I Baked A Loaf of Bread.

Hello!! How was your Global Running Day (aka yesterday)?? Did you run the globe? Did you see my Instagram Live on Women’s Running?

To start my lil  Global Running Day I went for a run!

I ran 9 miles, did some abs and then headed toward Pico help my mom clean up her classroom.

I was at Stress Level:10 all day. I was super anxious about the Instagram Live to begin with and then I remembered that my tripod broke a while ago!! So I needed to get another one or find another way to set up my phone asap.  Plus my bff’s birthday is tomorrow and she’s having car trouble that might impede our plans and my place is still being painted and it’s obvious I’ve been biting my nails and as I was rushing home from my parents’ house on the 5 in traffic my gas light went on and I called my brother to ask if I could make it home and he said ‘are you in stop & go traffic?’ ‘yes’ ‘um, just get gas’ … there was just a lot of not-emergency-but-still-stressful stuff in my head.

But I made it home, set up my phone and ended up going live while cooking dinner and chatting about running, races and other fun stuff. I hope everyone had fun.

I think it went well. I definitely want to do more of them in the future on RER’s Facebook and IG. Do you have a preference?

Follow RER on Instagram here and Facebook here and we’ll hang out live or something.

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Okay. Now let’s talk about the most awesome thing I did all week and I’m super proud of myself…

I baked a loaf of bread!

I am seriously so proud of myself I left my 1 friend a message to which she replied, “Why did you bake a loaf of bread?”

Um. Actually – I don’t know.

I’ve been thinking about it for a while. I saw flour at the 99 Cent store and bought it. Then, I looked up a super easy bread recipe and found  this famous “No Knead” Bread Recipe originally from the NY Times. A lot of food blogs have made this and they’re all the same – the most they vary is 1/4 tsp difference in yeast.

Please note: I have never made bread from scratch. But I have eaten more than my share of the good stuff so I feel like this is a significant point in my relationship with bread.

Here are the basics of baking bread at home that’s so easy even I your local Monican can do it:

Step 1: Mix 3 cups flour, 1/2 tsp yeast, 1 tsp salt and 1.5 cups warm water. Cover with plastic wrap and put it somewhere to relax overnight.

Step 2: After about 15 – 20 hours make a mess with a bunch of flour on the counter. Wet spatula and scrape dough onto the floured surface. Fold it over about 8 times. Plop dough onto a big piece of parchment paper and place in another bowl, cover with towel and set aside for another 2 hours. (May I suggest going for a run while waiting?)

Step 3: Pre-heat oven to 450 degrees. Place the pan you’re going to use for the bread into the oven to pre-heat for 30 minutes.

Step 4: Carefully take pan out of oven. Remove towel, pick up parchment paper with dough in the middle and put in pan. Cover. Bake for 30 minutes.

I let it set in the parchment paper in a pot with higher sides than the first bowl so it might rise a little higher. I don’t know if this did anything, but yeah.

Most of the recipes call for heavy dutch ovens but I read you can use any heavy, thick pot with a lid. And then I read another blog that said you can use any heavy pot and use foil to cover. So, I used a glass pyrex and it totally worked!

Step 5: Remove cover and bake for another 15-30 minutes or until browned.

Step 6: This is the hardest step!!

Cool on wrack for 15 minutes before cutting into it. I don’t know why exactly. I think it’s because as soon as you cut into a freshly made loaf of bread you will shove a massive piece in your mouth and risk burning yourself. Luckily, as a natural redhead I don’t have temperature receptors in my mouth so that doesn’t happen to me. I went for it.

Check out the original No Knead Bread Recipe here.

I feel like this changed my life. It was amazing. Freshly baked bread is everything.

I kinda want this to be my new thing but I feel like hot bread is meant to be eaten right away and I’ll end up eating half of it right away every time.

I also want to make sourdough now.

I should actually do the things on my To Do list before that though. Hmmmm. We’ll see.

Question: Have you ever baked fresh bread at home? Would you??

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