Making bread and budgie sitting

Budgie sitting

Clare came around on Saturday to deliver her budgie, Barney to take care of for two weeks while she's away in Cyprus. He's quite a cute little guy with bright green plumage and an amusing feather configuration over his eyes that always make him look like he disapproves of the world.

He'd settled in by Sunday so I took the chance of letting him spread his wings by leaving his cage door open. I'd been assured that he'd return to his cage once he'd had enough but I have to admit I was a little apprehensive that he wouldn't! :)

He took a particular liking to sitting on top of the kitchen cupboards watching what I was doing from his loft perch. He also punctuated my day with very loud budgie commentary. It was actually really nice - it's made me think that a budgie (or a pair of budgies) would make really great pets.

Making Bread

This weekend I went shopping for milk and bread and was un-impressed to find that the 39p danish loaf that we usually buy had sold out. It's not really a surprise that it had sold out - it's the cheapest decent loaf that Tesco sells now. The next cheapest equivalent was 80p and I wasn't going to pay that for a loaf of bread (not in our current financial situation anyway). I decided to buy some yeast and flour and make my own instead.

I've not made bread for a couple of years now - and it's a reassuring indicator of my mood that I was willing to do it now (what with all the preperation and cleaning up that's involved). I used the bread-maker to make the dough and threw in my ingredients as I usually do. Recipes never seem to work for me so I just put in the base ingredients and set the machine off, adding flour or water until the dough looks right as it mixes. In case you're wondering, this is my approximate base recipe:

• 750g strong white flour (sieved with a fine sieve)
  
• 1 sachet of dried yeast (I used Tesco's)
• 2 tsp of salt
• 1 tablespoon of demerara sugar dissolved in half a cup of hot water
• one and a half cups of water (I don't bother with exact measurements)

Just for giggles I also added a tablespoon of green pesto to give the bread an interesting flavour. That's why I love making my own bread - it's so easy to make it a little different. If you want a slighty interesting loaf of bread in the shops you have to pay loads for the pleasure.

After the dough cycle had completed (one hour and thiry minutes later) I flopped it out onto a pre-floured work-top, knocked it back thoroughly (that means giving it an extra kneading by the way) and placed it in the oiled bread-tins. I left it to rise in them for another hour before finally baking at 220 degrees centigrade for about twenty minutes.

I was delighted to find that they turned out perfectly - lovely soft fluffy white bread with just a hint of green pesto. Kay thought so too and between us we ate half of one of the loaves with clover melting into each lovely warm slice. :D