Expansion

Well, I added the remainder of all my fabric onto the small quilt that I posted a photo of earlier. It is now wide enough to cover both East facing windows, which unfortunately were exposed for a while, and fortunately are right above our bed which rests on the ground. I only brought a little bit of fabric with me here to Berkeley, and only because I had a stash of pre-cut, ready to sew together, squares when I was ambitious and completed only the first part of making a quilt for myself. 

Recently I visited a vintage and antiques fair in south Oakland at Jack London Square and scored a lot of fabric at a very reasonable price and will be making some pot holders and other gadgets out of it, I will post them when I am done! 

Fresh Bread

Bread making tricks that I have learned, not for the faint of heart. 

1) If you cannot bear to use 100% wheat flour (I admit, it is awfully dense), you can still use half white and half wheat to keep it healthier. My rule is, to change a 6-C flour recipe to all wheat, double the baking soda for more bounce. Lately I have also been using flax-seed flour, about 20% flax flour and 80% wheat. Double the baking soda, no problems.

2) Placea shallow pan (not too shallow) of water on the bottom rack and place your bread pan(s) on the top rack. This should keep your final product from sticking to the bottom of the pan. The best part of baking bre

ad is turning the pan upside down and plopping out a beautiful hunk of carbs. Nothing worse than scraping burnt dough off of the pan, right?

3) In most recipes, you can swap out cream for yogurt if you do not have any cream handy. Or, you can use almond milk. Soy milk does not thicken properly, but oddly enough almond milk will!

Happy Baking!