to catch up I think I'll just write whatever comes to mind.

It is now 2008 and three days until my 21st birthday. Joel's coming into town for a day or so and we're helping host an Epiphany dinner Saturday night. That should be a lot of fun. And there will be champagne. :-)

I've been cooking a lot these past few days. I've baked chicken, made risotto at least twice, some pasta stuff (with zucchini! yay for zucchini!), baked "skillet cornbread", a loaf or two of bread, some muffins, and I have two batches of cookie dough in the fridge chilling. It's been fun, but unfortunately means that I've been washing a few more dishes than usual as well. I've learned that with some things you should maybe make them more than twice using a recipe before experimenting without referencing anything even as a guideline (this comes from the second batch of risotto...quite funny taste...maybe too much chicken buillon...).

There's been some progress with wedding planning and such. I've started addressing "save-the-date" postcards. So far mostly only family from the addresses compiled by my sister, sister-in-law and some additions from my mother(I never knew how many relatives I had!). The date is May 17th, by the way. :-)

One of my Christmas presents was a new ESV Reformed study Bible from my soon-to-be in-laws. I really like it! I had forgotten what it was like to have a study bible. I had a teen study bible but about seven years ago my brother gave me a little pocket sized NASB and that's the only one I'd used consistently since then. With the gift I've seen a surge in reading which I hope I can continue on with consistently. I'm in Deuteronomy right now, as well as the Psalms.

My sister is engaged, her guy gave her a football and she said yes. There was a ring attached. Cute story. She's pretty excited about it.

Work starts back up tomorrow 6:30 AM. I'll miss the free time, but it will be nice to get up early again. I've been getting up around 8:30, but it feels so late. It's good that classes don't start up again until the 14th. I'll have time to readjust to getting up early before having to also be alert and paying attention to lectures.

I'd better go check on the cinnamon bread in the oven. Ciao.