Stretching that Food Dollar: Bread

Filling and calmly reassuring, bread is sustenance itself, Atkins be damned. Whether times are tough or you are consciously trying to get by on less, having bread on your table means, well, having bread on your table. For those who bake they're own bread in the oven or bread maker, it's been said that kneading the dough and baking your own fresh bread is a kin to therapy itself when it comes to the restorative calm of preparing this most essential food from scratch.

Given the universality of bread in one form or another in cultures throughout the earth, it is striking just how many of us in the West have forgotten how to make bread all together in the matter of one or two generations. Arguably the most fundamental hearth meal, the making of bread is something of mystery to most of us, even those who are pretty sharp in the kitchen. However, both the quality and the cost of home baked bread are so fundamental inviting that an increasing number of home bakers are picking up the yellow eared bread recipes and relearning one of the most basic forms of creating food from scratch. Others are remembering the bread making appliance gathering dust and guilt in the garage or kitchen cupboard and are meeting finding the pleasure of meeting bread making at least half way.

The non-bakers amongst us need not feel too left out, as there are any number of affordable breads available at the local market. Regular old sandwich bread is good to have around for toasts or sandwiches, if that's your thing, but there are all sorts of fresh loaves of Italian, French, and other breads still available for under two bucks. Some markets sell loaves that are almost finished but still need another ten minutes in the oven, giving you the feel of a fresh baked bread in your home without any baking knowledge. Walking out of the grocery store with a baguette sticking of your bag is assuring evidence that you've been shopping for real food.

If you're like me, though, the bread has often gone stale before you have the chance to enjoy it all. Remember that stale bread is still quite good with soups and the like, and making croutons from stale bread is a snap. If you do much cooking, crumble up the remains and set the bread crumbs aside for use down the road.