Homemade Bread....How Embarrassing!

My husband, Peter, tells a story about how as a kid in junior high he was so embarrassed that his sandwiches had homemade bread and everyone around him had perfectly shaped store bought bread.  Now looking back he knows that his mom was actually giving him something that the kids around him weren't getting--some love in his food!  It was nutritious and tasty (way better than anything store bought for sure!  I've had it, it is scrumptious!).  Well I'm afraid my kids will be suffering from the same embarrassing thing.  I now make my own bread (after some expert instruction from my mother-in-law I gained the confidence to branch out and try some other types of bread).  All of my bread is now sourdough bread.  I chose to use sourdough for several reasons:  1.)  it is way cheaper to make!  2.)  it is more nutritious 3.)  it is the type of bread all of our ancestors made.  

Cheaper to Make:

By cheaper I don't mean cheaper than a loaf of $1 generic bread from Walmart,  I mean cheaper than making a whole wheat yeast bread.  My mother-in-laws tasty whole wheat bread was from the cookbook More with Less which is a Mennonite publication.  Obviously this recipe is frugal, but after making it even healthier by using only whole wheat (no white flour), using honey rather than sugar, and adding things like flax seed and wheat germ this was no cheap bread.  Even if you decided not to use the healthier version of the recipe you still had the cost of milk (which is rising every day), flour, eggs, yeast (which have you checked lately? it is not cheap!), oil and I'm sure a number of things I can't even recall off the top of my head.  My sourdough recipe is flour, water, buttermilk, butter and maple syrup.  That's it and it is super cheap! The recipe makes 4 loaves of bread.  The added bonus to sourdough is that it stays moist longer and doesn't mold nearly as fast as homemade bread (I still put all but the current loaf in the freezer to keep those fresh until we are ready to eat those.   Store bought bread doesn't mold very fast because they add a bunch of preservatives and conditioners to the bread which are all things I'm trying to avoid as chemicals and fake ingredients like preservatives seem to really agitate my allergies, but that is for another post.     

Sourdough is More Nutritious:

Okay, I started researching this and realized that this will have to be a post unto itself...I hope to post on this later this week, but until then I'll direct you here to read up on it if you prefer instant gratification.  :)  She probably will answer more thoroughly than me anyways.  I promise to bring some new information to the cyber table discussion though.  

Sourdough is the Way Our Ancestors Made Bread:

"Simple folks [back in the day] toiled in the fields long hours, had to be in good health and had little time for preparing moveable-feast style lunches to be quickly consumed in the furrows....[unspoilable (basically) sourdough bread was the answer].  A properly elaborated sourdough loaf acquires an unsurpassed  taste and an aroma that no cracker or porridge can ever match."  Jacques DeLangre Seasalt's Hidden Powers

My mother-in-law thinks that making bread is a spiritual act.  Think about that for a minute....Jesus obviously held bread in esteem or he wouldn't have broken bread with the disciples claiming "this is my body."  This was unleavened bread though.  Jesus performs two miracles with bread.  One where five loaves feed five thousand and another where seven loaves feed four thousand.  God values bread, he made manna and gave it to the Israelites who then ground it and baked it.  Sounds like a type of bread.   That is just my speculation though.  I did a quick search of the Bible and came up with 25x where loaves of bread are mentioned.  That's a fun thing to think about.  Plus, we instinctively know even now that a loaf of handmade bread is a special gift.  Doing the work of kneading with my hands, watching the bread "magically" rise and then smelling the bread while it cooks does seem like a small miracle to me.  Especially when I get to taste it straight from the oven with a little butter.  I feel like making the bread is an act of self-sacrifice of service to my family (I sometimes have to remind myself of this when my hands are tired of kneading the bread, it gives me motivation to keep going).  I'm providing a nutritious and wholesome piece of food that they will greatly enjoy.  Besides it blesses people not just when it is being eaten, but while the aroma of the baking bread fills the whole house all day.  I like that the bread I am making is a similar recipe to those that have been made by women for thousands of years.  How exciting!  I may be over zealous about bread, but isn't it a fun concept to think about?