Is It Hot In Here...

Or is it just my warm Rosemary Walnut Loaves?

Yep, I've tried my hand at baking bread, and it looks like I successfully completed my mission!

Exhibit A: Before the oven

Exhibit B: After the oven

A recipe from Cooking Light, it's something one really should take the time to read the entire way through before one proceeds. I scanned the ingredients list and began at 2pm today, while had I read the recipe, I would have known I'd stand in my kitchen four hours later, slicing the bread.

A couple of things: Bread takes time, effort, and patience. I know this now. The latter is always my downfall, so this was practice for me. BIG practice.

There's the rising of the yeast. Then adding the flour and the rest of the ingredients and letting it rise more. Then kneading - despite the stickiness of the dough, you have to knead it for 10 minutes - that's forever in Erin Time, but just right in Bread Time.

I punched it, I poked it, I wrangled with it, and scattered the stubborn sticky lump with flour in 1/4 cup increments just as the good folks at CL told me to, though I was worried at one point that I had more dough stuck to my hands than on my work surface. Once you've sufficiently pummeled the dough, you have to let it rise more. Then divide it, put in on your pan, and let it rise even MORE.

Man, there's a lot of rising involved. Did you catch that part?

But, it appears to be worth it. I now have two tasty rounds of bread cooling in my kitchen. One, for HTT. The other, I may take to work, as we've had a doozy of a time lately over a certain public fiasco. Yeah, it's been a little much lately, and bread is a comforting carb, yes?

It's been a great weekend here for us - we saw two movies at the Brazilian Film Festival at the Landmark E Street Theatre in DC - one of which involved, yes of course, food - Estômago, or A Gastronomic Story.

Let's just say the humor is definitely dark!