March In Pictures

The day before yesterday I noticed one of the first telltale signs of Spring - crocus coming up all over the back yard.

Spring Thaw?

We had a good rain yesterday until about midday, melting some of the snow we had, but we had water in the basement that afternoon.  This is what it looks like by the drain when this happens.  Water gets in all around where the foundation walls meet the floor, and trickles toward the drain.  There is one area on the other side of the basement where it does pool a bit, and that was the last area still wet today.  I spread it around so it would evaporate, pushing it to the drain would be the same thing.  The dehumidifier has been running ever since yesterday and will probably continue for a few days, at least.  But we are very wet right now with more rain to snow coming tonight.

A pretty rare occurrence, overall, thankfully, but it does happen.  And not unusual for the neighborhood, from what I can gather.  We've prepared the basement for this, but we do have to remember to get the rugs up in time.

February This-And-Thats

We are in the throes of winter, stretches of sun and temperatures leading to thoughts of spring then snow, ice and cold again.  The local groundhog, Jimmy, predicted 6 more weeks of winter for us on February 2nd, Groundhog Day, and so far it has been proving accurate.  Snow will arrive here in probably a couple hours and for the next almost two days will be off and on with wintry mix and ice mixed in for good measure.  Well, at least the days are getting longer and, overall, the weather is getting better, right?

Still not a whole lot going on around here to write about except the weather, but I can think of a few different things to touch upon...

• During a recent nice stretch of weather my thoughts turned to walking outside, before the weather again said no.  I have been back in the habit of getting on the treadmill for a time almost every day, but outside would be better.  Yesterday I got in my first official outside walk of the year, going to the vet's office to pick up Basil's medicine.  Hopefully more outside walks soon, they are certainly preferable to the treadmill.
• Good motivation for keeping it up is to try to lose weight.  I lost 10 pounds from having Covid in December and so far have kept it off.  But I've only maintained that and I'd like to lose a stone or two this year.
• I've still been using the trail camera in various places, but nothing interesting to share.  It seems to get triggered easily for things up to about 8 feet away from it, but anything past that doesn't seem to trigger the camera.  I'm not too fond of that, at all, but I didn't spend a whole lot on it.
• 
  Not much breadmaking here recently, just pizza crust and pre-made white bread.  I tried a different pizza crust and it turned out well, nice and crispy enough.  This time I made the pre-made white bread in the slightly larger, metal loaf pan and it turned out very good.  Also, I think I decided to try a different baguette recipe the next time I make it, I'm just not sure which one yet.  Bread, buns and all but one baguette are gone now, so I'll surely be baking something soon.
• Neighbor Dave's kids have been cleaning out the house the last couple weeks, off and on.  Most of it seems to be going in the dumpster though I'm sure they're keeping what is important.  I haven't spoken to any of them since I talked to one of his sons before the funeral.  It will be interesting to see what happens with the house.  I know it's in pretty rough shape right now.
• I won $400 on a Super Bowl pool I forgot I was on at a bar and grill we frequent.  I was on a different pool there and took a picture so knew my numbers had lost on that one, but had forgotten about this bigger pool I got on a few weeks earlier.  I went into the bar for lunch on Saturday and had a very nice surprise waiting for me!

We get several three day weekends in the beginning of the year now, including President's Day, yesterday, but now we don't get another paid holiday until Memorial Day at the end of May.  But at least the days are getting longer.  Wait, I already mentioned that.

More Bread Stuff

Still cold and snowy, but at least it will get above freezing this coming week so everything should melt.  Until I have other things to write about, here's more of this.  At least it beats more writing about cold and snow.  Breadmaking has made these mundane winter days more bearable.

As stated last post, I made baguette again last weekend.  I think I did better shaping them the first time, though, and I need to work on dividing the dough evenly.  But this time I had the new cast iron pan for the boiling water on the low oven rack and before putting them in the oven I brushed the loaves with water.  I also cautiously baked them 10ºF lower than the recipe called for and I may have taken them out a bit early, but they are fully baked.  They remind me of the take-and-bake baguette we can get from the store, so can be warmed in the oven for several minutes to be like fresh baked.  I like the color a lot better and it tastes very good still, but I promise I will get better at this yet.

I also noticed my wife had put buns in our online grocery cart, so rather than buy those buns I baked some on Monday evening.  This is the recipe I used, and they turned out really very good.  Like the baguette, though, room for improvement.  First, I think I flattened them just a bit too much as they are a bit bigger around than I'd like, and while the recipe calls for brushing them with butter just before and just after baking, I think I'll just do it before baking next time.  The recipe also said you could divide into 6 and use the bun pan instead of the 8 shown here, but I'm sure they would have crested the rim and looked like muffins, like the cheesy burger buns I made earlier.  I think I will continue to use this recipe for when we want buns, and I may even try to shape them differently for brats and hot dogs when we need those.  Start to finish in less than three hours is pretty good, too.

We picked up that same grocery order mentioned above on Tuesday afternoon, so on Wednesday I made one of the store-bought frozen loaves of white bread dough.  If they had wheat I would have tried that, but this white bread is still really good.  Again, maybe a bit underdone, it is very soft, so I may be being too careful in not wanting things to get overdone now.  The directions called for an 8.5 x 4.5 inch loaf pan and the one we have is pyrex, which may be why the sides and bottom were less done, but we also have 9.5 x 5 metal non-stick loaf pans and they may work better for this so I'll use one of those next time and we'll see.

