today is friday, we've been to the doctor and the baby doesn't want to come out. in fact he cmplained a bit about being poked at and he put his mother on the treadmill for an hour and a half after she'd had her pancake supper. her mother did my hair. I am now a blonde. his father came home from work and talked about how all the computers at his franchized hotel which is a chain though not corporate went down. there was a person there who had spent seventy thousand dollars on being entertained by that chain and someone in the staff was rude to him. his father was a bit worried about that but you know what they say, 'it's business'. I think his father worried about why every employee can't be the sweet polite interested person I am (as I pat myself on the back yet again for being a good person). right. I'm not going to go on about that being a good person stuff because probably I'm not that good a person, but maybe observant. I think my daughter would say I didn't ever give her a wedding present, which is true, as yet I have not. This is largely because her lifestyle is about twenty pegs above mine, she has marble floors and a swimming pool and an another new truck. She also has a job. Well, now she's expecting a baby any moment and I'm not going to worry about not giving her a wedding present. Her husband gives everything she needs to her and I think maybe I should stay out of the way of that. What I do is be there for her, take her insults along with her appreciation and just go with it. That works for me, although at times she gets a little too upper crust on me and I cringe to think how she really feels inside when she talks to her mother like that. My own mother I need to call. I put in lots of onduty time with my mother, she's just turned 84 and she pretty much has to be told what's going on a lot of the time. That's this baby's routine, the one coming. He needs to be told it's time to get out and meet us all, so excited to see him we are.
there, I just ate a grapefruit off a tree in the backyard. "those aren't going to be any good" says the baby's father, because they're pretty yellow, kind of shrively, but you know, in washington state where I come from, this flavor, this just off the tree thing, this is great. this is something. the rest of the grapefruits are pretty much rock hard green and not at all ripe, but this one, it went down like something smooth, tart and wonderful, without any sugar because I couldn't find it in this house where they do their own thing and eat pop tarts. I can't remember when I last had a pop tart but I know I gotta get that bag of whole wheat bagels out of the freezer one of these days. I did make bread last week and I have a bag of it waiting to become a pizza or something. How do I make a pizza?
first off you pour a bunch of flour, white unbleached works well for pizza dough but you could use whole wheat and be health conscious if that's how you are, about halfway up the side of your bread machine...they say you should measure but I got tired of washing up stuff like the measuring cups a long time ago
then you add some dry milk, the powdered variety, because that's the stuff that builds your bones and alters your ego..keeps you calm and ready to take on scary guys that want you to pay bills you don't have any money for...you put in probably a third to half a cup because concentrated milk doesn't really detract from the flavor of the bread but it's very good for you...any of you without milk allergies and when they get dry goats milk or soy, just put it in if that's how you are..
so third cup or half that, you get to know how much a thing is after a while because you do it so often, you can eyeball it but measuring's important for rookies..definitely, I'm so confident about preparing food I usually let the robots do it, hehe...kidding
so you got the milk, the flour, then you pour in a steady stream of yeast which is the equivalent of about a third cup, from the big bags you can buy at the wholesalers, because those little yeast packets from fleischmans cost about as much as the big bag from the wholesalers and if you bread a lot, you'd need it anyways...efficiency being what it is, more than one packet of fleischman's is going to be needed so why not...
you give that yeast a little breakfast in the way of leithicin, which you pour in steadily making a little brown pool in the middle of the bread dough until it looks like a little brown marble, it's about three big tablespoons give or take and that's the stuff that makes you a food superstar once you get it together and get going down the road of life after you bake this stuff and take charge of your life.
at this point you turn on the beater for the machine, it's the little fin at athe bottom of the bread pan which if you cook the bread in that pan you'll be cooking that in there too and once I did that when I brought my mother a loaf and she says you trying to break me out of prison, lookit what you baked in this thing...
so remember to take that thing out if you're going to let the machine do all the work, after it rises a second time and is all set to nest and grow big...like this grandson that doesn't want to come out right now...I don't blame him, his mother doesn't give him a chance to rest up and be strong and get ready to let grandma give him a temple kiss..
