Pinterest recipe 2 semi-success!

Hi :)
So I recently tried a french bread recipe that I found on pinterest-Deals to Meals--French Bread recipe
She seems to have some pretty great recipes and many people love her.  This was the first time I have ever tried her recipe, and it was a semi-succes!  I love baking, and am an self proclaimed bread baking expert!

I followed her recipe as much I could but had some problems (as did other people).  Since I am still quite new to blogging, I didn't think to take any pictures of my process, but wish I did.  I was doing fine while mixing the dough together, I did it just like she said.  My first problem was I tried to proof my yeast--which I NEVER EVER do, but did because she had specific instruction.  I do not feel it was necessary since I usually just drop the whole pack of yeast (I use rapid rising yeast) in at the end.
The second issue I had was the dough was just to sticky, I mean OMG just ridiculously sticky.  She said to add flour until it is not as sticky but more manageable, so I did that.  I added about 8.5 cups of floor (although the recipe said 6-7 cups).  I would have added more, and probably should have so the dough would be able to hold its shape more, but I got worried and stopped.
So I let it rise the way she did (water in the oven and all), and had moderate success, usually my dough rises to the top, but this was just the bare minimum kind of rise.

After I punched the dough down about 4-5 times, I took the dough out of the mixing bowl, and put it on a pre-greased counter.  I tried to manipulate the dough into two loaves. The amount of stickiness was unbelievable, I mean OMG.  I just couldn't deal with, it was insane.  I tried to add more flour but at this point it was useless so I just shaped the dough and put it into my french bread pan.
I put it back into the oven to allow it to rise a little bit more, and this was where I had my 3rd problem.  OVERFLOW!  The loaves had overflowed (since they did not hold their shape) onto the bottom of the oven, and was coming out on all sides.  At this moment, I finally panicked, but thankfully my mom had come home so I had some help. She knew how to handle some of the overflow, and how to get some of the dough out of the bottom of the oven.  So we cleaned it up, and crossed our fingers and baked the bread.  FINALLY.   I was just so happy to finally get to this point!

Luckily our bread baked up just fine, and it was quite good.  The taste, softness and flavor of the bread was just excellent.  It was not the most perfect experience (by a long shot), but would def try it again.  Remedy it by using more flour, and making 3 loaves instead of 2.
This is the picture of my loaves:

Not to shabby for all of the trouble I went through.  They look good and taste great, so in the end thats the most important thing.

Do you guys have a favorite french bread recipe?  If so, please share with me as I am on a quest to find the perfect one!

Till next time :)

Woohoo!

Hi!  How is everyone doing today? I am doing great!  I found out some great news, which was that I passed a really big exam for my education. It is just a great feeling, I am not done by a long shot but I am def one step closer and its a great feeling.   So needless to say today has been a great day.
I wanted to go out and celebrate, but sadly none of my friends are near by so I had to settle for thunderstorms and a baking competition on tv.

I have been on a short shopping spree lately, I recently bought some clothes from Old navy, Victoria secret, and a wristlet from the Coach factory. I have also been relaxing some at home, and taking naps (which I <3), oh, and also catching up on some tv shows that I had neglected for a little while.

I hope to have some exciting news soon, as my cousin A (who is practically my sister) is expecting a baby any day now.  The whole family is very excited since this will be the first baby in our family in 25 years!  We are a small family, about 4 first cousins (2 that are married, 1 that is engaged, and then me) in the US.  We have family in india that is more extended, but we do not see them or get to hang out with them as much.  So like I said, we are all so excited.  I am hoping to plan a trip to visit Cousin A and the baby some time in august!  Right now, her mom is there to help her out, and will most likely stay for 1.5 months.  So I will try to go after that. I am really looking forward to visiting with her and the family.  Her husband and their kids (adopted from a previous marriage) are so wonderful, and so fun to chill with! I am truly looking forward to this trip.  Just have to figure out the details :)

If anyone out there still reads my blog, have you taken a trip recently?  Where too? Was it everything you hoped it would be?

Alright, well I better go ahead and sign off for tonight.  I will try and update more regularly since I am taking a short break!

