Sandwich Bread

I love bread! I think I have confessed my love of carbohydrates before but you can never give too much love. Raisin, sourdough, sweet, salty, garlic, love you all. Today we were out! Almost as bad as being out of milk, but that just doesn't happen around here, I live with the milk nazi. Alarms are sounded when the jug nears empty.

No one panicked or cried, well ok maybe I did but only because I have been under the weather and now had to bake bread. I could have gone to the store and picked up a loaf but I know for a fact that not only will I end up spending 30 dollars on food we don't need, I would have to get out of my pjs! After little sprout (my son) went for his nap, I went to work.

I've played with a few recipes and this is one is now the staple in the house. The crust is absolutely, hands down the best part. T who does not eat crusts on bread or pizza ate the crust! Yes he is one of those eaters! Each pizza night I am left with my crusts plus his and a bottle of franks red hot sauce. Total bliss. Anyways...tonight he was dipping his crusts in soup! He was eating the crust. IT IS THAT GOOD.

Whenever I bake bread, I plan all my meals around it. For lunch I remembered Elvis with a PB and banana sandwich. For dinner I made chicken noodle soup which rocked our socks off. It was so good, I stood up after dinner and took a bow.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you very much!" I said with the lip curl. Love cooking.

I had two of these babies, soooo good

Sandwich Bread

• 2 envelopes of yeast (each packet is 2 1/4 tsp if you are using jarred yeast)

• 2 cups of warm water

• 1/4 cup white sugar

• 3 tbsp margarine melted

• 2 tsp margarine, for the bowl melted

• 6 1/2 cups flour, divided

• Measure your warm tap water and pour into your mixing bowl, sprinkle the yeast on top. Give it a good whisking until all dissolved and let it rest until it starts to foam.
• Once the yeast has foamed add in your melted margarine and sugar, whisk again
• Add 3 cups of flour and mix, until flour and yeast mixture is combined
• Start to add the rest of your flour and mix until all incorporated
• Lightly flour your surface and turn your dough out onto the surface, begin to knead for a couple of minutes
• In a buttered bowl place your dough and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise for about a hour, the dough should double in size
• Once risen punch dough down onto floured surface
• Roll the dough out into a large rectangle, or something that resembles a rectangle, you want the dough to be thin but not thin enough to see through.
• With your hands, roll your dough tightly, starting at the long end
• Place seam side down, and cut the dough in half
• Grease two loaf pans
• Place the loafs seam side down in pans, tucking the ends underneath
• Cover and let rise for 20 minutes
• Preheat your oven to 400 degrees
• Brush the tops with melted margarine and place in the oven
• Bake for 35 minutes until, the bread will sound hollow when you tap the top
• Cool on wired racks.
• Yum

Peanut Butter & Jelly Muffins

Confession time. I did it. I locked my son in the vehicle yesterday evening. To make matters worse, the heat was on high because I was warming the vehicle as I turned to say good-bye to my mom. Needless to say my son is perfectly fine and was asleep after the whole ordeal however I don't think I will ever forgive myself. So I whipped up a little comfort in the kitchen, PB & J muffins.

Peanut butter and jelly just may have the perfect marriage. They never fight. Always have their own space in the fridge or cupboard, no matter what flavor jelly is peanut butter always complements, and they make a ridiculous delicious muffin.

These are the only muffins that I truly enjoy the whole thing. You get the traditional crunchy muffin top with a sprinkling of sugar but than the stump of the muffin is filled with jelly; no boring muffin stump left on the plate. All other muffins can keep there stumps I just like the top.

I found this recipe here on food.com. Great for lunch boxes or snack for little muffins.

Enjoy!

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 ½ teaspoons salt

1 tablespoon baking powder

2 large eggs

1 cup milk

²⁄₃ cup sugar

1 cup creamy peanut butter

¹⁄₃ cup vegetable oil

½ cup jam or ½ cup preserves , of your choice

¼ cup sugar

• Pre-heat your oven to 375 degrees
• Mix together dry ingredients (flour, salt, baking powder)
• Add in everything else except the jam, mix till combined.
• Grease your muffin tins WELL
• Scoop batter into muffin tin only filling half way
• Place 2 teaspoons of jam onto batter
• Scoop remaining batter into the muffin tins covering the jam
• Bake muffins for 18-20 minutes
• Let cool before removing from the pan to a wire cooling rack

Buns, Buns, Buns

I love the smell of fresh bread! Don't you?

Last summer I took my moms bread maker from the cabin in Kelowna and to my condo in Port Coquitlam. One day before I had to pick T up from work, I loaded all the ingredients in and turned it on. We were going to have hamburger soup and fresh bread for dinner, I was pumped (also 5 months pregnant and hungry). On our way home a fire truck came racing past us and I looked at T and said "it's probably the bread maker". We giggled for a few seconds until we realized there were four fire trucks outside our building; wasn't too funny anymore. We slowly drove by our patio to make sure there was no smoke coming out of the windows and all was clear. T looked at me and said "Chinese sound good?" That night someone down the hall set their kitchen on fire, our kitchen smelled like a bakery.

Just like a hot cup of cocoa on a cold day, the scent warms me from my head to my toes. I pluck a bun off the baking sheet, breaking it open, and watching the steam rise off the bread. I spread on my smooth, creamy peanut butter, and take the first bite. Mmmm so delicious I am left speechless plus I have peanut butter stuck to the top of my mouth.

Hungry yet? Here is the recipe.

Enjoy!

2 Hour Buns

Adapted by www.food.com

• 3 cups warm water

• 2 tbsp yeast

• 1/2 cup sugar

• 2 beaten eggs

• 6 tbsp oil

• 7 cups of flour

• Combine yeast and warm water. Stir that yeast so it dissolves and bubbles begin to form on the surface of the water-about 10 minutes standing time
• Combine sugar, eggs, oil, and water/yeast mixture. Stir till combined.
• Add in your flour one cup at a time and mix until stiff dough forms.
• Dot the dough with oil.
• Let rise for one hour uncovered in the same mixing bowl, punching the dough down every 15 minutes
• After one hour form into buns and place on greased baking sheets. We like big buns so we get 14 huge buns out of this recipe.
• Cover buns with a tea towel and let rise for 30 minutes.
• Once risen bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 20 minutes

Pumpkin Loaf

I love mornings! I always find I am most productive before noon, after that I turn into a pumpkin. The other morning my son woke me up earlier than usual. Like a typical baby, he woke the household, ate, and went back to bed. This left me wide eyed and twirling my thumbs at 7:30am. So I cleaned out the fridge...of all things to do this was top of my list. As I was throwing out last weeks leftovers I came across my leftover pumpkin puree from my pumpkin roll. Time to bake! I abandoned the fridge and headed to my bookshelf to find my pumpkin loaf recipe. I knew the recipe yielded two loafs which was perfect for the two sets of grandparents.

My son's room is just a short distanced from our kitchen so I didn't want to turn on the electric mixer just yet. He really isn't a light sleeper but when I start a project I really don't want to wake him. I got out my big mixing bowl, a whisk, and rolled up my sleeves. In went the dry ingredients, than the wet ingredients, and into the oven. Soon my whole home smelled like the delicious scent of pumpkin and I got back to the cleaning out the fridge.

Enjoy!

Pumpkin Loaf

Adapted from: Best of Bridge Volume 1

• 3 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon cinnamon
• 2 cups pumpkin, canned
• 2 cups white sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 1/4 cups oil

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees
• Mix dry ingredients in a bowl. Make a well in center.
• Add the remaining ingredients and stir just enough to mix
• Pour batter into two greased loafed pans
• Bake for 1 hour