Monty Madness

Dad just started building Monty an outdoor bunny run yesterday! I'm really really excited. I've been planning a good one since Jessie found him a year ago and now I'll be able to stick him in the yard for some exercise in safety. We have a healthy looking hawk that likes to perch in one of our trees out back, about a dozen large dogs that roam the neighborhood freely, some small ones too, and at least two cats that have a habit of sitting right outside our sliding door and mock Monty throughout the day. All of these are bad news without a heavily reinforced pen and that's exactly what Dad's building from scraps of the old deck rail we tore out when we redid it.
The wire is left over from the totally lame pen I made him while we were in Olympia. It kept the neighbor's cat out and Monty in so I guess it did its job. Mostly.

Star's Influence

When I was in Olympia a few weekends ago Star and I started pouring over seed catalogs. She'd already ordered a good handful or so different kinds and, after looking at all the cool tomatoes I could order, I decided that I'd probably have to order some too. Fast forward a few weeks and here I am, a little giddy because I just placed my order with Territorial Seed. Curious about what's going to be growing in our planter boxes? Yeah, I knew you would be! So here's a list:
Lemon Cucumbers
70 days. These 3-4 foot, semi-bush type plants bear loads of apple-shaped cucumbers with lemon-colored skins. The flesh is VERY mild and sweet, never bitter. Scrumptious and colorful in salads. Best harvested when the size of limes. This old variety is a favorite among many cool season gardeners. HE.
Goldrush Squash
C. pepo 55 days. This bright golden-yellow zucchini yields wonderful, smooth cylindrical fruit on compact plants. The attractive color and gourmet quality sets Gold Rush apart from other yellow zukes. At their best when picked at the 8-10 inch stage. The sweet white flesh is a perfect addition to both raw and cooked dishes. An AAS winner.
Gladiator Parsnip
110 days. You'll be impressed from the start with Gladiator's quick germination and vigorous early growth. The vitamin-rich, cream colored roots have a clean parsnipy sweetness that makes it the most flavor-packed parsnip we've had the pleasure to eat. The smooth tapered roots reach 7 inches when they're ready for the kitchen. Try Gladiator in stews or grated in salads. Seed is from England.Mamoth Sweet Basil
Ocimum basilicum The beginnings of a culinary masterpiece! Hailed by the chefs of Italy, we bring you the largest-leafed basil we have seen. Sought after for its culinary wrapping qualities, Mammoth Sweet has large yellow-green leaves with slight puckering and the most heavenly aroma.
Roodnerf Brussels Sprouts
100 days. One of the last open pollinated varieties in existence that still retains excellent eating quality and uniformity. Bred in Hurst, England, Roodnerf is quite cold hardy. The medium to tall plants yield plump, green sprouts. If you've turned up your nose to Brussels sprouts in the past, Roodnerf will certainly turn you into a fan!
Purple Haze Carrots
70 days. This 2006 AAS winner is the first Imperator-shaped purple carrot. Sure to be the talk of the table, Purple Haze has a sweet flavor with a tender yet snappy crunch. The 10-12 inch purple-skinned roots have vivid orange centers, which make quite an eye sensation when sliced on a relish tray. Purple color will fade when cooked.
Red Samurai Carrots
75 days. We've searched worldwide for a great tasting, true red carrot, and finally found it! Its bold, sweet flavor synchronizes flawlessly with the crisp, bright, rosy flesh. Red Samurai adds panache to salads but the flavor really shines when cooked. It even retains its distinctive color when steamed. The slim, tapered roots reach 11 inches.Oregon Giant Peas
70 days. This snow pea has unusually large, broad pods growing to 5 inches long. They are thick, very sweet, and tender, and remain so longer than others. The plant is 30-36 inches tall, similar to that of Oregon Sugar Pod II. Developed by Dr. Jim Baggett at Oregon State University.
Canoe Peas
70 days. Canoe packs more peas per pod than any other variety we've seen. Approximately a dozen delightfully sweet peas snuggle in each long, slightly curved, boat-shaped pod. The semi-leafless plants reach 30 inches, and provide plentiful crops. This variety is a canner's dream since more peas per pod means less shelling.