~Puja

Wow..its been a long time!

Hi everyone! (if there is still anyone out there?)
I have been super slack about writing on my blog. I just realized it has been a LONG LONG time.  I have been pretty stressed lately, and still am, but decided to take a short break to write something on the blog.  I am not sure what I want to write about today, since I have not been doing much of anything lately, and have no new fun updates so I figured I would write about some of the new purchases I have made.  So here goes:

1) Soda stream:  I actually bought this back around christmas but never got around to writing about it since I was not blogging then.  I got an amazing deal on it from bedbathbeyond. They had a $20 rebate, 2 sample packs of different types of sodas, and 2 bottles for the soda machine.  So overall the whole gadget cost about $49 dollars.  So exciting.   We have used a lot of the sample packs, and many of them are yummy!  We mainly use it for just plain soda--my parents grew up in india and loved soda with lemon and pepper--And surprisingly I enjoy that as well.  It is so yummy! I think making the soda with extra power is something you learn along the way.  The first few times I made it, it was very weak, almost flat, so I had to learn from the expert (my dad)!  So I have finally got it down, but I always just test it before I put in a soda flavor. We are really enjoying it, some of the tips we have learned along the way, are to keep both bottles filled up with water and keep them in the fridge so they are nice and cold. ( more stronger that way)  Hold the pressure button done for longer than the instructions say for a little more fizz.  NEVER EVER wash the bottles with hot water or in the dishwasher.  Have you guys jumped onto this bandwagon, how are you liking your machine?  If you have any questions about it, or my experience with it, send me a message!

2) Vitamix:  Now for this purchase, it is more my moms, but since we live under the same roof, I try to claim it.  This was a surprise gift to my mom around christmas from my dad!  She is a big fan of kitchen gadgets and dishes.  She loves it all, and could spend hours in the kitchen section of any store.  I will say for someone who has been acquiring gadgets for the past 20+ years, she pretty much has it all.  So when we bought her this, she was super excited!  We have made a few things in the vitamix since we have had it such smoothies, tomato soup, blending some beans for cooking, and rice for making some indian dishes.  It is just wonderful.  It works very fast and does a wonderful job.  We are still learning about it as we go along, but have loved it so far.  I do have a few things I would like to mention about it: 1)  Making soup requires leaving it in the vitamix for at least 15 minutes on high speed for it to get hot and steamy.  I think the hot is relative to how you define hot, but me it was just lukewarm.  I realized if I wanted hot hot soup I need to put in hot water and then turn it on.  It is also extremely loud, (which I personally hate loud noises), so I prefer not to leave it on too long. 2)  It blends things up perfectly, very fast and efficient.  3) A piece of cake to clean, just throw in water and some soap, let it spin around for a little bit and rinse it out.  This of course was super stressful for my mom who has always taken apart all of her blenders, and then scrubbed everything separately, dried it off and put it back together.  So first time she had to clean it, she just didn't believe it would get clean enough, but she has finally crossed over to the wonderful side, and even admitted the other day that its so easy to clean that she dreads even taking out the old school blenders.  YAY!
Since we have gotten this, I have been trying to make more smoothies, but I am not sure I am able to jump onto that bad wagon.  I personally enjoy food, and would rather chew it than drink it, but it may be cause I have no found the right kind yet.  Any suggestions?

3) New dish rack--My mom has always just used a towel to dry dishes, pots and pans but recently really wanted a dish rack.  We searched far and wide and finally settled on on from amazon.  We have not had it very long, but def are enjoying it, it is everything a dishrack should be and so far so good!  It has easy drying, and a side cup rack so that is a bonus!

We are now on the look out for a new cutting board, my mom wants a glass one (which will ruin our knives), and I want a nice thick wood block.  We are going back and forth, and I know my mom will eventually win but we already have a glass one so I feel like it doesn't make sense.  But oh well, whatever.  So if anyone has any good alternatives, or recommendations I would love to hear it.

Sorry for the long post, hope it was helpful to some! I hope you enjoyed it!  Have you recently bought any new products or gadgets? I would love to hear about it and your experiences?

Till next time!