Brrrrr. It's chilly.

I caved in.  Every year I try not to put the heat on until Oct. 15.  No good reason, just an attempt to be frugal.  I almost made it this year except that it is 62 deg F in my house and I'm chilly.  So, I just put it up to 65, and I can smell that warm air, and it's getting a bit warmer.  But I came close to that Oct 15 moment.

Yesterday I finished up the bagels.  Well, old bagels get like hockey pucks, at least they're supposed to get that hard, and I didn't want my tasty bagels to get to that point.  So, I sacrificed and ate the last couple of them.  And that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Then I baked some cinnamon bread.  We're about half through it, and it's wonderful!  Mmmmm.

The normal bread pattern plus I added 3 TB of nonfat drymilk powder for extra tastiness and nourishment, and dumped in a bit of Ceylon Cinnamon, and then rolled it out when it finished rising, and spread a little bit of melted butter and sprinkled on some cinnamon/sugar.  We are talking delicious here.

Here's my formula for my everyday bread.  I knead in the bread machine, but you can do it by hand, in the KitchenAid, in the food processor.

1 cup warm water
1 tsp Diamond Kosher salt (less sodium than table salt, and still as good)
3 cups flour, either all-purpose or bread flour, depending on what kind of bread I'm making.            
1 tsp yeast, the kind that goes into a machine.  Nope, you don't need more. 

I add biga, or nonfat dry milk or buttermilk powder, or different flours, herbs, seeds, whatever I want.  I use King Arthur flour almost exclusively.  It's good stuff and employee owned.  White, brown sugar, or honey if I want a sweet dough.  I haven't tried agave syrup, although I should since it's very low on the glycemic index.

I use only one tsp of yeast.  Many, many years ago, I would use a yeast packet, and my bread always tasted too yeasty.  So one day I got brave and went down to a teaspoon.  Bread tastes wonderful, rises well, and I never add any more yeast unless I'm making a very sweet dough, in which case I add maybe 1/8 tsp more.  I buy my yeast in bulk, also from King Arthur.  One pound of Fleischmann's yeast runs me about $7.95, and easily lasts a year.  I keep some of it in a jar in the refrigerator, and the rest in the freezer.  If you bake a lot of bread, buying in a one-pound package is the way to go.



I generally use white flour, but will substitute white whole wheat flour, or rye or semolina or oat or whatever is around.  I don't like whole wheat bread.  Really don't like it at all.  I know, it's good for me.  Piffle.  I eat bread because I love it, not as a form of medicine.  And besides, when I snack, it's not because I'm stomach hungry, but becase I want something in my mouth.  Ergo, I make bread that I love.  Food police: too bad.

So, I mix up my dough, let it rise until it is where I want it to be, knock it down, shape it, cover and let rise about 45 minutes more.  After 30 minutes, I heat the oven to 500 deg. F.  Yes, 500 deg!  When the bread is fully risen, then I slash it, smear something on it or not, put it on a piece of reusible parchment paper, which is on top of a cookie sheet, put it in the oven, shut the door, REDUCE the heat to 425 for regular breads, and 375 for sweet breads and bake it.  When it's done, I give it the "knock" test, i.e. I rap it with my knuckles and if it has that hollow sound, it's done.  Take it out of the oven, put it on a cake rack and let it cool.  The parchement paper comes in sheets and is totally reusible.  I have had my original 100 sheet batch for many years.  I don't bake cookies often, so it really lasts a long time.

Yes, I know all about baking stones, own one in fact.  And I do sometimes spray water to give it that steamy moment.  And I often let the dough or shaped loaf rise in the refrigerator to get that extra taste, but honestly, my parchement over cookie sheet gives me a great crunchy crust, and the bread really does crackle when I take it out of the oven.  I don't like very dark crust; it tastes burnt to me, so I don't bake my bread forever.  In fact, I don't do half the rules about bread baking.  I've been doing this for 35 years, and I think I have it pretty much down pat.  Except for getting real bagels.  That eludes me, but I love my crunchy bagels so much, that it's fine.  I read bread books all the time, and own a few amazing ones.  But the truth is that I never weigh ingredients, or follow formulas except for mine.  However, I do pay a lot of attention to the dough when it is beginning to knead, and add bits of water, or flour as I think the dough requires it.

On the needles:  My 2 latest projects.  The little blue scarf that I showed you yesterday.  I would have more done, but I needed a nap.

And the Janus Scarf, which is motoring along very speedily.  And it lives in this adorable sock bag that I got from ZigZag Stitches.  Cute, huh?

And now the house is warmer and I'm a happy camper.

Scrabblequeen - I am so sick and tired of "eat this; it will let you live 100 years more".  I want my food to be healthy and tasty, but I'm not going to eat 1/4 cup of something I don't like to live longer.  Enough already with the food scare of the week.

itsJUSTme - You just wish.  There are never any leftovers.  