so you got all that stuff in the bread pan, and you're thinking how dry and ordinary this all looks but its' gonna be good because I'm making it myself...this is true, it's going to be wonderful once you get it done but you do have to have liquid and the funny thing is that you can pour in either cold or warm water because of the properties of the yeast now days but it's best, and I would make it a pretty tight rule, that you use warm water..about the temp you would take a bath in, not burn your hand off in because if you use the totally hot stuff the yeast is going to check out and say bye dude, you mean...so pour in enough water, with the machine agitating like the washing machine, until the flour starts coming away from the sides and making a big mud pie in there. you can take a scraper down the sides, get all the flour into the mix that you can, and if you do like Ido often enough, you'll put a little more flour in as the thing is agitating because it needs it, it's way too gooey..
so the bread dough comes to a point in the agitating process where it's coming together like that great hump in my daughter's stomach and then you know you've achieved bread dough status, which if you've worked at it like John Lennon reputedly worked at it five years getting it right, is a good thing to be able to do...at this point you can start dreaming about giving Krispy Kreme a run for their doughnut money...cause you make those kinds of doughnuts the same way only in this method, you fry the doughnut batter, not bake it which is how this bread is going to be done, what I'm talking about here. so anyway...you get that perfect ball being agitated in the bread machine and bear in mind I've not really looked at the recipe book that came with this machine because it was a donate and had a mind of its own in the timer so I kind of just let it do the work and pull it out when i want to actually set it up to a final rise and do some bread baking..
I hope that's not a dashboard confessional because it's how a lot of us get these bread machines..they work great until you get bored with them and give them away and truthfully you don't really even need them if you like getting your mitts all gooey and such, my friend the painter used to make five loaves a week and still her family is vigorous and strong although she hasn't made bread in years because she doesn't have the counter space now...she's also getting up there and there's just her and her husband at home, but she would maybe do it once in a while if she had space for the bread machine, I think, it's pretty cool, saves you from being sticky and gooey although at some point you have to pour the glop onto the table into a nice nest of flour and work it with your hands and find out what kind of shape it wants...it'll tell you. it gets you back to kindergarten when you were playing with play dough and making army guys and tea sets..it's pretty healthy and therapeutic and all that and no doubt why John Lennon was so avid about it after being told his peace initiatives were a crock of beans that won't soften and be delicious ...
when you do the work it yourself routine is after the good old bread machine has yanked it around a second time,k right before it starts baking the sucker...it gives it a uniform shape in there and all, you don't have to hassle with an oven, wear oven mitts all that, and you make some really good bread but you know the stuff is fattening unless you put the right things in then it's marvelous all the way around..even for chlorestorol and such...because of the leithicin...did I forget something? ahh..that indeed I did and that is that when the dough is going around in the bread machine, when it's starting to form that great lump like my daughter's baby son is making out of her rock hard abs, you need to pour in some delightful cooking oil, or melted butter, or whatever kind of fat substance you need to use in order to have the flour have adhesion, the quality of all the molecules of the product holding together in a positive way, like an efficient congress, a gnarly state of the union where they give free college tuition to anyone who needs and wants to go (like myself a perennial student)...you put enough of this in that the dough takes on a very slight sheen, a shineyness then add a little flour as the dough is going round and round and up and down...my poor grandson in the womb was getting the treatment last night as his mother rode the treadmill with her ipod on..I'm sure of it...but there it is, better to take it out on the bread, which maybe I'll do it from scratch today because of worrying about that inutero situation with her, she's like a big prune inside at the moment, can't even find the pit, according to the obstetrician...I could just see her in a veg state on the sofa..but you know that room doesn't have a lot of light and i think she needs some light...gads, thank god for blogs I can't be running my mouth to my daughter about all those impressions...like she would listen...she did do a good job on my hair, I'm a blonde again..and she gave me the torture routine plucking my eyebrows...I always tell her I'm modeling myself after Brezhnev and I don't think she's ever understood who that was...
