I've been pretty excited lately. I finally got a grain mill! I've really been wanting to grind my own wheat for quite some time and now I can! Oh what an amazing machine it is! I also bought this wonderful book:
Yesterday I used a recipe in this book to make six loaves of bread. It was so easy and delicious! Last Christmas I recieved the other amazing little machine that made this possible, my mixer. I would not recommend you try making six loaves at once unless you have a mixer that you know can handle it, or superhuman strength to do it yourself. Of course, you don't have to make six loaves at once, and you don't even have to grind your own wheat to use this wonderful little cookbook. Although, it will give you a lot of information if you ever decided you might want to start. Including, the use of various mixers, mills, and other methods and how to chose the proper equipment based on your baking needs.
Lori tells you how to use any one of her "Master Recipes" to make anywhere from 1-6 (1 1/2 pound) loaves of bread. She also includes numerous other recipes that you can make with the same 1 1/2 pound ball of dough.
Because the baking went so well yesterday, I decided to use the same master recipe to make several other recipes today. I started off with a pizza for the kids. It was very yummy and gone within minutes. Followed quickly by dough stuffed with pepperoni and cheese and then rolled in Parmesan cheese "monkey bread". These were wonderful dipped in pizza sauce. With what would have been the third and fourth loaves, we made donuts. These were deep fried and then coated half with a plain glaze and the other half with a chocolate glaze. Needless to say, an absolute favorite! The fifth ball of dough was supposed to make pigs-in-a-blanket. However, they are still sitting in my oven.
I kept wondering why the pigs-in-a-blanket were taking so long so I put my hand in the oven. It wasn't very warm and I knew that wasn't a good sign. I then touched the baking sheet, and no, I didn't get burnt. GREAT! No more oven.
Along with a useless new whole wheat baking obsession, I now have 18 large pigs-in-a-blanket wasting away in the oven and a dozen unbaked hamburger buns sitting on the counter. This is definitely NOT good! However, I guess I should be thankful that this happened today instead of at Thanksgiving.
Maybe I can barter with the neighbors for, in addition to their pans, the use of their ovens too, lol.
(In case you didn't see this on Facebook or Twitter, this is what I had posted yesterday: I made 6 loaves of wheat bread tonight. Yummy! I had to barter with the neighbors the use of their pans for hot fresh bread in return, lol.)
Now if only the book could tell me how to fix my oven. Anyone have an oven they are no longer using?

