Let's Try To Get A Picture-Again!

This is my little hat I told you about in last blog. It is so teeny-weeny, but new babies are teeny-weeny. Unless it's my baby. He was HUGE!
This is my newest project finished! I never did make the sour dough starter. But I have been holding onto the recipe for the No Knead Bread from the NY Times. I had little faith in the results, although others have stated it is good. Well...... Let me be the one to say, this is Good Bread! It is so easy. I started the dough yesterday around 12:30p.m. We had a huge power failure for over an hour. HOT! HOT! I forgot about the dough until this morning. I peeked at it, deemed it okay to start the final countdown. It never did bubble, but the dough was pulling away from the edges in long shaggy pieces. I folded it up as required, put it to rest in two linen towels. Two hours later I plopped it onto the parchment paper, stuck it onto the preheated baking stone,threw some ice cubes into a hot cast iron skillet, and it came out crusty all the way around. As you can see, it has a good crumb, it is very light in flavor (not yeasty or heavy flour taste), and has a distinctly chewy crust. I give this recipe a two-thumbs up!

Next time I am going to experiment with the flours a little bit. I only substituted about 1/2 cup of bread flour with 50/50 wheat/white flour. I like my pumpernickel or rye a little bit heavy, but other bread I like a light taste. Heavier bread is okay in the winter time with soups, but I like a lighter bread with salads.

So on to knitting news. Let's see. I decided to do a coupla more squares on the mitred mess. Yeah, I know, it is supposed to be put up for a while. But Susan suggested I might tuck in my loose ends as I go, and that's where I started. I ended up with 5 new squares, and the loose ends tucked in. So it can go back into a safe place for now. I have been carding and spinning in the early hours. I am kinda anxious to see the new Twisted Sisters Sweater Book. Maybe I will get some ideas there. I like their sock book, but I don't use it that often as a reference.

Otherwise, I am still trying to get a job, I am still cleaning away at the mess, and I just read a really good book by Ann Hood, Somewhere Off The Coast of Maine . I like the way she develops her characters. It is the story of three women that meet as freshmen in college in 1966. It is interesting how she develops the characters with the social contexts of our culture changes at that time. And how their lives develop over the years.

Joan at the library just called. She has a request in, and I guess I will run into the library and get that and finish up my clean up project from this a.m. Later!