Turns out my “pizza perfect pesto” recipe also does a great job in bread. I was making some soup and thought a savoury bread would be a nice side. That sounds a lot better than “I bought basil at the grocery store and couldn’t recall what I needed it for”.

I used this recipe as a guide, but simplified it even more. They recommend adding flour to your pesto and adding pine nuts separately. Frankly, too fussy. Instead I just dumped a generous 1/3 cup of my pesto into the machine at the second kneading cycle. So.much.easier.

It comes out of the bread machine with a pretty green swirl in the middle.  I think this would make a great summer bread when you’ve got tons of fresh basil.  Ah… summer.

Easy Pesto Bread

• 1 cup + 2 tablespoons warm water
• 3 cups unbleached white flour
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons bread machine yeast
• generous 1/3 cup of pesto
  

1. Measure all ingredients into the bread machine (except for the pesto).
2. Select white bread cycle and light crust
3. Add pesto at the nut/raisin signal or the second kneading cycle.

The first recipe of 2008 was a bit haphazard - my “better” half decided to ring in the new year by coming down with a nasty cold and saluting the new year with tissues and a lot of nose honking.

For dinner we (ahem I) decided to fling some things together and bippity boppity boo make a pizza.   After dragging myself away from the awesomeness of 30 Rock on DVD, I threw the ingredients to this pizza dough recipe in the breadmaker.  Seriously, what did we do before this?  Oh yeah, we bought package pizza dough mix.   Embarassing.

I made my favourite pesto recipe and smeared it all over the pizza.   Then I scattered a cup of halved cherry tomatoes, caramelized onions, grated cheddar and parmesan and the final touch, a generous handful of toasted pine nuts.

The crust rose nice and thick, the cheese bubbled and best of all, it was ready in time for the BIG JURY VERDICT on Coronation Street.  OMG.  Tracey Tracey Tracey luv.  It was awesome… and so was the pizza.

Boyfriendly rating: 5/5   “Just because I’m sick doesn’t mean I can’t eat… and taste stuff”

Lana’s pizza-perfect pesto

• 2 cloves of local garlic (three if it’s supermarket garlic)
• 1/4 cup + handful of toasted pine nuts
• 1/4 cup + generous handful of grated parmesan
• 1 tsp of coarse sea salt
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 tsp (or more) of lemon juice
• 2 cups (2 supermarket packages) of basil

Blend in a food processor or with a hand blender. Sometimes I also throw in some sun dried tomatoes (after soaking them for a few minutes in hot water).

This is a real bread for a winter day.  I have a lot of bits and pieces in the fridge.  Applesauce left over from making gingerbread decorations, yogurt and cranberries.  I tweaked a recipe that I found online to use up all of these “bits”.  Sometimes my experiments go the way of the garbage can.  (Like when I used to go to my grandmother’s house and make “soufflé” by throwing a lot of random ingredients into a bowl and covering it with sprinkles.)  And sometimes my food experiments work out.  Luckily, this was one of those times.  Hey, it only took 25 years to get here!

Yogurt Cranberry Bread (1 lb. loaf)

• 1/2 cup warm water
• 1/3 cup plain yogurt
• 2 Tbsp. unsweetened applesauce
• 1 Tbsp. maple syrup
• 1 cup unbleached white flour
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries
• 2 tsp. bread machine yeast

Select the lightest setting on your bread machine and press start!

Boyfriendly rating: 5/5

After finding this recipe for apricot beer bread I thought that it would be the perfect recipe to incorporate our favourite McAuslan apricot beer. The kitchen opens at five - bread service at eight. Stay tuned!

Much later…. the result:

Is it supposed to be this … um.. stumpy? It tastes fine and almost cake-like. I’m just not sure this recipe was tweaked enough for the bread machine. I think I should have used the bread machine to do the kneading and popped the loaf in the oven.

It’s ok and edible, but I guess I expected it to be more… well… bready.

I haven’t been managing our veggie basket very well and we’ve fallen behind on our veggie consumption. There were a lot of things going on last month (Cherry Pie, Sandy Hill craft show and the Ladyfest Holiday Craft Sale). Mostly, we haven’t been eating our potatoes. Call it irony that the girl from PEI (aka the potato province) isn’t eating enough potatoes. With the last craft show complete, I sat down on Sunday to settle the score with these tubers.

First, I tried making a herby potato bread in the bread machine using this recipe as the base (with a few changes).

Well, it looked great.  And smelled great as it baked away.  I regret not putting the full amount of oil in - it was a bit dry.  Overall, it was good as lunch-type bread and maybe even a sandwich bread.  Is it going to win Miss Bread 2007?  Probably not.

Boyfriendly rating: 3/5.  Not bad, not awesome.  Just average.

Herby potato bread recipe 

• 1/2 cup Mashed potato
• 1 large egg
• 4 Tbsp vegetable oil
• 3/4 cup water  (I used leftover potato water from cooking the potatoes)
• 3/4 tsp  Dried thyme, rosemary, Oregano, or basil OR combination  (I used a trifecta of herbs)
• 2 1/2 cup Unbleached white flour
• 1/2  cup Quick-cooking oats
• 1 tsp  Salt
• 1 Tbsp Brown  Sugar
• 1 Tbsp  Active dry yeast  (this seemed like a LOT of yeast… it rose quite high)

I set my bread machine to “light” and 1.5 pound loaf, but considering the size, the 2 pound setting would probably have been better.

I tried a new recipe in the breadmaker last night - honey oatmeal bread. I thought this recipe looked pretty easy and best of all, I had all the ingredients on hand.

I threw everything into the breadmaker and switched the settings for a 1 pound loaf on “light” crust. Then I left to go to a course. When I got home three hours later, the smell of freshly baked bread was wafting around the apartment. A perfect way to end a snowy and blustery day.

Photo taken on a Harrods Food Hall bag for general elegance and a touch of class.

Boyfriendly rating: 5/5

Honey Oatmeal Bread (makes a one pound loaf)

• 1 cup warm water
• 3 Tbsp honey
• 2 cups unbleached white flour
• 1 cup Oats (I used the 3-5 minute kind)
• 1 1/2 Tbsp Dry milk
• 1 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 Tbsp butter
• 2 tsp active dry yeast

I decided to look for some bread recipes using our leftover buttermilk from making pancakes.  I went to my faithful recipe source: fooddownunder.com and found this recipe for a buttermilk oat bread.

I decided to make the smallest recipe - the one pound loaf - hence the squatness of the loaf.  It was nice to try, but it doesn’t really meet my brown bread standard.

I’m going to keep hunting for buttermilk bread recipes.  The search continues…

Boyfriendly rating: 3/5.   Not bad, not super awesome.

The boyfriendly household got a new appliance - a bread maker! I’m getting old and getting fussy about my food (especially bread). I grew up eating brown bread - a recipe passed down from my New Brunswick relatives. I’m not even sure the New Brunswick side of my family even makes any other type of bread! Then again, why would they? This bread is awesome.

I probably like it because of the molasses. I love molasses - maybe even more than I love parsnips.  Don’t make me choose between the two.  I can’t.

This bread may not prove to be a boyfriendly recipe since the resident boy isn’t too fond of molasses. He prefers salty yeast paste (Vegemite). Yuck.

The first loaf turned out great - next time I’ll set the crust to “light” rather than “medium”.

New Brunswick style brown bread
(make a 2lb loaf in your bread maker)

• 1 1/4 cup warm water
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 1/2 Tbsp butter
• 1 1/2 tsp. salt
• 3 1/4 cups flour
• 1/3 cup rolled oats
• 2 1/2 tsp. yeast