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dancingyelI'm still looking for suggestions for the 2nd half of my list! I've gotten a few, but I'm not quite at 30 yet, so there's room for more. Thanks to all my friends who came up with interesting things for me to try, btw.
Anyways, since I've already done two things on the TaT (Thirty around Thirty, yeah?) list, I figured I should post about them here. The first one, baking bread, happened before I actually created the project, but since it was something I'd been wanting to do for a while, it seemed to fit.
So, why baking bread? Well, I love bread, and you can get really great artisanal bread, but it's so expensive! Plus, I had just gotten a dutch oven (this lovely one, for a fraction of the price of a Le Creuset and with great reviews!) and I needed something to do with it. When I googled "vegetarian dutch oven recipes," one of the ones that came up was this one for no-knead bread.
I won't retype the recipe here, since it's a pretty clear original, but I'll tell you my modifications and results. First, the bread came out great! As you can see in the photo, it looks like real bread from a store! The only thing I would change about the recipe itself is to add more salt, or some flavorings. There just wasn't enough salt in it, even for me, and I don't like things very salty. From a bit more googling, it sounds like other people had similar comments, so I plan to try something slightly different next time.
A few other caveats/impressions. First, although the recipe is easy and takes very little effort, it does take time. The dough has to sit for 12-18 hours, and from what I read, 12 is not actually great. I let mine sit for about 16. Then, however, you do 15 minutes of stuff to it and then it has to sit for another 2 hours! I was glad I noticed that when I did, otherwise I would have been unpleasantly surprised and rushed. I ended up letting mine sit for about 3.5 hours on the second rising, and it seemed fine (when I told my hair lady about the second rising, she exclaimed, "zombie bread!" It was awesome.). So, it seems that the timing is flexible, but definitely long. Second, you can use active dry yeast if you don't have instant yeast, but if you do, you have to stir it into water first, then add water and yeast to the other dry ingredients. I suppose I don't know what would've happened if I hadn't done that, but according to the internet, it would've been sad. Finally, next time, I will use a little less flour on the outside, because it didn't need quite that much not to be sticky, and I don't like how it got everywhere.
So, overall, a definite success and a recipe I will certainly use again!
Anyways, since I've already done two things on the TaT (Thirty around Thirty, yeah?) list, I figured I should post about them here. The first one, baking bread, happened before I actually created the project, but since it was something I'd been wanting to do for a while, it seemed to fit.
So, why baking bread? Well, I love bread, and you can get really great artisanal bread, but it's so expensive! Plus, I had just gotten a dutch oven (this lovely one, for a fraction of the price of a Le Creuset and with great reviews!) and I needed something to do with it. When I googled "vegetarian dutch oven recipes," one of the ones that came up was this one for no-knead bread.
I won't retype the recipe here, since it's a pretty clear original, but I'll tell you my modifications and results. First, the bread came out great! As you can see in the photo, it looks like real bread from a store! The only thing I would change about the recipe itself is to add more salt, or some flavorings. There just wasn't enough salt in it, even for me, and I don't like things very salty. From a bit more googling, it sounds like other people had similar comments, so I plan to try something slightly different next time.
A few other caveats/impressions. First, although the recipe is easy and takes very little effort, it does take time. The dough has to sit for 12-18 hours, and from what I read, 12 is not actually great. I let mine sit for about 16. Then, however, you do 15 minutes of stuff to it and then it has to sit for another 2 hours! I was glad I noticed that when I did, otherwise I would have been unpleasantly surprised and rushed. I ended up letting mine sit for about 3.5 hours on the second rising, and it seemed fine (when I told my hair lady about the second rising, she exclaimed, "zombie bread!" It was awesome.). So, it seems that the timing is flexible, but definitely long. Second, you can use active dry yeast if you don't have instant yeast, but if you do, you have to stir it into water first, then add water and yeast to the other dry ingredients. I suppose I don't know what would've happened if I hadn't done that, but according to the internet, it would've been sad. Finally, next time, I will use a little less flour on the outside, because it didn't need quite that much not to be sticky, and I don't like how it got everywhere.
So, overall, a definite success and a recipe I will certainly use again!
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Date: 2013-02-06 04:41 am (UTC)1) Travel to a national park that you've never been to before
2) Travel to a state you've never been to before (obviously void if you've done all 50 already but I know I haven't - I'm in the low 30s still)
3) Travel for a foreign country you've never been to before
4) Attend a church service for a religion other than yours
5) Crash a funeral (a la Harold and Maude)
6) Fly an airplane (apparently if you go up with someone who has a pilot's license in one of those little dual-control planes they can let you take the controls without any training - it's pretty awesome)
7) Pop an entire sheet of bubble wrap
8) Drive over 100mph (possibly cleverer to do on an off-road track, but I did it on I-80 in PA once late at night)
9) Get all your body hair waxed off (other than your head)
10) Get a full-body body-painting (possibly better after waxing!). Maybe with liquid latex :)
11) Change your own oil in your car. If that's too easy, change your brakes. If that's too easy, uh, try some other repair that needs done.
12) Boudoir photo shoot!
13) 24 hour movie marathon
14) Register as a bone marrow donor
15) Volunteer at an animal shelter
Maybe you've already done some of these things, I don't know you all that well, I was kinda randomly brainstorming :)
Hmm, some of these are things I should do...
p.s. - I am way too lazy to do bread by hand, even no-kneed - so pleased the boy bought me a new breadmaker, it rocks :)
no subject
Date: 2013-02-06 04:39 pm (UTC)Also, I'm amused that another of my friends also gave me some ideas and then was like, "wait, maybe I should do some of these myself!"
How does a breadmaker work? Do you just put ingredients in there and it does its thing without further input from you?
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Date: 2013-02-06 09:38 pm (UTC)More or less. There are some breads where you're supposed to come back when it beeps and add an additional ingredient -- typically that will be the case if you want to fold in dried fruit or chocolate chips or something, and I think there are some "swirled" type breads with similar requirements. But for a basic loaf, yeah, you dump everything in, and in a few hours you get bread.
I bought Xta a high-end model for Pick Your Favorite Winter Holiday; it's significantly better than the one we used to have (which got damaged a few years ago, and they no longer made parts for it).