Garden My Way

Bread making is easy, just follow a few rules any one can make a delicious loaf of bread from scratch. It may take you a while to become a master bread making, but I think you should at least learn a couple to give you the satisfaction of eating fresh baked bread. That's right, practice until you own it!  Find yourself a heavy crock for bread making. I use an oval insert of a slow cooker. Nice thing is, it comes with a lid. Here's a couple of easy recipes.
1. Sue's Pillow Bread: For dough: Dissolve 1 T. dry yeast, 1 T. sugar in 3/4 C. warm water, add 1-2 T. oil, one egg, and 1 t. salt and enough flour to make a soft dough. Let the dough rises until doubled in size. Place the dough in a well floured surface. Roll out the dough to about 1-2" thick, brush the top with egg wash and sprinkle with salt, pepper or sesame seeds or any other topping you like. Cut into ~3" squares with a pizza cutter, arrange the pieces on cooking sheet lined with parchment paper. Let it raise until puffy (be patient!). Bake in a per-heated 375 F oven for 15-18minutes. (you may need to check it at 15 minutes first time you bake it in your oven, it goes from perfect to burnt pretty quickly). Enjoy! This is a great bread for sandwich making.
2. Overnight Bread: This one is even easier. Mix together: 1 t. dry yeast, 1 t. kosher salt, 3 C. flour, 1-1/2 C. water. Stir just combined. Cover, leave it in the bowl for 12 hours. 12 hours later, place a cast iron skillet in the oven, heat the oven to 500F. Dump the dough on a floured surface (the dough is quite soft at this stage), fold it up so it will fit in the cast iron skillet. Bake for 30 minutes with the lid on, then another 10-15 with the lid off. Viola! Enjoy!