Made bread yesterday

Well, I made bread yesterday.  Two batches.  The first one was low on flour and very sticky.  The loaf didn't rise above the edge of the pan.  Tastes good though.  The second batch, I put more flour in, but it seemed kind of stiff to me.  We haven't cut into that loaf yet, so I'm not sure how it came out.  It did rise above the edge of the pan, but is not as rounded as it should be.

A friend suggested adding a cup of gluten flour.  I'll give that a try and see how it comes out.

To Do list

Image by Pieter Pieterse via Flickr

OK, where to start?

I guess the first thing is going to have to be organizing places to keep all this food.  Right now, its shoved in my hall closet and various cupboards in the kitchen.  

I have an extra bedroom that is only in use by my desk and a few boxes of books.  I'll move some shelves in there and arrange the food so it can be easily found and inventoried. 

Then we'll need to start researching some recipes.

One of the worst things about food storage, in my opinion, is powdered milk.  It is impossible to drink!  echh!  I found a recipe on a site called everyday food storage (see link list) for making powdered milk drinkable.  I'm going to try it and I'll let you know.  Then I think we need to work on making bread.  Since moving to Utah, I haven't been able to make a decent loaf of bread!  I can only assume its the altitude.  I'm definitely going to have to experiment with that.  I gave up on making my own bread several years ago because I just got too discouraged.  But I'm willing to give it another try.  I've always wanted to try making my own sourdough bread, and I should probably experiment with multi-grain breads, as that is better for my diabetes than plain white bread.

I would also like to try making my own cheese.  I have a book that shows how to make a cheese press from a number 10 can and make cheese from powdered milk.  We'll give that a whirl sometime down the road, too.

But first things first.  Organizing the space is going to have to be the subject for September.  I'll keep you updated!