Bread Baking

Alright, so this is going to be short and sweet, but I thought I'd share since, while it is not sewing, it is still a creative outlet of sorts. I just baked my very first loaf of bread. I am happy to say, I can now call myself a successful bread baker. Nothing fancy, just a white sandwich loaf, but this is only the beginning. I can feel it now.......

(Not an amazing photo, but the bread is delicious and that's the really important thing.)

In an effort to not only maintain a healthy lifestyle and good eating habits (along with minimizing the carbon footprint) I have been trying to make sure that most if not all of what we eat is homemade, locally sourced, preservative and creepy chemical free, and helps support our small local economy. I try to buy all of our produce, meat and dairy (as much as possible) from local farmers, I make my own yogurt from local, organic milk, and now I will be making our own bread as well. Everyone is always very impressed when I tell them I make yogurt, but it's really one of the easiest things in the world to do, and requires only a minimum of effort. This wasn't that much harder. Now Mr. S can eat his sandwiches on fresh bread made with only four, very easily pronounced ingredients. 

The crust turned out beautifully! Nice and crispy, like a good french loaf, with a soft, moist crumb (middle of the bread). Nice and fluffy as well. It's really delicious and it's going to be very nice being able to make loaves in a size that we can actually go through before it goes bad, so it will also be less wasteful, not to mention significantly cheaper. Now I just have to try and restrain myself so it's not all gone by the time Mr. S gets off work tonight.