I'm home.  I'm sitting in my house.  I am on my couch.  I am typing on my couch.  I am in my living room.  I'm not going anywhere outside of my own house for the rest of the day.  The whole rest of the day.  It feels... foreign.
For all my bitching about May and how it's all crazy and busy and overwhelming, June has been just as bad and maybe even worse.  Worse not really because it's worse but just because the expectation was that it would be better and it hasn't been.  That makes no sense when I look at the words but it totally made sense in my head.  Combine the 'crazy' with a heat wave in Toronto and you've got two kids living on cereal and toast.  Fortunately, that's done and we're back to absolute gorgeous summer weather.  Now that I'm still - as in not moving - I'm looking at the kitchen and wondering where to begin.


I have to admit that I almost didn't post this.  I think that the bread looks awful.  I look at other food blogs and the pictures are so awesome and everything just looks perfect.  The bread always rises exactly the way bread should rise.  It's always the right shade of golden/brown.  The cookies are never a little over-baked on the bottom.  There is never too much liquid in the stew.  You know?  The colours are perfect and the cakes look just right.  It's intimidating because almost nothing I make looks like that. It's taken me years to get over that my cooking and baking is best when it looks like crap.  So, I'm swallowing my pride and putting this bread recipe out there... crappy looking bread and all.
It tasted good.  And when we'd used it all up for sandwiches and it was starting to get stale... we made strata.  It was good.  And good for you.  And it was more than just a little ugly.


Whole Wheat and Red Fife Bread adapted from 'King Arthur Flour'
makes 1 loaf

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup red fife flour
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
1/4 cup dry milk powder
1 1/4 cup warm water
2 1/4 tsp dry yeast
1 tbsp sugar
3 tbsp melted butter

Grease a stainless steel or glass bowl and have a clean dish towel handy.
Combine the warm water, yeast and 1 tbsp sugar together.  Stir just to mix and set aside in a draft-free spot for a few minutes (just to make sure that it starts to get foamy and bubbly).
Combine the all purpose flour, whole wheat flour and red fife flour together with the salt, sugar and dry milk powder.  Mix and set aside.
Once the yeast mixture is foamy (about 5 - 7 minutes should be enough) add it to the flour mixture.
Add in the melted butter and stir together until the mixture can form a rough dough ball.  Turn out onto a very lightly floured surface and knead for just a few minutes until the dough ball looks uniform and smooth.
Place the dough in the greased bowl.  Cover with the clean cloth.  Place in a draft free spot for an hour. The dough won't quite be doubled.
Gently remove the dough from the bowl and knead just enough to release the air and form into a rough loaf shape.
Place in a greased loaf pan.  Cover again with clean cloth and place in a draft free spot until the dough gets about 1 inch over the top of the pan (took about an hour for me but could take up to 1 1/2 hrs).
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Bake the bread for about 35 minutes or until the crust sounds hollow when you knock on it.

I really wanted this to be a 'here's-a-list-of-my-current-favourite-things' but it's not happening.  Mostly because I just haven't had a chance to stop and consider what my current favourite things are.


I can tell you with certainty that sleep is a current favourite.
Drinking a cold beer is right up there too.
Cooking, though a current favourite, is creating a small heating problem.  It's extremely hot right now and doing any cooking is only adding to that heat in a rather unpleasant way.
I've been reading... as you know if you've been following my blog... which is nothing new.  But I'm not going into what the book it and how I feel about it yet again.  Besides, I'm moving on to a book about Cleopatra and then another 'civilization-is-evil' book.  In other words, I'm in between things right now.
I would love to tell you that I'm currently catching up with all my friends... but I'm not.  I'm hopelessly behind in that.  To be honest, when I do have a free evening I'm not even sure where to begin and how to fill it.  There is so much I want to do and so many friends I want to catch up with.  Fortunately, I have the most understanding friends.
I wish that I could report that my house is clean and tidy... but it's nowhere close.  Damn.  My laundry hasn't even been touched.
I really really wish that I could even begin to describe how hard it's been to not just completely collapse at work into a melting flesh ball - it's hot and everyone (students and teachers) is tired.
I would also love to be able to tell you that I've already been taking advantage of the great seasonal fruit that is starting to appear.  Strawberries are in season right now.  I haven't even touched one yet.  I'm hoping to fix that very soon but at the moment I've barely even seen a strawberry.


At the very least I can give you rhubarb.  Rhubarb.  I've still got one more rhubarb recipe up my sleeve but I'd had my heart set on doing this kind of thing with rhubarb for a while.  I finally -FINALLY- had a moment and turned these suckers out.
Making these bars isn't something that I would recommend doing on a crazy hot day like today in Toronto.  So if these look interesting to you then I would chop up the required rhubarb.  Bag it.  Freeze it.  And once the temperatures in Toronto find there way back down to something that makes turning on the oven bearable then go for it.  The browned butter adds a nice richness to the bars.  Please note that I have upped the amount of rhubarb in the recipe.  When I made them I found the rhubarb disappeared a little.  Make sure that you use enough rhubarb and chop it coarsely.



Rhubarb and White Chocolate Blondies adapted from 'Relish Recipes'
makes 1 9x13 pan of bars

1 cup unsalted butter
2 1/4 cup all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
3 eggs
2 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups rhubarb, coarsely chopped
6 oz white chocolate chunks

Melt the butter in a heavy bottomed saucepan over med/low heat.  Cook until golden/brown - this took me about 12 minutes.  It will get little flecks in it that look like dirt or something.  Remove from heat and set aside to cool.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Line a 9x13 baking pan with aluminum foil and set aside.  (I did not grease the pan or anything and had no problem with sticking after baking).
In a bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt.  Set aside.
In another bowl combine the cooled butter (mine only cooled outside for about 7 - 9 minutes) and brown sugar.  Whisk or use a mixer until light and fluffy.  Add the eggs and continue to whisk or mix until frothier.   Add vanilla and whisk to combine.
Gradually add in the flour and mix until the flour is completely blended and the batter is smooth.
Add in the chopped rhubarb and white chocolate.  Mix only until blended.
Pour the batter into the baking pan.  Spread evenly over the pan.
Bake for about 25 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean (you might want just a tiny bit of goo on the tester if you want slightly gooier blondies)  Cool for about 7 minutes and then cut them into squares.
Keeps well in an airtight container for about 3 days.