Joys of Warm Bread

I know you're all wondering and yes!  It was a very, very good idea to put pecans in the bread dough yesterday.  But even better than the nutty taste of the bread itself was my companion in tasting it.  As soon as she heard the electric blade, cutting the first slice, Addie abandoned her toys and scurried over to me as quickly as she could manage.

I picked her up so that she was on my right hip and the steaming slice in my left hand.  Knowing that she has little patience when it comes to food, I pinched off a little piece for her before she could dive across my body for it.  She glanced at the bit I offered her, then at the rest of the slice in my other hand, then look at me like, "Really, Mom?"

Because I'm a floor-sitting type of gal, we settled down on the living room linoleum, next to a heater vent, of course, to enjoy our snack.  It was a happy-sad moment as I realized that even this is something I won't always get to enjoy.  This girl will not always come running to sit on my lap for something as simple as warm bread.  She won't always propel herself across the floor on shiny plastic toys or crawl lopsidedly from one place to another while toting her own baby doll under one arm.

While I was home for the holidays, I glanced at my teenage siblings and told my mom that my child was more fun than hers.  Nothing against my brothers and sisters.  They're wonderful people and really incredibly pleasant teenagers.  As a disclaimer here, I should add that I think teenagers really don't deserve the bad reputation they are usually given, collectively speaking.  Nevertheless, I always find myself glancing at my own little girl and thinking, I don't want her to change.  This, while at the same time, happily anticipating her first words and first steps.

I guess that's why we only grow one day at a time.  Maybe that's why progression must be so slow and so final.  When she's sixteen, I might miss the tiny girl who babbled and sang to the blank television and did her best to disappear into the heater vents - but I'll be able to say, 'Look what she understands!' and I'll rejoice, not only in the baby she was, but in the girl she is and in the woman she's becoming.  And I will always treasure the memories I'll have of the moments when we shared an apple, a popsicle, or a slice of freshly baked bread.

A Little Taste of the Meaning of Life

When my mom was about twelve, her family moved to a lovely piece of property in the southwest.  Behind the house, there was a small pecan orchard.  Every December, as I understand it, my grandpa would hire someone to have the trees shaken so that he and his family could harvest the nuts.  My grandparents lived in that house until I was about ten years old and I spent many a Christmas wandering that backyard and finding many a nut on the ground.  Along with a fondness for my grandparents' small town home, I came to love pecans.

For Thanksgiving, Ben and I trekked back down that town, where many of my Dad's family still reside.  As we sat at the crowded table, and I raised my fork to dig into a slice of pecan pie, I turned to Ben, gestured to the pie, and said (tongue in cheek, of course), "This right here is the meaning of life."

"What?  Pecan pie?"

I shrugged.  "Or just pecans," I replied.  Since then, Ben has wondered aloud whether pecans were the forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden.  It's unlikely, but the thought makes me smile.

Anyhow - the following month, as Christmas approached and I tried to answer the questions my husband and family posed about what I wanted to find under the tree, I found myself at a loss.  Finally, I told my mom, "All I want this year are some pecans.  And maybe some honey."  I guess that means that I'm either a very content person (in spite of my constant whining from beginning to end of the Christmas season...hmm, that doesn't add up) or that I'm lacking in creativity.  If I'm going to be completely honest, I'll have to admit that it was probably the latter.

However - after arriving home with the not one, but two bags of pecans I received for Christmas, I decided, this morning, to knead a handful into one of my loaves of bread.  While doing so I popped a couple in my mouth and do you know what?  I don't regret my request one bit.  They taste just like the meaning of life.

Pizza for Dinner

So...  Today, I went to the grocery store, alone.  That doesn't happen often.  Usually, I either go on a weekday while Ben is at work and, of course, have Addie with me, or we all go as a family on the weekend - mostly so that I can have moral support.  Today I went all by myself and found that the experience was somewhat reminiscent of my pre-motherhood days.  I had forgotten how, when no one is trying to escape the shopping cart or fussing for something to eat or trying to attract attention from every other person in the store, I can get distracted.  Rather than rushing to mark everything off of my list, I could saunter through the aisles at my pleasure (foolishly, I know), just waiting for something to tempt me.

