Kittens, Homemade Bread, and Expectations

This week Sandy brought the kittens to my overgrown flower bed in front of the house. Tiffany turned the pet carrier we have outside upside down so that witht he pending rain, it doesn’t get inside and it will keep the kittens dry. She put them inside it and they seemed to like it. Sandy seemed good with it too until it rained the other day and she moved them elsewhere. She has since brought them back to the front of the house, so we will see. Tiffany said they hissed at her at first but are not avoiding her, which is a great thing.

Brian and Lauren came for dinner this week. I fixed spaghetti and homemade bread. In the past, when I have made bread, I used my bread machine. This time I decided to try the Aritisan Bread in 5 Minutes recipe. I have known about this recipe for several years but was put off by the ‘bucket’ needed for the dough and the ‘cloaking’ done instead of kneading. Then there was the fact that it used a pizza stone and peel, which I do happen to have from the days when I heard that baking pizza on a stone was sooooo much better than in a pan (it didn’t turn out that way for me so I put the stone and peel away).

What changed my mind? Well, I saw an old post on MakeAndTakes shared on Facebook about using that recipe and how easy it was. Also she shared that she used all the dough made on the day she made it, so no big ‘bucket’ was needed to store it in the refrigerator. I have a large bowl and decided to use it with plastic wrap instead of worrying about a bucket with a lid. I actually thought the bread would be larger, so it was a good thing I made two loaves for the six of us.

OMG!!! This bread is delicious! I have made it two more times since then. I doubt that I’m baking it quite as long as I should because it is a bit moister than what I’ve read it should be but Oh Soooo Yummy!!!

According to what I have read, the crust should stay crisp or harden back up after time. When I pull it out of the oven, it is good and crisp and then as it cools, which is necessary according to the directions, it gets softer crusted. We like it soft crusted but it makes me think that I’m not baking it quite long enough. It doesn’t matter to me because this bread is delicious!!!

On another note, I learned a long time ago to keep my expectations very low when anticipating a movie or anything, really. When people tell you how good something is you tend to have high expectations, which then can be a set up for being let down by the thing you anticipated. I had medium-high expectations for the new Mission Impossible movie and was slightly let down although it was still a really good, pretty clean movie.

OH! on that same note, keep your expectations low for the bread, so that you can really enjoy it. I had low expectations for it and as you can tell, I was pleasantly surprised.