Homemade Bread and Rolls

One of my most favorite things in the world is homemade bread.  Knowing how to make bread has been a huge blessing many times in my life, especially earlier this year at the beginning of the pandemic when there were some shortages at the grocery store and when we needed some comfort food.

This is the recipe that I use.  It's from the Betty Crocker Cookbook.  The whole process takes about three hours, but you're not working on the bread the entire time.

I use dry yeast, not yeast cakes (I don't even know where to find yeast cakes).  If you use dry yeast, put 1/2 cup of the water needed in the recipe in a separate bowl, sprinkle the yeast over the water and let it sit for 5 minutes.  It will get a little foamy as the yeast "activates" and is softened to use in the recipe.

I mix my flour into the wet ingredients using my hand.  It's messy, but I get a good feel for the dough and can start to knead the dough in the bowl.  If this freaks you out or you don't like being super messy, use a wooden spoon.  :)

Once it's starting to form a ball and pull away from the sides of the bowl, I'll dump it onto the counter and knead it.  You want to knead the dough until it is smooth and elastic.  Too much kneading and the dough will be tough.  Hopefully the video works...I tried to get a video of me kneading the dough so that you can see how I do it.

After kneading the dough, I spray the inside of a bowl with cooking spray, drop the dough into the bowl, loosely cover it with plastic wrap and walk away.  After I mixed this batch, I went and dropped of a treat to a friend.  When I got home, the dough was ready to be shaped.

The dough should rise.  If it doesn't...the yeast probably has gone bad or the water was too hot and it died.  That happened to me on Thanksgiving; my yeast had gotten too old and my dough just didn't rise.  I was so sad.  I tossed it and started over.  My second attempt was a little better, but not much.  I'm pretty certain that the yeast is just too old.

My favorite part of bread making...punching the dough.  Once it's risen, you literally punch it to deflate it before shaping it into loaves or rolls.

I decided to make rolls with this batch of dough.  It was pretty easy.  I divided the dough into 24 "equal" chunks, then rolled the dough into balls.  I set all 24 dough balls onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet, covered it with plastic, and then walked away for 30-60 minutes to allow the dough to rise again until it was about double.

If you make a loaf of bread, roll the dough into a small rectangle.  Roll the dough into a log, then place into a loaf pan.  You'll want to let the loaf rise until it's about double in size.  

After the second rising, bake the rolls in a hot oven (425 degrees Fahrenheit) until they're golden brown (about 11 minutes-ish).  If you're making loaves of bread, you'll bake them for 25-30 minutes.  The top will be golden brown, and when you tap the top or bottom of the loaf it will sound hollow.

As soon as the rolls/bread comes out of the oven, rub some butter over the top.  This softens the crust...and adds a delicious buttery taste to the bread.

This batch of rolls turned out pretty good.  I could have let them rise a bit longer, but I was impatient.

And that, my friends, is how it's done!  If you give some bread or roll baking a whirl, share how your batch turns out!

Building Your Food Storage

 A few people have asked for lists of how much of each kind of food to store.  It really depends on how many people are in your household and dietary restrictions you have.

You'll want to plan for at least 2,500 calories per person for each day. Some suggested amounts (for a 1 year storage) are:

• 300-400 pounds of grain
• 60-80 pounds of beans
• 60 pounds of sugar
• 10 pounds of salt

You'll want to store a variety of canned, dehydrated, or freeze-dried fruits, vegetables, and meats.  For vegetables, I mostly have canned green beans.  I had a ton of frozen vegetables, but my freezer died and I lost them.

I found a blog post from the Provident Prepper (https://theprovidentprepper.org/the-provident-prepper/action-plan-food-storage/) where they provide an Action Plan PDF.  It's really cool and helps to document your goals and plan for how much food to save for a whole year.

I broke the suggestions down into smaller chunks:

Where it says grain, you can store the whole grain or you can store this in flour, mixes, pasta, rice, etc.  Beans are your dried beans, peas, lentils, etc.

With new lockdowns looming and panic buying starting up again, we decided to invest in some meat yesterday.  I picked up a variety meat.  I forgot to check ads before I went to the store and was surprised to see beef roasts were buy one get one free.  I love finding deals like that!  

Remember to store water too!  You never know when a boil advisory will happen.  Plan 1 gallon of water per person per day.