so...having forgot to mention the oil, I will tell you that olive oil, pumpkin oil, canola, butter melted and slightly cooled, remember the little yeast guys get fried in way heat, something from the health food store that's glorious with no transfat or anything nasty for your circulation, which I should say mine has a varicose vein this past year in the left shin..the poor shin that gets whanged anytime I start a construction project so I've taken to putting on baseball catcher's shin guards before I even get started on something like rebuilding the countertops or putting on some cupboard doors, haven't had a whang in a while now.;..it works, especially if you want to bring in that dresser you just refinished,k you know you're gonna drop the sucker on a reluctant toe along the way if you don't protect the body that's getting it there. if you have help and where I live I don't get that much assistance with things now my big lug foster kid went homies..but I'll get some more of those type dudes one of these days again...another story there and I guess I would describe ultimate mac and cheese, a recipe I heard on the Canadian Broadcasting Service...oh it sounded so good...a welcome adjunct to my own perfect pasta...
so...you've got the oil, the yeast, the yeast's food, the flour of choice (I always pour in a couple cups of oatmeal at this point because it's on my supply list for hearty winter breakfasts and always in stock) and the machine h as crunched up your goodies into that big ball like my daughter's stomach and so you pull it out after the second agitation when you know it's going to rise and bake...and you work it, take out the aggressions of the day, the week, the year...think of your grandson in the dryer tumbling as his mother walks the treadmill...for two hours...remembering to keep flouring the surface because it gets sticky and then you shape it however you want it go bake, be creative, think swan lake and mt rushmore, let your spirit flow and keep a cloth handy incase you have to answer the door or the phone or let out the dog or put another stick on the fire...
once everything is shaped and shifted and into a greased container, sometimes I use muffin tins sometimes I use cookie sheets, sometimes I save some of it to roll out as pizza dough later (that you don't have to let rise because it does its own thing when you put the pizza ingredients on it.)
this creation of yours you let rise until it looks like lucy made it, really amazing how it puffs up and then you know the yeast has had enough of you and is ready to go to its new life as something your stomach will appreciate since all you did for it was bash it around and intimidate and humiliate it so it's becoming something better, something you will appreciate. you make that goodness in an oven of at least 350 degrees, it doesn't do so well ifyour oven won't heat past say 325 because it needs the heatness to reinvent itself, the yeast does, the flour doesn't care so much, the oil and dry milk, yeah...water...who knows about water, a hot bath is always lovely, don't even mention the Rogue River! so...while this is cooking you wash up the bread making stuff which isn't that much on a good day when you've had out the oil and the flour and so on and so forth and do wipe down the containers you've used, the outside of the breadmachine, all that good stuff and take the dry mop and the swiffer to the flour for a second because that gets cheesy too with all of this commotion.
what comes of all this is a beautiful thing called fresh bread and you made it yourself..I had a bunch of ladies stop what they were doing, slather on the fresh butter and drink the tea, eating snatches of bread while we were preparing a benefit dinner last week...I know it's a real deal breaker, that bread...without it you just don't have the sense of brotherhood you might otherwise have..it's pretty cool and I like it...and it's worked out my little worries about baby junior about to come into our lives...wonder if I can make him some teething biscuits further on down the road.? those seem like a culinary mistake they're so hard...but good, good for the little gums...hmmm
ps...I was thinking about how to make pizza and that's a pretty simple proposition once you roll out that leftover dough into a shape that will hold the ingredients...ingredients being shredded mozzarella on a surface of oiled dough sprinkled with oregano, parmesan and lathered in tomato paste or tomato sauce...heap on the mozzarella, shower with chopped up green pepper, o nion, mushroom, shrimp, a bit of anchovie, that could go on the paste layer but eh...if you forget like what I do here, it goes fine elsewhere only don't put so much you know it was anchovie...it's a surprise...ground hamburg, cooked/uncooked, sausage, pepperoni, chicken cubes, always a bit of garlic depending on need and want, some flair on your part depending on where you get your pizza and how you like it...cook the sucker until the meat is done, the sides are getting brown, the cheese is wearing one of those funny old lady rainhats in a toasty brown and it smells like heaven sent an invitation for a walk through...to your stomach
so, I guess I've given up the family secrets there with the bread thing but I've been doing that on my own for a while, my mother never made bread per se and I think that I learned to make my own just because we grew up on Wonder...as I clear my throat and bless myself in the sign of the cross...this oatmeal thing I make is pretty sufficient and wonderful and I've been doing some great things with that in my stomach...well, like chop wood and move furniture here and there and paint rooms and so on...I gotta get that new sewing machine to work...hmmm, new to me, in the box for thirty years, hehe...the belt smoked, I suppose the rubber tire thing the belt is is kind of ossified after this time, hmmm...well anyway, me and sewing machines...in high school we made our own dresses and we were styling...they were all Aline minis, in cotton pique, cotton sateen, sometimes with a matching triangle bandana or not...always tights in some bright color..I guess I'm going on and I'll be stiff when I get up and so forth and so on into the night, adios..
