Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Five Minutes A Day Bread

With organic bread costing between $3.00 to $5.00 a loaf you can realize a huge savings by learning to bake your own bread. Baking bread once was a skill most housewives knew. My Father-In-Law was one of 19 kids, and he recalls his mother making nine loaves of bread every night before she went to bed. Evidently having that many kids wasn't bad for the health, she lived to be 93.

Anyway, still with all the frivolous important things we fill our lives with, we have very little time to spend making nourishing whole foods for our families. So I am constantly on the look out for bread I can make when I don't have that much time.

This is it. I mentioned it before in a previous post, and I have finally found time to give this time saving bread a try. I give it an A+. I love it. It's easy, has a nice texture and tastes yummy.

There's no kneading involved, you make a big bunch of dough at once, store it in the fridge and pinch off enough to make a loaf as you need it. One batch makes six loaves of bread. In the book, Artisan Bread In Five Minutes A Day, there are recipes for using this dough to make many other baked items: pizza dough, rolls, cinnamon rolls, etc...

I read about it first in my magazine Mother Earth News. You can read about it on their website here.

Here is my refrigerated dough.
Here is my dough ready to rise. After rising, slash and bake!

And you get this.....A perfect family sized boule.
This is a video from the Author on how to make this bread. I skip a couple of the last steps. I sprinkle the pan with flour and let it rise and bake on the same pan. (I don't have a baking stone)

On the side, I've found a recipe to get my girls to love Brussels sprouts. Cook a few bacon pieces in a black iron pan. Wash and cut in half the sprouts. Throw sprouts in pan with bacon and drippings. Add a little coarse salt and black pepper and stir fry in bacon until sprout edges are crispy. This was from our dinner last night. There were no left overs!

7 comments:

Tipper said...

Thanks for the bread link and the recipe!

Sandy said...

Alright! Gonna try it! Thanks. -Sandy

Aubrey said...

Yum. More bread reciepes. I will definately try this.

Egghead said...

Kristi that bread looks like you purchased it from a bakery. Beautiful. What a great idea. I am going to try this. Those brussel sprouts look delicious.

Zoë François said...

Your bread looks fantastic!!! Thanks for trying the book and I'm so glad you are enjoying all the bread you bake.

...and the brussel sprouts look really tasty too!

Thanks, Zoë François (co-author Artisan Bread in Five)

Sandy said...

Ok Kristi, I tried it! It was great! And certainly easy. Thanks for the recommendation. It's nice to have a quick and easy option. I'm anxious to try this dough for pizza. Thanks! Sandy

Mwcraft said...

We tried the Brussel Sprouts but used Turkey Bacon instead and we who did not like them ate the whole pan!