Kitchen 101: Homemade Bread

I feel a little like I'm giving away a family secret in writing this but to be honest I think everyone should know how to make their own bread.  It's pretty simple once you get the hang of it (even easier if you have a bread maker!) and while no written post is the same as being taught in person, I'm going to do my best to share the basics of bread making with you now.

I've thought a lot about how to go about this and I think the easiest way will be to share my basic recipe and get to important technical things as they come up.

I use just one recipe, which I alter if I want to make something a little healthier or more exciting.  The ingredients list is simple and short and of all the recipes I love, it's the only one I know off by heart.

Knowing how to make bread is awesome if you are doing a pantry challenge since the ingredients are fairly standard and you can use the dough for things like pizza bases and lunchbox bread rolls.

Pantry Challenge: Milo Slice

The great thing about "slice" is that unlike cake or biscuits, there isn't really a required recipe or a formula - as long as you've got a good balance between fat, flour and sugar you're good to go.  A slice is a great opportunity to use up random baking stuff from your pantry since it's pretty hard to go wrong.

Pictured: random baking stuff

This was based on a recipe for a Milo slice from Lift the Lid which I adapted and altered to use up a few things.  The trick with any slice recipe is, essentially, that no matter what flour, oats or dried fruits you add, you add enough liquid (melted margarine usually) that it holds together and that you don't dry it out by cooking it for too long.

Pantry Challenge: Peachy Baked Chicken

As promised, I'm using whatever I can find in the kitchen to make inventive meals this week.  Tonight's recipe is a baked chicken casserole.  I was going for apricot and ginger but for some reason I have about five cans of sliced peaches so I went in that direction instead!

Raiding the pantry and freezer can be an interesting task, but in amongst the dead celery and year-old frozen pie, I found a large tray of chicken legs, a tin of peaches, some fresh ginger and a half can of chopped tomatoes.  With those ingredients, this meal was a bit of a no-brainer and I'm kind of nervous about what the rest of the week holds - I'm pretty sure I just used up all the hidden gems but we'll see...!

I cooked this in the oven since I also wanted to do a bit of baking, it took about an hour and a half so I think it would make a great slow cooker meal.  There is enough sugar in the fruit to provide a glaze for the chicken (which is slow cooked and soft with a yummy crunchy skin) and there's enough sharpness from the ginger and depth from the worcester sauce that the dish isn't too sweet.

Challenge Time

When I was completing my employee development thingee earlier this year, we talked a lot about setting SMART goals - targets that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely mean not only are your goals achievable, but you'll know when you have achieved them.  Saying you want to "eat better", "drink less", "exercise more" is great, but how do you know that you've reached your target?  General, long-term goals are awesome as they give us a starting place and a direction, but it's important we set smaller goals to tick off to keep us motivated and to help us see we're still on track.  Personally, I enjoy setting goals that are either very short-term ("eat three vegetarian meals this week") or very small ("eat one piece of fruit a day")(seriously, that has been an achievement for me!).  There's no harm in starting out small and I know I'm more likely to achieve a small and measurable goal like going for a short walk every day.  In the vein of setting and achieving SMART goals, I have a couple of challenges lined up for myself for the coming few weeks.

First things first, I'm doing Dry July!  For those who have somehow never heard of it, Dry July is a pledge to abstain from alcohol for the whole month of July.  It's something I've been thinking about doing for a while and my goal is to learn more about my relationship with alcohol while of course improving my health.  Having a red wine now and then is meant to be good for heart health, but it's hard to argue that alcohol in general does more good than harm, so (and I know I'm hardly the poster girl for sobriety just yet!) I'd encourage anyone to give something like Dry July a go.  I drink a couple of glasses of wine most nights and I think on average I probably drink the equivalent of about 2-3 bottles of wine per week which is definitely more than recommended.  I'm one week in already and I'm feeling good, although I seem to be super hungry which is not surprising since I've cut out around 2000 calories a week from my diet - equivalent to going a whole day without eating!

Speaking of food,