Homemade Bread

Living in New York City and dreaming of starting a homestead seem like quite opposite living circumstances.  But as the months pass into semesters of educational goals achieved, I am counting down the time until we move back to the Hudson Valley and begin realizing that minifarm dream.

One of the country skills I have always wanted to learn is the art of making bread.  This seemed easy enough to do and something I could accomplish in our galley kitchen until the time comes when I have my country kitchen.  Yet for years, I put off this task as something that was just too hard to learn.  Yeast seems so unpredictable!  But then I read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and discovered that even seasoned homesteaders love to use bread machines.  I always thought this was cheating so it never occurred to me that I could use one to learn to really bake bread.  But when a friend of mine started visiting a local thrift store to fill up her new home, I mentioned to her my interest in a bread machine.  She found one for $6 and mailed it to me for Christmas!

My first batch was a complete failure.  (Who knew there were different kinds of yeast?!)  But once I got the correct ingredients, bread making has been a quick and easy success.  There's nothing like fresh homemade bread and a pot of soup on the stove on a cold winter's day.  And the feeling I get when I smell the bread baking and the soup bubbling is one that reminds me that my homesteading dream is not that far off.