(no subject)

[stellar_muddle]

A weekend of much shopping and much laundry.

Sat: Z summarizes the shopping here and K summarizes the movie in the evening here
Dinner used the enchillada sauce from here, only using 2/3 of the quantities and Pams Italian diced tomatoes for the tomato sauce. And because this in NZ, read chilli seasoning mix for chilli powder. But there was enough for two meals worth (using up the mince nacho mix made on Thurs evening, creating 4 enchelladas in a tray) from a 1/3 of the enchillada sauce mix and the rest was frozen in two packets for later. Also got bored with doing just the white bits on the embroidered pouch, so started on some coloured bits with the DMC cotton I had on hand. I like and I may post piccies later.

Sun: Slept in. Laundry. Lazing out on the balcony in the sunlight :). More shopping - 2 summer-weight king sized wool duvets for $28 each (usually $90 each), 1 100L beanbag bean bag*, socks and 2 pairs of sandels for me. Should I be disturbed that based on the shoes and socks I just purchased, I apparently have the feet of a 8-10 year old boy? But the sandels were $8 each, down from $30 each, so I really don't care. Discovered the Porirua Countdown stocks the good Vittoria Dark drinking chocolate. Someday I may splurge and try their mint chocolate one... And they still had the Richfields Mocha Caramel 70% Dark chocolate for $1.80 a 200g block.

I'd put the beanbag beans in the beanbag, but Z is currently sprawled over it, asleep :)

Any advice for people who have a breadmaker and wish to play? Round 1 wholemeal loaf was a little on the dense crumbly side, but we suspect it is more likely due to the yeast with a best before date of last year, rather than the wholemeal stoneground flour (also a little old), but could be wrong.

* alpha_angel, your beanbag want any spare beanbag beans if we have some spare?

Comments

Breadmakers

[lutramania.livejournal.com]

Using the right yeast solved pretty much all my breadmaker problems. The individual sachets of pure dry yeast work best, as they're not cut with cheap fillers and as each serving is individually sealed it's much harder to spoil the whole batch.

If the yeast doesn't activate properly I find it helpful to use lukewarm water, even if the recipe doesn't call for it. And recipes that measure ingredients by weight rather than volume work best, as flour has a tendency to settle quite a lot over time.

[baronsnorri.livejournal.com]

During Canberra winters, it was helpful to boil the hot-jug right next to the bread machine, as we did not heat the house--yeast needs a little help at <10 degrees C.