The pizza stone wasn’t where I thought it was so pizza is not on the menu today. Not going to go through the effort to make a homemade pizza until I find the stone. I could make smaller pizzas, as in small enough to fit on a cookie sheet (the only other flat surface I have for baking), but I want a BIG pizza. :D

Instead, I am making more bread to go with the meatloaf tonight. It’s almost finished with its first rising. This time I have it in the oven to rise. My oven doesn’t go low enough to have the oven on, but I warmed it up just a bit before putting the dough in, and I am seeing a whole lot of rising going on … more than before. This loaf may turn out puffier.

I am also going to be putting a shallow pan of water in the oven with it at baking time this time, as well as making the top slashes larger, to try to avoid having the bottom blow out again when it can’t expand upward anymore. We’ll see how that goes. Doesn’t really matter to me too much how it looks, just so long as it tastes good. The last loaf tasted good, which is why it’s already all gone and I am making more.

I haven’t eaten that much bread in ages. I found myself just eating bread with butter as a snack, and it was so good as sandwich bread last night. I actually got to slather on the mayo and mustard without fear of the bread becoming a soggy mess. A sandwich is just meat on bread without a good quantity of tasty condiments and juicy veggies.

I am now addicted to home-baked bread. I blame Kenno. It’s all his fault for talking about making bread. I’m probably going to gain a ton of weight now, and it’s all going to be his fault! :lol:

I think this weekend I am going to make up a few batches of dough and freeze it. We will probably go through two or three loaves a week, and it would be grand to just pull it out of the freezer and let it rise that one last time without having to make a mess of the kitchen three times a week. The fewer dishes the better, I say.

Damn the smell of rising yeasty bread makes me hungry! I’m hungry for dinner now, but dinner is still a few hours away. I guess I better to punch the bread in the face and get the meatloaf put together. Tonight for dinner it’s going to be home-ground beef meatloaf, local corn on the cob, a nice garden salad, and fresh bread with butter made right here in Texas. Woo hoo! I can’t wait!