Mmmmmm, bread!

Today I will share with you one of the greatest frugal practices of all time.  Obviously, I will not be short winded about it...  Anyway, I LOVE to cook, and I love to acquire new recipes, cookbooks, and the likes.  However, to buy all of the cookbooks I want would be ridiculously expensive--not an option.  So I discovered (many moons ago) that if I check them out at the public library, before buying, I can weed some out of my want list AND acquire new recipes at the same time. 

Here's my rule.  If there are fewer than ten recipes in a particular cookbook that I simply can't live without, I copy them down onto index cards and file them into my recipe box.  If there are more than ten, I must buy the book.  Of course the book can only be purchased after looking for it in about thirty-five places and finding the most affordable copy possible--usually Amazon. 

Now that I've conquered every freezer cookbook known to man, I'm now moving onto bread, soup, and salad cookbooks.  I go on tangents, then I move on...but that's a whole different matter.  The newest recipe I've tried is out of Baking with the St. Paul Bread Club.  It's a recipe for french bread; I'm not going to share it, as I don't have permission from them.  BUT it is worth trying.  Here are my pictures:

It was delicious!  I'll have to make it again.  Here's the hugest flipper known to man.  Yes, I know that's not the technical term, but those aren't nearly as much fun as making up one's own. 

I learned a big lesson the first time I made this bread.  Don't kill the yeast.  I couldn't figure out why it didn't work the first time.  Then I chatted it out with a pal who is one of my go-to gals for all that is domestic.  If your warm water reaches the point of hot, it'll kill the yeast.  That's bad.  Don't kill your yeast.  If you do, you'll be out about two hours and still won't have bread.  Now that, my friends, is a bummer. 

I couldn't resist showing you these chubby little cheeks.  Are they not the cutest little things ever?

Lingering thought of the day:  If I play outside with my little ones like I did today, I'll be down thirty pounds by the end of the week...I'm a dreamer, but we did have fun in the sun!