No Knead Bread for a friend, and an Auction find... or Two!

We spent a few hours this morning at an estate Auction in Wilkesboro. The ride up

421 was Bittersweet though. Riding along side all the people with their ASU flags

flying off their cars reminded me of the days we spent driving to ASU to see

Brandon while he was a student there. Now, he's an Army Airborne Ranger,

and so much further away. Still doesn't seem possible... Any way, that aside,

this was the piece from the auction Catalog I really hoped to bring home!

Of course, we have absolutely No room for more furniture... But this piece is worth

the effort it will take to make room for it! They called it a linen press, and said it

was made about Eighty+ years ago. It's in remarkably great shape, and I do love it! 

The best part is that I have a real Need for it!

But before I can dive into cleaning up my latest Auction finds, I need to take

care of a little bit of No Knead Bread business for a friend. You see, she's made

four serious attempts at Creating this amazing bread, but unfortunately, she just

can't seem to get it to come together for her. So last night, I invited her over to

watch me Mix it up. She would have come back tonight to see the finale;

however, since something came up, she asked me to just Blog-it for her!

So that's what we're going to do here. Blog about the No Knead Bread

recipe - (You can find it here) and clean up and Move furniture!

So after mixing all of the Ingredients in one bowl and allowing it to rest

for Twenty hours, I used a wet rubber scraper to dump the dough out

onto my cutting board and used my Wet finger tips to coax it into a ball

I placed the ball onto a lightly floured tea towel and placed

it into a high-sided, round bowl to Nap for two hours

So while my NKB naps, I'm going to get busy and move all of my table

linens from the cabinets in the Dining room and into my new linen cabinet

It'll be so nice to have Everything in one place! Here

in the top drawer I think I'll store all of my napkins...

And in the second drawer, these German cuties, and...

Christmas! I use these for our informal Christmas-day meals, and I use

red satin table place mats for our more formal Christmas-eve dinners

I love that these drawers are large enough to also hold Napkin rings!

And that I can store some of my Candles in this bottom drawer...

Along with my every-day Ralph Lauren placemats!

Okay... Two hours later, our NKB has doubled in volume. By the way... Do

you see all that beautiful dinner china? It's Johann Haviland in the blue garland

pattern. Made in Bavaria, Germany and it was another estate-auction must have!

Back to our Linen press cabinet... Take a look at this old maker's label. It

reads: Henry Fuldner & Sons, Maker of High Grade Furniture, 404 E 14th

St & 403-405 E. 13th St., New York. You know... Half the fun of owning

old furniture is wondering about who picked it out, and Owned it first!

Now that it's all cleaned up, all it needed was a little Tassel fun!

Too cute... That's the original key and the Lock works too!

Thanks to my new Linen press cabinet, this drawer is empty!

And there are no longer Placemats on top of my serviceware in this drawer of the China

And in this drawer, you can actually see my Knife sets and candle ring decorations!

I keep buying steak Knives because I forgot I had these!

Now for where to put my new cabinet! I love this little Music

chest that I've re-purposed to hold most of my Serving pieces...

But it'll have to live over on this wall now...

Because that other wall is much better suited for the New piece!

Speaking of new pieces. I finally have all the new china washed! By

the way, if your initials are E.B., and you love Vintage dinnerware, I am

willing to share this with you! Just tell your Mom to pop over for a deal!

So after our NKB's 2-hour nap, I preheated my oven to

450 degrees, with my pot inside to get it nice and Hot!

While our NKB bakes, I'm going to whip up some White chili!

Because NKB is meant for chili or stew dipping!

Now... this is our NKB after its first bake for 30 mins

And, this is our Finished no-knead bread after

a second bake, Uncovered, for 15 minutes

It comes out of the oven Singing! Trust me,

Snap, Crackle and Pop have nothing on this loaf!

The house Smells amazing... And, I so wish I wasn't Detoxing right now!

But I am, and I feel amazing! So I'm going to

leave all of this and the Butter it requires, to him!

Oh, my... I wish you could Smell this!

Okay, Michele! I hope these photos

help you Create the best NKB ever!

Dig in!

Now that dinner has been Served I can show you the

finished Project in the dining room. This is before...

And this is after! What do you think?