Making Bread

As a family of five, when we have bread or make sandwiches, we easily use half a loaf of bread. During this time of social distancing, lunches became more challenging, although I'm not sure why that is, because all five members of our family have always had "home" lunches every day. Perhaps it was made harder due to spacing out shopping trips more, limited bread availability (at least for pick up/delivery) and limits on how many items can be purchased (e.g., two loaves of bread for a 7-10 day period). At any rate, our simple, basic lunch of sandwiches, chips and fruit became a little more complicated because we felt we were always being mindful of bread.

We had picked up a bread machine at the beginning of March and have now officially made a few loaves so far. Although we had some ingredients in our pantry, those items quickly disappeared from the shelves of most stores. Fortunately, Costco came through with both flour and bread flour so that we have plenty for a long time, what with bulk packaging. (Let us know if you need either of those things.) While I applaud everyone making bread by hand, the bread machine is a lifesaver for bread novices (like me), and we love just putting in the ingredients, setting the cycle and letting the machine do the work.

Ease of use aside, we have had to be flexible with ingredients at times. For example, we do not have bread machine yeast, but I read that regular yeast works almost as well. Also, when we were out of bread flour, we used regular flour, and that worked also. When the warm, aromatic bread is removed from the oven, there are no complaints at all.

We have tried the basic white and an Italian bread, and I can definitely see the latter becoming a staple with lasagna night and spaghetti night in the future, even post quarantine. We like the option of making a loaf to accompany dinner to elevate home meals during this time. While no southerner would prioritize the bread machine over their beloved cast iron skillet, the bread machine is helping me keep our active family fed.