Homemaker's News And A Bread Recipe

It's been a busy week so far. There was a birthday on Monday, visiting on Tuesday and yesterday evening we had to bring our second car to the garage and then spent the rest of the evening by the seaside. Tomorrow I'm expecting guests again and Friday evening there will be another birthday.

Last Saturday we went to Delft and I bought a book in the second-hand store, one by Ellis Peters, the author of Brother Cadfael mysteries. This one was about Inspector Felse. I read it all in one evening and came to the conclusion that though it was OK, Ellis Peters will never become my favourite author. Why is it that the English lady authors have such a love for all things ghastly?

I remember Agatha Christie's descriptions of the agony caused by various poisons, gory battle scenes in the story about William The Conqueror, in Rebecca the husband shot his pregnant wife (well, at least he did think she was pregnant. Now Ellis Peters apparently loved to write about skeletons, skulls and bones though one of her books I read was mostly about hanging.

A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs  (that's how this book is caled) also  had a lady buried alive, smugglers, secret tunnels, caves and the boy discovering that the people he thought his parents really were not. And it all happened in Cornwall, too. I think by now I have a collection of books about smugglers in Cornwall hiding their smuggleware in secret tunnels and caves:) The book also had a love story in it and a sort of open ending and a moral lesson about not being an egoist. So I decided to keep it.

The cat is still at home. His wounds are nearly healed, he doesn't have to wear his funny cap any more and is allowed to go on the terrace upstairs, where there is no danger for him to run into one of his fine friends with long claws. He protests, of course, as he probably misses them:)

In other news, the bread-baker died last week. We ordered another on the net, it arrived last Thursday and after working for 5 minutes, died, too, so that I had to make bread by hand. (I discovered that I still know how to do it). Mind you, it wasn't mine idea to order it on the net, I suggested buying one in the store, but my husband thought otherwise. On the plus side, he also arranged everything to do with returning it.

I decided to copy the recipe from the manual and baked another loaf yesterday. Here is what I got:

Now that's what I call Big and Beautiful:)

Here is the recipe (with some slight adjustments, as usual):

320 ml water
2 TBSP butter/vegetable oil
1 tsp salt
3 TBSP sugar
2 TBSP milk/buttermilk (I used buttermilk both times as I had no milk at the moment)
4c flour/whole wheat flour + 1 TBSP (I normally use ab. 3 1/2 c normal flour + 1/2c wholewheat,  less wholewheat and more white flour is OK, too).
1 tsp yeast

Add the ingredients in the order they are named, mix and knead on the floured surface for ab. 5-6 min. Put into a greased bowl, turning once to grease top. Cover and let rise for ab 1 hr, knead for 1-2 min, shape into a loaf of your choise ( I usually leave the dough as it is), place on a greased baking sheet, cover and let rise for 1 more hour. Bake for +/- 35 min, first at 225*C, then at 200*C. Enjoy!