Monday, July 7, 2008

bread and hair

Two questions:

1. I want to start making bread on a regular basis. Does anyone have a simple, great whole wheat bread recipe that they love? I want something that would work for our everyday bread needs and slice up good for sandwiches without being too crumby. Is there such a recipe out there? If you have one, please share.

2. Should I cut my hair again? Short hair requires more frequent cuts and I'm really wanting to cut mine again. But on the other hand, it's gotten to the length where it goes back in a pony tail better. What do you think is more important for a soon-to-be mom? Cute hair or the ability to put it in a pony tail?

Thanks.

12 comments:

  1. i have a great bread recipe!! it isn't whole wheat, but can be if you play with it a bit. it's delicious, take only 1 hour to make and bake, and requires no bread machine!!

    *10 1/2 cups white bread flour (not all purpose)
    * 1 tablespoon salt
    * 1/2 cup sugar
    * 3 tablespoons liquid lecithin
    * 4 cups hot tap water

    mix dry ingredients. add lecithin and water. mix for 1 minute and check consistency. if dough is too dry, add more water. (you'll probably want to add in an extra 1/4 to 1/2 a cup of water). mix for 5 minutes. (don't add water to dough after it has finished mixing). spray counter and pans with pam. (use loaf pans). shap loaves and cover with a dish towel, let raise for 25 minutes. back at 350 for 25 minutes.
    *makes 4 loaves
    **do not measure lecithin- pour/squeeze directly into bowl. (quarter size = 1 tablespoon)

    ** for whole wheat bread use same recipe but add one cup of applesauce as part of the hot tap water. mix for 10 minutes.

    enjoy!

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  2. sorry for all the mispelled words... i tried to hurry. you get the jist of it all though!

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  3. I vote for being able to pull up in pony tail. When Baby Asher comes, showers are rare and you'll need hair to be manageable, cute and be able to pull it up if needed (on days of non washing)

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  4. first of all, i vote for longer hair, because pony tails are great with babies. you don't want them to get attached to pulling your hair while you're nursing!!!

    secondly...bread. this is my dad's recipe, if you remember eating his bread. good stuff.

    1 3/4 c. very warm water
    1 1/2 T. yeast
    nickel-sized pile of salt
    1 1/2 T. sugar
    1 1/2 T. oil
    1 c. white flour
    2-3 c. whole wheat flour...I just gauge it as I'm going, sorry!

    Dissolve yeast in water, then add sugar and oil. When it's foaming, add in a couple of cups WW flour and the salt. Knead (in stand mixer) for several minutes (you need to give the gluten time to really do its thing). Add in the rest of the WW flour and the white flour. Let rise until double (45 minutes to an hour?) Grease and flour a loaf pan. Begin preheating the oven and form the dough into a loaf. When the oven is preheated, slide the dough in and bake for 30 minutes (the second rise should only be about 10-15 minutes or however long it takes the oven to preheat. The loaf shouldn't rise above the pan before you put it in--you need to leave room for the "oven spring.")

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  5. Hey Katrina! We have a yummy bread recipe. I've had a hard time with 100% WW turning out every single time here in NC because of the change of humidity and other factors. So, we make bread every week, but it is usually 2/3 WW and 1/2 white flour. That combination has worked like a charm for me. Here's the recipe though:

    Homemade Wheat Bread

    1 cup warm water (110-115 degrees F.)
    1 tablespoon milk
    2 tablespoons oil
    4 tablespoons brown sugar
    1 teaspoon salt
    2 cup whole-wheat flour
    1 cups all-purpose flour
    2 teaspoons dry yeast

    Put all ingredients in the bread machine in the order listed. Set on dough cycle. When dough cycle is finished, take dough out and shape into a loaf in a greased bread pan. Cover and let rise in a warm place for 20-45 minutes (until doubled). Bake at 350 degrees F. for 30 minutes or until golden brown.

    ~Gina
    P.S.--I can never remember who knows our blog address and who doesn't, but anyway...it's http://tellitwithpictures.blogspot.com

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  6. I say pony tail. I second what melancholyjune says, showers can get rare, and hair washing and styling even rarer! Unless you go short mom do. But you're too young for that!! But my husband would hate it if I ever to the short mom do. Maybe Jared likes that style??