We're going to get some strawberries, rhubarb, potatoes and tomato plants locally instead of ordering them and all the rest of the things we'll just buy at Twelve Mile or farm stands around the countryside. After all, what's the point of living out here if you're not going to buy the food growing right down the road?! I think all but two of the seeds is Organic (that damn basil sounded too good to buy the boring organic version and none of the yellow zukes were organic... all hybrids.) and I think 90% are open pollination. Something like that.

Her Morning Elegance

This is a very beautiful little video. Ohhh it made me so happy this morning! Via: swissmiss.

Oooohhh No You Didn't!

Someone hacked into the traffic control signs in Austin. Can YOU think of anything more awesome than these new warnings!? I sure as heck can't. (Plus whoever it was changed the password after they were done and they haven't figured out the new code so the messages are still there.... nice.)

Baby Timelapse

That baby spends a good deal of time at the end staring at himself in the mirror on the floor.... and karate chopping that cardboard box. Busy little thing isn't he?

Me WANT

This is amazing! It's a flatpack mule storage thingy. So amazing. Unfortunately, this lady's site is terrible and I can't find it anywhere. She does, however, have some very cool animal stools like this. Via: Design-milk.

Hanzipan, it's Official!

My darling lady-love Star and I have started a cooking/baking blog. I wanted everything to be ready before I shared it with ya'll and I'm thinking it's pretty darn close! So here it is... Cooking with Hanzipan!

Old School Star Wars

In Hannahland, this is funny. Like it or be banished from Hannahland... forever...

If I had to Pick a Way to Go....

It would probably not be death by peanut butter.

Thanks for offering anyway: South Bend Chocolate Co., McKee Food Corp., Perry's Ice Cream Co., Hy-Vee Inc., Kellogg Co. and Peanut Corp. Salmonella laced peanut butter has struck down five Oregonians and since that's where I live, I won't be touching peanut butter for a while even if it does come with a cute baby.

That Northern Town

OoooliolioOooooO! I went to Olympia this weekend for a mini break. The trip was uneventful and after I'd set up my roost in that crazy room-that's-not-a-room room (it's essentially a way of connecting the sauna that was added later to the house... like a huge glorified hall with no insulation, that is separated from the rest of the house by a sliding door.) Star and I immediately started mixing this and that in bowls and eventually we created these!Butterfly cupcakes from that cupcake book we got together. They are a lemon-poppy seed cupcake, with lemon filling and a lemon sauce drawn down the middle. Even though they took zest from three lemons and the juice of two to make, they were wonderfully light and not too lemony. That book is definitely paying for itself.

I'm sorry these pictures are still so yellow even after I worked on them in the ol' Photoshop... we took them at night and whether we used flash or not they just wouldn't turn out beautiful. Trust me, they are wonderful and pretty in real-person life.After cupcakes we went to the re-opening of the library in town (apparently there was some sprucing up going on between the time I left and my visit) and listened to Kimya Dawson play. I say listen because there were so many people there that we couldn't actually see her, however Star did manage to gain about two feet by climbing on Ben for part of it. If you aren't immediately saying "Ohhhh Kimya Dawson... cool!" to yourself, it's because you don't realize that she's the one who is on the vast majority of the Juno movie soundtrack. Once you've heard the cd, I think you can imagine the gist of her style... there was an awfully cute children's song talking about poop and butts though. I'm always charmed by children's songs that don't try to avoid references to bodily functions because that's really all children talk about (ok, I'm going to qualify that, it's really all boy children talk about.)

After everyone woke up the next day we went to the Co-op down the street (I'd never been to that one and now I wish I had!) and got some tasties including some pretty purple carrots! Star had invited some people over for a little visit at 6 and in the mean-time we made cheese!Star had read about a cheese making kit either in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle or Omnivore's Dilemma (sorry Star, I can't remember, but I'm sure that you'll correct me in the comments later). The idea intrigued her and she bought the makin's for hard and soft cheese. We made some mozzarella. Now, in hindsight, we probably should have used whole milk to do it (I think that's why we didn't have many curds, Starzy... just occurred to me... unless we did and then I don't know what happened), as it was we used a half gallon of milk, a tablet of some such thing that makes curds appear like magic, and a stove. When you make mozzie you have to knead it for a while until it looks like taffy which just so happens to be what I'm doing in these pictures. Unfortunately, you have to heat the cheese in the microwave until it's lava hot, so I was pathetically trying to do it with a spoon. It worked, more or less.

