Sunday

I woke at half past five, turned off the alarm - and turned over! Ha Ha! Then woke up again twenty past six. Again, mippies let me sleep in! Cuddly little darlings!

I'm taking it easy today as well - since I've struck 'washing floors' off my 'must do chores' list, weekends are much more relaxed! Today, the plan is only to fold and pack away the laundry - all else is pleasure!

The nice thing about using a drying stand is, that I can move it easily! I can hang up the washing in the shade, then just carry the stand into the sun - no need to risk sunburn! If it looks like rain, I just carry the whole stand inside - no need to rush taking down the washing one by one!

Right now it's standing in the lounge, most of the washing is dry, only some of the socks are still wet.

I played my game a bit, then started the dishes. Instead of a chore, I'm now looking at washing the dishes as a prelude to fun! Today, the fun being baking another loaf of that yummy bread!

Before I started, I made myself another smoothie - I used strawberry juice, which I bought Friday and some of the watermelon ice cubes. Then I peeled and sliced the cucumber and packed that into the freezer - while I was packing, I decided to pour some of the strawberry juice into ice trays to freeze as well. The thing about fruit juices is, if you buy a small bottle, it's almost prohibitively expensive - they don't come in 1 liter bottles, and 1 1/2 liter is usually just a little too much for one person. So, why not freeze some to use for later smoothies!

For my bread, I took a walk around the garden, harvesting! I picked some spinach leaves, some basil, some mustard cress, five lone beans, one carrot and a handful of sage leaves! Yeah! My sage is finally ready for harvesting, too! How awesome is that?

I cut everything up and added it to the dough. Yes, including the beans! After all, what else am I going to do with just 5 beans? I had grated more cheese as well, and also added a nice dollop of cream cheese again! This time, I made sure I added the right amount of water!

Still, the dough doesn't look like it's going to make a smooth loaf. It'll probably look like broken apart cookie dough again - not that I mind! It tastes so awesome!

I sometimes wonder what my mum would have said about my bread baking. She also tried to bake her own bread - though, I don't remember many successes, I'm afraid. She also found the prices at the German Brotstube growing beyond her budget, and that was over a decade ago, when she still got a standard size bread for the same amount they now charge for a small loaf!

She went quite a long way to try and bake bread, she got a mixer with kneading hook attachments - neither easy to find, nor cheap in those days. I should know, because I inherited the machine. I use it all the time, although mostly the blender part of it. She also got some books on bread making, even an Afrikaans one! I say 'even' as an indication how much effort she put into it, since she struggled to read Afrikaans even more than I do. Despite all that, she never really got the hang of it. And I don't remember every seeing any sour dough culture, so I guess she never got that far.

On the whole, I would guess that my mum would not approve of my bread. Mostly since her own efforts were not successful - and my mum loved baking! She had a life-time's experience with baking ... then, here I come along, rarely ever baked anything, and every bread I try turns out not just edible, but delicious! That alone wouldn't sit well with her, ha ha!

Reminds me of a similar dilemma, about my cooking! When I moved back home, my mum would alternately demand I 'do my share of the cooking' then demand I 'stay out of her space' and let her do the cooking! Yeah, communication skills don't run high in our family. The problem was simply that my cooking wasn't bad, and after a while, she'd get jealous. Funny, eh?

Anyway, this loaf again broke apart lengthwise, rather than opening along the cuts I made. Just on one end, though. Not that I mind - it smells absolutely divine!

To be fair, though, the secret of my success is the bread machine! It does just the right amount of kneading before just the right amount of rising. I simply don't have the feel for the texture of dough to know when the time is right!

Well, it's been a good weekend! I got done what I wanted to get done, and enjoyed the rest of the time. I even did my online shopping - just now. Lunch is packed, I've had dinner, showered, mippies are inside ... time to sit back, watch a show, then go to bed.