Mac & Cheese w/homemade bread crumbs

As mentioned in a previous post, bread sometimes goes forgotten in our house. Sadly, this is true for a recent loaf of bread. It was still salvageable, no mold yet but it was quite apparent no one wanted to eat it. So I used it to make homemade bread crumbs. To make your own, break your bread down into smaller pieces and sprinkle with oil and some seasonings. I used Italian seasoning, but I'm sure some salt and pepper would do fine too. Arrange on a baking sheet and toast in the oven @ 350 degrees for about 10-15 minutes or until nice and toasty. Once the bread has cooled, throw into your food processor and viola! Instant bread crumbs. I used mine to top off some yummy homemade mac and cheese. Nom nom nom!

Isn't my giant cupcake cookie jar amazing?! It was my Mother's Day gift from Carmie...it has her sweet hand print on the bottom :)

Adventures in Breadmaking

This week I decided I would try my hand at baking my own bread. Bread consumption in our household varies from week to week. Some weeks we fly through a loaf, other weeks it gets forgotten until its just a loaf of green mold. This week however we went through it quite quickly. I had bought some yeast beforehand knowing I wanted to try homemade bread sometime. So I figure this is a better time than ever.

I used this No-Knead Bread recipe I found online. I don't have a bread maker so I wanted to find the simplest bread making recipe I could. I didn't have any bread flour on hand, but after a quick check on yahoo answers, I learned that regular all-purpose flour would be okay. It will taste the same, just a bit more dense. I mixed the ingredients and tucked it away overnight. The recipe says you can wait as little as four hours, but I did this right before bed.

The next day, you could tell the yeast was doing its thing, but it seemed rather wet to me still and against my better judgement I dumped it on the counter top thinking it would be okay to start kneading it. Man on man was I wrong. It was way more liguidy (making up my own words) than I thought and it ran all over the counter top. So Carmen helped me thrown LOADS of flour in it until it thickened up. Also, it smelled kind of funny while baking. I was looking forward to the smells of fresh bread baking, but it unfortunately had a fishy type smell? I have no idea how that worked out or why my dough was extra runny...either way it ended up looking and more importantly tasting fine :)

Its more of a rustic type bread, very crunchy and crispy outside. I would think it would go nice as dinner bread to have with steak or pasta. I was honestly looking for a recipe that would be more so for a regular loaf of bread that we could cut up and use for sandwiches. As I said, despite some minor setbacks, it was still edible. I guess I'll keep practicing and keep my eye out for a more loaf-like bread recipe. If you all know of any, please pass them on!