Bread

I'm stealing away for a moment from the fast pace of our new life here because I can't bear to be away too long. The days race past and a walk feebly by the computer, gritting my teeth with resolution not to sit and write because there are other things pressing.

I'm baking bread these days. Last week I baked a my first loaf of French bread and it was spectacular. I contemplated taking a picture of it; it was so lovely and delectable, but I decided to do it too late, after it have been torn into.

My idea is, in an effort to save money, bake all the bread and freeze the milk. I have to go to the store every other day for milk or bread. Seriously, we go through so much of both that I can't go two days without going to the store. And I've realized that I spend about $50 everytime I go to the store. Now that's not always, but generally speaking, it's true. I have not disciplined myself to stick to the list yet and here's why. I get there, see fifteen things we might need in the coming days and I buy them all in an effort to avoid coming back. But no matter how much I spend, time or money, inevitably I am back there two days later buy another cartful of foodstuffs. So, instead of buying two gallons of milk I bought four last week. And then instead of buying bread, I baked it. It was cheap and delicious and it took about three hours to make. But it was worth it. However, homemade bread is so aluring that I'm having trouble keeping it out of the snack list. You know how you have a list of snacks that your kids can eat when it's not meal time, and a list of things that you keep stocked that your husband snacks on, and you eat any snack that gets left on the kitchen counter...? So they're all eating the bread, which is nutritious and *almost* all natural, but eating a lot of it isn't good for snacking.

I haven't decided how to rememdy that. Actually, I won't until I've mastered bread making. I can do it in the Kitchen Aide and my dough is right everytime, it's the rising that I have trouble with now. I can't get it to double. Maybe I need to wait longer- I've been putting the pans on the dryer hoping that would be warm enough to evoke levitation, but it's just not growing big enough. So I'll master the bread so that I can add it to the *foods I do well* list and then I'll decide if I'll keep making it every week. I love the health benefits; you can add flax seed to replace some of the fat, and fiber, and there you have the perfect bread because there are no additives and it tastes really good. Maybe my bunch will get used to having it around and not want to eat it all the time. But if people keep giving me peaches and we have fresh peach preserves in the fridge, I don't know... it could be a bad combination.

I'll let you know how it pans out.

Oh, and the milk, it freezes well, it's the thawing that's difficult. But after you get the ice melted, it really does taste the same. It freaked the kids out to see yellow milk sitting in our freezer, but they never knew the difference. That's a keeper.