I won't bother giving you a recipe. There are plenty of great ones out there, and I'm sure you can find one online that suits your taste. Otherwise, feel free to e-mail me and I can send you the recipe. The bread recipe I have came from a Julia Child baking cookbook that my husband gave me for our 7th anniversary. It's a simple, classic recipe, and because it's a large recipe (it calls for 7 cups of flour!), it makes two loaves. Since we have a small family, we keep one out, ready to use for lunches, and put the other loaf in the freezer (tightly wrapped, of course!). I pull it out the night before it's needed and it thaws out by morning.
Bread loaves during their second rise.
Don't be intimidated by this idea! It's super easy. If you have a stand up mixer, the mixer can do all the kneading for you (I love my KitchenAid). If you have a bread machine, then you really have no excuse! A lot of people don't care much for the way the loaves come out of a bread machine (myself included). Several friends of mine make bread regularly, even daily, and they just use the bread machine to mix dough, knead, and to help the bread rise the first time. Then they take the dough out, form it or put it in their loaf pans, and let the bread rise the second time. It takes all the work out of making bread.
I usually make a simple white bread, which my husband is absolutely crazy about. This week, I experimented with making wheat bread, and I also added flax seed meal to make it extra heart healthy. The result was tasty and nice, but the bread seems to be a little more dry and falls apart too easily. I'll keep experimenting, and if I find a good combo, then I'll let you know!
Mmmm...too bad we don't have scratch and sniff computer screens.
I haven't run the numbers on how much money I save per loaf, but even if it's only 50 cents or a dollar saved, I'd say it's often worth it to avoid an extra trip to the store. Have you ever run into the grocery store to get a $2 loaf of bread, only to spend $20? Yeah, me too. And of course you increase your money saved by buying flour and yeast in bulk.
Here's an added benefit of making your own bread. Check the list of ingredients on your loaf of bread. Go ahead, do it. Does bread really need an ingredients list that long?? No, and we don't need to consume all those preservatives either! When it comes to your budget and your nutrition, making your own bread is a win-win. The only downside is your time, which is understandably very valuable, but by using a mixer or a bread machine, you can eliminate this drawback as well.
When life gets hectic, this is one of the first things to go! If I have a lot going on, it's really hard to give up 30 minutes of my day to bread making. But if anyone has an old bread machine that's collecting dust, I'd be happy to take it off your hands! Then I would never have an excuse to buy bread again.
Warning: Once you make homemade bread, your family will no longer be satisfied with anything else!
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