Baking Bread

Lee and I have been baking a lot more in lockdown, mostly because we've had a lot more time to, and we've enjoyed having nice things to eat in the house. I saw everyone baking bread and I wanted to do the same, but we haven't been able to get yeast anywhere. We've been in quite a few shops, and we had asked around at the market too. A friend told me about a place in Barnsley where you can weigh your own stuff, so I even asked them, but they didn't have any either. In the end I bought some off eBay, which proves you can buy literally anything you want on eBay. It was probably more expensive than in a shop, but it had free postage and it arrived quickly.

It also came with a recipe for bread, which looked really simple, so we baked it one Sunday morning. It was just flour, yeast, sugar, and water. You activated the yeast with some of the water and the sugar, and then added it to the flour. The recipe said to use your hands to mix it in, which I did. Lee is funny about stuff on his hands, so didn't want to get involved in that. Then you had to prove it for twenty minutes, which we did in the top of our oven. It rose beautifully. The recipe was for two large loaves or four small loaves, but we only had two small tins so we did two loaves at a time. It baked for around 40 minutes and then it was done!

The first loaf was quite dense, so I knocked back the remaining mixture as it had risen while the other was baking, and divided that between the two tins and baked again. I haven't actually eaten either of those yet, but we ate most of the first loaf for lunch. It's nice bread, simple but tasty, although I think I would have added a tiny bit of salt to it.

I'm already excited to try baking a focaccia maybe!

Mixing it all up in my vintage bowl that I got from an antiques shop years ago

The first two as they came out!

And we just ate it simply, with butter

Up My Street

Lee and I went for a walk one day in early May, just up our street. I've been doing step aerobics in the house, but wanted some exercise and fresh air, so said we should walk up the street to where there's a bench and back again. Our road is on a hill so I wasn't sure how difficult it would be, but I actually found it an okay walk thankfully.

While we were out I challenged us both to take some photos along the way. Mine were all nature, although there were some interesting non-natural things too. Here's my photos:

Look at the sky, it was beautiful. This field is just opposite our house and there's been a few families exercising and playing in it over the past few weeks, but not today. I've only been in once, a very long time ago!

This tree had really spiky leaves, but I'm not sure what kind it is. I liked it though

This was growing in someone's garden, I liked the flash of red in it

This is the top of a public footpath that I think must go over the motorway on a really high bridge. This gate is really old!

And this is the footpath itself. Lee says it goes into the housing estate first

We stopped here and talked about climbing trees when we were kids, something I really liked to do

And finally this cow parsley is close to our street. I love it, I find it really cheerful!