Working On: Plans for the Future

We've had our farm in the country for over four years now, but we don't feel any closer to moving there than we did when we first bought it. Thankfully we have wonderful people who rent from us and take great care of it, but it is difficult to spend much time there when we have little or no access to the house while it is occupied.

.

Instead of visiting, we dream. One of my largest dreams for the farm is that someday we'll have an outdoor wood-fired bread and pizza oven, built near the barn and the outdoor piazza we hope to have. I've read many tales of the lovely breads that are baked in these outdoor beauties, heard stories of the pizza farms that have cropped up near the Twin Cities, watched YouTube tutorials and pored over the listings at the North House Folk School in northern Minnesota for the class I long to take to figure out how to build our own.

.

This weekend there was an inspiring article in the Star Tribune about a minister who builit his own wood fired brick oven and decided that it was a great means of building community with his parishioners. Make sure to check out the photos... the one where they are pulling the hot bread out of the oven on a cold, winter day and the steam is rising... it is amazing.

.

I noticed that the class at North House is full for the summer. Cheers to all the future back-yard pizza bakers. May our crust be crisp and our families' bellies be full!

Working on: Bread

While the oven was out of commission for five weeks, I had a difficult time adjusting to life without fresh-baked bread. The night the oven died, my lovely neighbor Sarah allowed me to bake my five loaves that had risen on my counter at her house (last minute teacher and school friend gifts... gasp!). Later I baked at my parents' house, but nothing compares to hanging out in my robe, mug in hand, waiting for a hot loaf to come out of our oven.

.

I remembered finally that my brother and sister-in-law had given me their small bread machine and it was hiding in our basement, untouched. One day I decided that it might be worth it to try it, perhaps even using the timer feature and setting it to be ready in the morning. I dutifully followed the recipe one night for a hearty oatmeal loaf and set it up to be hot and ready at 6:00 a.m. as my coffee began sputtering in the pot adjacent to it on the counter. The smell? Amazing. The bread? Pasty white and not even worth mentioning. Am I looking forward to my first loaf in our new oven? Definitely!

.

Does anyone know of a good recipe for a bread machine? Or is this the reason why all thrift stores are filled with bread machines? Please share your tips!