Day 8, view from ocean terminal

Day 7, Marmalade in the making

Day 6, Frozen pond in Biggar, gorgeous but chilly!

Day 5, Scariest snowman ever? I think so...

Day 4, The Skandi Arctic (from Nassau, go figure)

365 and A-Z!

Day 3, Sourdough breads cooling...

This works for more than one thing of course! I love to multitask.  So, it's simultaneously a Bread from my A - Z, a B2/M2 and my picture for the day, I just love it when a plan comes together.

  Country Bread from Flour by Joanne Chang

First up, get this book, seriously, not one failure from it yet, everything has turned out great and been really easy to put together.  And, best of all it's in metric measurements! I love, love, love this!

So, for the bread sponge...

175g plain, unbleached flour

180g blood temperature water (neither hot nor cold to touch)

1.7g fresh yeast

 Mix 140g of the flour, the yeast and all the water together into a sloppy dough, cover and leave out at room temperature for 4 - 8 hours.

Add the remaining 35g flour and stir again, the dough with stiffen up a little.

Cover and place in the fridge overnight.

 Now you have your sponge starter, over time this starter gets better and better, I leave mine in the fridge until I want to bake then the night before feed it 175g flour and 180g water, stir and fridge it overnight so it's nice and active for the next day.  Take what I need for baking and return the pot to the fridge till next time.  I vary the flours I feed it with too, a bit of rye, spelt or gram flour makes for an extra delicious loaf.

Country bread recipe (this rather assumes you have a stand mixer... if not roll up your sleeves and prepare to get messy)

360g water at room temperature

280g plain flour

300g bread flour

340g bread sponge

pinch of fresh yeast

2 tsp salt (actually, I use a tablespoon)

1 tsp sugar (honey and malt syrup work too)

In your stand mixer stir together the bread flour, plain flour, yeast, water, sugar and salt, knead for a couple of minutes, until it forms a rough dough.

Leave this dough to rest for ten minutes... it helps with the texture.

Add the bread sponge and knead for about 7 minutes, it should clear the sides of the bowl and feel a little like an earlobe when you pinch a piece of dough between your fingers.  if it's too loose add a little more flour, gradually, you don't want to bake a brick!

Scrape your dough into a large, oiled bowl and leave to rise at room temperature for three hours.

When that time is up remove it from the bowl, divide the dough into two and shape into tight, round loaves.  At this point it's nice to flavour the loaves if you like, knead in some nuts and fruit or cubes of cheese... around 100g of each.

Scatter course cornmeal or semolina onto a tray and place the breads onto it, flour the loaves and leave them to rise for about two and a half hours.

Preheat your oven to 250 and place a sturdy metal tray in the bottom, boil the kettle!

When the oven is really hot (give it plenty of time to get up to temperature) pour the boiling water carefully into the metal tray.  Slash the tops of the loaves anyway you like, it gives a lovely crust and looks pretty.  Place the tray in the oven and bake for half an hour.

 Remove your gorgeous breads, gloat, buy a lot of butter.

Project 365, satisfying numerical opportunity missed...

Mmm, yes, 11/01/11, it greatly appealed to my hung up on numbers side, but then I failed totally to take any pictures! lol, 11/11/11 would be good too, but I'm not waiting till November, that would be crazy.  So, I guess I started project 365 on 12/01/11, it's not so bad really, I suppose.

 So, with no further ado...

Day 1, Rocking horse on our Christmas tree (which we were belatedly dismantling)

Day 2, Drag kings and Martha's pies, could there be a more obvious combination? Thank you Oxfam.

ooh.. blog laziness!

Oh yeah! been ages hasn't it? well, it has, because, because I failed on baking strike (it snowed, it hit -18, I baked) and didnt get to my goal weight before Christmas, because our pipes froze and it's dark and horrid for photos in Scotland in the winter and because I get discouraged very easily!

 But here I am, back at the wheel, helm, keyboard, whatever.  It's 2011 which is way, way better than 2010.  I have resolutions goals for the year, mostly I see to do with fitness and health, as well as a few financial and random others.  My first ones to work on are get to 10 stone something and start some new exercise. 

 I reported in at lighterlife tonight and weigh (fuck, damn, drat and oh no!) 11.10 stone, how on earth did that happen? actually, dont answer, I know how that happened!  Never mind, I can get it back off again.  Exercise, well, I'm thinking of trying a session with these nice folks tommorow, but my general aversion to being cold, wet and uncomfortable makes me question my sanity!

 I am reinstating my reward chart, stickers (shiny stars and rainbows) for everyday rewards and something else (that I totally have my eye on, I know my reward!) for when I hit that magic number.  And this time I will actually get it, I have a horrible track record of promising rewards then not following through.

 What else, I've baked a lot and photographed nothing, sadly... but this is set to change with list item 41 which is participate in project 365.  I love this idea and have my camera on charge tonight. 

 I crashed my car into a lampost and ate chocolate, hmm, still have food issues to tackle.  Not to mention the reasons for crashing! lol, I just thought "when I get to therapy next I'm going to have so much to say"

Dear A, I crashed my car into a lampost, because I was on a giddy high because I passed as a guy in a supermarket, was pondering this thing of oddness and wondering a little why it gave me a happy when I crashed, my immediate reaction was to eat a wispa bar (and would have eaten two if I'd had them) and get the giggles, followed by the blood sugar crash sobs, followed by the giggles (lather, rinse, repeat).

 Yes... well, we all have issues, right? right!

 And so to bed, there are no pretty pictures on this post, but that should improve considerably in the following days.