It all started out well enough....




Tepid water.

Not too hot.

Not too cold.

Patrick knows how to find this temperature.

He has started yeast for bread thousands of times for hundreds of loaves of bread.




Consulting the recipe.

Again and again.

Jeff Smith
The Frugal Gourmet.

(Remember him? PBS. The Eighties?)





A sponge was made.

It pulled away from the sides.



Exact measurements.




Time to knead.

At this point, it feels too stiff to knead well in the Kitchenaid.





Patrick, beautifully and expertly kneads it by hand.

Watching him handle the dough is really a great thing. He can handle the dough like I can knit.

It's second nature to him.

I give it a try and it feels awkward.

(Which is the way all new things feel, don't you think?)




The finish product.

Not so bad to look at...

but truly inedible.



This baby is hard as stone and tasted unpleasant.


We don't know what happened.


And the only thing we can guess is that the yeast died while we were at church and the bread was rising for it's third and final time.

We proofed it in the bathroom where it was nice and warm.
But perhaps it was too dry.

Patrick expected to see the loaf puff up some when it started to bake.
But he didn't see this.

So. The baker and his wife made two sad loaves of bread.

We are both highly amused and bewildered over our bread baking experiment.
And we will try again soon. With a different recipe.


I can't stop thinking of the lethal loaf of bread from About a Boy.

(Killed a duck)




*****


But all was not lost on Saturday night.


I made Steak Bites.

Steak Bites a la Pioneer Woman

I chopped 'em up.

Fried 'em up.

And we all gobbled them up.

Quickest, most delicious meal I have made in my life.

Yum.

Get yourselves a sirloin this week and fry it up!

I promise you, your family will love it!



And about the bread...
back to the drawing board.


Encourage one another,
Donna