(p.s. If you ever wanted to create the illusion of cooking with yours truly, I bet you could print this last picture, blow it up real big, cut it out and then stick it on the wall of your kitchen. Cooking never seemed so cool! Just a thought.)

And then you have cheese! We made a lovely quiche for the party with the purple carrots, mozzie cheese and other tasty things. I decided to write about what we were doing in the pictures because Star has already done a lovely summery of what we did together on her own bloggerino and I'm going to be lazy and point you in her lovely direction. It was a fantabulous weekend, I even miss that little room I commandeer when I visit.

The Best of Both Worlds

So I've been taking a couple of graphic design classes at the college these days and today's Swissmiss post really really makes my day! Knitted font... sooo fabulous.

To the Batcave, Robin!

After much gnashing of teeth from Aunty Carol, here are some pictures of the (now warmer) basement. Mom and Dad have set up a little heater between the couches and as long as the door to the upstairs is close it can actually be quite toasty.The main room. Jessie has a futon just to the left outside of the picture that she sleeps on when she's home. The infamous dirt room is behind that door and Monty's bachelor pad is right in front of the sliding door so that he can guard the house against the neighborhood cats.

The doorway into Hannahland, you must be this tall to enter. Epic, no?

The land of make-believe. This is where all that crafty magic happens, more or less (really that magic happens all over the house... a needle in the arm of this chair, a wad of yarn on this table, some fabric in the kitchen. It's all good.) Oh, and you can see the little shelf Dad built for all of my books along the ceiling there. I think that's my favorite thing in the whole room!

The place for to be sleeping and snuggling (Monty is banned).

More crafty action happening this corner too. There are little things tucked into every feasible cranny and bits of thread clinging to everything else. Anyway, that's the tour of the downstairs.

Yarnia is My Narnia

After I got the last of my Christmas knitting books in the mail the other day, I decided that I wanted to knit a sweater. Really, I've been wanting to knit one for a long time, but the arrival of all these great patterns cemented the idea from a want to a need. So, I went in search of some yarn. Unfortunately, if I bought yarn either in person or on the interwebs it would wind up costing between $60-70 to make something sweater-sized. I can't justify spending that much on an already made sweater let alone the raw materials for one that I make myself. I put everything on hold, until I found Yarnia. I think it was through craftzine.com. Maybe not. I can't remember. In either case, Yarnia blew my mind (as many things yarn oriented seem to do these days!). When you go to a yarn store in pursuit of yarn, it is generally sold in skeins. Each skein is between 50-100 grams which is generally enough for 1.5 hats, .33 scarves, 1 pair fingerless mittens, 1.25 pairs of socks, etc. To back it up even further, yarn is (generally) comprised of several threads, twisted together to make one larger piece of yarn. Yarnia, on the other hand, sells a couple thousand different kinds of single strands that you can then choose from and the group of strands is then combined to form a unique yarn, just for you! Make sense? Essentially you pick out, ohh... maybe three different kinds of thread and then you take them to the nice lady and she loads them on a machine and they get wound onto a cone and voila! Yarn! Plus they're sold by the pound. Unlike piddly things like mittens or hats, sweaters generally require between 1 and 2 pounds of yarn to make so this system is absolutely beautiful. Plus when you buy anything from food to yarn in bulk, the price tends to go way down than if you buy it in pre-measured increments.

Anyway, Mom and I made it down to Division and 42nd yesterday to check yarnia out. I had two or three sweater patterns in mind before I went and the minute I walked in I settled on the perfect one. It's from my new Vintage Knits book. Mom and I spent about 15 minutes oogling all of the spools before deciding on two wool strands and one acrylic strand to give it some shine.


Here it is being wound on this incredibly crazy machine she's had custom made from older machine parts. It looks a bit like this vintage sock knitting machine I saw online a while ago. That process is also very neat from a mechanical standpoint. I took a video of a portion of the process but it was a little boring if you weren't there. And you can't see much because, in one of my genius moments, I was standing right behind her back. So, bummer, you'll just have to do there for yourself and order up some yarn.

And the final product! It's very nice (a little rough and not so stretchy, hopefully that'll be just fine in the end.)The yarn and the pattern. I started knitting with it last night so you can see it starting in the corner there. Oh, and it wound up costing $40.04 for 17 ounces (1 pound 1 ounce) yarn.. much better than $60 or $70 and well worth watching that process! And since it's all about the weight, if you picked lighter weight yarns than I did, it would cost much less. Oh and if you bought less than I did as well!

