Afraid of yeast --

I stumbled upon this recipe on Allrecipes.com -- the concept sounds simple and I was going to give it a try.

I have all the ingredients ready (went to the supermarket and got them) -- but I can't find the ... courage to make them.

I'm a little intimidated by the whole yeast rising thing.  (What if it doesn't rise?  What if I bake it wrong?)

The ingredients and the recipe have been waiting patiently for over a month now -- initially, I reasoned that I didn't have enough time.

This afternoon, I had already asked my sister to watch Anya while she was sleeping so I could start on the dough.

And then I decided not to.

So I'm sitting here, with the recipe in the window tab beside this blog entry, wondering when I'll have the confidence to make them.

* * *

Jealous of my younger brother  --


My youngest brother came home from Japan (for good) bringing with him all sorts of yummy gadgets -- he has this wonderful breadmaker that can make bread in 4 hours.

When I was in Manila, he baked a loaf for our parents and they raved about how good it was.

I have a friend who works in the same department at their university who mentioned my brother's bread no less than 3 times in the span of a 2-hour conversation.  (A conversation where we were supposed to catch up on our lives and not discuss my brother's bread.  Grumblegrumblegrumble.)

He also has this amazing microwave/"real oven" combo that sits on the counter.  It's that small -- but it can bake things properly.  Like pizza!

And he's making his own yogurt.

~sigh~

Meanwhile, I've subjected the people in our house to a really chewy dinner of beef stir-fry.  The beef was so, so tough that the table was so, so quiet because everybody was just focusing on chewing it.