Toast!

Give us this day our daily bread.....

Do you eat bread every day?  I think I do most days.  This is a sample of our daily bread, fresh baked.  Saturday was bread-baking day and Peach and I played Betty Crocker and Suzie Homemaker together while Toodles took her morning nap.  It was so much fun (for me) to have another baking helper at the counter as I did years ago when my children rolled and patted and formed their own little bread loaves and put them into child-sized pans while I made the big loaves.

I've been making our daily bread for three decades now and I have a hard time bringing myself to buy bread from the store.  For me, it's more about being able to make different kinds of bread, it's about freshness and the smell of homemade bread in the oven.  Since I can make bread and I know how cost efficient and healthy it is to make homemade, I just do it.  I like to do it, and that makes a big difference too.  

Quite some time ago, I did the math on the cost of making bread at home, and I came up with 30 cents a loaf.  It could be a little more these days, but not much more. Ah ha!  I found one baker here that says she makes her bread for 75 cents per loaf, but if you buy your supplies in bulk like I do, I think you can further reduce that price. My kids used to beg for "town bread" back when they were littles and now they prefer homemade breads.  Third-Born son even started baking his own bread after he left home when his sister-in-law gave him her bread machine.  I was so proud of him!  Only Daughter bakes bread now and then for her family and so does my daughter-in-law.  I think it's a good skill to have and to practice because we all know.... practice makes perfect loaves.

I love to eat just plain old bread & butter, especially when it's warm from the oven, but I go in spurts with my choice of  spreads.  Most mornings I have a stack piece of toast with my eggs or yogurt or oatmeal, and I love to make what I call a "dessert toast" at the end of breakfast.  Right now Honey and I are in a grape jelly trend.  A hunter gave us several jars of his own homemade this fall and I'm telling you, it's the best grape jelly I've ever had!  Before the grape jelly came to us, we were on a raw honey kick, and I'm figuring we will be going back to that soon since the jelly is nearly all ate up.  I love raw honey on bread or toast or straight off the spoon.  When I was growing up at home, we had toast with peanut butter nearly every single morning with breakfast.  I still love it -- the toast almost burnt  (but not entirely) with a thick spread of creamy Jif Peanut Butter melting on top.  I craved peanut butter toast when I was pregnant.  Sometimes I get hooked on cinnamon and sugar toast.  I have a glass cheese shaker with cinnamon & sugar all mixed up so it's handy for sprinkling on toast.  All I know is that I love it all.  Love toast!  Do you?

Your First Loaf at the Fresh Loaf 
Pauline's Wheat Bread (very similar to my everyday loaf)