Oh My

I made some of those tasty Sparkled Ginger Cookies this morning before work and they are tastier than tasty be! And then there was a good day of work and then I came home to a small pile of boxes that had come in the mail! I'd ordered these two books and then promptly forgotten about them but all of the enthusiasm I ordered them with is back, and my head is practically spinning with all the possibilities!
Oh, I'm such a dork. I know it. But I think it's nice that I get all weak-kneed at the little things, like sock patterns. You can keep your fast cars and large fancy purses, I just want to knit some socks while I watch Masterpiece Theater, maybe keep a sheep in the yard and bake some cupcakes.

Good Day

I was picking out my twice weekly groceries at Twelve Mile on Saturday when I found these lovelies! The eggs are called Girls-a-Layin' (P.S. don't type that into google for a search... it will only end with naughty things. Who'd a thought? Geeze...) and they are local. I think I'm in love! The lady was saying that she has forty some-odd chickens and she always knows which ones are laying and which aren't because each egg is unique to the chicken (and she doesn't just mean the really obvious color difference, that's how good she is). I love that.

And on the way home on Saturday I decided to keep my eyes peeled for a Goodwill. I knew there used to be one in the area and sure enough there it was! I popped in with a very specific idea in my head. I wanted to take an already made sweater and deconstruct it for its yarn ever since I saw this tutorial. This was a cotton (I think) Large sweater. Ok, in the end it took me about 5 hours to pick the damn seams out without tearing the yarn and about 4 hours to unravel everything, but now I think I have enough for four pairs of mittens and a pair of socks or something. It's about the journey... right? Anyway, my fingers are sort of purple from picking at little threads for hours and hours but it was so worth it.

At least that's what I'm telling myself, and don't you go contradicting me either.
Oh, and the photo above is of the sweater with the arms already detached and unraveled and one side open with three more seams to go. Sigh....

The Great Promise of '09

I’ve been thinking about this whole concept of resolutions. I’ve always thought that I shouldn’t need to wait for the New Year to begin to decide to change something, or use a date as justification. That being said, I am intrigued by this idea of trying something for a long, but definite, period of time. This year I hadn’t given it much thought. I never have and I didn’t see why this one should be any different… until I saw a post on Needled. For the past year, the woman who writes on Needled has made a pledge not to purchase any new clothing. Mending, darning, sewing new pieces, re-vamping and all manner of things are perfectly wonderful ways to make clothing that don’t involve buy new (usually cheaply made and shortly worn) clothing.
I’ve always felt slightly guilty when I sneak into Target or Forever 21 and buy something. In my mind it’s like buying disposable clothes, something you wear maybe ten times before it self destructs. The price is just right for something like that and it works out to be something like $1 a wear until it dies, twisted into an unrecognizable mess when it comes out of the washer on that fateful day. My problem has been trying to justify buy fabric to make my own clothes. It is expensive. Sometimes it works out to be $15 for a simple cotton skirt in materials and then six or seven hours of swearing and ripping seams out, not to mention those damn zippers! Now, though, I think I’ve changed my mind since I started working at Twelve Mile Market.

Twelve Mile Market is an organic food store in Gresham. David Shonk takes veggies and other good things from his farm and then sells them in the little store, wedged in next to a karate studio, Mexican restaurant and locksmith. The food in his store doesn’t last forever. Good food isn’t supposed to last very long, that’s how you know it’s good. The same should be said for clothing. Something good shouldn’t be cheap and expendable. A good piece of clothing is something that’s made to last and to be loved.

So, the point of all of this is that for the next year I’m going to make a pledge not to buy any new clothing. I’d like to make things and to really appreciate what goes into making a shirt or a pair of socks. I have the time and a little bit of expendable income that I would much rather spend teaching myself things and keeping myself busy than on a speedy trip to Target to buy something I won’t even remember in two months. As the woman on Needled was saying, this isn’t an exercise in denial. I’m not going to feel guilty if I do buy something, but I will feel infinitely satisfied if I chose to challenge myself and make the same thing myself… albeit with more cursing and sore fingers.

I hope you’re all having a good year and that you’re all doing something that makes you happy. After all, what good is doing something if you’re not happy/satisfied/content?

Doodlie-Doodlie Dooo...

