Fit

I am in the throes of a bread-baking fit.

Adam purchased Peter Reinhart's Artisan Bread Every Day  after I'd stopped making No-Knead Bread and started making what I call "Ridiculously Easy Bread in a Jar." REBIAJ is even easier than No-Knead Bread, which means it was actually getting done around here with some regularity, and it's tasty enough, but Adam wasn't in love with it. Buying the Reinhart book was his gentle, hopeful strategy towards making sure that REBIAJ wouldn't be the only bread getting baked in the house, and, well, it's working.

Over the last week, I've made Reinhart's Classic French Bread, in baguettes and a fancy made-up snail shape:

And also this 100% Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread, to which I added, using Reinhart's excellent instructions, oats, quinoa, and chia seeds for a remarkably healthy loaf. I was a little worried that with zero white flour it would come out of the oven like a brick, but it's amazingly light and fluffy--even Adam, who is always a little skeptical about whole-grain baked goods, was impressed--and super yummy. Just baked it today and froze the extra loaf, and am so proud of how it turned out it's kind of obnoxious.

 

For dinner tonight, we made "hippie sandwiches"--our term for chicken, avocado, and sprouts on whole-grain bread--with a little of Adam's excellent homemade mayonnaise.

And here's a picture of my Ridiculously Easy Bread in a Jar, which I continue to make because, well, the above loaves are not ridiculously easy. (They're not ridiculously difficult, either. But when your hands are full of a baby who is, while otherwise lovely, an unreliable napper and you are the sole practitioner and owner and marketing department and janitor of your acupuncture clinic, let's be real: sometimes ridiculously easy bread is the only bread that is going to happen.)

It's not as impressive as the Reinhart loaves, I know. But it's still kinda pretty, right? In a humble, homey sort of way? I'll post the recipe soon, because I bet even if you've never baked bread before in your life you'll just know you can make this.