there, I just ate a grapefruit off a tree in the backyard. "those aren't going to be any good" says the baby's father, because they're pretty yellow, kind of shrively, but you know, in washington state where I come from, this flavor, this just off the tree thing, this is great. this is something. the rest of the grapefruits are pretty much rock hard green and not at all ripe, but this one, it went down like something smooth, tart and wonderful, without any sugar because I couldn't find it in this house where they do their own thing and eat pop tarts. I can't remember when I last had a pop tart but I know I gotta get that bag of whole wheat bagels out of the freezer one of these days. I did make bread last week and I have a bag of it waiting to become a pizza or something. How do I make a pizza?
first off you pour a bunch of flour, white unbleached works well for pizza dough but you could use whole wheat and be health conscious if that's how you are, about halfway up the side of your bread machine...they say you should measure but I got tired of washing up stuff like the measuring cups a long time ago
then you add some dry milk, the powdered variety, because that's the stuff that builds your bones and alters your ego..keeps you calm and ready to take on scary guys that want you to pay bills you don't have any money for...you put in probably a third to half a cup because concentrated milk doesn't really detract from the flavor of the bread but it's very good for you...any of you without milk allergies and when they get dry goats milk or soy, just put it in if that's how you are..
so third cup or half that, you get to know how much a thing is after a while because you do it so often, you can eyeball it but measuring's important for rookies..definitely, I'm so confident about preparing food I usually let the robots do it, hehe...kidding
so you got the milk, the flour, then you pour in a steady stream of yeast which is the equivalent of about a third cup, from the big bags you can buy at the wholesalers, because those little yeast packets from fleischmans cost about as much as the big bag from the wholesalers and if you bread a lot, you'd need it anyways...efficiency being what it is, more than one packet of fleischman's is going to be needed so why not...
you give that yeast a little breakfast in the way of leithicin, which you pour in steadily making a little brown pool in the middle of the bread dough until it looks like a little brown marble, it's about three big tablespoons give or take and that's the stuff that makes you a food superstar once you get it together and get going down the road of life after you bake this stuff and take charge of your life.
at this point you turn on the beater for the machine, it's the little fin at athe bottom of the bread pan which if you cook the bread in that pan you'll be cooking that in there too and once I did that when I brought my mother a loaf and she says you trying to break me out of prison, lookit what you baked in this thing...
so remember to take that thing out if you're going to let the machine do all the work, after it rises a second time and is all set to nest and grow big...like this grandson that doesn't want to come out right now...I don't blame him, his mother doesn't give him a chance to rest up and be strong and get ready to let grandma give him a temple kiss..
so you got all that stuff in the bread pan, and you're thinking how dry and ordinary this all looks but its' gonna be good because I'm making it myself...this is true, it's going to be wonderful once you get it done but you do have to have liquid and the funny thing is that you can pour in either cold or warm water because of the properties of the yeast now days but it's best, and I would make it a pretty tight rule, that you use warm water..about the temp you would take a bath in, not burn your hand off in because if you use the totally hot stuff the yeast is going to check out and say bye dude, you mean...so pour in enough water, with the machine agitating like the washing machine, until the flour starts coming away from the sides and making a big mud pie in there. you can take a scraper down the sides, get all the flour into the mix that you can, and if you do like Ido often enough, you'll put a little more flour in as the thing is agitating because it needs it, it's way too gooey..
