Baby, I'm Gonna Butter Your Bread

I asked my mom a few weeks ago for her bread machine because I was interested in making my own bread, but I'm not quite ready to make it from scratch. I wanted something in between. So last week I set out on making my first batch of Classic French Bread. It was listed as one of the "fool proof" recipes in the bread machine book, so I figured I had a chance of pulling it off.

Here are all my ingredients:

2/3 c. water (I used filtered water because our tap water is pretty gross.)
1 t. softened butter (I used organic butter.)
2 c. Better for Bread TM flour
2 t. sugar
1 t. salt (I used sea salt.)
1 3/4 t. regular active dry yeast

They tell you to layer in the ingredients in the exact order that they are written above. Then make a little crater for yeast in the flour so it doesn't mix with the water too soon.
You pop the little metal pan into the bread machine. Tell it you are making French bread at medium darkness and then wait. And 4 plus hours later here is the final result. It is a bit ugly and hotter than Hades but still semi-homemade.
After it cooled I popped it out of the pan. (And by "popped" I mean I jabbed at it with a knife for a significant amount of time and then resorted to flipping it upside down and beating it's bottom like a child that just hit his little sister.*)

And Ta-Da! It worked. (I am not saying the childab...er...I mean bread-abuse works all the time but it might help in some situations. I don't feel that I would have gotten the same results had I told it to sit in the corner and think about getting out of the pan.)
Then on Sunday while my bread was growing old. (Isn't it amazing how fast they grow?) I decided to use what was left to make some homemade croutons. I just cut the bread in slices, laid it out for the afternoon, then chopped it into bite-size pieces, covered them in dried herbs and olive oil on a cookie sheet, and threw them in a 300 degree oven for 15 minutes.

Here is what is left of them after my family dinner Sunday night.

So what did you do this past weekend? Do you have any good bread recipes or fun bread making stories? Leave a comment and let me know.

*I am not condoning child abuse by any means. I am merely making a joke-filled comment. Spanking your kids and true child abuse are two different actions in my book, but we will get to that another time.

There is Life Outside of Your Apartment

The title of this post is brought to you by Avenue Q. Don't know what I am talking about? Go here. Anyways, I have been alluding to all the work we have done to our new apartment, and I thought it was high time to show you the fruits of our (loom) labor. Above is the hallway that connects all our rooms of our one-bedroom, classy, dig.

Here are the Before and Afters of the rest of the 600-something square foot apartment.

Living Room

Before/After

Stairwell
Before/After

Kitchen
Before/After

Bathroom
Before/After

Bedroom
Before/After

Feel free to notice that the Before pictures aren't the best because we never thought we were going to be doing demo on this place (thank you cat urine for changing that). Also, I didn't take them. They were painstaking taken by my landlords, while we still lived across the country.

Also notice that there are no pictures on the walls...yet. That is a project that I am taking upon myself soon....er rather than later....maybe. What we did do was paint every wall and take up the carpet in the kitchen (yes, kitchen), bedroom, and hallway and lay laminate wood flooring. We also stripped wallpaper in the kitchen and living room. I know despise wallpaper with all my might.

And yes, as a married couple we have 3 stuffed animals on our bed. Don't be surprised if I make it 4 in the near future when I recover my childhood security item (Lamby the Lamb) from my parents' house later. Don't judge. God hates judgers (I don't know God's opinion on Judges, the people in black robes, not the Biblical book, though).

What was your childhood security item? Anyone have a more unique name for their stuffed animals? (I have Lamby the Lamb, my best friend had Moo-Cow the Cow, and the Mr. had Puppy the puppy. Not very creative children....obviously.)