Day Forty-six: Baking and mixing

The first thing I did this morning was wash the dishes that I needed to use immediately for the next thing I did. The next thing was mix up the dough for the artisan bread, two loaves, and set them to rise. Then I fixed breakfast, ate and washed those dishes.

I went in to my bedroom to exercise but ended up not doing it. I did stretch my legs a little bit. I'm finding that I sleep better when my legs are stretched. I may do so again tonight before I go to bed. Instead of exercising, I read a few political blogs and before I knew it, it was time for lunch. For lunch I had Amy's chili. It's a vegan chili with soy and beans. (Even though I did have Beano, I can attest that they are indeed the musical fruit.)

Immediately after lunch, I went out to get Earth Balance margarine and Spectrum shortening. (I also picked up a couple paper bread bags from Safeway.) Once I got them home, I mixed up a couple toppings for my cupcakes: Fluffy Buttercream Frosting and Rich Chocolate Ganache Topping. I have some raspberries that I hope lasts to add to the "Chocolate Ganache." I have a chocolate candy bar to grate some chocolate on at least the buttercream frosting. I don't know whether or not it will go with the ganache.

The dinners are shared but breakfasts and lunches are individual responsibilities. I'm taking soup, fruit, snack bars, trail mix, and did I say fruit. For sharing, I'm taking cupcakes, bread, and ginger bread. I can and will share the fruit as well. I have peaches, bananas, apples, and plums. If the raspberries don't last, I can do what I was going to do with them with the peaches.

Then I had to knead, set to the final raise, and finally bake the bread. The bread certainly rose. It reached the top of the containers and really closed up the slit I put in the top. I suppose that the bread is cool enough to put into the bags.

Dinner was a salad, a separate dish of kale, and a cherry soy yogurt. Dessert was grapes, which I'm still eating on. My choice had everything to do with wanting to use up food that I didn't think would last until I got back as well as food that didn't take a lot of preparation.

This makes the third road trip I will have been on. It is good practice for my month of traveling I'm planning in December. It didn't use to be so difficult, but then I didn't appreciate all that Marilyn did to prepare. It was auto-magic. Now it seems that my Life after Layoff is always preparing. I have a lot to do in the next month. Thank goodness a lot of it is preparing for fun.

Now I need to go in and print out the directions on how to get to the Ococho's.