OHMYGOD - Where's The Flaccid Sea Creature??

Kids! I don't know what the hell has possessed me, but I've baked. And not for a Daring Baker's challenge, either. I baked on my own. WTF? Here's what I'm thinking.. ya'll should run out and buy lots of bottled water, saltine crackers, canned goods and toilet paper (never be without toilet paper!!). Dig yourself an underground shelter in the back yard and prepare yourself for some kind of natural disaster. I don’t bake unless it’s a DB challenge! Something bad is surely going to happen! And bread! Lord almighty I NEVER bake bread on a whim or on my own - NEVER. This disaster is going to be a doozy – I’m tellin’ yas! Wait.. don’t go getting all panic stricken just yet. I still have my usually long ass story to tell. Come back. Sit down. Join me in a glass (or twelve) of your favorite alcoholic beverage.. believe me, it’ll calm those shaking hands. Or is it just my hands that are shaking? Whatev. Anyhoo, something made me finally bake THIS RECIPE again. Go look. Because if you don't go look you won't understand what a wonderment this baking adventure was. Seriously. GO. LOOK. Did I lie? Is that not the most frightening things you've ever seen? It's like science fiction and pornography combined. And I ate those bad boys. All 4 of them. In like a week. If even. It was the best damn cheesy bread I've ever had and at that juncture in my life I didn't think anything could be as good as Panera's Asiago bread. But those 4 cheesy baked monstrosities were phenomenal. I kept saying that I would make them again.. but baking is sooooooooo fakking stressful for me. The Baking Gods hate my ever-livin guts. They laugh at me at every occasion. They mock me at the drop of a hat. They sneer and point at me while whispering behind my back. I don't know what the fakk I ever did to piss them off, but I obviously did. And now, what? 2 years later? Something possesses me to make them again. I made the starter last Thursday night. I was unsure how far ahead you can make a starter, so I enlisted the advice of my bread baking guru, Mary. She told me I can make it a few days ahead, which eased some pressure as I knew I wanted to make it this weekend, but was unsure of the exact day. HAR! Yeah.. in other words - how long could I procrastinate before my started died and I chickened out? Gah. Well.. come to find out the Baking Gods were watching - AS PER FUCKING USUAL. You see, the recipe calls for instant yeast. I didn't even comprehend that.. I used active yeast. So after 15+ hours (I had to work on Friday), it hadn't gotten very bubbly and pretty much looked just like a wad of dough. Not good. So I got on the King Arthur website and with an expert. It was immediately pointed out that I used the wrong yeast. Duh. I thanked her and then realized… Baking Gods – 1 / Lisa – BIGFATFUCKINGZERO. I didn't have instant yeast, so I sweet talked my beloved Hubbs into running out to get me some. Bless his cotton socks. Soon I had the correct yeast and more bread flour. I started again - this time around 6 a.m. Saturday morning. I figured it’d be good to go around 2ish that afternoon, then I’d make the dough and allow it to rise until Sunday morning. Way longer than what’s called for, but I’ve read that if you let your dough rise for a long time, the better the flavor of the bread.. and hell, any excuse to actually put off baking it. Yeah, the memory of the smoke detector going off and black billowy smoke spewing from my oven the last time I made this bread was pretty damn strong. Well my powers of procrastination are pretty damn.. uhmm.. powerful. I managed to conveniently “forget” the starter on Saturday afternoon. And Saturday night. On Sunday morning I remembered it and said to myself, “Hey dipshit, you need to make the bread today.” And then I blocked it out again. I had plans with my girlie friends to go shopping at Trader Joe’s.. and I’ve been out of Tejava tea for a month. Nectar of the (non-baking) Gods, I tell ya! So my mind was conveniently “elsewhere”. :P When I got home Sunday afternoon, I put away the groceries, poured myself a big glass of tea and got the flour out. I was going to make the dough! Go me! Making the dough took roughly 5 minutes. Mmmm hmm… 5 whole fakking minutes of my time. A spare 5 minutes that I just couldn’t seem to find all day Saturday and most of Sunday. You see this is how my mind works. And believe me, I know I ain’t right. Knowing full well how delicious the bread would end up, I still did everything I could to drag my big fat feet in making it. It’s like I’m a glutton for my own punishment. What. The. Freeg? Before I went to bed Sunday night, I punched the dough down because obviously I wasn’t going to make the bread. Today was a rare morning.. I actually woke up after my husband. That happens maybe twice a year? And I’m usually sick.. but whatev, I woke up later and the first thing out of his mouth wasn’t the usual grumble-speak “mrn’ng” or even “is the princess FINALLY up?” it was, “My goodness, doesn’t that freshly baked bread smell delicious?” What an ass. This was his way of telling me that the dough had been sitting out far too long and if I was going to bake bread then I better shit or get off the pot. Visual there.. sorry. Moving along.. A lovely collage of basically the same photo of the mini loaves/buns.. *slurp* I finally made my bread today. FOUR days after making the first batch of starter. FOUR. I had made two batches of dough so that I could make the mini “loaves” and a couple regular sized loaves. This time I cut the mini loaves much thinner.. and they came out more like bun size, which was perfect. Smaller means that the insides can’t rise out from the base reminiscent of the alien bursting out of that guy’s chest. I didn’t make flaccid geoduck/penis this time. They turned out bakery beautiful! I was AMAZED. I know today is a holiday for us in the US, but uhmm.. is this also a holiday for the Baking Gods? Or did I just take so damn long that I fooled them into believing that I’d never actually bake the dough?? Either way.. it all turned out great! Even the regular sized loaves, which I was unsure of because I hadn’t attempted that last time. Today is a day to mark on the books. Today I BEAT THE SHITE out of the Baking Gods. Today I made myself proud. Today something horrible is going to happen.. so really now.. get off your asses and start digging up your back yard. You can thank me for the head’s up after it’s all over. ;) xoxo