Today the world outside is white as white can be. Last night it snowed, and it has snowed a bit this morning as well. The plow has been through, but I have not ventured out with the shovel, not yet anyway.
I made whole wheat bread last night, and it is awful! Suitable for for building a brick wall I think, not really edible. I say this, and yet Attila carved off a few slices to take to work with him today, he will deliver a verdict this evening. No matter what his verdict is, I won’t use that recipe again! Further experimentation is required, and will be undertaken until I come up with a whole wheat loaf that I consider acceptable.
Today I’ve been busy with filing, a bit of purging, paperwork for the windows project, research for the insulation project, and just tying up loose administrative ends. I don’t like doing any of this, but I do like the feeling I get when one of these tasks is completed. That little bit of good feeling keeps me motivated to slog on with it all. It is beginning to look as if the windows and insulation projects could be done and dusted by June, which would give Attila lots of lead time to get going on the garage roof and his studio.
I am trying to learn Tai Chi here in the living room. The book is extremely helpful, in that it shows exactly what I should be doing with my feet. The placement of my feet, and how to move them, is crucial for my knees, and my primary concern at this stage of the game. It isn’t exactly the way it is being taught, but I know what I need to learn first, and that is how I am going to do it. If I don’t keep up with the beginners class, well then I don’t. I will follow along cheerfully when I attend, until it all comes together for me, at my own pace.
These aren’t the most cheerful days I’ve ever experienced! And yet, there are small parts of my day that pass peacefully, without turmoil or pain, and that is something to be grateful for.
Worldly Distractions
Weather
-4°C
Date: 2:00 PM EST Tuesday 6 February 2018
Condition: Partly Cloudy
Pressure: 102.7 kPa
Tendency: Rising
Temperature: -4.2°C
Dew point: -11.9°C
Humidity: 55%
Wind: WSW 18 gust 34 km/h
Wind Chill: -10
Visibility: 24 km
Quote
“Whenever evil befalls us, we ought to ask ourselves, after the first suffering, how we can turn it into good. So shall we take occasion, from one bitter root, to raise perhaps many flowers.”
Leigh Hunt
1784 – 1859
Some tips for making ww bread are on my recipe collection blog: http://stubblejumperscafe.blogspot.com :
particularly: kneading long enough (a good 10 minutes per loaf), and using water (not flour) on the board and your hands while shaping loaves
Wonder what happened? It’s discouraging after all that effort. Sorry to hear it.
Kate
Thanks for the tips Kate! I actually used a bread machine for this batch of bread, a machine that makes other types of bread flawlessly, so I’m not sure what happened. Attila came home and said the bread tasted great, the crust was too tough to eat, but the bread itself he liked. I’ll try again, the next effort will be your recipe, I’ll see how that goes!
Since it was a machine loaf, it wasn’t all that much effort, and the ingredients were minimal, only 3 1/2 cups flour.
I am really looking forward to trying out your recipe in the bread machine… kneading by had is getting to hard on my old joints.
WE use a bread machine. It’s for Paul’s bread. We buy Bob’s Red Mill 10-grain bread mixes – all you add is 3 tbsp oil, 1-1/4 cup warm water, the mix and the yeast. But you HAVE to put the oil and water in first, together, and then the mix and then on top the yeast. Or it will not work right. Paul’s been making his own bread lately since he’s around here for the winter, and every time he gets it wrong. I have told him many times to put the oil and water in together and then the mix and yeast. The he always does it wrong. And what an ugly loaf he always gets! It’s like the Elephant Man of the bread world. So I need to make up a cute little sign and frame it and hang it up near the sink so he can see it when he goes to make his bread… every 4 days.
Bex, I consider bread and pie crust to be “fussy” things to make. That is because they need to be done just right for good results. Now I realize that even with a mix, things can go wrong!
The bread machine is an experiment, we picked it up for just over $40 new, a bargain, so I am experimenting with it. The first loaf was perfect, as I followed the instructions to the letter, but it was made with unbleached bread flour, not whole grain bread flour. The second loaf, the one that failed, is 100% whole wheat, and the recipe came from a different bread machine book. It didn’t work out well. There are few issues that I need to address with this bread, the flour is aging, but it is what we have, so it is what I need to work with. There is no whole wheat recipe for this bread machine, and there may be a reason for that! it could be that making good whole wheat bread in this machine is not in the cards. I will find out.
My next loaf will be a recipe crafted from Kate’s whole wheat bread recipe, and I will include some gluten flour in the recipe. We shall see how whole wheat loaf two, the experiment works out.
In the meantime, Attila is taking slices of the brick loaf in his lunches. Go figure.