Bummin' around the house

From the starter I made a couple weeks ago: ciabatta bread!

With the big, beautiful holes I was looking for last time and a nice crusty crust :)

I've also been re-potting some of my new plants. My orchid bloomed again, which I was told would NOT happen.
I chalk it up to good light in the 'greenhouse'

They're everywhere..

Rustic Italian Loaf

My first attempt at bread using a starter - not bad, but room for improvement!

Problem: Solved!

I can’t say enough how fortunate I’ve been to live in a smaller town throughout this process. This was reaffirmed yet again during Clog-pacolypse.

It turns out I had a pretty major clog in the drain line below the kitchen sink. The kitchen is, of course, one of the rooms built over the crawl space. Luckily for me, a local plumbing contractor was able to come over (within about five minutes of me calling, mind you) and assess the situation. They found a point in the line where the cast iron ‘main drain’ transitioned down to galvanized pipe and then down again to PVC. All the transitions in such a short span and some abandoned drain segments gave food particles and other junk a place to pile up, hence, a clog.

Not only was I impressed that they could wiggle back into the crawl space, but I was further impressed when they had dug out a portion of the pipe, cut out a section, and replaced it with a nice new section of PVC that streamlined the whole drainage situation. Replacing this area fixed my clog problem and – hopefully – fixed any future issues I may have. And it wasn’t crazy-expensive – triple bonus!

First Light

I had this past Saturday morning/afternoon to myself to putt around and do pretty much whatever I wanted. Not being content to sit around (at that point), I thought I'd try my hand at making a challah. Come to find out, it was also the first night of Hanukkah..so I guess that worked out pretty well. :)

Challah is a traditional Jewish braided bread eaten on holidays and the Sabbath. According to my quick Wikipedia search: each loaf has six strands...traditionally, two loaves are served with a total of 12 strands symbolizing each of the tribes of Israel. You learn something new every day! 

It doesn't taste wildly different than any other homemade bread I've ever had, but I didn't include poppyseeds or any of the other traditional toppings. I'm liking it toasted, and it makes really good French toast..but it also looks like it's really complicated, so people assume you're a genius if you make one :)
The recipe I used was really straightforward AND taught me how to braid it - No problem!
http://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-challah-bread-cooking-lessons-from-the-kitchn-181004
Shalom :)