This time, it was a pizza.  I wouldn't have given it a second thought, but it was fifty percent off!  Who can ignore that?  Well, actually there are probably a LOT of sensible people who can.  Today, I wasn't one of them.  Naturally, I had to stand there beside my cart, looking at the pizza box from every possible angle, analyzing every imaginable pro and con to making it my dinner.  When that wasn't enough to justify a little splurge, I had to text my husband to get his opinion.  Let it be on his conscience, not mine.  I know that sounds selfish, but he doesn't seek out and entertain guilt as easily as I do.

His response was simple and exactly what I wanted to hear - "I do like pizza..."   By the time I got the text, I had moved on to the produce department, so I told myself that I would finish getting the things on my list and then, if the pizza was still there when I got back to the dairy aisle, I would do it.  Sure enough, there it was, waiting for me in its discounted splendor.

As I picked it up, the battle began.  From one side of my mind came the guilt - you just got back from vacation with your family.  You just told yourself you were going to get back to healthy eating.  You haven't had a bad enough day to deserve this.  You had RAMEN for lunch!  And from the other end, I rationalized - It's not like we do this a lot.  We didn't have pizza the whole time we were on vacation (almost true, as I think about it now...).  It's half off.  So went my pathetic inner storm as I plopped the box into the cart and made for the check-out.

I tried not to think about the little delicacy as the cashier scanned my items, though someone was screaming at me from inside my head that I was making a huge mistake, that it couldn't possibly be right to buy a pizza just out of the blue.  No, never.  I would have to think it over for at least half an hour first.  Nevertheless, I kept my cool.  I paid for my groceries, took my cart and steered back out of the store and into the parking lot.

Only after loading everything into the car, returning the cart, and dropping with a sigh into the driver's seat, did I come upon the ridiculously obvious thought I had been waiting for.  Caitlin, it said, $4.50 is not going to kill anyone.  And I thought, oh.  OK, then.

And I got home, and we baked the pizza.  And do you know what?  It tasted very good.  Not at all like guilt.

Curry Fry

Once upon a time, I was making stir-fry, and I had a thought.  It went like this: I'm using about 1/4 cup of soy sauce and just as much brown sugar for this meal...for two people.  That's a lot of salt and sugar per serving.  Since then I've been trying to style my Asian-inspired foods after curry, rather than regular stir-fry.

Usually, I'm very good at over-steaming my vegetables so that the result is somewhat...gray.  Ugh.  The following was a lovely success.  I wouldn't go so far as to call it curry, as I don't keep things like coconut milk around, but maybe 'curry fry' would be an appropriate name.

Ingredients:

 - 3/4 cup of brown rice

 - 1 1/2-1 3/4 cups water

 - 1 tsp butter

 - pinch of salt

 - 1 large carrot, chopped

 - 1/2 large onion, wedged

 - 1/2 cup of frozen peas

 - 1/2-1 cup of pumpkin, peeled and cut into 1 inch cubes (remember my nativity pumpkin?)

 - 1-2 Tbsp oil

 - 1/2 tsp garlic

 - salt & pepper to taste

- 1/2 cup of chicken broth or 1/2 cup water + chicken boullion

 - 1 Tbsp cornstarch

 - 1 tsp curry powder

 - 1/4 tsp ginger powder

 - 1/8 tsp mustard powder

 - shot of soy sauce

 - teeny tiny dash of red pepper, if you like it spicy

Prep:

1. Combine water, salt, butter and rice and prepare per package instructions (mine cooked for 45 minutes).

2. Heat oil in a frying pan and add onion and carrot.  Toss until coated and slightly softened.  Add peas, pumpkin, garlic, salt, pepper and 1/2(ish) cups water.  Decrease heat, cover, and let steam - and be careful.  That pumpkin and carrot will absolutely LOVE to adhere to the bottom of your pan.

3. While veggies are steaming, combine water/broth, boullion, cornstarch, curry, ginger, mustard, soy sauce and red pepper.  Whisk together until smooth.

4. When the water has all evaporated and the vegetables are soft, turn the heat up a little and add the sauce (cornstarch mixture).  Mix with a spatula or wooden spoon until the sauce thickens and begin to bubble.  Remove from heat.

Serve curry fry on top of rice.

*Only after the fact did it occur to me that it might have been very very yummy to crush some fennel seeds and saute and steam them with the vegetables.  If anyone tries this before I get the chance, please let me know how it goes!*

And here's a picture of my helper. :)

Pumpkin Spice Near Miss

There's a bag of pumpkin spice kisses that has been in our cupboard for about two weeks now.  When it first appeared, among a few other lovingly packed items in a Happy Halloween package from my mom, I determined (after squealing for joy) that I would not open it before Halloween night, knowing that if I did, the treat would almost immediately disappear and we would have nothing festive with which to celebrate the holiday.

