That was Moshka's highly appropriate response to eating a slice of the challah bread I made (with a LOT of Miss Cait's help) for Easter. My boss asked me on Thursday if I was doing anything to celebrate, "uuuh, bake challah and eat carrots?". It's how I roll. And so it was, a lovely Saturday was spent at Miss Cait and Lisa's knitting and making Jewish bread when none of us are Jewish. Below you see our darling twin loaves baking to perfection!
And me being a creeper....
We used the recipe from the Enchanted Broccoli Forest and did you know that there is an illustrated bread making guide in that book? It's hilarious. I "guided" my dough through kneading instead of "intimidating" it. Good thing I didn't have to bust out my water-boarding device huh! Caitlin shared her preferred kneading technique, which is sort of a left hand knead, right hand knead, fold over with right hand sort of thing. We did that until it had an "ear-lobe-like texture", which was about twenty minutes. And we both got a kick out of the fact that our "floured surface" was a flower shaped cutting board! (Tehehheee)
Miss Lisa asked why we were glazing it with egg and the best response we could come up with was "to make it pretty". The poppy and sesame seeds also make it pretty. As does the braid.
Mmmmm. Pretty.
Because Miss Cait told me to we did not uses as much flour as the recipe calls for, and added most of it during the kneading process which seems to have worked wonderfully. We also decided to split the dough in half so we each had a complete braided loaf and they really are practically full sized! So how big would the single loaf had been??? I shudder to think.
On Easter Sunday I had a picnic on Montrose Harbor with my friend Kate.
As you can see it wasn't a terribly sunny day but at least it wasn't raining and the temperature made it past 50 degrees. See, here's Kate pretending like she wasn't freezing slowly to death.
I brought some of my fresh bread since I forgot Kate can't eat gluten. Aha. We had deviled eggs, ham sandwiches (err, rolled up bits of ham if you're Kate), and Paul Newman's "oreos".
The harbor is really quite lovely and I can't wait for it to be summer. It's one of the great perks about Chicago, all that lakefront to enjoy! And even though I'm miles away from what I consider "the Lincoln Park area", Montrose Beach and Harbor are technically still a part of Lincoln Park! It's a half hour bus ride long! It just keeps going! Chicago: Land of Long Ass Parks.
And funky bird houses in said parks.
For dinner I made a sort of Fidget Pie (one of my favorite dishes, often requested for my Birthday.) Just chopped up some potatoes, onion and apples and baked in the oven. I'm too lazy to make pie crust it seems. With some sliced ham on the side and lovely pickles it was a very hearty, kind of English country meal. Which is only right as PBS has been Mystery Marathoning ALL WEEKEND!!
An excellent end to the week and a happy Easter and Spring to you all!
P.S. I keep working on a post on frugality and food but this week has been busy and I have a lot of thoughts! But it will be posted some day soon!!
3 comments:
I've wanted to make Challah for ages and haven't had the nerve/ been ambitious enough to try it. It's my favorite bread IN THE WORLD and I'm glad that it came out well for you. You've given me confidence.
Now to find the time...
;)
I really do recommend the Broccoli Forest recipe, it's very straight forward and has a diagram for the braiding part! Either Cait's presence was very calming, or it's not as scary as you think!!
what can i say, i'm a bread calmer. or something. i had such a good time too, i'm glad that it worked out so nicely because it's been so long since i baked. but worked out it did! indeed!
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