New Toys

    C and I both got new "toys" this past week. After the last big snowfall we finally decided to buy a snow blower. We had been talking about it for months and had budgeted money for it. We kept putting it off, because..well, it wasn't snowing that much. Why spend money for something that we may not be able to use. It looked like we were going to have a period of heavy snowfalls. We decided that we really needed to get a blower of our own. Our neighbor was very kindly clearing the entrance to the driveway, but we felt we needed to be able to take care of this ourselves.
  C went down to the nearby dealer and bought it. It was delivered a few days later. C used it to clear off the parts of the driveway that had not been packed down by our cars. He also cleared off a spot by the garage. He liked the new blower and was looking forward to the snow so he could use it some more. It turned out the the big storm fizzled out. C has not had another chance to use his new toy.
  I fared much better. C and I had decided that we would buy a bread maker instead of Valentine's Day presents for each other. We both really liked the loaves of bread that I made by hand. I knew I wouldn't be able to do it often. We did some research and selected a model.
  We went to several stores to buy it only to be told that there were none in stock. I guess it is considered a seasonal item. I don't get it. What is seasonal about bread? We ordered it instead.
  It showed up about a week ago. It was a lot larger than I expected. I spent a couple of days reading the owner's manual carefully. Then I looked at the recipes that came with it.
  There were several. There were recipes for white and wheat bread along with low carb bread, gluten free bread, batter breads, artisan breads, pizza crust dough,sweet roll dough and jam. It appears that you can make jam in my bread maker.
  I decided to try a recipe for wheat bread. I measured out all the ingredients carefully and put them in one by one in the order that they were listed. I was worried when I came to adding the yeast. For some reason you can't let the yeast touch the liquids. I poured the yeast slowly over the flour and some of it ran into the liquid. (I later learned that you are supposed to make a small "nest" to put the yeast into. I put the pan with the ingredients into the machine, picked the wheat bread program and pressed start.
  The machine didn't do anything at first. I was a little concerned until I looked at the top and saw that it was in preheat mode. I relaxed a little, but stayed close by in case something happened.
  A few minuted later it started to make noise. I looked inside and sure enough, all the ingredients were being mixed. I watched it with interest for a few minutes and then went off to finish other tasks.
The noise level increased so I went to check on it. I'm glad I did as it was starting to vibrate. Since it was sitting pretty close to the edge of the counter I moved it. I had visions of my new bread maker crashing on the floor in the middle of the knead cycle. It went thought several cycles alternately kneading and then allowing the dough to rise. Finally it went into bake mode. I could smell the bread as it baked. It was the right smell. I didn't smell anything burning or smoking. I was starting to think that my first loaf was going to be successful.
   The bread maker gave a cheery tone to let me know that the loaf was ready to come out of the machine. I lifted it out and shook it out of the pan. There sitting on the wire cooling rack was a lovely loaf of wheat bread. I let it cool for a little while and then cut one slice. It looked good. It looked just like bread should look. I tasted it. It was delicious. I was successful. Hooray!
   Yesterday I made a loaf of French bread. The ingredients were water, salt, flour and yeast. It turned out perfectly. It's amazing how those four simple ingredients can turn into something that tastes so good. I am going to have a good time with this machine.