Field Trips

Masala Dosa!

The Hubbo and I love to do 1 day field trips, and this weekend we did 2 of them. It really felt as if we were on vacation for those days. Friday, we went to Nyack, which is a little town on the Hudson River. We were there a number of years ago and were not impressed. I suspect that we didn't really explore enough, but this time we just loved it. Nice yarn shop (nope, I didn't buy. Like I need yarn!), lots of restaurants, pretty shops, the whole works.

From there we went on to a local Christmas Tree Shop. For those of you unfamiliar with the CTS, it started out as a little shop on Cape Cod, then expanded into a bunch of little shops, and then finally became the mecca for all things inexpensive, seasonal, and necessary for one's happiness. Where else can you find really pretty paper napkins at a cheap price? And stuff. More stuff than you can imagine. Nope, no Christmas trees, but lots of goodies like different plastic laundry baskets, cheapy china, great food bargains. I bought a bunch of napkins in autumn prints, and of course the best ginger cookies around, Anna's Ginger Cookies!

And then we ended up having supper at a dosa house not far from home. Dosas are these marvelous Indian pancakes filled with a spicy potato mixture. They are huge! We loved it so much that we went back on Sunday with DD#1, ate more dosa and then had uttapam. We were in serious Indian pancake heaven.

Part of the fun of the dosa house was the TV program. Bollywood MTV, with Tamil subtitles. As if we can read Tamil. We can't read Sanskrit either. But the music and the dancing were so infectious that it didn't matter.

And then on Saturday, we trained into the city to the Rubin Museum, which features Himalayan art. Wow! And afterward, walked back to Penn Station via 6th Ave, which had a multi-block street fair going on. Such fun.

And as a topper to a grand weekend, the Benster, Little Lili and their dad came out to visit on Sunday, and were joined by DD#1. It was so much fun!

Projects finished and in the works: Sorry, knitters, I'm still in this major crochet mode. I actually finished another crocheted scarf, and of course, promptly began another one. This is a serious sickness without a cure, I'm afraid.

My green crochet scarf. This is the most mindless, delightful fabric, easy and pleasant to do.




Here is the brand-new red scarf. Those neat little vertical ridges are done with post stitches, which I learned how to do. Easy, much easier than the instructions would have you believe.



Yet another ripple scarf.




A bit of progress on my granny ripple blankie.



pendie - I used to think so too, plus the bad old 1970's crochet was really ugly, so I ignored it from high school on. and nobody used doilies, so that was that. Then my sister, the evil enabler, started crocheting a few years ago, and she sort of got me into it.

What I love about making scarves is that they are fairly quick, take one skein of sock yarn, and give a lot of charm for not too much work. Plus they are very portable. I crochet on the train, sometimes in the car, when waiting for the movie to start, in front of the TV, etc, etc, so easy and portability are high on my list.

I'm going to post some of the crochet patterns as I go along. They are all in the public domain, and are so basic that I don't want to charge for them. And here's the best thing: you don't have to commit to making an afghan or blankie!

itsJUSTme - Nah, I think you should buy yarn whenever you wish if you can afford it. I do worry about folks who buy when money is tight because they feel they will never see that yarn again. So that's why my answer: there's always more yarn.

Me, on the other hand, live in yarn craziness. I have so much of it, and can't bear to part with my favorites either. One of these years, I'm going to destash!

Scrabblequeen - Tee hee.

KV - We're lucky that we have 2 places where we can get dosa. Just writing this makes me want one!

The Yarnarian is Still Hooked!

Crazed Hooker Hooks Again!

This crazy crochet moment seems to be lasting a lot longer than a moment. It's consuming my little brain, and not much knitting is getting done.

Look what I picked up on Saturday at Kinokuniya (wonderful Japanese bookstore):




These all have the stitches charted out, no written instruction, which is just as well since I don't read Japanese. I'm learning how to read these, and it's really easier than full written instructions. I can do back and forth now, and next is figuring out how to do motifs.

Here's a book with both knitting and crochet patterns. It's gorgeous.



Crochet projects: These are my current madness. Yep, I have 2 lap blankies in process, but I'm just showing you the scarves.




And one lone shawl (not counting the lace one in progress):



I have no plans on writing this up as I'm inventing as I knit, and for once I really just want to knit it, not keep track of what I'm doing.

Ria - I went to the one in Nyack. sometimes I go into the city, but not this time.

Vaughnde - You are so right! Crochet is wonderful. It is, however, much harder on my body and my eyes. Different muscles, plus I can knit without looking at what I'm doing unless it's cables or such. Crochet I have to constantly look. But still, those incredible fabrics that you can do in crochet!!!

itsJUSTme - You are so right. I get lost in all the directions in written-out patterns, knit as well as crochet.