stretch and fold, stretch and fold...
2 Weeks Ago
Baguettes just went into the oven (68% hydration), the rolls came out (66% hydration multigrain and white with seeds), just a bit before that...
I've not eaten yet today... and for some reason I've a strange inklination to go all bread N butter  
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Pitta-speed.
2 Weeks Ago
 forgot to put this into a journal on... err... Thursday I think it was, when I last made bread....
I was getting fed up of being away, and coming home to find no bread.... so wanted to make a couple of bigger batches to enable me to freeze a whole bunch...
Anyhow, so Thursday I made 16 of the new style rolls, and 24 pittabread....
A problem when making large batches was always my lack of worktop and also the lack of cooling racks... hence I bought some new stacking cooling racks... a set of three which stack, and I bought two packs, so can stack it six high (though that does just about hit the bottom of the cupboards above the worktop); so its easier to stack three high in two towers, one next to the other...
Anyhow, the other problem with doing the pitta breads, is that as they cook quickly (three minutes), and as the worktop is only so* large, you've got the problem of rolling out enough so that the oven doesn't go into downtime whilst your trying to roll more to go in (and, afterall they should sit on the worktop for five to ten mins after being rolled, to rise a little really)...
I can fit about six or eight on the worktop but then really have no more room to fit anymore, and hardly any room to roll out any more anyhow....
So, making 24 was a bit of a struggle to time right... but I did
whilst the 16 rolls were cooking, I rolled out eight pittas, and as soon as the rolls came out, going onto the bottom teer of the two towers of cooling racks, the first two pitta went in.... Then I rolled another two pitta, and after the ones in the oven had had three minutes, took them out onto the cooling rack tower, and put two more (not the two just* rolled), in to the oven...
Anyhow, this gave me quite a bit of practise at rolling them, and, for the first time ever, I did the sub 50 second pitta rolled out!  I may try make 42 pitta bread next time  though I am seirously considering buying another six or nine cooling racks  at least I've tons of freezer space, and the pitabreads are great from frozen, just bung in the toaster, from frozen, and in a few minutes they've warmed, defrosted, and puffed up a bit to make opening them up easier and they are better from frozen, than shop bought fresh  which, relaly, I know now to not* be fresh in the slightest  
Must make some baguettes soon, not done that in ages...
I'm still contemplating a design modification to the stackible cooling racks; to free up more worktop space, I'm trying to devise a cunning plan, to attach them to the wall, in such a way as they can fold flat against the wall when not in use, and be swung out and fixed firmly enough, when they need to be used  I think I could easily have a row of six in height, with decent gaps between, and a second next to it... which would be twelve cooling racks in total... the top ones might be quite high up the wall though
Oh.
OH.
Oh.
I've just had another idea!  this one involves fixing the cooling racks to the ceiling... and being able to kinda pull them down.... hmmm... can I just drill into the ceiling or am I likely to find electrical cables? ... only one way to find out... where'd I put the chuck key for the drill 
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Living in a newsagents.
4 Weeks Ago
I never realised I was living in a newsagents.
It doesn't really look like one.
I can't remember seeing quite so many armchairs and shackles and handcuffs in most newsagents, and I'm sure there isn't as many newspapers in my house as a newsagents would carry.
Also, Naa, I think I'd have realised if this was a newsagents.
But, on recieving, yet again, a threatening letter outlining why I need a public performance licence in my residence, I checked the name given.... Not a great deal of usefulness on Google.... so try with my house number, street name etc., too.
Ahh.
The newsagents, at number 20, which I use quite a lot, and, well, isn't relaly a newsagents either, is listed twice, in several online database/search/telephone/bisunness directory thinggies, useually twice... once as being at number 20, and with a modified version of the name given on the letter, and then again, at my house address, with the shortened, version of the name on the letter... how odd.
hmmm.
a quick check reveals the pub near me (which is dredful), at number 2, is also listed twice, once as a shoe shop, and once as a pub 
the weird food grocery place that looks like a dead cert as being a front for something more illegal than selling large bags of rice, is listed twice... under two differnt names, and the Chinese buffet next door, has four or five bisunness apparently opperating from the same location, including a cafe, and two differnt resturants/takeaways
hmmm...
oh, and the hairdressers nexdoor, is listed several times... once under its current name, once under its old name, and as a solicitors Solicitors and* hairdressers... maybe that is what they mean, when the barbor says 'anything for the weekend'.
Everything just about on this street then, if one looks, is listed incorrectly at some level... I had a look on a simular bisunness online directory thinggy and the same was true on there, well, errors were true, but the detailed of the errors were often subtly differnt...
maybe I should check my council tax, make sure I'm not paying bisunness rates by mistake 
I've been doing sodding laundry all damn day, and its still not dry... 
I really really really want to cook dharl tonight, but I've not got any fresh methi leaves or coriander, doing one with mong beans and red split lentles, but it'll have to wait until tommorrow now, until I've gone to the Indian supermarket... I just know... I just know... I'll end up with another dozen differnt bags of seeds, spices and suchlike... but I can't*.... I've not any cupbaord space left, at all... I've flour stored on top of the washing machine, tins of food kept inside saucepans, which means I have to move them each time I use the pan, and I've all kinds of pizza stones, baking trays, muffin tins, bread tins, baguette tins, etc., stored in a Tesco.com grovery delivery box, which seems to live either in teh corner of the kitchen on the floor, or ontop of the small bit of worktop in the utility room...
