I have been eating bread for my entire life. Mankind has
been eating bread of one kind or another since before recorded history. I can’t
say for sure if all of those ancient peoples enjoyed their bread like I did
with peanut butter and jam, but they certainly should have.
Most people buy bread from the big grocery stores like we
do, because it is easy and goes good with peanut butter. From time to time,
Louise and I (mainly Louise) have made bread with mixed success. It seems that
bread is subject to the whims of the Gods, or perhaps old yeast. Whatever the
reason, bread can be and often is hard work.
Part of what made a woman’s life drudgery in days gone by
was that bread would need to be made every day if she had a large family or
every second day with a smallish family. The bread just didn’t last long
without going bad. The modern breads last a long time but I suspect there are a
lot of unnatural ingredients that keep it fresh for so long. Louise will always
make a special sweet bread at Easter and we all look forwards to eating it. In
times past, I suggested that we should have this bread more often and from the
look Louise gave me I understood that it is far too much work to do on a
regular basis.
A few years ago, we bought ourselves a bread machine. This
modern day miracle machine does all of the hard work for you, all in one pan.
You can make hundreds of varieties, but most of those take about four hours and
that’s just too long to wait for a loaf of bread. We will generally use the “rapid
white” recipe which is complete in less than two hours. That’s just over two
hours from flour to tummy. The problem with this bread is that it doesn’t last
very long. We have never had a loaf go mouldy on us; we eat it a little too
quickly. Unfortunately for me, I am fat, and eating one or two loaves a day
doesn’t help the situation at all. Now the bread machine resides in the
basement where it can do no harm.We have gone back to store bought bread.
There was this guy I used to work with whose wife made bread
from scratch every day. She worked at home and this is something she liked to
do. Oh, did I mention that she ground the flour for the bread as well as make
it? It turns out that they make personal electric wheat grinders now which
takes the ugly job of grinding and makes it easy…ish. I had a chance to taste
this bread and it was delicious! Much heavier than store bought, and from what
I was told it is much more filling. The only draw back (not counting the
grinding) is that home ground flour goes bad very quickly so you need to use
what you grind. That is too much work for the staff of life.
Today, I made a loaf of bread that is ridiculously easy to
make. The actual “hands on the dough” time is probably less than five minutes
all told. In fact, with this bread, less is definitely more. It is called 24
hour bread and I will put a link at the bottom of the blog for the recipe I
used. Make this bread! If only to take to someone’s house so that they will
think you are an idiot-savant chef. It is deeeelicious.
It may actually be too good and the recipe will end up
spending time in the basement with the bread machine. Well, I am pretty much
done for tonight and I have a slice of heaven waiting for me.
http://www.astackofdishes.com/the-famous-ny-times-no-knead-bread/