A few mornings ago, after lazing about far more than is good, even on a Saturday, I went for it.  I've learned that junk food and I don't get along well in the mornings.  If I indulge too early in the day, I tend to feel icky for the rest of it and am more likely to make poor choices (nutritionally speaking) later on - so I was breaking two rules when I padded, still pajama-clad, into the kitchen, in search of naughtiness.

I found the bag on the top shelf, behind the vitamin bottles, and lifted it out.  With determination, I took hold of the plastic wrapper from either side of the seam and pulled.  It didn't come apart.  Through my mind fluttered the thought, 'you haven't opened it yet.  You haven't made the choice yet.  It's not too late to turn back.'

Glimpsing the diagram on the bag, of the orange exterior chocolate and creamy, pumpkin-spicy interior, I thought, 'I'm deciding now.  It's too late.'  I took the bag in my fists and squeezed.  Desperate little snatches of 'Too late - not too late' darted back and forth in my mind.

The bag did not pop.  I considered it for a moment, said, "hmm..." and then tossed it back onto the top shelf.

Here's to one of those little victories.

S'more Cups!

So I guess that all I think about is food, or at least, that's all I could think of when I thought to myself, 'self, we should post something on the blog.  What should we talk about?'  Therefore, this will be another one of those food posts.  I hope it makes you hungry.

Remember when I told you about our camping trip?  And how it was more or less a failure except that we got some good pictures out of it as well as the right to brag that we went camping in October with a baby?  Well, there was one more success that I forgot to mention.  These:

The pine cone makes it look rustic and outdoors-y, right?  Not at all like it was photographed in my kitchen or something...

A couple of weeks before our camp out, we ran out of graham crackers, which have gradually become an ever more popular snack at our house.  Always the experimenter, my husband said something like, "I wonder if we could make our own graham crackers?  I'll bet we could..."

I ran with the idea, did a little research, found a recipe and tried it.  After my first batch of oddly shaped, Picasso-looking graham crackers, I got a little crazy and began to experiment.  The result (well, one of them) was a treat that just might become a must-have for camping at my house.

For the graham cracker dough:

I should tell you that I rarely ever follow a recipe just as it is written.  Almost everything gets tweaked, either because I'm missing ingredients or I'm just too lazy to do it the way it's written.  I followed this one almost exactly, though.  The only real difference was that, since I didn't have honey, I used molasses.

Combine:
1 1/2 cups white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup brown sugar
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt

Add and work into a cornmeal-like consistency:
7/8 stick of margarine or butter, cut into 1 inch cubes and chilled

Whisk together:
1/3 cup molasses
5 tbsp milk
2 tbsp vanilla extract

Add molasses mixture to other ingredients and mix just until combined.  Pat the dough into a 1-inch-thick rectangle on a piece of plastic wrap, sprayed with cooking spray.  Wrap the rest of the plastic around the dough and chill for 2-12 hours in the fridge.

If you're not a molasses fan, I can reassure you that the strong molasses taste in the dough fades significantly after baking.

Remove the chilled dough and, on a well-floured surface, roll it out so that it is about 1/8 inch thick (is it just me, or is it IMPOSSIBLE to get your flour to stay where you want it - under the dough?  On my second attempt, I tried spraying a clean counter top with cooking spray, then flouring it thoroughly.  It worked pretty well, but if anyone knows a trick for this sort of thing, I'd love to hear it).

This is the fun part - you can either cut little 2 inch squares and poke holes in them with a fork to make regular graham crackers, or, if you want to try making s'more cups with them, cut 3-4 inch circles and place them in a sprayed muffin tin.  I found that by making a cut almost to the center of each circle, it was easier to fit them in, cut out the excess dough, and mold them to the cup.

The original recipe says to chill your dough on/in the pan for another 25-35 minutes.  I've tried it with and without the second chilling and gotten similar results, but I definitely don't have very cultured taste buds.  Maybe a more proficient cook could tell the difference.  If you do have time to chill it again, this would be a good time to preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.  The original recipe also says to bake these for 15-25 minutes.  I have found that I like to stick on the 15 end of things.  My resulting crackers and cups tend to be firm enough not to bend or fall apart without getting so hard that I can't bite into them without milk.