    Bread? I don't know, but I really want a bread maker. I think that's a must if you're going to make bread on a regular basis!

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  7. i vote ponytail as well.

    as for bread, no idea sorry. Still a store bought fan myself.

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  8. As if you needed another bread recipe - but I use this one from Allrecipes:

    http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Simple-Whole-Wheat-Bread/Detail.aspx

    I made some yesterday - if you would like a sample, come on by!

    But I also went out and bought a bread machine from Craigslist, and I can't recommend that course of action highly enough. Making bread by hand is an important skill - but when I do it, it tends to take up my whole day with all the proofing, kneading, rising, punching, rising again, then baking. I think that would be really hard with a new baby.

    (Though I imagine kneading would be a great way to deal with labor pain. Don't know, personally!)

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  9. I was just thinking the same thing (that I want to make bread on a regular basis), but I'm so intimidated by the idea. I don't have a breadmaker or a kitchenaid fancy mixer, so... I need something I can do with either a little hand mixer or my actual hands. Let me know if you find anything like that.
    Ponytail is my vote.

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  10. We are whole wheat fans at our house. I bought the Black & Decker All-in-one horizontal Deluxe Automatic Breadmaker, and use the dough cycle each week. It makes 1.5 to 3 pound loaves. After the 1 hour/50 minute dough cycle finishes, I pull out the dough, gently knead it and shape it on a flour covered surface, and then pop it into a greased bread pan. I let it rise for 30 more minutes, and then bake in my oven at 350 for 30 minutes or until a thermometer registers an internal temp of 200 degrees F. (I read that a perfect internal bread temp is 200 in a King Arthur Flour book.) Usually, I just make a 1.5 pound loaf since it's just the two of us.

    Here's my doctored recipe that we love....(I'm in Canada so I have to use 1/4 cup more flour than Americans do. Don't know why that is. I'm typing out the Canadian recipe, but the only difference is the 1/4 c. extra flour. All else is the same.)

    Ingredients:
    1.25 cups milk (a teeny over the line)
    1 egg
    2 T. margarine/butter
    1 T. honey
    1 T. molasses
    1 tsp. salt
    3.25 c. whole wheat flour*
    1 tsp. yeast
    *Red River cereal (contains cracked wheat, cracked rye, and flax)

    Instructions:
    1. Pour milk into glass measuring cup. Add egg and salt. Mix with a fork and pour into bread maker.

    2. Add butter/margarine (I use Becel margarine usually)

    3. Add honey and molasses, scraping tablespoon with rubber spatula.

    4. Add 2.25 cups flour (in your case, probably just 2 cups)

    5. Measure out a scant 3rd cup of flour. I leave about 1/4 inch in my measuring cup. Fill the rest of the cup to top with Red River cereal, and add to machine.

    6. Make a tiny "well" with your finger in the top of the flour and add the yeast to that, being sure none of it gets into the liquid at the bottom.

    7. Get to the dough cycle (mine is #8) and press start. The rest of what you do is already explained on top.

    It sounds like you'll be busy with a new baby, but if you have any questions, you can email me via this comment. I love this recipe, and now we never buy bread. This recipe can also be used to form buns or rolls. It's a combination of the one in the book that came with my machine, but I changed it up a bit because I needed more binding agents, and I wanted to add more nutrition.

    Blessings, Sara

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  11. Ponytail!!!! Absolutely...cuzz you can still make it cute when you feel like it...but you don't want it in your face all the time:)

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  12. I'm going to second (or third or fourth) the vote for a bread machine. It is a tremendous help, but make sure you get a good one.

    However, that is where my agreement ends. I would say cut the hair. My experience with the first baby was that it was easy to get showers in because especially at the beginning, they're sleeping all the time. I also ended up feeling frustrated with the pony-tail, and wanted to still feel like a chic woman. And as far as baby fingers getting tangled in hair, it won't be an issue with your hair chin-length. Anyway, you'll be lovely either way, and that's just my two cents.

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