Whole Wheat Baguette

I used a ratio of 1:2:1 of whole wheat bread flour : white bread flour : white flour and made two delicious and slightly nutritious baguettes!  Three rising periods made them lighter and crustier than baguettes I'd made in the past.  Weirdly, it also helped to cook them on the metal baking sheet they were rising on, rather than on my baking stone.  I'm wondering if the baking stone, which seemed like a really great recommendation at the time I picked it up, actually isn't the best for baguettes.  I think I'll try this on future baguettes and chart my progress.

Wedding Present Beer Coozies

Made these lovelies for my friends John and Lindsey as a wedding present.  Used yarn in their wedding colors (the hardest part was matching it to the invite!)  I love people who actually ask for homemade wedding presents ('cause everybody knows they're going to get them anyway!)

Wheat Sandwich Bread

One of my constant complaints about homemade wheat bread is that it's too dense and just isn't as fun to eat as most white bread.  Focaccia and baguette and fougasse and all the other lovely but nutrient deficient breads that I love are easy to eat with just a bit of olive oil or cheese.  But wheat bread is a project to eat.  So, I went looking for a better wheat bread recipe, and I found one!  Behold the power of the internet!  I found the recipe on Allrecipes.com.  It makes a basic sandwich loaf that holds together pretty well and is light and chewy.  I found out that it gets stale (or you can tell that it's stale) pretty quickly, but other than that it is delightful.

I only made half the recipe and ended up with two nice sized loaves.  Because of the size of my loaf pans, the slices are a bit small for a traditional sandwich, but I'm comfortable with eating two smaller sandwiches, in a pinch.  I think that in the future I might add a coating of oats and seeds to the outside, or even mix some seeds in, because this bread could be a bit more robust, but it fulfilled its promise of being easy to make and even easier to eat!

From the Garden

Somehow, even though I have totally abandoned my garden (best laid plans and all that) I managed to bring in quite a nice haul of chard and kale last night, plus a single beet and a head of garlic.  Veggie stir fry ensued.