Lets Start With Some Homemade Bread

Its 6:30 Sunday morning and I just got off work. My wife is coming home after a weekend with her parents and bringing the mother in-law with her. I figure, lets make some bread. So I start with my basic bread recipe.  You can pretty much make any bread you want with this as the base.  It won't be artisan bread to the snooty but it works for me and it tastes good.

Get some:
• Water
• Flour
• Yeast
• Something to spice up your bread
• A big metal bowl, a sifter, a whisk and 3 hours on a Sunday morning with nothing better to do since there is crap on TV.

In your bowl:
• Add water. I'd guess 3 cups. I just fill a plastic liquid measuring cup with warm water. The markings came off in the dishwasher so it's anyones guess.
• Add yeast. I just shake some out of the jar, I'd imagine its a teaspoon or two.
• Stir, or don't.
• Go watch some TV till there’s some commercials.
• Add some flour. I just fill my sifter, I'd guess its about 4 cups. This morning I'm going with bleached white flour. Sift it all in to the bowl while whisking it. Now I usually plop in a cup or so of something else to make it less boring. Today, some 7 whole grain mix from the bulk barn.
• Turn your oven on for a minute or so, turn it off, then put your bowl in there.
• Go watch some TV. An hour or so of the cooking network will do you.
• Kneed the dough into something that resembles bread dough. I use my hands because I hate cleaning bread machines.
• I add flour as I go while I kneed it because I don’t really like to measure and I generally don’t care that much. You want to end up with something that’s just a little bit too sticky for your liking.
• Rip it in half

To one half I added: 1 Tsp of Montreal steak spice 1Tsp of Tandoori spice 1 Tsp of paprika 1 Tsp of garlic powder 1 Tsp of onion powder 1 Tsp of salt

The other half got: 1 pinch of salt

• Flatten your half ball of dough out and add the spices on top. Roll it up and kneed it some more. I read somewhere that you want to let the dough ferment then add the spices after. I’ve never noticed a difference but this morning I’m feeling fancy and I want 2 different loaves of bread. Add seasoning to the flour at the start if you want.
• Kneed the bread for 10 to 15 minutes then put it in your oven. I have a ceramic pizza stone in my oven full time that I plop it on.
• Go watch another slap chop infomercial. This morning it was Magic Bullet. I suppose the type of infomercial isn't that important.
• Take your dough out and punch it around some. It was saying bad things about your mom after all.
• Punch the halves into a flat sheet then roll them up into a tube shape. Tuck your ends under and pinch them in. Put them into 2 oiled and floured bread molds.
• Put the dough back into your oven. Turn it on for another minute if its cooled down because you are an idiot and left it open while you were working.
• By this time you may get some sub par cooking show like 10 dollar meals. Yes! An episode or 2 and you are good to go.
• You can paint a coating on to your bread at this point if you like. Egg white will make it nice and brown. Oil is a good choice. If you want a nice hard French crust paint on some ice water. Whatever turns your crank, I've even gone with vodka. Today I went with olive oil. I also cut some nice fancy slits into the top of my bread so that it was nice and photogenic for its cameo.
• Turn the oven on at 350. Let the oven heat first if you want crunchier bread otherwise be lazy and just leave the bread in there while it heats for a softer crust. I preheat my oven because all the snooty folk seem to go that way.
• Another 40 minutes of cooking network and I had myself some nice looking bread shaped things.
• Pop the loaves out of their mould and on to a cooling rack.
• Go to sleep and let the wife and her mom figure out if it’s edible in a few hours when they get home.
• When I woke up they were still alive so I had some.

Mmmmmmmmm