The drama of making bread

All mixed up compliments of my Bosch, ready to go into the dehydrator. Say what?

That’s right, the dehydrator. I use a damp towel on my rising bread (a trick from my mom) to keep it from drying out. So cranking it up to 95-105*F in the dehydrator to speed up the rising process? Bring it on.

She was excited to see the giant poofball of bread dough.

She helped me punch it down and put it back in the dehydrator. Forgot to get a photo of that.

Because then they got all big and fluffy like this.

After a little fun in the heat, here they are. Lovely and pretty. And greasing the pans with butter? Totally awesome. Way better than oil. Loaves just fell right on out, it was lovely. The bread was a hit with everybody, works for me.

And this is what having a toddler in the house is like. I got distracted by something else, then noticed it was too quiet in the kitchen in the bread corner. He attacked all four loaves. No joke. This is the worst one of the bunch, but still. Grrr.

Here’s what my kitchen looks like after a fairly nominal day of cooking. Sure, I made bread and that takes a ton of giant bowls and bread pans, but the boys were off woodcutting with daddy and the younger two and I just snacked our way through the day.

Today’s harvest from the yard. First of the strawberries, saved for the Father of the house on Father’s Day, and some lettuce for the BLT’s we had for dinner. With the fresh bread.