Remove from the oven and place a square of chocolate, a small handful of chocolate chips, or whatever sweet, gooey thing you would like melted beneath your marshmallow in the bottom of each cup.  It just so happens that my cute mother-in-law had sent us a Happy Halloween package, complete with Halloween candy, which arrived the day I did this, so I decided to try putting a Mini Milky Way bar in a couple of them.

Return to the oven for 1 minute, remove, and stir the chocolate/gooey stuff with a toothpick. 

Mmm... chocolate...

Let them cool for 5-10 minutes, then use the tip of a knife to lift them out of the muffin tin.  They should pop right out.  I put mine in the fridge for a few minutes to let the chocolate set up and then keep them in the cupboard for a week or two.

Roast marshmallows over a campfire or over your stove, place one in each cup and enjoy!

The downside of doing s'mores this way is that you kind of have to think ahead and take time to do all of the mixing, chilling, rolling, shaping, chilling, melting and chilling.  And that they obviously aren't as compact as regular flat grahams.

The upside is that, once you do have them, s'mores are so much less of a hassle and so much easier to enjoy.  I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm used to getting marshmallow all over my fingers, lips, nose, chin, hair and pants whenever I attempt to eat s'mores.  In fact, I've noticed that most people seem to like making the s'mores more than eating them and for me, this is one of the main reasons.  These make eating s'mores about 1/10th as messy (sticky-wise and crumb-wise).  I would definitely recommend it for kids.  

The second reason I love doing s'more this way is that, usually someone, either my mom or me, ends up sitting next to the campfire, trying to assemble and balance stacks of graham crackers and chocolate while everyone else roasts marshmallows.  How much fun is that?

And last but not least, they're pretty cute. :)

Spiced Autumn Chicken Stew

It seems like in order to blog about food or cooking, you have to be a photographer, and an excellent photographer at that.  I am not.  I think I have mentioned before that I take most of my pictures with my phone, and if the thing I'm looking at isn't my daughter doing something adorable, I usually don't think to take a picture of it.  I love to cook.  I love food, and I love love love autumn.  The pictures will just have to come later.

When I tried describing this successful experiment to my mom, she seemed a little bit aghast that I would put sugar and cinnamon with chicken and potatoes.  Trust me on this one, though.  It tastes like yum.

This is loosely (very loosely) based on this recipe for Autumn Sausage Casserole.  I wanted to make a very Autumnal dish, but lacked pretty much all of the ingredients that make that what it is - raisins, sausage, apples...  I would highly recommend it, though.

What I did have was bone-in chicken that needed to be crock-potted, since I didn't want to go to the trouble of separating meat and bones that didn't want to be separated, basic stew vegetables (you know - carrots, potatoes, celery), spices, and a husband who is always up for an experiment.  I've made this twice now and both times, the results have been lovely.

Here's what I used:

• 1 chicken leg (don't think that because you shop somewhere fancy like Safeway, the chicken you buy won't have odd little quirks like, oh, I don't know, the feet still attached?  If yours does, get rid of those talons first.)  I'm sure a breast would be fine, too.
• 1 medium-sized potato, chopped (If you have a yam or a sweet potato to add instead, it will be especially good, but a regular potato does just fine.)
• 1 carrot, chopped
• 1 stalk of celery, chopped

Throw all this in the crock pot (I think mine is 1.5 quarts), then in a small mixing bowl or measuring cup, combine:

• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp allspice
• 1 tsp chicken boullion
• 1/2-1 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• 1-2 tsp parsley
• 1/2 tsp thyme (OK, I mostly just added this because I have been looking for it for almost two years now.  I found it in one grocery store and it was very expensive so I didn't bother, but the urging struck again a year later, and none of the grocery stores where we were then living even had it, then, the other day, miraculously, I found it at the Family Dollar, of all places, for *drumroll* a dollar!  It did make a nice addition to this stew, though).
• 2 heaping tbsp brown sugar (You're going to trust me, remember?)
• 1/3 cup of warm water

Pour the spices on top of the chicken and veggies and let it cook on high for 3-4 hours, until the chicken is cooked through and the vegetables are soft.  My little crock is a speed demon and does it as quickly as two-and-a-half, sometimes.  Ben and I basically knew it was done when we starting to smell it.  I've never tried it on low, because I've never thought about it long enough in advance.  I'm guessing that 6-8 hours would do the trick, though.  

The second time I made this, I added more water (a cup, I think), so the spices were a little less pronounced and I had more liquid in the final product.  We ended up serving it over white rice and loved it that way.  I can't help but imagine what it would be like over wild rice, but we're not that rich, and I'm totally an advocate for healthy eating on a budget.

