Baking Day

Thursdays are my "day off".  

I put it in quotes because a day off is new for me.

Since I started working part time at church, it's been hard for me to take a whole day away from the things I need to get done. 

But, a book I've been reading and some great people I know convinced me that I need to have a day where I don't think about church work at all.  

And it does help me keep my hours closer to the 20 hours I'm supposed to work a week.

It's hard to only work 20 hours. 

There is always so much still to be done.......

Anyway,  I've been taking Thursday's off lately.

Which really is good for my soul.

This day off could pretty much be entitled "Baking Day".

I had several things on my list to make today.

SO, the day started off with a lot of this....

I got the day started with French Bread.

Here is the dough looking nice and smooth and ready to rise.

While the french bread was rising, I strained the garbanzo beans I had been cooking all morning and made a big batch of homemade hummus.

This was my first attempt at making hummus.

All in all, I think it went pretty well.

I used the recipe on the back of the package of beans.

But followed the directions from here.

The hardest part was stirring up the tahini. Good grief, that took forever. 

This recipe called for quite a bit of lemon juice.

It didn't turn out as smooth as I would've liked, but it is still pretty good.

There is a restaurant in Asheville called Jerusalem Garden. They have the best hummus you've ever eaten. Hoping I can figure out to replicate it at some point.

To go with the hummus, I decided to make homemade tortillas.

I followed this recipe.

Making homemade tortillas was much easier than I ever thought it could be.

and not terribly time consuming.  I may never buy store bought again.

And next time, I'm going to try whole wheat flour instead of all purpose.

I took a break after all this was done to take Allie to the Orthodontist.

Once we returned home, I was on to my final baking venture of the day.

I made whole wheat bread.

I used to make two loaves of whole wheat bread a week and I've decided I would like to get back to that if I can.

I followed a new recipe though.

I don't know what I did wrong because it didn't rise as I would've liked.

I can't figure out why. argh......

The spoils of my labor.....

Baking day was a success.

I hear people say that bread is bad for me.

Today, I'm saying that if bread is wrong, I don't wanna be right!

{Really, I do. I'm a rule follower at heart. But I can't help it. I just love bread}

And my tummy will be saying that too tomorrow morning when I make French Toast 

my French bread.

It's been a busy baking day.

Time for to get in bed for another work day tomorrow.

Good Night all.