Merry Christmas!

No knead bread!

After watching Mark Bitman's video on a no knead bread recipe almost a decade ago, I've always wanted to try it. I mean who wouldn't want to make bread that looks and tastes gourmet without any hard work.



Here's my dough after mixing in all the ingredients. This step takes about 5 mins. I followed this recipe here which called for 4 cups of flour versus the original recipe of 3 cups. I also added in 1/2 tsp of sugar based on this recipe here. As you can see there's no shortage of folks that have tried this recipe and have added their own tips.



Here's the dough after 12 hours.



This is the dough after I folded it over several times and let it sit for another hour or so. Total time again was about 5 mins. I used a silpat for ease of cleaning.



Here's the bread after cooking in a 7 qt dutch oven. I also put in parchment paper so that I could easily remove it. Not sure how it would be without it but it was very easy to remove with the paper.



Here's the finished product. It tastes as good as it looks.

I'm 10 years old today!

Last day of school on my birthday again. 2 years in a row. No phone to show this year but any year now. :) I love to read, swimming 2x a week, doing gymnastics, and still playing chess. I can now do a back handspring with a spotter. I asked if I could go to Hawaii for my birthday but I have a feeling that wish isn't going to come true.

I'm 8 years old today!

I finally lost some teeth this past year. I wasn't sure it was going to happen. I have my adult teeth and I'm no longer required by law to sit in a booster seat. I'm pretty sure my parents though will still have me use one till I'm 9. I've been playing more chess tournaments and have gotten pretty good but more importantly, I can beat my dad pretty easily now. I also started swim team 1 and competed in my first swim meets. I didn't think I would like it but I love competing.

Surge Protection and Faster Networking

Here's a whole house surge protector that you install at your circuit panel and the idea is that it'll protect all of your electrical devices without needing surge protectors at every device. I'm not sure if they really work but it makes sense and wasn't too difficult to install.



Here's all the tools and materials that I needed. Since I didn't have room in my panel to fit a a double pole breaker, I had to buy 2 tandem breakers and make room.



Here's the surge protector mounted to the bottom of my circuit panel box.



Here you can see the two tandem breakers and then the double pole breaker right above them. Since there are two 120V buses in the panel box, the double pole makes sure the surge protector is wired to both of them.



Here's the panel after the install. Ideally you want to place the surge protector breaker as close to the main lines at the top but since I had to mount the protector at the bottom, that's as far as the wires would reach.



Here's what the normal breaker box looks like.



The other electrical project I finished was running CAT6 cable from the network panel to my bedroom TV area. There's already a cable going to the bedroom but not to the right spot so I thought it would be easy to just run a new line. Bought this cable from monoprice.com.



Here's my network panel. I used my fiberglass poles as seen in this post to snake the wire up through this panel and up in the attic. I then ran the wire to the bedroom and snaked it down the wire to the right spot.



This was the hardest part. Fishing the wire out of the wall and through the opening. Luckily I was able to reach the wire without having to cut any holes in the wall. I just had to remove the existing wall plate and junction box.