The Perfect Homemade Bread

Even though I love to cook, bake, and eat, there is one food that has always seemed like too much of a pain in the butt to make myself: bread.  I don't have a KitchenAid mixer or a bread machine, so kneading a ball of dough for 15 to 20 minutes is usually at the very bottom of the list of things I want to do on any given day.  Luckily, my sister recently introduced me to The Easiest Bread Ever (read: you only have to pay attention to it for about five minutes).  It's delicious, too--my boyfriend has proclaimed it the "best bread in the world" and we have eaten almost the entire loaf since I made it on Saturday (if you saw the size of it, you would find this quite alarming).

(Photo by Elspeth)

Rather than post the recipe here, I thought I'd just send you over to my sister's blog to see for yourself.  The Easiest Bread Ever can be found here.  Don't be fooled by the name, though--if you don't like rye bread, you can substitute the rye flour with whole wheat flour (like I did).  Finally, if you don't have a broiler pan in your oven, you can fill a casserole with a few inches of water and put it on the lowest shelf of the oven, a few levels below the bread.

Before you run over there, though, here's a more formal introduction to Elspeth's blog.  She started Diary of a Locavore when she graduated from Middlebury and moved to the (very sparsely populated) Outer Cape to live with her now-husband.  Every Monday and Thursday, Elspeth writes about healthy, seasonal, local food and posts a yummy recipe.  These are some of my favorites:

Portuguese Kale Soup...I make this twice a week.  I'm not joking.

The Hay Wedding Cupcakes

Farro Salad with Feta, Squash and Red Onion

The Best Cornbread Ever

You can also hear her radio show, the Local Food Report, here.

Hi Elspeth!  I love you!