Bread to die for

We received our first snowfall of the season one day last week, so that made for a good day of staying indoors and baking.

One recipe I decided to try for the first time was Crusty Bread from Simply So Good.

I don't remember how I learned about this recipe, but it probably was recommended on someone's website, so I bookmarked it for a time when I could give it a try.

It's an usual recipe compared with my other bread recipes. It requires no kneading, which isn't terribly unusual, but once the dough is mixed together, it needs to sit for 12-24 hours at room temperature in order to "proof."

Then, when it's ready for the oven, it is placed in a preheated cast-iron Dutch oven or casserole, or anything that can stand a heat setting of 450° and has a tight-fitting cover.

It's baked for 30 minutes with the cover on, then 15 more minutes with the cover off.


Oh. My. Word.

This bread is super-delicious. As evidence of that, compare the two photos of the loaf on the left, before and after dinner that evening.

I have a small confession, though. Since I  mixed up the dough around 10:00 a.m., and since the dough kept rising to giddy heights and trying to escape the bowl entirely, and since I'd stirred it down to get it under control at least three times and I wasn't sure it was even supposed to be stirred once, and since I didn't want to be baking bread somewhere between 10:00 p.m. and 10:00 a.m. the next day, I baked it after only six or seven hours of proofing. The dough didn't seem to mind at all; it was really, really, really tasty.

Next time I'll plan ahead a little better and mix up the dough around 6:00 a.m., just to see if it's even better if it's proofed longer.

But I honestly don't know how it could be.

Evolution, of sorts

This is how I kept myself from going over the edge the past few days.

I began this project just as whisperings of an approaching "storm of the century" began to be tossed about.

I continued it with abandon during Monday as Hurricane Sandy/the nor'easter made themselves known.

I even spent two of those days knitting a silly tiny blanket to go with the little critter. I couldn't help myself. The texture of the blanket is so interesting that I had to see it to the finish line.

 As you can see, I held off adding the eyes, nose, and mouth as long as possible. That's always the most nerve-wracking step, because one little slip of the needle can give the intended a bizarre expression.


(This is another Fuzzy Mitten design. I love her knitting patterns with their easy-to-follow instructions.)

Ta-dah! Done! Facial features added this morning.

So this is how I got through Hurricane Sandy and the aftermath.

But as it turned out, we didn't see much damage here in Maine. Lots of power outages, but we even escaped that. Lots of dead trees or at least some of their limbs downed, but all in all, we came out of it mighty lucky.

The folks down in New York, New Jersey, Virginia, etc., though, are in a terrible dilemma. My thoughts are with them.

John, Elaine, and my camera

Lately I've been harassed by two dreams, very different dreams, but dreams that plague me almost every night.

In one dream I'm with my two best friends from high school, John and Elaine. We aren't high-school age, though; we're our current late-60's ages. In the dream John and Elaine are now married or are about to be married. The status of their relationship varies from one episode to another. Last night, when I had this dream, they were already married. In reality, John is married to Kathy, and Elaine is married to Ed.

Each time I have this dream, I'm disturbed that John and Elaine are together. I feel they've betrayed me, I guess. Maybe I wanted dibs on John, but Elaine got to him first. I'm not sure.

That's about it for that dream.

The second dream, even more disturbing, involves my camera. I have this dream often, too. According to the dream, Ken and I are traveling, I spot a scene or event that MUST be captured by my camera, but  try as I might to snap a picture, the camera won't "click." I try and try. I practically break the camera. I try pushing down on the button with my index finger, then with my thumb. Nothing happens. No click. The scene or event gets by me. All is lost.

This will probably be my dream tonight, since I devoted last night's dream time to John and Elaine. But at least that dream had a new chapter added: I was beginning to teach Elaine to knit while John sat nearby. I see a peaceful ending to this one, but I don't know what to do about my camera.

Assessing the earthquake damage, and other things

Perhaps you heard about the 4.0 magnitude earthquake in Maine last evening.  First there was a loud ka-boom, then a bit of rumbing/rattling, then an even louder ka-boom, with more rattling.

I was at a meeting of my sorority in Gorham at the time. We ladies were startled, of course, and at a loss as to what had just happened. Some said furnace explosion, others said plane crash, still others said cyber attack, and yet others said earthquake.

Everyone grabbed her cell phone, but none of the cell phones worked. That's when I began to get concerned. Maybe it was a cyber attack.

Finally one lady got a call through to 911 by using a land-line phone. She was immediately told an earthquake, centered about 20 miles east of Gorham, had occurred.

Actually the epicenter was about three miles from my home. Ken and the dog were home at the time. I don't know if Molly sensed the impending quake or not. Dogs have a sixth sense when it comes to that sort of thing, but it could be she was wallowing in a delicious dream and simply couldn't bring herself up for air.

Anyway, this morning Ken and I assessed the damage at our house. There's a fresh crack in the plaster of one living room wall.

Little piggy, here, fell from the shoulders of his piggy buddy on my cup and saucer rack. He sustained damage, actually severe damage, to his right foot, as you can see.

Upstairs at Ken's desk he discovered a cup of pencils had been knocked over.

That's about it. I suspect that was probably as severe as the damage proved to be for most folks. Today bridges in our area are being checked for damage, but so far nothing has been found.

I remember an earthquake in this area about 25 years ago, and that one sounded much different. It began as the rumbling sound of a train approaching, except there was no train. China on my hutch rattled a bit. This earthquake consisted of loud booms.