*This only makes 2-3 servings, but it would be an easy recipe to double using a bigger crock pot.*

Pizza Soup!

Because if I didn't post it now, it would end up being months later and I would feel very badly.

You will need:

1 carrot, chopped
1/4 bell pepper, chopped (a rare luxury, but if you have one handy, go for it!)
1 stalk of celery, chopped (or 'stick.'  I don't know.  A couple weeks ago, Ben told me that a 'stalk' means the whole bunch...so one of those long green things, and not the whole bunch.)
1 largish tomato, chopped
1/2 onion, chopped
1/4-ish cup pepperoni, cut into quarters
3-4 cups chicken broth
1/2 chicken breast, cooked & cubed
1-2 Tbsp butter
1-2 Tbsp flour
1 cup milk
garlic
marjoram
oregano
macaroni or other noodles
parmesan cheese
mozzarella cheese

So...

Combine all of your chopped vegetables, pepperoni and chicken in a pot with chicken broth and put over medium heat on the stove.  Let it cook for 20-30 minutes, or until the carrots and celery are appropriately soft (there's little that bugs me more than my carrots and/or celery being only halfway done, but some people don't mind it).

Meanwhile: melt butter and whisk in flour and then milk to make a rue.  The measurements I listed above aren't exact because I'm not very good at taking measurements first...sorry...  You don't want it to be too thick, like clam chowder or something.  Just enough to make the soup a little bit creamy.  Add this to the vegetables, broth & meat, stirring to incorporate it.

Season the soup with garlic, marjoram, oregano and black pepper.  Once again, I didn't pay attention to how much I used, but don't overdo it.  The pepperoni adds a lot of flavor.

Add your noodles about ten minutes before serving.  This will make the soup kind of thick, so add more broth if you need to.

Add the cheeses just before serving - a generous pinch of mozzarella and a sprinkle of parmesan.


We love this one, hope you do too.

It's so fluffy I could die!

Happy Independence Day!  I know, I know today is only the 2^nd, but my sources say that the declaration was first signed on the 2^nd of July and then a few slackers waited till the 4^th to sign or something.  I got Ben to admit yesterday that I’m a know-it-all.  I guess there are worse things.

For once, I have found myself with more than plenty to do.  So far today, I ran, did the dishes, got dressed etc., learned a new crochet stitch, and (drumroll, please…)

Baked bread!

Ben calculated it (because that’s just one of those things that he does and I generally take his word for it) and informed me that, slice for slice, it would be more economical if we made all of our own bread rather than buying it.  That might not be true if we were still buying almost-expired store-brand bread or white bread, but there is no Wonder-bread store in this town to supply the former and the latter…well I guess we’re both just a little to snobbish and/or spoiled to settle for less than whole wheat when we can help it.  It helps that wheat flour is the only kind we’ve had in the house for the last two weeks.

So I feel like I need to preface this Cinderella story with some history: after being here just a couple of days, I wanted to make something with the fancy mixer that Ben had gotten me for Christmas, which we hadn’t been able to use because there just wasn’t room for it on the countertop of our last apartment.  At that time, we had only white flour, so naturally, I made white bread.  It was a simple recipe and it turned out great – two loaves of warm, white, sugarless cake (which is all that I snobbishly think good white bread is.  It’s OK.  I’ll own up to it). 

The next week, after the ‘cake’ was gone I decided that I would stand up to my wifely duty and make some real bread – you know, the kind that I wouldn’t feel guilty eating.  I found a recipe.  I followed it perfectly…and my dough would not rise.  I did my best.  I kneaded, waited, formed loaves, baked, all the while hoping against hope that the yeast would find its true calling – better late than never – and cause the dough to fill the expanse of my bread pans.  No such luck.  I came out with three, solid, whole wheat  bricks.  Each one was heavier than a shot put, I kid you not.  I immediately texted my mom to tell her that I failed as a woman.  I’m sure she was rolling her eyes.  I would have been too if I weren’t me and weren’t in such terrible distress.

I pouted about it for the next several days while my husband, stud that he is, snacked on and ultimately consumed all three bricks.  I’ve told him that if he dies or is debilitated early in life from excessive brick intake, he will know whom to blame.  He doesn’t roll his eyes at me, he just laughs. 

