my latest preoccupuation

Making whole wheat sourdough bread.
I get so sick of the white bread here, and I am happy to eat some bread with some nutients in it, and I found this recipe in one of my magazines. Yay!
The only thing is it takes a long, long time to rise. But if you have lots of time, it's a great recipe.
You start with flour, water and a wee little bit of yeast. At first, you have to let it rise for about 12 hours or so. Then add more flour and water, I think, and put it in the fridge for about 3 days. Then add more flour and water again, and back into the fridge for another 3 days. After that, you have your starter dough. Take half of it out and let it rise for at least 12 hours. It looks like this.



Then add whole wheat flour and salt, knead and put into an oiled bowl for a couple of hours to let it rise.


After rising.


Make whatever shape you want,

and let it rise for another hour and a half before finally getting to cook them.


After that I usually add sesame seeds and then they are ready to go.

Done

new digs

At least for one resident of this house....



and he's got a nifty torii, too


I was feeling so sorry for him stuck in his little tank with nothing in it, so finally last Nov? I went and bought him a new house. with plants, and a torii.
Then for a while he worried me cause he stopped moving about as much, even when it came time to eat. (He used to make sucking noises at us when he wanted to eat!) But I think it's due to the water being colder and therefore he doesn't move as much and also due to the fact that he ate most of the plants I bought for him! Greedy bugger.

I'm baaaack!

Of course holidays are really busy here, especially New Years as it is the most important holiday of the year. We have to clean the house as much as we can, basically do a once a year big clean up. Like all the windows have to be done, the bath room has to be de-molded, we change lots of things (the foil under the gas range we use for cooking, for example) Anyway, the list goes on and on. Needless to say I spent days doing this. And I didn't even do a lot compared to my mother-in-law who did stuff while I was at work. It was nice to get done, although there's still more for me to do. ;P
But we had Christmas. The boy, bless his innocent little heart, believes in Santa. This year was the first year we left cookies and milk for Santa.

Luckily the cookies were still there when the boy came bounding down the stairs at 12:30 am, excited that Christmas morning was here, until it was explained to him that Santa hadn't come yet...to which he happily asked if that means he gets to meet Santa. :)

He also wrote a letter to Santa to say thank you and to let him know that he could take the letter with him.

Unfortunately Mommy didn't really understand that he meant Santa could take the letter, she thought it meant that Santa could take the cookies and milk, and so left the letter, resulting in tears the next morning.:(

But that was soon remedied by opening the stockings...

and then I carried on the tradition that my parents started with me-everyone had to get dressed and eat breakfast before opening presents (no waiting until 8:00 yet)


It was pretty good.