Fresh Bread

While we lived in England, my dear friend Hester was the inspiration for SO many of the things I now cook. She made it all look effortless. But the thing I love the most about Hester is she does everything with this inner Joy. She doesn't begrudgingly make lovely food for her family and friends, she does it with a celebratory heart! I had never met anyone who was able to show me this before. Not burning out and becoming overwhelmed as most of the dear women in my life tended to become when trying to be supermoms and do it all..

At the end of our time in the UK we went to her family for a visit and I woke up one morning to this delicious smell..... FRESH BREAD... The most wonderful part was it was done in a machine!!!! I know those who read this and have the die hard attitude of " That's cheating !" need to understand that if I had expected myself to go from 1 to 100 in my learning curve of making fresh bread and had the pressure of doing it without a machine, I too would have been another casualty in the burned out mom thing. It would not have happened.

Now we delight in fresh bread in the morning! My machine which I got as a birthday gift, has a feature to set it the night before, make pizza dough and french bread too. I love it! So ask for one as a gift or save your pennies, because at the end of the day to buy a huge bag of flour for bread ( I buy 25lb bags from a bulk food shop), fresh pasta, pizza dough and bread is one of the ways my family get's to eat gourmet on a dime!!!!!



                                                Invest in a bread maker! You won't be sorry!