Finally, as our food dwindled and our monthly grocery budget expired (about a week and a half early), I decided to (wo)man up and try it again.  I found a recipe online and set to work.  This time I was determined.  I even closed all of my windows, risking an overheated house during the late afternoon.  I said a little prayer and, miracle of miracles, it worked!  My dough rose, my kitchen was filled with the aroma of yeast doing its thing, and I found two lovely, wheaty loaves of bread waiting for me in my oven, just waiting to be sliced and buttered.   

My only problem with them was that they were kind of dense.  They tasted fine, but as they grew older, they got just a little stiff for my taste.  It reminded of me of my bread machine.  Ben can get it to produce beautiful, fluffy bread, but mine is always dense and stiff and becomes more and more cracker-like as the week wears on.

This morning, Ben took the last two slices of that bread to work in the form of a stiff (but not too stiff) PB&J.  I decided that it was time to make bread once again.  I was a little bit tremulous about the whole operation, seeing as how we had made pizza on Saturday night and my dough didn’t rise.  In other words, my mom and husband had both spent a good portion of their weekends hearing about how I was once again a failure as a woman[1].  This time, I tried something I should have tried each of the previous times.  I called my mom and she gave me, in addition to some just-plain good advice, the most wonderful bread-making secret ever.  Read closely, for I will now disclose it, with permission:

The recipe, as revised by me, now goes like this:

·         1 cup of warm water (not hot – the first thing she told me is that I was killing my yeast by making the water too hot)

·         2 tsp of active dry yeast

·         1 cup of milk

·         ¼ cup of honey (I used ¼ cup of sugar + about 1 Tbsp molasses because it’s what I had, but I can’t wait to try it with honey)

·         2 Tbsp canola oil (I think I forgot this ingredient this time around, but everything turned out great anyway)

·         ½ cup of quick oats prepared with 1 cup of water as per instructions on the label

·         ½ cup of prepared rice (<-- this is the secret ingredient!  My mom told me to use brown rice, but being a poor newlywed I only had white around.  It worked splendidly.)

·         4-5 ½ cups of whole wheat flour (the original recipe calls for half white, half wheat.  I’m offended that it claimed to be a whole wheat recipe.  Of all the nerve. =)

·         1 Tbsp salt

1.       Put your water into your mixing bowl and sprinkle yeast on top.  Let it sit for about ten minutes in order to awaken the dormant powers within the yeast.  Add the milk, honey/sugar/whatever, oil, salt, oatmeal, and rice.  Stir to combine.

2.       Add two cups of flour and use your mixer to stir (or combine it by hand if you’re studly like that).

3.       Add the rest of the flour about ½ -1 cup at a time until your dough is “shaggy” (original recipe’s word, not mine).  If there is liquid left over in the bottom, let the dough stand for 20 minutes to absorb it, but there’s never been any left over for me so far.

4.       Knead for 8-9 minutes on floured surface.

5.       Clean out your mixing bowl, dry, and film with oil.  Place dough in the bowl and cover it.  Let rise (it will rise!) for 1-1 ½ hours.

6.       Divide dough into two loose balls and let sit for 10 minutes (? But that’s what the internet told me to do…)

7.       Spray two loaf pans and for each ball into a loaf.  More surface tension on top = better for rising.  Cover and allow to rise 30-40 minutes.  Preheat oven to 425 degrees during rise.

It's rising so beautifully!

8.       If you want to be fancy, use a knife to cut a shallow slit or two on the top of each loaf.  Place loaves in to oven and immediately decrease heat to 375 degrees.  Cook for 30-35 minutes (be careful, though.  If your oven cooks hot like mine, 25 minutes will do the trick).

It is so fluffy.  So fluffy.  I had to have at least three slices right off the bat just for joy (and because it was already 2:00 PM and I hadn’t had lunch yet) and they were each delicious.  The original recipe told me not to cut the bread until it was completely cooled.  I think that was because they don’t believe that anyone should enjoy bread as much as I did. 

I tried to get a good picture of the bread, but if you can’t tell what the texture is like, you’ll just have to trust me.  To my limited experience, at least, this was a success.

*Sigh*  I am so happy.  Thanks Mom.

---

[1] Note: I do not mean to imply that all women should be able to make bread or make yeast rise or anything like that.  Unfortunately, I come from a family of women who sew, quilt, and do all manner of homemaker-ish things from scratch.  I married into another such family.  The whole failure-as-a-woman thing is really mostly a tactic to get my mom to roll her eyes and my husband to laugh, and usually to give me a hug too. =)