Bread

One of the most popular kitchen tools I have is my bread machine. I use it to bake bread, dinner rolls, italian loafs, cinnamon rolls... i just love the thing. Mine is a 7 year old Oster bread machine, nothing fancy. I have decided with the increase in people I am going to get another one so that I can make two batches at one time. I found one at a thrift store for 7 dollars and Im going to go back and get it!

It did take practice with the bread machine to get good loaves all the time, but with practice you can do it. Do not buy the "bread machine mixes", usually the yeast is stale and they dont work! Also... don't buy the "bread machine yeast" that is expensive. Every recipe I have works with one envelope of normal quick rising yeast!

Today we are making french bread and we are having meatball subs for supper. We are feeding twelve again so I had to make 2 batches of bread. I can hand make bread, but the bread machine just takes most of the work out of it. I do only use the dough cycle, so that means it mixes, kneads it, lets it rise and kneads it again. I then shape it, let it rise and bake it. The bread machine part takes 1 hr 30 minutes, the shaping and rising usually takes 1 hour and 30 minutes... so if I have to run it twice, thats just alot of time!

People are on the low carb kick and it kinda irritates me. Bread, rice, potatos and pasta are cheap ways to streatch a meal and we have one of those with every meal we serve. Our ancestors have been eating some form of bread since, well, since back in the bible days. Obesity is just a recent problem... so im willing to bet the bread isn't the only culprit and if we all (myself included) would get off our buts more often... it wouldn't be a problem today. Our obesity problem is from sedintary lives! So... im just gonna go on baking bread!

Is it cheaper to make your own bread. Depends on what your making but most of the time yes. You really can't beat the price of the 1.00 loaf of bread in the grocery and we still buy that but when you want warm fresh bread special breads... its alot cheaper. I figure that todays bread cost less than 1.00 to bake 4 loaves of french bread!