Rise and Shine

I woke up early this morning.  I lay there under Polly trying to decide what time it was...no clock near me.  I finally decided it must be nearing 6 a.m.  I had been dreaming of baking bread, perhaps a left over from that article about artesian bread that I mentioned a couple of days ago.

I decided I was thirsty and so got up to get a drink of water.   When I looked at the clock, it was about 3 a.m.

3 a.m.  

Naturally when you wake up in the middle of the night dreaming about baking bread there is only one logical thing to do:  you bake bread.

I figured that if I dumped everything in the bread maker I could set my alarm to get up in 2 hours to put it into a regular bread pan and we'd have fresh bread for breakfast.

I must say that yes, you can bake bread in a bread maker.   That's kind of why they call them bread makers.  but I have one of the older models that is tall and bake a square loaf and, call me fussy, but I like my bread to look like an old fashioned loaf of bread, so I have taken to using the bread maker to mix the dough and then I transfer it over to a regular bread pan.

It only took a few minutes to toss everything into the machine, set the timer on my cell phone and get into the recliner.  Getting back to sleep was more difficult.  I finally chose to watch the new PBS Sherlock Holmes and, as I figured it would, it put me right to sleep.  An hour later, the timer was beeping.

I got up and put the bread in the loaf pan and set it to rise and then 45 minutes later put it into the oven.

By the time Walt was coming downstairs for breakfast, I had just taken the freshly baked bread out of the oven.

I was so pleased that it turned out so well, because my last few attempts had been disastrous, which I finally realized it was because the yeast was old.   But this is brand new yeast and if you have fresh ingredients, it's amazing what a difference it makes.  It all worked out so well, I made garlic-cheese rolls to have with spaghetti for dinner (but they tasted too good and I had eaten two before I thought about taking a photo).

By mid afternoon my mid-night baking had caught up with me and I was really ready for a nap.  While I normally turn on an NCIS marathon and collapse in the recliner, the sun streaming into the livingroom and onto the dogs was looking mighty inviting, so I took back the couch and when the warm sun rays hit me, I turned into melted butter and just sank into that couch and slept for two hours.  When I woke up, Sheila was lying on the floor right next to me, Polly was on one chair and Lizzie on the other.   It looked like I had wandered into a canine sleep study.

But now I have home made bread for breakfast and leftover garlic-cheese rolls for dinner tomorrow night and it's time to refresh the yeast supply for the next time I get up at 3 a.m. and feel like making bread.