Oatmeal Sandwich Bread

Oklahoma summer has been especially cruel to this lover of all things that come from the oven.  With our 1-year-old AC even struggling to stay below 78 on these 100-plus days, baking of any kind has been strictly forbidden by my heat-intolerant husband.  In fact, he's broken his takeout-only streak and actually taken *me* out to eat in order to avoid my turning on the stove for dinner.

So when we got some torrential rain and accompanying cool front yesterday, after I got done dancing a gleeful jig, I celebrated by baking a loaf of bread.  The recipe was one I had not yet tried and was made available by fellow Okie and famous-ish blogger and writer Molly Wizenberg of Orangette. 

I'm not a regular of Molly's blog for no reason other than my own apparent inability to remember to visit it (call it mommy brain), but you should definitely check it out.  She also writes monthly for Bon Appetit magazine.

This bread turned out to be everything it was promised- simply delicious.  I will make it again.  And again.  It's easy, the dough rose like the dickens, and the texture is divine. 

I made one small substitution to the recipe - available here in case you missed it - I used maple syrup instead of molasses, for the simple fact that I didn't own any molasses but I did have the syrup wasting away in the fridge.

Day Twenty-Two: Three Cheese Beer Bread

Day 22 of Operation: Expand Horizons brings a recipe from the food blog Brown Eyed Baker. I'm not sure where she got the idea for Three Cheese Beer Bread, but it was inspired!

This tasty carb-load falls into the category of quick breads, which are risen without the use of regular yeast. This particular bread gets its bubbles from baking powder and 16 ounces of beer. I used a tall can of Coors Light, which was 16 ounces exactly, and just the kind of crisp lager taste that would match well with bread and cheese.

My careful planning left me with not the quite amounts of the required cheeses, so I took small liberties with the types and quantities- adding a little Swiss where I lacked some Gruyère, and a little Butterkäse (a mild, buttery, semi-soft cheese from Germany or Austria) and mozzarella where I lacked some white cheddar.

I took a loaf of this bread to a cookout and it was well received, despite a glaring omission during the mixing of the dough. I made the mistake of talking on the phone for an hour to my darling friend Allison from Eat Well Love Life while I was in the kitchen and accidentally left out the tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce. D'oh!

Nevertheless, the bread was delicious, and next time, I'm sure it will be even better. Thanks to Brown Eyed Baker for her blog and this great recipe. I have a few more of her recipes to recreate over the rest of this Operation.

Day Twenty-One: Multigrain Bread

Day 21 of Operation: Expand Horizons was a baking day. Multigrain Bread from America's Test Kitchen (sign-up required, but the recipe is free for now) was, as promised, easy and pretty good. It toasts nicely and has a good hearty texture and flavor.

My one complaint about this bread is that it was a bit crumbly. Half-inch slices for a sandwich did not hold up well. A bit of internet research indicates that maybe I somehow used too much flour. Perhaps I need more practice with breadmaking!

I used Bob's Red Mill 7-grain hot cereal mix, as indicated in the recipe. I bought salted sunflower nuts instead of unsalted as the recipe calls for. If they were unsalted, I would wind up with a whole bag that none of us would eat, so I reduced the recipe's salt by about half. It seems a worthwhile compromise.

Day Six: Extreme Makeover - Leftovers Edition

While my intention for Operation: Expand Horizons was to have a new recipe every single day of the month, sometimes practicality must rule the day. Day six became Leftover Makeover day, because I had various items in the fridge that needed to be used and I hate to waste food.

The items I had included sautéed red peppers and onions, egg noodles, spaghetti sauce, grilled zucchini and yellow squash, and homemade bread. Since none of this was meat-related, I decided to use it for lunch for myself and our 3 year-old daughter, as my husband is a die-hard carnivore.

Baby Chef's favorite meal in the world is spaghetti, so I decided to go with that theme. She has been a very light eater lately due to allergies and drainage, so I thought I'd sneak extra veg into the sauce. I threw some peppers, onions, zucchini, and spaghetti sauce in the blender and pureed them together. It turns out to be quite tasty that way. She's weird about noodles and insists that spaghetti is not spaghetti unless it's the long skinny kind, so I boiled some of those for her and heated the egg noodles for myself.

I tossed both kinds of noodles with the spiked spaghetti sauce and added more chopped leftover veg to my own bowl. Slices of homemade wheat bread were buttered, sprinkled with garlic salt and shredded mozzarella, and broiled.

I didn't take any photos because none of it was very pretty to look at, but it all tasted fantastic, and it was super quick to put together. Here's a photo of the homemade bread. I'll make a post dedicated to this bread soon, complete with a recipe.