so the bread dough comes to a point in the agitating process where it's coming together like that great hump in my daughter's stomach and then you know you've achieved bread dough status, which if you've worked at it like John Lennon reputedly worked at it five years getting it right, is a good thing to be able to do...at this point you can start dreaming about giving Krispy Kreme a run for their doughnut money...cause you make those kinds of doughnuts the same way only in this method, you fry the doughnut batter, not bake it which is how this bread is going to be done, what I'm talking about here. so anyway...you get that perfect ball being agitated in the bread machine and bear in mind I've not really looked at the recipe book that came with this machine because it was a donate and had a mind of its own in the timer so I kind of just let it do the work and pull it out when i want to actually set it up to a final rise and do some bread baking..
I hope that's not a dashboard confessional because it's how a lot of us get these bread machines..they work great until you get bored with them and give them away and truthfully you don't really even need them if you like getting your mitts all gooey and such, my friend the painter used to make five loaves a week and still her family is vigorous and strong although she hasn't made bread in years because she doesn't have the counter space now...she's also getting up there and there's just her and her husband at home, but she would maybe do it once in a while if she had space for the bread machine, I think, it's pretty cool, saves you from being sticky and gooey although at some point you have to pour the glop onto the table into a nice nest of flour and work it with your hands and find out what kind of shape it wants...it'll tell you. it gets you back to kindergarten when you were playing with play dough and making army guys and tea sets..it's pretty healthy and therapeutic and all that and no doubt why John Lennon was so avid about it after being told his peace initiatives were a crock of beans that won't soften and be delicious ...
when you do the work it yourself routine is after the good old bread machine has yanked it around a second time,k right before it starts baking the sucker...it gives it a uniform shape in there and all, you don't have to hassle with an oven, wear oven mitts all that, and you make some really good bread but you know the stuff is fattening unless you put the right things in then it's marvelous all the way around..even for chlorestorol and such...because of the leithicin...did I forget something? ahh..that indeed I did and that is that when the dough is going around in the bread machine, when it's starting to form that great lump like my daughter's baby son is making out of her rock hard abs, you need to pour in some delightful cooking oil, or melted butter, or whatever kind of fat substance you need to use in order to have the flour have adhesion, the quality of all the molecules of the product holding together in a positive way, like an efficient congress, a gnarly state of the union where they give free college tuition to anyone who needs and wants to go (like myself a perennial student)...you put enough of this in that the dough takes on a very slight sheen, a shineyness then add a little flour as the dough is going round and round and up and down...my poor grandson in the womb was getting the treatment last night as his mother rode the treadmill with her ipod on..I'm sure of it...but there it is, better to take it out on the bread, which maybe I'll do it from scratch today because of worrying about that inutero situation with her, she's like a big prune inside at the moment, can't even find the pit, according to the obstetrician...I could just see her in a veg state on the sofa..but you know that room doesn't have a lot of light and i think she needs some light...gads, thank god for blogs I can't be running my mouth to my daughter about all those impressions...like she would listen...she did do a good job on my hair, I'm a blonde again..and she gave me the torture routine plucking my eyebrows...I always tell her I'm modeling myself after Brezhnev and I don't think she's ever understood who that was...
so...having forgot to mention the oil, I will tell you that olive oil, pumpkin oil, canola, butter melted and slightly cooled, remember the little yeast guys get fried in way heat, something from the health food store that's glorious with no transfat or anything nasty for your circulation, which I should say mine has a varicose vein this past year in the left shin..the poor shin that gets whanged anytime I start a construction project so I've taken to putting on baseball catcher's shin guards before I even get started on something like rebuilding the countertops or putting on some cupboard doors, haven't had a whang in a while now.;..it works, especially if you want to bring in that dresser you just refinished,k you know you're gonna drop the sucker on a reluctant toe along the way if you don't protect the body that's getting it there. if you have help and where I live I don't get that much assistance with things now my big lug foster kid went homies..but I'll get some more of those type dudes one of these days again...another story there and I guess I would describe ultimate mac and cheese, a recipe I heard on the Canadian Broadcasting Service...oh it sounded so good...a welcome adjunct to my own perfect pasta...
