MIL's brown bread

It has been one of those days. Phillip, who has had the art of peeing on the toilet mastered for a very long time, peed FIVE times today in various places other than on the toilet. Three were difficult places to clean. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrgggggggghhhhhhhhh. Adam says that it's because I dared to say out loud a few nights ago how pleased I was with how little laundry we had been doing for the previous week or so. (Mastering the pooping thing only happened about a month ago, and things had been going so very, very smoothly. Good grief.) So, on to a nice, cozy recipe to make me think of other, much more pleasant and delicious things.

I'm one of those people who had a bread machine and uses it. If you have one, this recipe is definitely worth trying. My mother-in-law came up with it, and it really is almost as good as hand kneaded and all that. I tried my first batch the other night, but in a funny miscommunication between Adam and I, it was in a warm-but-not-on oven for a long time and ended up a gloopy mess. (That day was a trying day, too. This is not the norm in this house!) Today's attempt (pictured) turned out much better.

Brown Bread

1 1/4 cups water
1 tbsp butter
2 tbsp molasses
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp salt
1/2 cups old fashioned oats
generous 3 cups flour
2 tbsp skim milk powder
scant 2 tsp yeast

Place ingredients in bread machine on 'dough' setting. Empty dough into loaf pan and let rise until it's pleasantly plump. Bake at 350 for 45-50 minutes; it's done when it sound hollow when tapped. Slather it up with a blop of butter, and enjoy!