ITS BREAD -

Did you ever feel as tho you had lost your good right arm? I do - my car is in the shop and I must stay home. Gosh! not that I had any place to go it's just that I can't. Knowing that that was going to happen, on Monday evening I got out my sour dough starter and started my bread making process. This is the sour dough that I got going this summer when the weather was really hot. I find that is the best time to make a starter, altho, I try to keep my starters for several years. I find the cook book shown here has the best sour dough as well as other bread receipts.

This is what my sour dough looks like. It is very thick since I pour the "liquor" off when I feed or use it. I like it thick and very "yeasty" smelling and very bubbly.

This is the starter combined with flour, water and honey, ready to sit and proof overnight.

After sitting in the oven to keep it from drafts, it looks like this the next morning. It is bubbly, and has risen slightly.

After adding all of the other ingredients and kneading it in the mixer for 10 minutes this is the way it looks when I turn it out of the bowl onto a floured cloth. At this point the dough is very silvery. After about 2 minutes of hand kneading it looks like satin!

Into an oiled bowl for the first rising.

It has risen! At this point I punch it down and let it rest for 10 minutes. Then divide it into four loaves.

Into the bread pans for the second rising and then into the oven at 350 degrees for 50 minutes.

The finished product. There is something so wonderful about the smell of baking bread. The aroma goes thruout the whole house. What better perfume could there be in a home on a cold fall day?

My daughter Joan came by yesterday afternoon just as the loaves came from the oven. Naturally I gave her a loaf to take home. When I spoke to her that evening I suggested that she and her husband toast slices for breakfast this morning. She said I was already to late, her husband had already cut the bread and after tasting he did not cut another slice but instead cut a slab! She remarked that I had not made bread for a long time and she was glad that I was doing it again. She also remarked that she didn't think that I had ever bought a loaf of bread as long as her daddy was alive. I hadn't thought about that in a long time but I do think that she is right. I remember when she and her sister were young they would go to their girl friends house and ask the mother for a piece of "store boughten bread." KIDS!

Since I am house bound today I will be tackling the repair of a hooked rug. More about this later. In the meantime, it is coffee time and I need to get my day started. Have a good day everyone.

SIDEBAR -

Happy Birthday Kathy Laird Harris

Doris