After I post a few meal plans, any reader will quickly see that I love carbs. Which means I love bread. And, while I don't usually have a problem buying store brands, I absolutely despise buying store brand bread. I've always loved the idea of homemade bread, but, considering that fact that I had to schedule shopping trips to just buy bread last semester, homemade bread seemed unrealistic. And, since our budget has been super tight, we've just had to deal with icky, limp, thin store bread.Anyway.
Since I am currently practically job-less--and, yes. I am climbing the walls--and have an astonishing stockpile of flour thanks to pre-Christmas sales, I decided to try out this bread recipe today....and was very surprised and pleased with the process.
I realized that homemade bread might not be out of reach even when I go back to full-time work (soon, please, soon....) for a couple of reasons.
1) It really doesn't take that much time. Yes, the rising process takes several hours, but it only takes 20 minutes or so to whip up a batch...and then maybe another 10 minutes total of punching-down, moving the dough, etc. It's very easy to prepare this as you are working through a typical afternoon of housecleaning. I mixed it up...did some laundry...cleaned the bathrooms...punched it down...mopped...divided it up...etc.
2) The recipe makes four loaves. We usually only consume 2-3 loaves a month. We might consume more of this since it is homemade, but I'm not sure. I'm going to try freezing two of the loaves and seeing how they do. If our eating patterns remain the same and the loaves freeze/thaw well...and they make decent sandwiches...then I can knock out a month's worth of bread in an afternoon.
The best part? Considering that I scored 10 lb of flour for $1.08 a few weeks ago, it probably cost me about .75 to make all four loaves (the yeast being the most expensive part). $.75 for a month's worth of bread? I can definitely deal...especially with that kind of taste!
Bye-bye store bread....
Bread freezing in an art. Wrap the loaf in plastic wrap first, then a double wrap of aluminum foil. Freeze the bread UPSIDE DOWN. This allows the moisture to migrate to the top of the loaf so you don't have soggy bread when you thaw it. Thaw RIGHT SIDE UP.
ReplyDeleteI have learned these tricks the hard way.