Making the Daily Bread

I love to cook, but in the fatigue and craziness of trying to raise two small children, sometimes it just seems easier to reach for those frozen chicken nuggets. Well, now I'm making a real effort to move away from processed foods because they just aren't nearly as healthy. This includes bread. Have you ever looked at the ingredients on a store bought loaf of bread? All the preservatives! And the high fructose corn syrup! And who knows what all. Especially if you're used to buying the 99 cent bread, as we are.

It is always cheaper to make bread at home, but like me you may wonder if you have the time to do so. As I've posted before, making bread isn't all that difficult, but making a fresh loaf once a week or more? For some of us, that may be asking too much. Enter the bread machine. I've had one sitting on my counter for seven years. It was a wedding present. My husband used it a few times, but I wasn't impressed with what came out of it. And I had plenty of time to make hand made bread. Last weekend, I got tired of seeing the thing sit there. I cleaned it up and made some wheat bread. My four year old loved pouring the ingredients into the machine. My one year old squealed with delight when the machine turned on. And both kids liked watching the machine knead through a small window in the top. About three and a half hours later, the house smelled wonderful and the bread looked great, too. Better yet, it tasted wonderful! Not quite so wonderful as hand made bread, perhaps, but it was far superior to store bought. Best of all, it took me only about five minutes to make. 100% Whole Wheat Bread Recipe: 1 1/2 cups plus 2 tablespoons water 2 tablespoons vegetable oil 2 teaspoons salt 1/3 cup packed brown sugar 4 1/4 cups whole wheat flour 3 tablespoons nonfat dry milk 2 teaspoons active dry yeast Place the ingredients in the bread machine in the order suggested by your machine's manual. In most cases, this means adding liquids first, then solids, then (making a well in the center of the ingredients) the yeast. Use the Whole Wheat cycle on your bread machine. In retrospect, I'd prefer to sweeten this bread with honey and/or molasses. I plan to experiment, and when I do, I'll post an update here. Or, if you've tried the recipe with molasses or honey, leave a comment and let me know how it worked out!