Ah, the rain. It's been pouring the last couple of days and this morning everything frosted over. Between class and work I've been doing things. Like watch a movie here and there, or read a book, or even something crafty if I feel like swathing myself in blankies while I'm downstairs in the meat locker (now, to be fair it's no where near freezing in my basement lair. However, it is at least three degrees colder and I do not do well in arctic climates so I tend to bundle up when I go down into the bat cave). So, here are some of the products (more to come when I get around to it).
Felted nesting bowls. Infinitely useful as long as you don't want to put liquids in them. Like cereal. And even then it is possible to use them for cereal, it would just be a bit messy and soggy. These are going to Twelve Mile this afternoon when I go to work for foodstuffs.
And then here is the horse. A few weeks ago Dad, Lisa and I went to check out this little used bookstore in Sandy called "Some Bookstore in Sandy" (which made me want to check it out so badly! With a name like that, how can it not be wonderful?). I dug up a couple of books, among them "60 Great Horror Stories" (or some such thing), "The Herb Bible" and, best of all, a book of sewing patterns. The patterns were from the 90's but that didn't even matter because they were all plush toy patterns! There were horsies, penguins, foxes, chickens... a really good assortment.

I can do some 2-d things on my own, but when it comes to actual shaping or anything my skills just aren't there so this book was perfect for showing the construction of stuffed animals. Very complicated, I would never have been able to brain storm these things up myself without a TON of wasted fabric and frustration. Anywho, a few weeks later Chachi was born. After I took the pictures and started writing this I realized that he looks eerily like something from Charlie the Unicorn, a happy accident I guess because otherwise he just looks like a retarded clown horse. At least now I can say "Why of course he looks slightly retarded, I meant to do that. Haven't you seen Charlie the Unicorn?" with a bit of a condescending-holier-than-thou tone. Right?

Now that he's done I love him very much because of all the time it took to make him, and how huge he turned out (he's about 14 inches tall, if I could get his back legs to stop collapsing in this mincing sort of crouch). Plus he fits very nicely under my arm, especially since he's about the size of a new baby lamb and those are always adorable.

Thinking Ahead to Birthday

I've always LOVED these little axolotl salamander guys since I first saw them at OMSI about a lifetime ago. So cool. And this morning I found this tutorial on craftmagazine.com on how to make a BIRTHDAY cake in the shape of one! EEEEEEeeeee (breathe gasp) EEEEEEEeeeee! I know exactly what I'm making myself for my birthday... and then I'll send myself a thank you card.

Pretty in Motion

I found this on Craftmagazine.com today. Very cute, but I couldn't turn the sound on so I don't know if there's music. If you want to re-live the Hannah viewing experience, you could turn the sound off. Just a thought.

This Is Where We Live from 4th Estate on Vimeo.

I Can't Help it!

I found these hair pins on MelissaAbram, an etsy shop, and today I accidentally hit "put in cart" and then "purchase" and then "pay" and then "confirm" and then ooops! Before I knew it, they were ordered. Oh well. What can I say? They're pretty darn awesome.

Le Sigh

It's the end of an era, Jessie is going back to school. yessss........ However, this means that I started to get the baking itch, I wanted to send her back with some cupcakes. Now, to back it up a little, Star and I were in Portland the other week and she took me to Powells to see The Book. The Book is the ultimate (in my world, that is) book of cupcake recipes, also appropriately called Cupcakes!. She'd gotten one a while before and now I had to get one so that we could bake the recipes together, even though she's two hours away. I'd already baked Cinnamon Sugar Puff Cupcakes (p. 64, Star) and something about their warm cinnamoniness plucked a few heart strings. Everyone loved them. Afterwards it was deemed that the Cinnamon Sugar Puff Cupcakes were not in fact cupcakes proper because they didn't have any frosting (a. This was said with a bit of an eye twinkle and b. I don't like frosting which made this recipe even appealing) so it was decreed by the less than silent masses that I make another batch of real cupcakes, complete with frosting. Thus the White Christmas Cupcakes were born (p. 128, also Star). I didn't use their frosting because I didn't have any of the ingredients. The Joy has plenty of sugar/butter/egg based frostings that are pretty easy. I think I blew the frosting anyway though because it came out on the liquid side of things. Ah well, I'm not going to be eating these, and they sure look purty.

Here are your cupcake pictures Star!

Mini Things

Are always cute! So I made some mini shoes for wee people. They're at Twelve Mile already!

