OOOOOOO, Halloween!!!!

A little spooky, eh?

Well, anyway, Happy Halloweenie!!

Here's a fun photo for you- someone decorated their really cool old car.

 Here's the car in real color.  It was seen in a parking lot.

Love this color blue!

Here's my "Witchy-Two".

My Lady Lydia....

Dia de los Muertos.

Good All Souls Day to you as well.

Rainy Day Chat

Welcome to the Banter!  It's a rainy day here in the mountains, and with the rain and drizzle comes the fog... so typical for the fall and spring here.

Speaking of fall, its about at it's peak here, colorwise.  It is beautiful.  The leaves are clearing out though, and they'll soon all be gone.

Which doesn't bother me much at all, because, next is Winter!!  I love winter.  I think people think I am crazy-- who loves the cold??  I do, because I get to wear sweaters, and thick socks and warm pants and coats and knitted hats and gloves.

And, speaking of sweaters!!   I'm knitting one for myself.  This is the first sweater I've ever made for myself.  I think it's coming along well.  I made some mistakes, but corrected them all before going further.  I had to knit several swatches first, and learned the pattern quite well, as I had to start over and over.  My brain just doesn't want to work with me in counting, unless I do it over and over, and over again.  So it is quite a challenge for me.  This is the back of the sweater, it is going to be seamed, which frequent makers on the internet comment that they really hate seaming.  But I have to do it for the experience.  There is more on my Ravelry page which you can link to HERE. (click on the word "here").

The three pictures above are part of my BEE HAPPY quilt project organization.  I'll be cutting the 10 inch stack today, then hopefully start at the machine very soon.

 This is my foyer.  I've never had one before, but I think it looks okay.  It's really not done yet, it's always  a work in progress around here.

 Some mums for you!

And here's my Good Bye Girl.  I decided to put her on display in my glass case.  She's too fine to keep in the shadows.

I hope your day is fine.  I love the rainy fall days.  I've made some chocolate chip cookies and am ready to cut some fabric!!!!     XXOO,   Bebe

Let's Make and Break Bread Together- Rye Bread Recipe

This is a recipe I've made a hundred times.

You can make it with or without caraway rye seeds.

 I use my bread machine for the mixing and first rising, because it's easier on my hands.

 This is how the bread pan looks, after I've taken the bread dough out.  That thing in the middle is the paddle that mixes the bread.

 This gem is my mother's breadboard.  It's probably about 50 or so years old, and no I've never gotten sick from anything on it after all these years.  People worry too much about junk on their counters, and the cracks in a bread board.  I don't.

~ 

My mother made all her bread on this board, plus coffee cakes and pie crusts.  I was always fascinated and watched intently as she made all this stuff.  She never let me do it, but I have it imbedded in my minds eye, and that's how I knew how to do the same things she did.

 These are my two loaves- these are small- in 8 x 5 breadpans.  You can make one loaf in a larger pan, like a 9x5 or 6, but I tend to like the smaller loaves.

This is how they come out.

Here's the recipe and instructions:

I used the dough setting on my machine to mix and do the first rising.  You can do the same thing, using your kitchenaid or sunbeam countertop mixer with bowl- I forget what they call those things--and do the first raising in that bowl in a warm place.

Recipe:

for a 1  1/2 pound loaf

1 cup warm water

1 1/2 tablespoon vegetable oil

1 egg

Place these wet ingredients into bowl first.  Make sure your water is rather warm, but not so hot that it will kill the yeast.

Now place in the bowl:

1 cup rye flour

2 cups white bread flour

3 tablespoons gluten

1 1/2 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1 or 2 tablespoons caraway seeds (optional)

1 1/2 teaspoon dry yeast (like from a jar)

Now let your bread machine do the mixing and kneading, or you can let your mixer do that, with the bread hook on it.  OR you can mix it yourself, by hand, if you like.

Make sure it is a nice moist mixture, but not too sticky.  It should be smooth when it's done with kneading.  Leave the bread mixture in the machine til the beeper goes off (that will take about 1 hour 22 minutes (that's when it's done raising.)  If you are raising the dough without a machine, cover your bowl with a towel or plastic wrap and place in a warm spot to raise.  It will take about 2 hours to raise.  Some ovens now have a "bread proofing" setting, So you can set your bowl in there to raise.

After raising, take the dough out and divide it into two equal portions, flatten into a rectangle, and roll it like a long cookie roll, I don't know how else to describe it, and place in a bread pan THAT HAS BEEN COATED WITH VEGETABLE OIL.  I usually roll the roll in the bread pan so that all of it is coated in oil, and leave the seam on the bottom.

Set in warm place to rise again, for about 20-30 minutes.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Farenheit, and then bake bread for about 20-22 minutes.

Let cool on a rack, then take knife about edge of bread in pan, and the bread should just slide right out.  I have learned to place more vegetable oil in the pan, rather than less, but not swimming in it, so the bread will come out without sticking.

Let it cool for the most part, before slicing.

As, I said, I've made this recipe hundreds of times and it's always good!

Good luck!!