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Tuesday, October 5, 2010

And Now For Something Completely Different

You know, it wasn't supposed to be all about the garden.  So, in honor of that lovely realization, I would like to talk about something completely different.

One of my keep-Jen-busy-so-she-doesn't-go-insane plans was to switch to a mostly homemade lifestyle once I didn't work.  I already cook almost all our meals from scratch, so the homemade changes I want to make are more extreme than just not going out to eat and buying fewer preprocessed meals.

One of my lovely sisters is a very accomplished baker and she has inspired me to work on my bread baking skills. (I am sure I have mentioned this before.)  My hope is that I can transition away from store-bought bread completely.

It sounds so simple.  Just bake bread.  Yay.  But the kids are totally NOT into it.  They like dinner bread fine, but sandwich bread is turning out to be very, very difficult.

I no longer question why "the greatest thing since sliced bread" is still a well-used phrase.  Perfectly made, perfectly sliced sandwich bread is a myth!  A myth, I tells ya!

Not giving up, though.  I just need lots more practice.  So tonight I made sweet potato bread.


Oh, and a dozen muffins.  Because healthy breakfasts are still an issue, too.


(One that would be easier solved if I could manage to wake up before 6:30 am.  It used to be so easy.  Now I'd just rather sleep in.)

4 comments:

  1. The lesser of the evilsOctober 8, 2010 at 10:52 PM

    Sweet Potato muffins? I may need that recipe.

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  3. I have a few helpful hints for ya if you want. Mostly it has to do with the type of flour you use. You don't want to use bread flour to make soft sandwich bread, it's too hard. All purpose is better because the wheat it's made from is much softer (less protein). [The all purpose here in asia is harder than back home, so I even mix it with a little cake flour to get the softness.] Enriching the bread with milk and butter helps too. I have a good recipe if you want it!

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  4. Songbird, I would love some hints! How do you enrich it with milk and butter. The bread tasted OK, and had a great texture. I think it just needed about 5 more minutes in the oven - it was a little mushy.

    And, no, not sweet potato muffins. But I may try that. Hmmm. Projects!

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