Haste

....makes waste. Or something like that. In this case, though, it nearly caused me to discount a delicious recipe.

I recently came across a fellow blogger's recipe for One-Hour Bread. Part of my reluctance to make all of our bread is the extensive rise time. Frankly, it's just not often that I have 3+ hours to devote to bread making. Last night, I gave the recipe a whirl--and promptly had a heart attack. This recipe calls for 4 tablespoons of yeast. (For my non-baking friends, most recipes call for about 2.5 teaspoons. But, I perservered. After all, if it was going to rise that quickly, it was going to need a good deal of yeast. And rise quickly it did! Within 15-20 minutes it had doubled in size and was ready to bake. Of course, immediately upon removing it from the oven, I had to sample a slice (quality control, people!)

I have to admit, upon first bite, I was a bit disappointed. It tasted very yeasty (which I anticipated). It wasn't bad, it just wasn't fabulous, either. Tonight, though, I had a slice with supper. I swear to you, this tastes like an entirely different loaf of bread. Gone was the yeasty flavor of yesterday. Instead, the flavor of the honey really comes through. Not overly sweet, just pleasantly so. I have completely changed my opinion from last night. This is a delightful bread!

I am cheap, though, and do still have issues about the 4 tbsp of yeast. I think next time I make this, I will be experiementing with a signficantly smaller amount of yeast and a longer rise time. Naturally, this elminates what attracted me to the recipe in the first place, but I think that I will ultimately be more pleased with the end result

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I'm happy to report that have *cough* a month of shirking my meal-planning duties, I finally sat down and created a rough menu. I haven't set anything in stone, yet, in terms of which day for which meals, but here's what the next couple weeks are going to look like around here. I've included links where available.

Beef Stroganoff
Fiesta Tamale Pie
Buttermilk Chicken Dumplings
Meatloaf
Oxtail Ragout
English Beef Pot Pie
Spanakopizza (Have I extolled the virtues of this stuff, yet? You MUST make it. Now. Seriously. The roasted peppers are a bit spendy but they are worth every penny and totally make the pizza. This stuff is freakin' delicious.)
Spinach Stuffed Pork Chops
Taco Salad
Curried Chicken Corn Chowder
Crockpot Chicken
Spinach Turkey Lasagna

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I am puzzled to announce that my ironing pile seems to be reproducing. Last night, I finally decided to iron after, oh, at least a month (honestly, it may have been more like two) of putting it off. I didn't quite get all of it done, but I did finish all of Ryan's shirts. I had three of my dresses left, but it was after 10:00 and I'd been ironing for an hour and a half (partially because I'm slow, partially because there was that much). As I put the remaining clothing back in the closet, I noticed to my horror that there was still more shirts to be ironed, hanging neatly on the wall. It would seem that at some point, I had the foresight to hang up the shirts, rather than dump them in a basket, so that they would be less wrinkled when I finally got around to ironing them. While I am delighted to have had foresight at least once in my life, I am also dismayed to realize that I now have not only three dresses, but also 4.5 shirts to iron (one is Darren's).

And on that note, I just realized I left my clothing unsupervised. I better finish ironing tonight before it reproduces still more.