How could this perfectly sliced loaf of homemade whole wheat bread find itself on OUR counter? It was quite a journey. Check out this process:
1.
White or wheat? Occasionally I think about how healthy (or unhealthy) our diet is. I know that whole wheat stuff is supposed to be healthier than white flour stuff. But with finances in mind, the lowest priced items still get first dibs in my shopping cart, and those items are never the most healthy. So 99 cent white bread it's been for us for a long time!
2.
People like homemade bread. I went to Susan's house. She regularly makes homemade wheat bread for school lunches. I asked her daughter if she liked the homemade bread. She said she loves it, and it's so much better than store bought bread. This is sure different than my childhood experience! My mom had a bread maker that we used a few times growing up, but the cylindrical shaped loaves always had a very strange taste and super hard crust. In fact, you could hardly chew the crust unless it came out directly from the bread maker. The inside was soft, but who'd ever thought of making circular sandwiches? Susan gave a loaf of her homemade bread to me. At home Morgan ate the bread and liked it. So I discovered that he loves homemade bread, and he used to have it all the time growing up! He likes it better than store bought bread, even for sandwiches! We've been married a year, and I had no idea. (Makes me wonder what else do I not know about my husband?)
3.
Bread makers rock. I asked Cherie if she had an extra bread maker. She let us borrow one.
I bought whole wheat flour from the store (I thought I would do this thing right and do it healthy!) Morgan and I followed his step-dad's recipe and it turned out great!
The "pan" part of the bread maker is square (not round like my mom's). It's also big enough that the bread makes decent sized sandwiches. If we ever go buy our own bread maker, we will definitely look for one that has this shape.
4.
Whole Wheat Flour looses nutrients. We went to have dinner at Shelly's house. She has a wheat grinder that connects to her kitchen aid! She ground us some wheat and told us that we need to keep it in the fridge and that it is better to use it quickly before the nutrients go away. That makes me wonder how nutritious is the wheat flour we buy from the store? Later we mentioned to Cherie about how Shelly grinds her own wheat. Then Cherie disappears into her kitchen (should have seen this coming...) and she comes out with an electric grinder for us. And a bag of wheat. And directions to go to her year supply of wheat and use it. So now we have several #10 cans with wheat from 1990 and we are grinding our own wheat! And yes, well-stored wheat is okay after 18 years. Those wheat grinders are so noisy that we have a bag of cotton right next to the grinder. We use the cotton for ear plugs. Not only do we make homemade wheat bread now, but we make it from fresh ground wheat!!
5. Electric Knives Work! Morgan and I had a hard time cutting the bread. When we cut the first loaf, we only got 7 slices out of it. They were really thick and uneven slices, just because we weren't experienced in cutting. How do they get the bread so perfectly sliced in the store? So I eventually developed a technique of cutting around the four edges of the slice and then cutting off the slice from the loaf. I got pretty good at getting 10 or 11 slices out of a loaf with this method. But when we were in California Eleanor offered us an electric knife! It was one of the thousands of items found in my Grandma's house. You can tell it is old because the plug has two equally shaped prongs, the knife is very heavy, it comes in a nice velvet-lined box, and there's a 30 year warranty with it. Wow. Now with our super electric knife, we can cut perfect slices! We regularly get 12-13 slices a loaf and we could go thinner if we wanted.
6.
I'm hooked. At first I didn't see how this bread is so much better than store bought bread, but now I really enjoy it. It tastes great, has substance, and I feel healthier when I eat it. (I'm sure that's partly a placebo effect) but who could argue with me that this bread is a huge improvement over our 99 cent white bread?! With our high household consumption of sandwiches, we make about 1-2 loaves a week.
