Baking, parks and handfastings.

Yup, that has been our week so far.

I tried the recipe from "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day," by Jeff Hertzeberg & Zoe Francois.  A revelation.  The bread is delicious.  It's not really made in 5 minutes; but as there's no kneading and the dough is prepared and just needs shaping and resting before baking - well it's an easy way to have delicious fresh bread every day.

First attempt.  The crumb the first time was a little wet - but then I did reduce the time as my oven usually bakes everything super quick... I've discovered leaving the bread in for the full 30 mins produces a crumb that is much more light and fluffy, without burning the crust.

Second attempt - same dough mixture, just a day older; and this time I remembered to dust with flour and slash the top.  Slashing basically allows the dough to rise higher in the oven before the heat kills off the yeast.
And as the oven was already heated up, why not do a batch of muffins too?

All those carbs demand some exercise, so we trundled down to the local park, that recently has been given a bit of a face lift.

When I plan to take the kids out for a picnic, I always tend to plan to go to the Coastal Park or down to the beach... yet this park is five minutes walk away; and includes a wooden climbing pyramid, ropes etc to climb along, there were swings, but they've been taken off; I'm assuming they have been damaged.  Along with fantastic slides, picnic tables with chest boards burnt into the tables, sculptures that can be climbed etc.  Both kids had a fantastic time and protested loudly when I told them it was time to go home.

Yesterday afternoon we went to a Heathen Handfasting.  The happy couple trothed their love before friends, ancestors and their Gods.  Wonderful.  Rye had a wonderful time playing with a friend's five year old son.  They really did get on like a house on fire. 

Rye looked very snazzy in his mirrored waiste coat, green t'shirt and stripy jeans :-)

LOL and pre-handfasting he helped with brownie making by licking out  the pan...