Be Prepared

Fact: I am no Boy Scout. I've got some serious issues with being prepared and I'm working on them. It isn't that I don't want to be, it's just that being prepared requires forethought, of which I have little. The worst of the worst for me is Sunday dinner. Every Sunday we are totally scrounging because I never have the forethought to get to the store the night before and get what I need, as was the case this morning. I went through a new cookbook that I got this weekend and realized that I had pretty much everything that I needed to make bar-b-que beef sandwiches, other than the hamburger buns. I thought that I didn't have buns, but I DID have what I needed to make them and so I decided that even though I've only made one or two previous attempts and making bread (wherein we ended up with something that resembled a rock more closely than an loaf of bread) I would give it a try. Jane and I did it together and we had a lot of fun! We made everything completely by hand including the mixing and the kneading and everything. I would have used my KitchenAid, had I been able to find my bread hook. I decided that I must never have had one until Brent reminded me that yes I did have one and don't I remember how he used to use it all the time to pretend like he was Captain Hook. No, Brent, I did NOT remember that. I must have managed to block it out. Anyway, we made one loaf of french bread and the rest into rolls. We ate the rolls, but I made Brent photograph Jane and me and our triumph over the cursed rock bread...



Sorry about Jane's face, the other photo was really blurry... focus on the bread. Doesn't it look pretty? Truth be told, it tasted quite a bit like flour which may have had something to do with the fact that Jane was in charge of measuring the flour, but it was a good try. I intend to keep working at it until I get it right. I figure that making bread by hand has got to be a good skill to develop as it will enable me to be more prepared, right?