Increasing finally!

There it is with three of the four setup charts done. Finally at the part where the increases in the front sides start to happen. I'll still be doing that basic pattern in the back center, but from now on, there's increasing going on. Yay!

Dawn-Marie was here and we got two naalbinding needles done for her. She managed to take off a bit of skin on her right finger. Belt sanders, they're blood hungry beasts! Nice blog post on 'qualities of a good needle.'

Some laundry progress. Hair re-colored. It's fall so Garnier Nutrisse's Black Cherry. It gives my hair a few days of a purple tint before it settles down to something very close to my own reddish-brown. Okay, there is less of a hard line of color grow out. ;-) I've tried other brands but they are very drying on my hair. Since the two white streaks showed up in the back of my hair at 19, I've chosen to color. You get tired of people asking if you painted over the weekend and haven't washed the paint out of your hair really quickly.

Tried a coffee bread this morning. It uses leftover coffee as the liquid and some spices. Since I only had half a cup, I went with the small loaf. It also used the left out, expired bread yeast, so may not have risen as high. It wasn't dense, but it is short. Then I also have to remember that we have the rectangular loaf pan that is wide not, tall. The outside crisped up, so the crust is crunchy. I'm also learning that it helps to scrape the sides of the pan while its mixing so that all the flour gets wet. I did a bit with this loaf, but it needed a bit more. 

I like the bread. It's a dark, flavorful bread, good with butter and my cup of coffee. Looking forward to having some with tomorrow's coffee. Might lightly toast it to warm it up, but not too much!

If you're interested in the recipe, let me know.

Someone shared this on Facebook and thought I would share a link here. Star Wars snowflake templates. One of the guys at Brandon's work got one done today. Took a sharp exacto knife and patience. I think he was working on the AT-AT but it was going to take a different knife to cut it out. 

Give them bread!

Okay, the first of the month budget was such that grocery shopping didn't happen, so we ran out of bread. Looked in the pantry and yup, in the back corner of a shelf was the breadmaker. Collecting dust and neglected.

Pulled out one of those half books on bread machines and found a recipe that I had all the ingredients for, thankfully there was also bread flour in the pantry!

I did the medium loaf of white bread and forgot that it was a 2lb bread machine. It seemed kind of small when done and medium gave it a dark brown crust. The bread was still good!

This morning I decided to try out the oat bread. Went for the large loaf and was happy with how it came out. Tasty too!

Dough in the breadmaker, think its been mixed and rising

Forgot to take a picture before cutting into it!

Inside

The boys like the bread, and I love fresh bread. I might be playing more with this over the next few weeks. I have a few pages marked in the recipe book. The holidays are coming up and those seem like good times to have breadstuffs.

There's nothing like the smell of bread while its cooking, makes you hungry!

Do you have a favorite bread machine recipe or where you get your recipes?