Bread!

I forgot to send my happy list to myself again, so I'll be doing that entry tomorrow. I really need to add a reminder for that to my work calendar.

So, today I tried a new bread recipe - it's actually Sarah's Mom's recipe, which she was kind enough to give me. Will I break my bad bread streak and have it come out right? We'll soon see!

Okay, let's go through the steps - with pictures!

First, heat 2 cups of milk in a small saucepan until it bubbles.

Then remove the milk from the heat and add 2 T white sugar, 2 t salt, and 1 T shortening. Let the milk cool to lukewarm.

While the milk mixture is cooling, dissolve a packet of yeast in 1/4 cup warm water and let it stand until creamy.

While you wait for the milk mixture to cool and the yeast and water to turn creamy, eat a bowl of Cocoa Krispies. Oh wait - that's not part of the recipe. I just got hungry (I was doing this first thiing in the morning). :)

Combine cooled milk with the yeast and water in a large bowl.

Once you have the liquid mixtures into a large bowl, add 2 cups of bread flour, then add more flour 1/2 cup at a time, until a moderately stiff dough forms.

Which pretty much looks like this.

Here comes the hard part. Roll the dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and knead it until your arms are like limp noodles (or for 8-10 minutes). Ouch. There's nothing like kneading bread to remind me how weak I am.

Once the dough has been nicely kneaded, put it into a lightly oiled bowl, then turn it around so both sides are coated.

Place it in a warm place (in our house, which is kept rather cool this time of year to conserve heating fuel, this means it goes in my oven, which is kept warm by the pilot light) and let it rise until it doubles.

Punch down the dough, and turn it out onto that lightly floured surface once again.

Separate the dough into two fairly equal sized balls. Cover them and let them rest for 10 minutes.

Form the dough balls into loaves, and place them into greased bread pans.

Let the loaves rise. The recipe doesn't say how high to let it go, but about an inch over the top of the pan seems to be a good measurement. Heat the oven to 400 degrees and let them bake for 35 minutes or until the tops are nicely browned.

These were only in the oven about 25 minutes, and they were done - in fact, they could have come out a few minutes earlier, I think - the crusts are a little darker than I might prefer.

And just like that, with a whole lot of work and about half a day's time (no one said baking bread was an easy affair), you have two loaves of homemade, warm bread, begging to be eaten warm and covered in butter. Yum.

So, yes! My bad bread making streak is broken, thanks to Sarah's Mom's recipe. Thanks, Sarah's Mom! (And thanks Sarah, for sharing it with me.)

Here's the complete recipe, in case you want to make this bread yourself (shared with Sarah's permission, who thinks her Mom won't care or even know.) :)

Sarah's Mom's White Bread

2 c. milk, scalded
2 T white sugar
2 t salt
1 T shortening
1 (.25 oz.) package active dry yeast
1/4 c. warm water
6 c. bread four (approximate)

In small saucepan, heat milk until it bubbles. Remove from heat and add the sugar, salt and shortening. Cool to lukewarm. While milk mixture is cooling, dissolve yeast in warm water and let stand until creamy. Combine cooled milk mixture with yeast and water in a large mixing bowl. Stir in 2 cups of flour, then add the remaining flour 1/2 cup at a time to make a moderately stiff dough (you might not use the whole 6 cups). Knead on a lightly floured surface 8-10 minutes or until smooth and elastic. Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl and turn to coat the dough. Cover with a damp towel and let rise in a warm place until the dough has doubled in volume (about 1 1/4 hours). Lightly grease two pans. Punch down the dough and turn it onto a lightly floured surface. Shape into 2 balls, cover and let rest for 10 minutes. Shape dough into 2 loaves and place in pans; let rise until doubled (about 1 hour). Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Bake for 35 minutes or until the top is golden brown.

Fried Chicken Recipe Search

J bought a deep fat fryer recently. You know this, because I posted about making donuts in it (mmm, donuts). Well, I took some chicken out for dinner for last night, and I wanted to try out a fried chicken recipe. So I searched online and found one that looked interesting, and that called for using a deep fat fryer, instead of just a pan with oil in it (we have this fryer now, why do I want to use a pan? I don't).

Last night while I was making the chicken, I got my camera out and took some pictures. I don't know, I guess I was feeling like copying Pioneer Woman. Badly copying. She does it WAY better.

So, do you want to see me making fried chicken? If so, read on!

You start by boiling chicken for 20-25 minutes. The recipe called for a fryer, but I did three chicken breasts. Here they are after they got done boiling (I didn't think of taking pictures until they were done, sorry). I don't know that I've ever boiled chicken before, so I was surprised by how much the breasts shrunk up. It turned out to be a good thing that they did, though, because they wouldn't all have fit into the fryer basket if they hadn't.

The recipe was pretty basic - it just called for the chicken, 2 eggs separated (I only used one, because I halved the recipe, since I was only doing three pieces of chicken, and that one egg isn't pictured because I had already separated it), 3/4 cup flat beer, 3/4 cup flour, 3/4 teaspoon salt, 1 1/2 teaspoons cooking oil, 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder and of course the fat for frying (we're using canola oil).

Once you have the chicken boiled, you take it out of the water and pat it dry, and then you start mixing up the rest of the ingredients. The first thing you do is beat the egg whites until stiff. Yes, you have to give the egg a stiffy. Ha! I love juvenile humor.

These could have been a bit stiffer, but I was sick of beating them. And anyway, they were close enough.

Once the egg whites are done being beaten (those bad egg whites), you mix the rest of the ingredients together, and then you fold in the egg whites. Folding instead of mixing, because you want it to keep that light texture from the eggs.

Once they're nicely folded in, you coat the chicken completely. It's incredibly hard to take a picture with one hand while holding chicken up with the other hand, by the way. Just so you know.

Here are all three pieces, coated and in the fryer basket, ready to be fried.

Bubbling oil looks so dangerous and scary. But yummy, somehow, in an artery clogging way.

And here is the chicken, all done after 5-7 minutes in the fryer.

It came out really well, although it probably could have used a little less time in the pan when I was boiling it in the beginning. It was pretty much done before I even put it in the fryer, so it ended up just a tad dry. But it was pretty tasty. The coating seemed to be lacking a little bit in flavor, though. It could have used more spice than just the garlic powder. Unfortunately, I'm not a good enough cook to be able to know how to spice it up, so I'll continue the search for a great fried chicken recipe. This one was good, though. J ate a piece cold when he got home, and he liked it, too. I just thought it could use more flavor.

And that's my first foray into the world of making fried chicken! Exciting, huh? If you have any good fried chicken recipes, feel free to send them to me, through the comments or by e-mail (avidreader7 @ gmail.com). I'd love to try your favorite recipe out, too.

And here, in case you want it, is this recipe. I got it from www.cooks.com.

Beer Batter Chicken

3/4 cup flat beer
1 fryer, cut up
2 eggs, separated
3/4 cup flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoon cooking oil
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
Fat for deep frying

Place chicken in pan and pour in just enough water to cover. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low; cover and simmer for 20-25 minutes. Remove from broth; drain and pat dry. Heat fat to 375 degrees. Beat egg whites until stiff. Beat together beer, flour, salt, the 1 1/2 teaspoons oil, garlic powder and egg yolks. Beat until smooth. Fold egg whites into beer batter. Dip chicken pieces, one at a time, into the batter. Fry in hot fat 5-7 minutes.