Bread Baking Day and The Heat


Even though we are having a horrible heat wave, bread still needs to be baked.   The little air conditioner in the dinning room window cannot keep up with the heat of the oven, but it is still cool in the kitchen compared to the outside.   We use two 110 window units in the summer to cool the house and they do a good job except on baking day.  Usually I spend one entire day a week in the summer cooking and baking, so that the house is nice and cool all but one day a week.  We talk about some day putting in central heat and air, but its not pressing to us.  We love our wood heat in winter and keeping the house at 78 in summer works for us.  Our needs are simple.
Yesterday was bread baking day.  We have grown to love rye bread so that's what I make.  Yesterday though, I changed things up a bit and added dried cranberries and pistachios to the dough.  It smelled so good baking and this morning I tried some toasted.  Wonderful.  I use a simple rye bread recipe from my old Betty Crocker Cook book that I got as a wedding present nearly 33 years ago.  I double the recipe so I have enough bread for a week.  Emery takes it to work for his peanut butter sandwiches that he has eaten every day for as long as I have known him.  He doesn't get tired of eating the same thing, day after day.  I would, but he is a man of routine as far as eating habits go.   I feel blessed to have a husband that is what I call "an easy keeper". 
We are heading for our 21st day in a row of 100 degrees or above. The record is 42 days in 1980, with temps at or above that mark .  I hope we don't get close to that record.  Today7 will mark the 28th time this season (record 69-1980) with triple digit heat.  I am dreaming of winter and counting the days until summer leaves us.  Its too hot to do anything outside.  I do all my walking on the treadmill, which is not my favorite thing.  Its kind of boring.   Wishing for windows open, sweater weather and most of all some rain.  No garden this year, too hot and too dry. 

Comments

Jacqueline said…
Hello, Patty!
I'm leaving a first comment on your blog to tell you how much I have enjoyed reading just bits and pieces of your writing. I, too, am a believer and found some of your thoughts very much like my own. Living simply is our goal as well. Thanks, and I will be back to stop in and visit :)
Janette said…
I put a large blanket over the doorway from the kitchen to the rest of the house when I bake on hot days. It sure helps keeping the rest of the house livable. One of the tricks that I learned from my Nana from her early days of living in Phoenix!

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