so...you've got the oil, the yeast, the yeast's food, the flour of choice (I always pour in a couple cups of oatmeal at this point because it's on my supply list for hearty winter breakfasts and always in stock) and the machine h as crunched up your goodies into that big ball like my daughter's stomach and so you pull it out after the second agitation when you know it's going to rise and bake...and you work it, take out the aggressions of the day, the week, the year...think of your grandson in the dryer tumbling as his mother walks the treadmill...for two hours...remembering to keep flouring the surface because it gets sticky and then you shape it however you want it go bake, be creative, think swan lake and mt rushmore, let your spirit flow and keep a cloth handy incase you have to answer the door or the phone or let out the dog or put another stick on the fire...
once everything is shaped and shifted and into a greased container, sometimes I use muffin tins sometimes I use cookie sheets, sometimes I save some of it to roll out as pizza dough later (that you don't have to let rise because it does its own thing when you put the pizza ingredients on it.)
this creation of yours you let rise until it looks like lucy made it, really amazing how it puffs up and then you know the yeast has had enough of you and is ready to go to its new life as something your stomach will appreciate since all you did for it was bash it around and intimidate and humiliate it so it's becoming something better, something you will appreciate. you make that goodness in an oven of at least 350 degrees, it doesn't do so well ifyour oven won't heat past say 325 because it needs the heatness to reinvent itself, the yeast does, the flour doesn't care so much, the oil and dry milk, yeah...water...who knows about water, a hot bath is always lovely, don't even mention the Rogue River! so...while this is cooking you wash up the bread making stuff which isn't that much on a good day when you've had out the oil and the flour and so on and so forth and do wipe down the containers you've used, the outside of the breadmachine, all that good stuff and take the dry mop and the swiffer to the flour for a second because that gets cheesy too with all of this commotion.
what comes of all this is a beautiful thing called fresh bread and you made it yourself..I had a bunch of ladies stop what they were doing, slather on the fresh butter and drink the tea, eating snatches of bread while we were preparing a benefit dinner last week...I know it's a real deal breaker, that bread...without it you just don't have the sense of brotherhood you might otherwise have..it's pretty cool and I like it...and it's worked out my little worries about baby junior about to come into our lives...wonder if I can make him some teething biscuits further on down the road.? those seem like a culinary mistake they're so hard...but good, good for the little gums...hmmm
ps...I was thinking about how to make pizza and that's a pretty simple proposition once you roll out that leftover dough into a shape that will hold the ingredients...ingredients being shredded mozzarella on a surface of oiled dough sprinkled with oregano, parmesan and lathered in tomato paste or tomato sauce...heap on the mozzarella, shower with chopped up green pepper, o nion, mushroom, shrimp, a bit of anchovie, that could go on the paste layer but eh...if you forget like what I do here, it goes fine elsewhere only don't put so much you know it was anchovie...it's a surprise...ground hamburg, cooked/uncooked, sausage, pepperoni, chicken cubes, always a bit of garlic depending on need and want, some flair on your part depending on where you get your pizza and how you like it...cook the sucker until the meat is done, the sides are getting brown, the cheese is wearing one of those funny old lady rainhats in a toasty brown and it smells like heaven sent an invitation for a walk through...to your stomach
so, I guess I've given up the family secrets there with the bread thing but I've been doing that on my own for a while, my mother never made bread per se and I think that I learned to make my own just because we grew up on Wonder...as I clear my throat and bless myself in the sign of the cross...this oatmeal thing I make is pretty sufficient and wonderful and I've been doing some great things with that in my stomach...well, like chop wood and move furniture here and there and paint rooms and so on...I gotta get that new sewing machine to work...hmmm, new to me, in the box for thirty years, hehe...the belt smoked, I suppose the rubber tire thing the belt is is kind of ossified after this time, hmmm...well anyway, me and sewing machines...in high school we made our own dresses and we were styling...they were all Aline minis, in cotton pique, cotton sateen, sometimes with a matching triangle bandana or not...always tights in some bright color..I guess I'm going on and I'll be stiff when I get up and so forth and so on into the night, adios..
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