foolproof bread

It's called foolproof.  A 6 year old can do it.  No knead bread.  Heard of it?  I'm behind the curve and it's been wildly popular, oh, say, about a year ago.

Foolproof, huh?

Duh-huh.  They haven't met me.

So I stirred some up yesterday and it's been sitting on my counter rising all night and all day.  I just attempted to turn it out onto a floured surface.  It's supposed to be a nice dough.  And it was, with lot's of bubbles.  But, hey!  What's that pool of liquid?  And why is the dough so loose?  However, I persevere.  It's in the "let it rise for 2 hours" stage.

I got a modified version of the original recipe from the blog of an old nemesis of mine.  I had trusted her recipe, because, even though she is a moron, she has her moments and the pictures of her bread looked marvelous!  Never trust a nemesis.  I think it called for way too much water (she called for more than the original, but I thought that was to make up for the whole wheat flour used).  And it called for more yeast than the original.  I suspect between the water, the yeast and the warmer home temperatures - it was just too much.

I'm still going to bake it, regardless what it looks like after the 2 hours.  Shoot, I didn't take my kids to the mall for nothin'!

Yeah, I went out to the mall to buy a pot to bake this bread in.  It calls for using a heavy lidded pan.  And I couldn't find anything but a cast iron pot.  Not pretty, but who cares?  It was the best thing available and cheap.

Speaking of kids - I just may have to bake them in the pot too!  They are driving me crazy.  Jake even said today that he wanted to be home-schooled.  Bwah-ha-ha-ha!  That's the funniest thing I've heard!  I've been trying to get them to do reading and a simple math worksheet and he sits there and stares at it.  And cuts erasers with his little scissors.  And breaks the points off all the pencils.  This is a problem because our pencil sharpener has given out.  I'm desparate to find individual school desks for them.  Right now they do homework on a kitchen table and distract the daylights out of each other.  They need to have their own desks facing different directions with the option to move the desks to different rooms!  They need, shoot, *I* need.  They have them at discount school supply, online.  Pricey, but at this point I think it's worth it.  BUT, what they have doesn't ship outside the contiguous 48.  I've look at Office Max, but they don't have what I want.  I just want those little school desks like they have at school with either the lid that lifts or not, with storage just under the desktop.  I need to look around more, but shopping is so limited here.  Well, I've just started, I'm sure there's a school supply store somewhere...

It's not all bad.  We did mini-golf today.  It was somewhat fun.  I hate being the "mom" (aka "bad guy") and having to tell them to get off the landscaping and to please wait for me and to not swing so big, blah,blah,blah.  It seems to go better when there are 2 parents.  That way we can alternate the yelling and the chuckles.  I also wish they would mature just a tad bit more.  I have a hunch that as soon as they are that little bit more mature, they will be too old for dear old ma.

Notice that I'm avoiding the Elizabeth Edwards issue.  I'm very sad for her and pray that her treatment allows for many, many more happy years.  I cannot imagine a presidential campaign is what she needs now - but I'm not to be the judge.