The Beginning of the End

The end of July, that is. This month seems to gone by faster than any month yet this year, but I suppose when the weather is nice, we get busy doing a lot of things and that makes the time seem to go by more quickly. I'm not necessarily looking forward to August, but it does bring us closer to fall, my favorite time of year.

Thank you for all your good thoughts on Friday. If you didn't happen to see my midday update, I'm happy to share that Molly passed her driving test and is now a licensed driver! Amazingly she has not yet asked to take the car out ("the car" being my car), but one of her good friends has been on an overseas vacation with her parents for the past week and a half or so and will be getting home tomorrow, so Molly's already planning to drive over to see her on Wednesday. I'll admit I'm a little freaked out by the idea of her driving alone, but I know she is cautious and responsible, and frankly I'm very much looking forward to her driving herself to and from school everyday!

Our brief stretch of unseasonably cool weather ended this weekend, so it was a bit more uncomfortable outside. On Saturday morning Molly and I walked to a nearby farmers market to pick up some things for dinner that night. We came home with some focaccia, a gorgeous loaf of farm bread, fresh blueberries, and a couple of heirloom tomatoes. I had to go Trader Joe's anyway because we were completely out of coffee, so I picked up some fresh mozzarella. I picked some basil from our herb pot, and voila, caprese salad for dinner!

Your eyes do not deceive you -- that is purple basil!

After dinner, the Mister and I walked over to get ice cream and took Ruthie along for the first time. She was excited but I think a little disappointed that she didn't get any!

I did manage to get that charity hat finished up on Saturday, using up all but about 2 g of yarn (which means I used 101 g or about 495 yards!).

I almost immediately cast on for another one using the other skein I'd wound and taken with me on our family trip, when I was apparently a little delusional about just how much knitting I'd be doing. It's a one-of-a-kind skein from the now-defunct Steel City Fiber Collective. This is a sparkly base and should be faster to knit because it's only (hehe) 438 yards.

I've got a three-day work week this week, which feels like a great way to finish out the month. Molly and I are taking a short weekend trip up to Michigan with my parents and my brother and his family to visit my aunt and uncle. We'll be leaving Friday and coming back Sunday, but I'm taking Thursday and Monday off as well so I can drop Ruthie off at/pick her up from the dog sitter's (I prefer to have her in the car in the morning, before she eats, so there's less for her to throw up on the way!). Molly and I have tickets to go see The Odyssey on Thursday afternoon -- I'm excited! And I finished up a big work project at the end of the day on Friday, so I'm hoping this can be a calm and short week.

Eye Candy Friday, Shabbat Edition

Happy Friday, all! I am happy to see the end of the week, even though we're expecting a gloomy weekend ahead. I know I don't normally post on Friday, but as I've posted every other weekday this week, why break the streak?

Today I wanted to share one amazing benefit of working from home -- I have time to bake fresh challah for Shabbat. It was the first item on my 21 in 2021 list and the first one I crossed off the list, but it's something I hope to be able to do regularly this year.

I was posting photos from the steps involved in making these freshly baked loaves in my Instagram stories, and Eileen asked if I'd share the recipe, so I figured it was as good an excuse as any to post here! This recipe came to us from a friend of the Mister's who has started baking challahs every Friday with her daughter (who goes to school with Rainbow) that they then give out to friends and family. Be forewarned that this recipe makes A LOT of challah; what you see here is actually the result of making half of the recipe. A stand mixer is highly recommended for making this dough.

Chani's Sweet Challah

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons yeast
1 1/2 cups + 1 teaspoon sugar
2 cups warm water
3 eggs, plus an additional for the egg wash
8 cups bread flour
1 tablespoon salt
6 tablespoons vegetable oil

Dissolve yeast and 1 teaspoon of sugar in warm water in the mixer bowl (allow it to sit for 10-15 minutes, until it's quite bubbly). Add the rest of the sugar, eggs, and oil and whisk until very fluffy. Add the salt and mix.

Gradually add the flour, cup by cup. You can use the mixing blade attachment for the first half and switch to the kneading hook for the second half. If needed, dump out onto the counter and knead until smooth.

Oil a large bowl (cooking spray/Pam works well) and place the dough in it, rolling it around to coat it with oil. Cover the dough and place it in the oven with a pan of hot water beneath the bowl*. Let the dough rise for 60-90 minutes.

Shape into loaves and brush the top of them with the remaining egg mixed with water (a bit of honey or salt can also be added). Let the loaves rise for an additional hour, then bake at 350F for about 35 minutes. You can rebrush the loaves with the egg wash halfway through the baking if desired to cover the braid expansion.

Helpful notes:
- If you're making the full recipe, note that the dough might overwhelm your mixer.
- Every time I've baked this recipe, I've used all-purpose flour and it's been fine. One of these days I'll get some bread flour and see if there's any difference in taste.
- I have successfully made this challah using Egg Beaters/egg substitute in place of the eggs. Today's loaves (made with half the recipe) used 1 egg plus some Egg Beaters.
- For today's loaves, I put the egg wash on just prior to baking. I lost some braid definition, but the crust is shinier.

*If you have a family member who's in the habit of turning on the oven without checking if anything is inside it and/or doesn't understand that bread has to rise in a warm place (like an oven), I suggest putting a large sign on the oven door at this point.