Man, our kitchen was built By Short People For Short People. As a result, I have 2 permanent bruises above and center of my temples from slamming my face into the stove hood and the cupboard doors all day.
I consider the bruises my Proofs of Deliciousness, as Souxie and I are going to try and bake all our own bread at home, starting 2 weeks ago. I know it sounds completely over-ambitious, but it's so freaking cheap that the little squirrell who compells all my actions just can't resist. (Just Flour! and Water that comes out of the Sink! and Yeast that only costs $.98 an Ounce! No wonder people have been doing this since they dusted off their knuckles.)
Painful, Thrifty, Delicious.
Posted by Sonya at February 8, 2006 02:11 PMMy grandmother baked 13 loaves of bread every Saturday of my mom's entire childhood. She had 8 kids (which you probably wouldn't want) and really strong arms (which you gotta respect).
There's a possibly-apocryphal family story about the time Gram left seven of the kids at home while she went to church, and they ate twelve loaves of the bread and hollowed out the thirteenth from the bottom.
Posted by: molly at February 8, 2006 02:34 PM"and hollowed out the thirteenth from the bottom."
This reminds me of a (not so) clever trick my brothers and I used to pull to ascertain the flavors of chocolates.
And Hey, SJET! With a few minor modifications to this basic recipe, you can make your own beer, too!
Posted by: COMTE at February 9, 2006 12:02 AMI love baking my own bread. I don't do it enough, but it's so much better than most of what I can get at the store. And nothing makes the house smell better than baking bread.
Posted by: fishd at February 9, 2006 12:22 AMActually, with a few minor modifications, you can use this recipe to make a Lotus Exiqe supercar with GRP hand-laid composite fiberglass body, aero-package (hardtop, front spiltter, rear wing and underbody diffuser), LED taillights with integral reflectors, black mesh front brake ducts and rear duffuser with central twin exhaust.
All you need is some flour, some yeast, some water, and a Lotus Exiqe supercar. It's awesome.
Posted by: Joshua at February 9, 2006 03:53 AMJosh, how is it that you have something like that sitting on top of your brainpan? Does Appalachia know about this?
http://www.seriouswheels.com/2005/2005-Lotus-Sport-Exige-FA-1024x768.htm
Posted by: John Galt at February 9, 2006 08:42 AMi made my first loaf of non-quickbread bread in december, and: man. so, so, so much work for one damned loaf of bread. clearly the way to do it is to make a crapload at once, but . . . i guess you can't do anything else that day.
do you have some sort of doughable appliance? because i seriously wanted some dough hooks after doing it with my hands once. i honor your strength.
it was fun, though. maybe i should do it again.
Posted by: louella at February 9, 2006 11:35 AMi think this would be a good time to admit my unnatural love for my bread maker. the ingredients are still cheap and the bread happens while i'm sleeping, so when i wake up, it's as if the bread fairy has visited.
Posted by: raej at February 9, 2006 12:19 PMSouxie got a ktchnaide mixer for Cmas, so we're dough-hooking like nuts. To much better results than any of my hand-knead attempts. I only touch the dough when it's time for shaping.
Posted by: sonya at February 9, 2006 12:50 PMGee, it must be SO hard being average height to tall and hitting your head on things. I mean really, it must be SUCH a really awful thing to be able to reach upper shelves and the top of the fridge and not have to buy cars based on whether you can see over the dashboard. It must be such a drag to buy skirts and pants off the rack and not have to cut at least 4 inches off of them...>
Sorry I just started choking on my own bitterness.
Posted by: JtothP at February 10, 2006 05:42 PM