Baking Bread

I decided to bake bread this weekend, not just plain bread, but stuffed broccoli bread. From time to time when we visit family in Connecticut we go to an Italian bakery to get broccoli bread. It is soooo good!!!

I have made bread on many occasions; I even have a bread machine. But this time I decided to make the bread from scratch. I did this about a month ago and it came out great. I am making these decisions on Friday while at work, but as the day wore on and I got more and more busy, I decided with all the other stuff I had to do at home, I would take a short cut and use the frozen bread dough you get at the grocery store. I stopped at the store on the way home and picked up the package of 2 frozen loafs.

The instructions on the package say to let it thaw in the refrigerator overnight. When I got up on Saturday morning I started by cooking the broccoli and sausage to stuff the bread with. As this stuffing was cooling, I took the bread dough and formed two Italian bread shapes. Now my house isn’t all the warm in the winter, so I decided to help the rising cycle by heating my oven to 175 degrees. Once the oven reaches 175 degrees, I shut of the oven and placed the cookie sheet with the dough (covered by a clean towel) on the rack to rise. I went about cleaning the house (everyone else was still asleep) so this was a good time to do it. I went to check on the bread about 2 hours later and found that it has risen beautifully. I went to punch it down and stuff it with the broccoli mixture and noticed that a crust had formed on the top of the bread. Great! I had forgotten to brush the top of the loaves with oil so this would not happen. Now this is the first think you learn in Junior High cooking class. Well I can deal with this, but what I should have done, I didn’t and what I did I should not have. What I should have done was turn the bread over, stuff it from the bottom and seal it up, brush the top with oil and let it rise again. What I did was try to knead the dough and see it the crust would mix in. Well it didn’t. What I got was a mess. I threw the whole lot away. I decided to start over and get more dough when I went grocery shopping.

Well on Sunday and I bought more frozen bread dough. I decided to buy the six loaf bag, figuring I would keep some in the freezer. I put the bag on the side counter while I put away groceries. I started dinner and while it was cooking, I went into the living room to watch a quick show. We ate dinner and did dishes and than I sat down to watch the Oscars. I never even gave the dough a thought………….until I was getting ready for bed. I remembered that I hadn’t put it in the refrigerator and it had thawed out. I figured it would be ok and put it in the fridge for the next day when I could bake it.

It is now Monday morning, I get up to get ready for work. I have to feed the cats and puppy dog. I go to the refrigerator and there it is a big PUFFED up bag of dough! It looks like it is about to explode, for some reason it had begun to rise in the chilly air of the refrigerator. Oh my, oh my I think as I am looking at it. I hope this will be ok for later when I have to bake it. I leave big notes everywhere for everyone to leave the bag alone or else suffer the mess should it explode.

I am home now and just looking at the dough, hoping and praying that when I pop open the bag things will be alright. I have visions of the dough all over the place taking over and growing wild. Here goes, I pop open the bag and the dough just sort of shrinks a little. Kind of disappointing, after all of the fears I had. Oh well, I form the bread loafs after stuffing them and they go for one final rising. I am baking them now, they sure smell good, and I just hope they taste good as smell. Next time I am going to make the bread from scratch, it will be a lot less work!!!!

