A Day Off - April 1, 2022

The Best Boss gave me today off.  She must have felt sorry for me yesterday because of all my sneezing and snorting.  Allergies, I reckon.

As I was on my way home, contemplating how I would spend this free day and the upcoming weekend, it occurred to me that, allergies be damned, I really should work in the yard.  It'll soon be time to mow.  Recent storms littered the ground with limbs and sticks and sweet gum balls that'll have to be picked up and raked up before we can mow.   But our big plastic yard rake has about 3 teeth left in it, so I stopped at the hardware store and bought two more rakes - one plastic, one metal.  One for me, one for The Husband.

But The Husband may not be using his rake this weekend.  There's a big old tree laying squarely across the garden.  It fell earlier this month when we had several days of rain followed by an ice storm followed by more rain.  We can't do anything in the garden until the tree is removed.  And it's driving Nanny crazy to see it every morning through her kitchen window.  The Husband has called Son #1 to come over with his chainsaw and The Grandson tomorrow.  I expect they'll be sawing and tractoring most of the day.  

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I had a break-through yesterday.

Well, really the break-through happened the day before.

I think I told you that I bought a bread machine, and that my first loaf - a whole wheat loaf - had flopped.  Collapsed.  Even though I followed the recipe to the letter, or so I thought.

I HAVE NEVER BEEN ABLE TO MAKE A DECENT LOAF OF WHOLE WHEAT BREAD.

Over the next few days, I made a couple of loaves of regular white bread.  Those loaves came out fine, so the night before last I decided to try the wheat bread again.  It collapsed.  WTF?

As I was cleaning up the measuring cups and spoons, it hit me what went wrong.  The recipe called for two eggs plus some water to equal 1-1/4 cups of liquid.  I had been using 1-1/4 cups of liquid PLUS the two eggs.  

Yesterday, as soon as I got home from work, I started another loaf of whole wheat bread, measuring the liquid correctly.  AND IT WORKED!  The bread rose and did not collapse during baking!  I took it out of the pan, let it cool, and sliced it.  I ate the crusty, butter-slavered butt, right away.  It was delicious.

Yay!

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