The Sweetest Things

You never know when you'll find something that surprises you with its sweetness. Dad sent me these little poem/short thoughts. They remind me a little of A Softer World. A little.

APTITUDE

Today after being asked the question
“Were there buildings when dinosaurs were here?”
I tried to explain evolution to a five year old.

It took thirty minutes.

And I still failed.

Why can’t he ask questions like
“If you were a pair of shoes, what color would you be?”
I know the answer to that.

Gold.

Someone Hand me a Paper Bag Before I Hyperventilate!

Our friend Lisa was here last week. She knits just as much as I do and she recommended this website called Knit Picks. However, when she mentioned it she was talking about the knitting needles they have on there. I went and scoped it out but knitting needles don't really do anything for me. For some reason I wound up on that site again this morning and glanced at their yarn. This is where the heart palpitations and erratic breathing come in.

THEY'RE PRACTICALLY GIVING IT AWAY!

Now, I know I get excited about little things. Like buttons. Or cupcakes. But really, this is fantastic. I ordered a boxful of 100% wool yarn hand woven by poor Andean folk for $3 each. And a book. Ok, I'm exaggerating a little. I ordered four skeins of really REALLY nice yarn and my favorite knitting book Vintage Knits (found that for pennies as well). Have you ever seen that Austin Powers movie where the femme bots' heads explode? Well, if you have then you could draw a pretty good parallel between Powers' mojo = Yarn and Femme Bot exploding head = Hannah exploding cranium.

Oh, and on top of that I got the two knitting patterns from Hansigurumi on Etsy that I'd ordered around Christmas!The Garden Snail

The Jackalope

Star, I wish you were here. I think you'd understand the magnitude of this amazingness. All that's missing is some fresh baked cupcake to make this day coma-inducingly good.

But wait, there's more! My Grandmother Joyce was here last night for a New Year's Eve dinner and she recommended this site called paperbackswap.com. You list any paperback books you don't particularly want on their and people can request them. So you pay for the shipping out and for every book you send you get one credit and you can then order any book you want and receive it for free. Each regular book costs 1 credit to order, audio books are 2. By listing ten books when you sign up you get 2 credits to play with. I did that last night and I ordered the Forsyte Saga. I just got an e-mail telling me that my request had been filled and I'll be getting an e-mail in a couple of days saying the book has been shipped! I'm pretty excited.

Cooking in '08

I've been busy cooking for the last couple months of good, old 2008. I more or less promised myself not to show anyone these recipes because they make me look like a god in the kitchen, but then I figured that most of you don't live with me and I can still wow them folks with these. I've tried all of these without any messups and with really great end results. Plus, all of them are on the internets so I don't have to mess with a cook book that won't stay open. Anywho, enjoy these during the whole new year thing.

Baked Pasta Casserole

(one of the ultimates of ultimates lately)

Big Fat Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Sparkled Ginger Cookies

(I got Jessie to eat almost a whole batch even after she knew they were vegan... which says something about how awesome these are.)

Classic Apple Pie

(I made that for Not-so-Turkey-Turkeyday and it turned out beautimous, I did use my own pie crust recipe, so I'm not vouching for theirs.)

Pumpkin Scones

(I can't stress how mind blowingly good these are. I gave the recipe to Star and I think she made at least two batches within the first week.)

Apple Crostada

(very tasty, very buttery)

Honey Mousse with Pomegranate

(This is another one of those foods that make you want to roll your eyes back and ask "If this isn't some sort of religious experience, what is?" So good. Mine turned out a tad more yellow than the picture but that's because I used local, happy eggs with happy egg yolks.)

Swedish Walnut Tea Ring

(My first success with yeast, and a tasty success to boot!)

Gingerbread Cake

(this was tasty as heck however I decided to do something silly. I tossed it right out of the pan onto a rack after it had cooled, instead of treating it like brownies and cutting it up while it was still in the pan. Oops. I lost a good chunk out of the middle but that just meant I got to munch on that before everyone showed up.)

Country Crust Bread

(This is my new favorite bread and also the only bread I've gotten to actually turn out like it's supposed to. Ohhh new bread... you smell so good!)

And yes Star, I do know that I haven't put up pictures of those cupcakes I made, but Jessie got into them like a fox in a hen house and before I knew it they were gone. I guess I'll just have to make some more, now won't I? I have my eye on those hi-hats in that book...