My 100th Post, a Giveaway & a Recipe

100 posts and nothing profound to say. I do have something to give away, though, so I guess that's some consolation.

I received quite a few complements on the matching Gathering Aprons I made for Pickle and myself, so I thought it would be fun to give one away! Even if you don't have anything that needs gathering, this is a long, heavy apron perfect for flower gardening or just puttering in your kitchen. The best part is when I choose the winner, I'll let the lucky duck choose a color scheme and custom make their apron to suit their preference!



Here's how it will work:

1. Leave a comment on this post between now and Friday. (One comment per person, please)
2. Tell your friends to come leave a comment (or don't if you want a better chance of winning!).
3. Some time on Friday, I will close the comments on this post and choose a winning comment using Random.org.
4. I'll post the winner as soon as I know who you are! I'll then contact you via email to work out the details.

Now, for the recipe . . . I found a link to this article and recipe for no knead bread in the NY Times a couple of days ago and decided to try it yesterday afternoon. The bread rises for 12-18 hours and then has a second rise of two hours before baking in a covered dish. Oh, and it only uses 1/4 t. yeast. My loaf is on it's second rise as I type and I'll be baking it off in about an hour and a half. I'll update with the verdict as soon as I know if it lives up to all the rave reviews I've read.

Till then . . .

Bread Update:

My loaf came out well--the crust is AMAZING!

The interior isn't as open and airy as I'd hoped, but I think two things influenced this:

1. I used 2/3 whole wheat & 1/3 unbleached AP instead of all AP flour.

2. My first rise was nearly 20 hours thanks to spending almost two hours at the grocery store waiting on the pharmacy.

I'm going to try again later this week with the same ratio of WW to AP flour and the correct rise times to see if that improves the interior texture.

I would have a photo, but I can't find my card reader so the photo is trapped on the SD card. In consolation, here's a link to an absolutely beautiful loaf from this recipe!