Food and dogs.

Well, I guess that title is misleading.  It connotes that I will be writing about how food and dogs relate to each other, or how they are somehow connected in some way.  Although they are related (that is, dogs do in fact eat food), I won't be speaking about their connections here today.  

I will be talking about bread.  Wonderous, beautifully edible bread. Finally. The only attribute I could have wished on this bread was for it to have had a slightly crispier crust. But it was soft, yes.  Tasteful, yes. Risen just enough but not so much that it ever even thought about falling.

It was so good that it was completely eaten in 48 hours. Yes -- that good.  Mmmm... bread.  Yum.

As for the dog part of the post:  I gave the dog a bath.  Which is good, because now he doesn't smell.  ...as much, anyway.  He's an old stinky mutt.  And his ears are pretty grimey sometimes, they need all the help they can get.  

Bad: because I, too, got a bath.  (I already had one today, thankyouverymuch).

My method is to fill up the tub with halfway soapy water, make him sit in it, and scrub him with soap.  Scrub him GOOD with soap.  His fur is somewhat water resistant, so I figure the more he is immersed in the water, the more clean he will be.  The problem was that Baloney seemed to think I was trying to drown him when I made him lay down in the tub for the first time.  He was SO freaked out.  So I have to hug him around his wet, soapy neck while I hold him down.  I've given up on staying dry.

Here he is, freshly bathed and still somewhat damp.  

The other part I hate about giving him baths?  The fact that he feels he must bathe himself afterwards.  He licks his paws (and everything else) until he's... I don't know.  Dry, maybe?  But this is obviously a very important part of the process.

What you may not know is that Baloney is pretty much deaf.  So he can't hear himself as he NOISILY BATHES HIMSELF.  It drives me nuts.  If he does this for too long, I throw something at him -- not rocks or anything, just small pens or bottle caps or something lightweight -- so that he stops.  

But I would rather him be not smelly.  Uck on dog smell.  Blech.

Bathe regularly, folks.

Food, Glorious Food

Oh, food is good. I like food. I will tell you more about my food, since I KNOW you are anxiously awaiting to hear what my diet has been lately.

[cricket noises]

Right. Um... moving on.

So. The other night: Whole Grain Capellini with a delicate Bolognese.

And by that, I mean whole wheat spaghetti with ground meat and canned tomatoes. But it was really good, so I figured it could have a fancy pants name. 

I was actually pretty impressed. I sauted up some onion with ground beef (on sale for $1.50/lb!) and basil and oregano (can't omit the oregano in a Greek household, I think the punishment is death, or having to constantly roll a ball of herbs up a hill for eternity, or something like that). And then I poured in a can of petitely diced tomatoes (preseasoned with garlic, $1 each, yay), and half a small can of tomato paste. and I stirred it and let it simmer for awhile.  (We can never use a whole bottle of prego before it molds, so a can is just easier and less wasteful for us.)

How long did I let it simmer? I don't remember. I let it simmer as long as it took me to mix and knead this beauty:

Yep. Bread. Good bread. ... Well, kinda good bread. It looked really good after the first rising, I was excited. It looked glorious and full after the second rising, I was elated. Then, in the ten minutes it took the oven to come to full temperature, it fell. And didn't even do that fancy "oven rise" thing that bread does when it cooks. ...it had so much potential. [sigh]

And naturally, the second loaf from this batch that I made the other day did the same dumb thing.  You'd think bread was hard.  [sulk]

And... let's see.  Spinach pie, yay!

I love spinach pie.  But I always conveniently forget until 8:30pm on a work night that it really takes a long time to prep, what with all the phyllo layer-butter-phyllo layer-butter-phyllo layer-butter-phyllo layer-butter business.  At least it's yummy.  

Let the good times roll.

Bread is good. Unless it's bad.

Sparked by all these wonderful blogs I've been reading lately, I decided to make all our own bread from now on. Why?

1. It's cheaper (unless you buy wondersuperyuck bread, which doesn't count)

2. It's healthier (no more weird preservatives that will keep my digestive system in tact 736 years past my death)

3. It's such a wonderful, house-warming past time which will make my heart feel more whole (no promises there, folks)

Well, I am quite the baker. And I have baked bread before. Nothing to it, right? Just a little bit of work -- and if I use the bread attachment on my kitchenaid, I don't even have to do that horrible awful kneading for ten mintues. Yay, bread!

Well, it didn't quite work out that way.

This is a photo of my husband feeding my first, second, and third loaves to the birds -- I have no idea how he was even able to tear those chunks of bricks into small pieces. Oh -- sorry, I just remembered he didn't throw the second. I didn't even bother to bake that loaf, I just (sadly) threw out the lumpy dough, I was so angry. Nothing rose. Not at all. Not after using brand-new yeast, active or quick, thermometers to test the temperature of the water, good kneading... nothing. I am normally SO much better than that. [pout]

So I read up a bit, found out that you can salvage a bread that didn't rise the first go around by mixing a bit more yeast into it, and tried that with the 4th loaf. It came out... edible.

As you can see, it's only slightly brick-like. There are some air bubbles, but you can see the marks from the knife. You shouldn't see knife marks in bread. [sigh]

So I tried again. I read a science of cooking book, and learned a bit about the whole flour-protein-yeast mixture (I will spare you the scientific details). I bought some wheat gluten and decided to let it rise for extra time just to be sure it came out right... but perhaps I should have been checking it. That wheat gluten... boy. It sure makes bread rise somethin' fierce.

Here is my lovely, well-risen bread. Look at that rise.

Look at that gorgeous crumb. So fluffy. So soft. Ah, bread. How I do love thee.

I pulled it out of the oven, my husband salivating. Mmmm.... We tasted it.

Hmm. Kinda tasteless.

Then I remembered -- I didn't add salt. Not ANY. No wonder it had no flavor and rose like the dickens. It rose so much, it caved:

So, yeah -- bread. I plan on making more. One day, I may even get it right.

(stupid bread)