Three Loaves a Day

One day this week I made three loaves of bread in one day.  Teenage boys sure can eat.

My oldest has two practices a day, football and wrestling, twice a week.  On those days, he eats breakfast before and after football practice, lunch, dinner before and after evening wrestling practice, with snacks between meals.  And he is just one of my three kids.  My kitchen feels like one big all-you-can-eat buffet.  The second one is even bigger than his big brother and has been known to lick the pancake batter bowl clean after a three or four pancake.  Who can blame him?  He’ll burn off just as many calories as his brother at his job cutting and clearing brush.  Then there is Baby Bear, who is after the berries in the garden quicker than the birds, bunnies, and squirrels.  Good thing I have an Invisible Fence around the garden.  I discovered this week that the dog just loves peas.  She swiped them off the table when I went up to the garden to get more.  I swear, I can hear them all chewing in my sleep.  Some people start at the sound of thunder.  Mastication makes me jumpy.

So I was out of bed early this morning, heading to the store to buy more milk, gallons three and four of the week.  The checker asked me about those big boys of mine.  HOW MANY loaves of bread?  HOW MANY gallons of milk this week?  Her eyes grew round.  I could see her contemplating skipping the whole kid thing and buying a baby elephant.  It would probably be cheaper.  Elephants don’t go to college and they eat less.

Here’s a recipe for bread that doesn’t call for milk.  Good thing too, I am often out of it.

I save so much money with this bread maker!  I can have a loaf started in less time than it takes the coffee to brew.  That is often when I do it.

I got my bread maker from a friend.  I know that it won’t last too much longer.  A piece broker off of it and the loaves turn out looking more like parallelograms than rectangles.  But I have seen at least four of them in garage sales this summer.  I’ll start shopping for a replacement soon, and I won’t pay more than $25 for it.

Simple White Loaf for the Bread Machine

• 1 c. warm (room temperature) water
• 2 T. sugar
• 2 T. canola oil
• 1 ½ t. salt
• 3 c. flour
• 2 ¼ t. yeast

1. Add the above ingredients to the bread machine in order.
2. Follow bread machine’s instructions for a 1 ½# loaf.

In three hours, my family is eating freshly made bread for less than a dollar.