 

Moving on, this is what I found on my kitchen counter when I got home last night. I never know what I'll find on my counters. Ken explained he's calibrating something, no doubt for his Model A, and "the calibrating can be done only on the kitchen counter."

Whatever. This, too, shall pass.

And finally, the knitted dog. He's completed. He's another of Fuzzy Mitten's patterns.The only thing that bothers me is that he seems to look more like a lamb disguising himself as a dog, than an actual dog.

I tucked him in with the penguin and lamb to try to distract viewers from his non-canine appearance.

Now I'm focusing on finishing a pair of knitted socks for Ken. Knitting socks is tedious, especially when they're man's socks on a size 2 needle. I'll be glad to see them done.

We had a solid frost last night. The outside annuals are officially dead. Ken's outside with his little garden tractor this afternoon, using the leaf sweeper to remove mounds of oak leaves from our lawns. I'm sure this is only the first of many afternoons he'll spend doing this between now and the first snowfall.

It's time to put away plant pots and other garden paraphernalia and hunker down for the winter ahead, an earthquake-free winter, I hope.

Meet Pete

This is Pete, a penguin. I always find it encouraging when I hold up a newly-knitted creature for Ken to identify, and he identifies it correctly. When I held up Pete, Ken said, "Penguin." Phew. If he'd said "aarvark" or "hippopotamus," I'd have been a tad discouraged.

Pete came into this world via Barbara Prime's Fuzzy Mitten patterns. I enjoy Barbara Prime's designs because they're so knitter-friendly. Also, each creature has a wardrobe to be knitted, so that finishes off each one nicely.

Soon a puppy will be joining Pete. Stay tuned.

Jean, 1: Deer and hornworms, 0, and other stuff

This post is a conglomeration of various topics, as you'll soon see.

I'll start with the "other stuff."

Here we have a lobsterman, out checking his traps just off shore near the Lobster Shack in Cape Elizabeth.

Ken and I went to the Lobster Shack one day last week, a Monday, in fact. thinking we wouldn't have to fight the crowds to place our order.

We were wrong. Apparently the tourists don't all go back to their respective states once Labor Day has passed. We waited in line about 30 minutes before ordering, then sat at a picnic table while our order was being prepared. The wait was worth it, though. Delicious lobster rolls.

After leaving the Lobster Shack on Two Lights Road, we drove out to Portland Head Light on Shore Road in Cape Elizabeth. It's called "the most photographed lighthouse in the world," and I know I've done my share of that abundant photographing. It's a lighthouse that looks beautiful in any weather, so it's fun to capture its beauty on each visit.

I thought we'd head home after leaving the light house, but Ken suggested we drive into Portland to check out the cruise ship currently in port. It was the Celebrity Summit, and it was large. Ken assured me, though, that much larger cruise ships come into Portland Harbor over the course of the summer and fall.

We checked out the stern....

...and the bow, and we watched its passengers wending their way from the shops in the Old Port back to the ship. There were hundreds of them.







So that was a pleasant late-summer day, a chance to squeeze out a last bit of Maine summer beauty before facing the winter ahead.

This photo, completely unrelated to the above, obviously, is here merely to give you a chuckle. It's what happens to the simmering spaghetti sauce when one thinks she'll dash to her computer for a quick little browse and gets lost in the maze that is cyberspace.

If only I'd thought to put the cover on the Dutch oven before abandoning it!

Remember my concerns about the deer who wandered dangerously close to my garden, and about the hornworms who took a shine to some of my tomato plants?

Well, I won! As you can see by the tomatoes and green peppers here, my garden was a success. The items here in the photo are only the final vegetables I picked; I've been canning tomatoes, making spaghetti sauce (as you saw above), and chopping and freezing green peppeprs. I've also made and frozen two large batches of dynamites--not the explosive kind, but the eating kind.

I like honesty, though, so I suppose I should confess my garden wasn't a complete success. The cucumbers and zucchini stopped producing way too early, the pumpkin plants yielded only three pumpkins, the beets I planted never did come up, and a little critter of some kind, possibly a mouse, took a liking to one of my butternut squashes, eating a large hole into its very core, for heaven's sake. But all in all, my garden did pretty well despite the heavy, drowning rains we got for over a week right after planting in June.

Finally, I thought you might like to see my assistant in all things culinary. If I'm in the kitchen, she's there, too. She usually sets up a roadblock, like this one, which means I have to carefully step over her as I move about the kitchen. I wouldn't dream of asking her to move. I've even been known to say, "Excuse me, Molly," when I carefully step over her.

So that's that. A mish-mash of topics.

Clever guy

Ken's found solutions for my dilemmas so many times over the years that it's not even funny. If something breaks, he finds a way to fix it. If something needs to be invented, he invents it.

His newest invention, mounted on the bedroom wall just minutes ago, is this display area for my necklaces and bracelets.

I don't have a lot of jewelry, and I definitely don't have a lot of expensive jewelry, but what little I do have I seldom think to wear. The main reason for that is because I keep it scattered in various little jewelry boxes. I forget what I have, or I remember what I have but don't take the time to put it on.

The problem is now solved, at least partially. I say partially because I could use another one of these, much larger, but for now, this will do.

Ken took an old picture frame, cut a piece of plywood to fit it, covered the plywood backing with fabric, and inserted about two dozen hooks.

Voila! A place to hang bracelets and necklaces, within handy reach as I dress for a special occasion. Now let's see if I start wearing jewelry more frequently.