More bread related purchases recently, a container for a loaf of bread to keep the sandwich bread protected and fresh, and a pastry mat that can be used as a work surface for bread dough.  I've also previously bought an 8" cast iron pan, bun pan, dough scrapers, and oven and food thermometers.  So, not including ingredients, I've spent just about 100 bucks on these items specifically related to my new breadmaking hobby.  Not too bad, actually, I expected more.  I wonder what I'll think I need next?  

This weekend I'll be making no bread, for a change.  At least I'm not planning on it.  We have baguette, buns and sandwich bread so my work is done for the moment.

Of course, with new buns made there is another double smash burger pic after the break!  ;)

And no, we don't have these quite as much as it may seem, but we had to test the new buns out!

My Breadmaking Beginnings

So much for moderation, I've been baking some kind of bread every weekend recently.  We had the last baguette out of the freezer with dinner last night and, being a bit more removed from making them, they actually are really good so I will be making them again next.  Baguette is the bread we normally bought more than any other bread.  This will be the first good bread I'll be making for a second time.

I started my breadmaking late last fall with a couple different, simple no-knead recipes.  Quick and easy seemed a good way to start.  This is the first recipe I tried, Peasant bread, but if I do it again I think I'll try this version from King Arthur Baking Company, where I got all the rest of my bread recipes ever since.  The second recipe  I made was also a no-knead, but crusty and baked in a Dutch oven.  Better than the first, but still kind of a gummy texture.  Not sure why, but I have no pictures of these.

Plain White Sandwich Bread

The next recipe I tried was called 'the easiest loaf of bread you'll ever make,' so, of course, I tried it.  It was good, but I wanted better.  It's the first picture on this post from earlier this month.  After that my sweet tooth got the better of me and I tried another no-knead, a brioche swirled with jam.  The second picture from that same post.  The sweetness and swirl of jam covered up any gumminess of the no-knead bread and this loaf did not last long.

After that, I veered away from regular bread again and made cornbread muffins.  We had all the ingredients and they turned out very good.  Again, no pictures taken, but they're just corn muffins.

Next recipe was for baguette, and turned out to be the best thing I'd made so far, and probably since.  You can read more about what I wrote about that here.  Having done it once now, I'm hoping to improve on that first attempt this weekend with both technique and having a proper pan for the boiling water.

Cheesy No Knead Burger Buns

So, let's see, that's up to 6 different breads I'd made so far.  And I'm not counting the pizza crust my wife and I made together.  I'll be trying different pizza crust recipes in the future, but that's a different category.  On with the breads.

Having enjoyed the baguette so much, my wife asked that I make a sandwich bread.  We had sandwich ingredients but didn't have any sandwich bread at the time, so basically I was asked to either make one or buy one.  Well, I had all-purpose and bread flour, and there's not as many recipes out there for white bread as there is for wheat bread, and many of them called for dry milk so my choices were limited.  I wound up trying this recipe and it was okay, maybe a bit more dense than I'd like, but good.  Picture number one on this post for the 7th made bread.  I want to try a different sandwich bread recipe next time but haven't found it yet.  I may end up buying wheat flour, and that would be good, too.

That same weekend I made a no-knead cheesy burger bun recipe that had caught my eye.  The recipe offered a choice of cheeses, powder or finely shredded, and I went with finely shredded parmesan.  Picture number 2 here, of the number 8 bread.  These were good buns and you couldn't really tell they were no-knead, but a lot of flavor.  They really rose more then I expected, too, up and over the bun pan to look like muffins.  We had them with my homemade smash burgers and it was a lot of flavors competing with each other, so while I know I will make buns again I will be trying a different recipe.

Pan de Cristal (Glass Bread)

Then another bread caught my attention that I wanted to try, Pan de Cristal, or glass bread.  It looked like a nice outer crust but had very large air bubbles inside that I found very interesting.  And the recipe was a bit of a surprise, it's a 100% hydration bread, 500g water to 500g bread flour.  I read up on it and watched the videos, but actually found it easy to make and, again, was surprised at how much it rose for me compared to the recipe pictures and video.  Too well done and it wasn't in the oven as long as it was called for, but I've ordered an oven thermometer to check that and will go more by what I see than what the recipes say in the future.  But this is a good, novel snack bread, maybe good as part of a charcuterie board or something but not for everyday.  Bread 9, last picture here.

And that'll be the last of counting them, I think.  I also think I'm kind of good at this breadmaking thing, so far anyway.  Eventually I expect I may tire of trying so many different things just for the sake of it, but I also expect I'll be making the good ones consistently.  

Bonus double smash burger pic after the break!

Cold, Cold Nights.. Again

Temperatures are about the same as around 1 year ago when I posted this originally, but more snow and icicles now.  At least the sun is out, but that's part of the reason we're so cold.  Anyway, this seemed appropriate to post again today. 

I took the rest of the day off today due to headache/mental health.  My counterpart at work has driven me nuts for years now, and after all this time I still just don't know what the hell they're thinking or why they do what they do much of the time.  Sometimes I just have to excuse myself from their company.  Despite the weather, I think I'll bundle up and go out for lunch today, and I may have a few drinks, too.