The Exciting Lunch

A funny thing happen to me a few weeks ago at McDonalds drive thru. I went there at lunch. It was one of the nicer days we had, the weather was warm and I had my window open. I waited my turn in line and when I got up to the microphone, it’s the one near the hugh menu sign. You can’t see anyone; you just speak into the box. Well I got up there and started to order a happy meal (this is usually what I get, I like the toys). When all of a sudden I hear someone whistle, like when a construction worker whistles at a good looking girl walking by. I looked all around and did not see anything, (not that I think I am the one being whistled at, but I had to look). I started to order my happy meal and I hear it again. Not once but twice. Well now I am thinking, what the heck is going on? So I say to the speaker “Are you whistling at me?” The voice (young male) says “What?”, again I hear the whistle, so I say to the boy in the box, “Why are you whistling at me?” and he comes back with “I thought you were whistling at me”, now why would I whistle at a 16 year old boy??? Again the whistle sound, at same time we both say “It wasn’t me”. We both laughed and I ordered my happy meal, as I was getting ready to pull up to the next window, I heard the whistle again and the boy voice saying “it’s not me, really”. I stick my head out the window and look around real quick, that’s when I saw him, two cars back, a male friend that I hadn’t seen in a while. He had been doing the whistling all along and was getting a kick out of the fact that I couldn’t figure it out. When I pulled up to the window of the young McDonald’s boy to pay for my order, I had to laugh and explain it was the guy two cars back. I told McDonald’s boy, I really thought it was coming from you and thought boy what Micky D’s wont do to sell a happy meal! He laughed and said he was thinking it was me and didn’t really know what to do. We both had a good laugh and the happy meal toy was cool too!!

The Results of the Sailboat

As I wrote yesterday, The Boy was in the Snow and Ice Festival. He was in the ice carving competion. He did not win any prizes, but he did win in other ways. He finished what he set out to do and made new friends in the process and he gained respect from some very talented ice carvers. His Sailboat came out wonderful!!! It was very detailed and he even used color to accent the piece. The sail looked like it was billowing in the wind and the boat was on ice carved to look like very wavy water. We held our breath during the 4 hours of carving, praying for it not to break. Prayers were answered as it didn't break. People were everywhere walking around looking at all the carvings. He got alot of compliments for his work and many pictures were taken. The local paper came over and did a mini interview with him and took pictures. The Manchester Union reporter did the same. What a wonderful day it turned out to be.
Hubby and I are very proud parents.

It's been a while.........

Well it has been a while since I blogged last. It seems that my computer desk had been invaded by the someone. I have since move The Girl elsewhere and should be able to get to this more often.

Lots have happened in the last few weeks, we have had nice spring like weather and than back to snow and cold. But it is New Hampshire so we should be use to it. I have to say that the small spring break we had has made me wish for the warmer weather really badly. I can't seem to stay focused on much lately, day dreaming about getting outside to breath the new spring air. But spring does have it's challenges around this house.....

During that few nice days of 45 degrees, everything around here melted and started to thaw out. Our back yard was nothing by thick black mud!!! We have to park four cars out there and of course one of them got stuck!!! It was my future daughter-in-law, we will call her "The Girl" since I do call my son "The Boy". I could hear her spinning out side, she came in and said "I'm stuck" we told her to leave it and in the morning when things got chilly again we would better be able to get it out. The Girl decided to give it one more try. The front wheels got buried. Tail between her legs, she came in and in the morning, we were able to pull it out with the truck.
Now we have large track marks in the yard. I have decided to do away with the yard and put in clay pak. It will solve two problems: 1. getting stuck in this weather and 2. not having to mow the lawn. This seems to be our summer problem!!!
Any way the weather has gotten colder and the back lawn still seems to mushy to park on. We are all lined up in the driveway, we have move cars when we need to leave. Boy I want spring in the worst way!!! At least we can walk in the spring.
Tomorrow is the Snow and Ice Festival in our nice town. The Boy(a culinary school grad) was asked to do an ice carving. He has done a few when he was in school. I think he may be stressing a bit on this. After all it is ice and can break easily. We will keep our fingers crossed that nothing happens. It is a competition and there are about 8 people in all, some very skilled in this field. The carvings get very detailed and it is very amazing to see what someone can do with a hugh 300 pound block of ice. There is also going to be a snow sculpture contest as well. Lots of other stuff going on too. It should be a good time. The weather is suppose to be nice, not to cold and not to warm. What more can you ask for, other than keeping your fingers crossed the carving comes out ok!! I think he is doing a sail boat. He must have thoughts of spring as well.