Misoclere Monday

misoclere ~ one who hates the clergy

So . . . everybody enjoying Ontario’s heat wave?

I have to chuckle when the weather network goes on about our hot dry spell – dry my butt! The humidity is so thick you could grab a fist full of air and wring it out. One evening I thought there was a fog rolling in, but no, it was condensation on the windows because it was so humid outside and cool inside. A reversal of what happens in the winter when I have a pot of boiling water on the stove.

And then the weather experts went crazy warning us about severe thunderstorms and major rainfall starting Friday and extending through the weekend. Well, maybe the rest of Southern Ontario was hit with flooding and power outages and tornado-force winds, but my little town has a magic umbrella protecting it. We had maybe a thimble-full of rain, and not even a whisper of thunder.

Continuing last week’s saga of my Amish Friendship bread . . . The thing about the Amish starter is that it gets real old, real fast. At first it’s a novelty – squishing the bag, adding the flour, milk, and sugar every few days – but then you have to find someone to share it with and people start to duck for cover when they see you coming.

So when the latest batch was ready to split off, I decided to just use it up making bread:

Starting at the front left we have pistachio almond mini loaves and a regular loaf, and the same of butterscotch to the right. The second row has two loaves of chocolate on the left, with spiced almond on the right. The back row is two loaves of pistachio almond that did not work out. In order to save time I tried baking them in the toaster oven while a different batch baked in the regular oven. Unfortunately, the temperature of the toaster oven can be kind of iffy. They looked done when I took them out, and I didn’t test them. Instead I went babysitting and when I came home they’d collapsed.

Oh, well. I think I have enough Friendship Bread to last a while without them.