Actually.. talking of baguette trays, I must go grind some more coffee beans...
The new wire cooling racks I bought are brill. naa, really, actually, come to think of it, you could say they're really cool
They were on offer.... so I bought two... each contained three cooling racks, which is six... this makes cooling down 24 rolls, or two dozen pittabread a bit easier...
The best thing, though, like, and this is like, you know, so like totally amazing, like, is, and this is like so gonna blow your mind like, is, right, that like the cooling racks like, they're stakible!
so I got two sets, each of three stakible cooling trays/rakcs, and I can stack them all together to give a six level cooling set, which takes up a small enough worktop space that it hardly impinges on the rest of what I'm doing on the worktops
But... and... this... will... like... be... so... so... so... cool... like... I might... eventually... devise... a like really.. like cool, way of mounting/fixing... the cooling tray/racks, to the wall... in teh ktichen, so they can like fold up, and out of the way, and then fold down when I'm using them, and, like, hence, like take up no worktop space at all....
mind... that really doesn't help solve the problem of the lack of cupboard space... actually... hmmm... naa, can't really keep tubs of spices and canned things in teh fridge, that would just be silly... there's more room in teh fridge than there is in the cupboards like... 
Wish these shirts would hurry up and dry... I've socks and knickers and things to dry after these... had a mountain of towels built up to be washed... at least they're all dry now...
Made some loverly tasty multigrain rolls yesterday... came out all like the same size and everything... but it buggered up one of my older, (and the most bluddy expensive), fancy baking tray (OK it was on offer, when I bought it, but that isn't the point)... so I'm going to go to the new cheapo kitchen-ware shop up the road, tommorrow, and get another of the trays I bought there a while ago... as the one of those I got works fine, though its always dangerous goign into that shop... last time I went I impulse bought a pestal and morter... I mean... how rock-and-rol is that... like living on the edge... man... just like seeing this pestal and morter, and I'm like, so 'thats got to be mine', and like it just is...
which reminds me, still can't find any jeans worth buying ... may wonder more towards town tommorrow and see if there is any about there... although... that might be dangerous... the shop I'm thinking of also sells shoes... and like, you know, I might just like kinda noticed, like by accident, like, that they've like got some boots on special offer at the moment like... mind, my old zip up boots are getting pretty ropey... can't wear them if its wet as it comes straight in from a gap near where the upper joins the bottom  and my lace up boots are OK, but not really smart enough for like being smart.. and they take a good five minutes or more to take off... and longer to put back on...
Oh, and I think I might have found my string winder... really... only took about a decade or so... Still trying to catch up with things since getting back from being away over Christmas and the new year... which was good...
spent Christmas at my Dad's, then met up with William for four days away between Christmas and new year      then back to Dad's for new year... got back err... last week sometime... Thursday I think... err probably like...
I do wish these shirts would hurry up and dry... I need to get a shower soon......
Not at all sure about these lightweight linen trousers... Do they mmake my bum look big? hurrumble! the machine has beeped, the shirts oughta be dry
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Back. And off again.
Dec 21, 2011
Back, as in today... from a week at William's 
Have got back and done laundry... just had dinner a little while ago... so tired now, and need to go pack and get ready to head off tommorrow, on the train, to parents for Christmas    was so tired tonight I turned down an offer of going out to the pub  Must try and muster the energy up to go pack this bag...
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- Latest reply: 4 Weeks Ago
Abnormal service will be resumed....
Dec 14, 2011
Just as soon as the over-excited turnip men with hammers, realighn the lamppost matrixes in the street... I think...
Off tommorrow... err OK today now really I guess, for a week, to William's,
Then I'll get back, err on the Wednesday I think, do laundry, tidy up here at home, and make things all kind of generally a bit ship shaped, well cept for the bits which are already ship shaped, I'll probably make them more kind of aubergine shaped, just for the change. So Ican then disappear again on the Thursday (is that the 23rd?), to deepest darkest, dankest, dampest, darjeelingest, darwiniest, daftest, drearyest, beeryiest suffolk, and do all that Christmas type thing for a few days....
Then, just after hte bank holiday bit, between Christmas thign and the new year thing, I'm off for a short hotel break, with Wiliam
Then for new year... err not yet sure what is happenign for new year, there was talk of a party, here in Cambridge, but I'm not sure about that... and my Brother was mubbling something about tieing turnips to a tractor and setting fire to the weevils under his toenails... err, and also something about a party, or pub, or beer, or kebabs, or something, so it'll probably be one of those, or maybe even a totally differnt kind of sort of pinkish pale blue, sort of faded, kind of emerald type of yellow thing, with a sort of redish type affixation with some probably not inconspicious bits of sardines... I expect... or something...
I'll probably pop in over the sardine/christmas/newyear/sexercise/drinking/turnip/boiledbrains/whateveryoucallit period... but can't guarentee the level of return on a fixed four year basis, and the value of sardines can go up as well as ping.
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