Made bread! And succeeded!

Today I did homework and then tonight I went to women's study.  It was at the Ropers' house instead of at Janos and Anja's because Anja was sick, and actually it ended up being only me and Rebecca!  We had a nice prayer time and ate some yummy banana chips and dried mango.  I really liked the Ropers' new house.  Their old one was nice, but this one is even better.  It is just down the street and around the corner from Janos and Anja's, in a nice woodsy area on a really pretty street.  This house is a lot more spacious than their old one was too, so it looks like they've got a really good place.  They were also telling us before they moved that the landlords were great too.  God hooked them up for sure!

Anyway, you're probably wondering about the bread part.  So I did another first today: I made my first bread with yeast!  I decided that since I was home today, and since I had just bought a new basil plant at Lidl yesterday (the other one croaked while I was in London), I could make a second attempt at my basil-pistachio bread that epic-failed last time.  Yes, the first one was technically edible, but only when heated in the microwave and soaked in generous amounts of milk.  Pretty much resembled a basil-pistachio rock.  I had done that one like a basic American biscuit, with flour and water, and used baking soda.  That resulted in it being not only hard as a rock, but slightly bitter.  So this time I used yeast, since Indra had a couple packets of it and she said I could use one.

I looked up a couple of recipes online and then went from there.  Turns out that bread is not only pretty easy to make, it's fun too!  I liked the kneading part best.  It was like being in Little House on the Prairie or something.

Here are pictures following the progress of my happy little basil-pistachio loaf.  And I'm happy to say, it came out much better this time.  A fairly dense bread, but it has the right consistency--not hard or dry like the other one was.  And now it has that nice bready yeasty flavor rather than the bitter baking soda taste.  Success!!!

(What started out as a travel blog is quickly turning into a foodie blog.)

Rising in the bowl

Rising again in the baking pan, this time with the basil and pistachios added

All ready to go in the oven!  (I tried to put flaxseeds on top, but most of them fell off once I moved the pan.)  :)

In the oven!

All done . . . cooling on the rack

TA DA!  Basil-pistachio perfection!!! Is your mouth watering yet?  :)