Thanks, waxerlady. I was hoping to have a giant, gaping hole in the middle of my left eyebrow.
And we have bread!
I was all set to have a weeks, months, years long saga of the quest for gluten-free bread that would have the taste, feel, appearance of wheat, rye or otherwise gluten-y bread.
Two weeks ago I started a gluten-free sourdough starter (brown rice and water).
One week ago I made a loaf of sourdough from this recipe.
You see all the ingredients in that? Yeah, it wound up, uh, gummy.
(according to the comments, Annie likes gummy bread so I wish she had been here to eat it) It also wound up short with a fallen dome because, I guess one of the drawbacks is that gluten-free bread is, uh, short in stature and doesn't keep a nice domed top.
This week I decided I'd try a Bette Hagman honey sourdough recipe from this book. For among other reasons, it's one of the only recipes I've found that doesn't use ricotta cheese (I don't understand ricotta's role in it either...), and is entirely lactose free.
Me, not being much of a baker, decided I could make it better, too. Ha! The arrogance of naïveté. So, I omitted the egg replacer, the gelatin, and subbed 1/3 cup of water for the 1 and 2/3 cup water, and after mixing everything for 3 minutes, I added 2/3 of a cup of room temperature club soda.
I plopped it in a greased pan, let it rise for an hour.
(I may have forgotten to mention the last loaf didn't rise at all and that there was a decided lack of air bubbles in it and it was just gross. but the crust was okay!)
Then I baked it for 60 minutes at 350 degrees, and LO! There was bread.
It was the height of the pan, and it didn't fall down. It was airy, the crust was, well, crusty, like sourdough should be.
Now, it's not perfect. I'm hoping that the starter will get more sour the more I use it because, frankly it wasn't sour at all. Next time I'll try either drastically scaling back or omitting the honey because it's a bit more sweet than I can handle. I'm oddly encouraged by this, and hope that in future endeavours, scaling back the wet ingredients will improve ALL of the scratch baking... because every last one has been gummy. (If you're curious, I used a gluten-free flour mix that was 3 parts brown rice, 3 parts sorghum, 2 parts potato starch, 1 part tapioca starch)
I'm just looking forward to cinnamon toast for breakfast tomorrow morning.
You know, if I had a toaster...
(ps - i went to a bridal shower yesterday and they had personalized M&Ms! I also figured out how to work the macro on my new camera, so woo!
)
Ernie with a blue bandana
My little guy, the geriatric, is starting to show his age...
He's getting cataracts... :(
As long as he isn't running into walls, I guess.
Look! Deers!
Yesterday? It was an amazing day. I got a fancy new haircut (woo!), had lunch with a friend, bought a new pair of work shoes. Just before leaving the mall, Pants wanders up and oohs and ahhs over my hair (he's a good boyfriend), and hands me a Nikon Coolpix L18.
You know, since my crappy camera I'd had for 2 years died in December. Time to reiterate the "he's a good boyfriend" parenthetical note.
Before I forget, something many people do not know but that is TOTALLY TRUE: Nordstrom will price match if another retailer carries the same item for less. And has free shipping. And the best return policy and customer service ever.
Anyhow, we've started walking around 2 miles a day, every day. Last night, I'm waffling about whether or not to bring the camera. Decide no, because although Crestwood is beautiful, and abuts Rock Creek Park on 3 sides, there's nothing I feel like photographing in particular.
We had been walking for 15 minutes when I saw a gorgeous flowering tree in front of a gorgeous house in the dusk lighting, and I thought, dude, I wish I had my camera...
About 10 minutes later, we're walking and discussing how we had seen a deer on the park slope about 8-9 months ago. We round the corner, and there's a deer standing in the middle of the road.
There's another deer peeking out between two houses.
The first one makes a break for another backyard, is followed by another deer hiding behind a car. The one between the houses takes off and meets his friends. Then a fourth deer emerges and crosses the road.
The only sound is deer hoofs on the pavement.
We start walking again and see the 4 deer have leapt a fence and are milling about in a backyard eating berries. In the center of the District of Columbia.
I'm never leaving without my camera again.
