Our daily bread

This is the bread recipe our family uses for our everyday, so quick you don't have an excuse not to make it, bread. You almost don't even have to knead it, and what dough isn't used sits in a big jar in the fridge and can be plucked out, left for 45 minutes on the counter to warm, and thrown onto a hot stone to bake. Fiona loves to make bread and I always give her her own ball of dough to "knead" and "shape" into a loaf. Her tiny bread bakes much faster than my large loaves and she loves to butter and spread creamy honey on her still-warm bread.

Try this at home:

In a large bowl, mix:

6.5 cups flour-- we use 4 cups bread flour, 2 white whole wheat, 1/2 cup hard whole wheat

3 T yeast

3 T salt

Add 3 cups warm water, stir/mix/knead till combined. You can actually knead it for a while if you want to, but this is actually optional. I often do only because I want the dough to seem lovely and smooth and elastic-y, but the truth is when I'm in a rush and I don't it doesn't seem to make much of a difference.

At this point you can either throw the dough into the jar for the fridge, which I usually leave out for 30 minutes or so before putting into the fridge, or you can let this dough rise for a while and then form loaves which I let rise for 30 minutes.

At this point I put the loaves on a preheated, 500 degree baking stone for 10 minutes, and then lower the temp to 400 for another 20 minutes. If you are unsure how long your loaves will take, an instant read thermometer should read at least 200 degrees for an internal temp to indicate doneness.

Yum. And also, keeps us busy for an entire winter morning, if I let it. This morning she even washed all the dishes for me.