Dinner

Yesterday, Mark and I decided we are going to start baking our own bread for toast and sandwiches. Basically I read an article by someone who claims to save lots of money by baking his own bread (although I'm not sure how he accounts for this... Kitchenaid stand mixer + ingredients=a lot more than the $2/loaf in savings) and decided we should give it a try. The below sandwich is the product of our first experiment baking a loaf of bread:

Bacon, arugula, cucumber sandwich:


I desperately wanted to add slices of tomato but ultimately opted not to take the chance, especially since our friend Mona got pretty sick the other day and tentatively attributes it to tomatoes in her sandwich.

The verdict on the bread: good flavor; thick but tender crust; tight crumb; and excellent toasted (notice all the errant crumbs all over my plate!). In the bread vs. rice debate, I fall down firmly on the side of rice, but I ate all the bread this time. Since my usual habit is to eat a little bread and then discard it in favor of the fillings, this is a sure sign of a winner!

Mark made it without my input, but I know he used active dry yeast, milk, unsalted butter, water, salt, King Arthur unbleached regular flour, and King Arthur whole wheat flour. Maybe one day I will have him guest blog about this but, for now, he says the first loaf was just him playing around.