Catching up a little!

I know, I know, it's getting old!.. How many times can I apologize for having been MIA here.. So I simply won't say anything anymore from now on! If I have time and the mood strikes to blog, I will.. if not, you'll have to wait and hopefully understand that life can get busy! ;)

But now let's dive right in to a few things I want to share with you!

First of all, my cook book collection is growing and I love looking at them in my shelf! :) 

I have 2 more coming in the mail! ^_^

Secondly, as you all know by now, I'm a big bread lover and always looking for a great & easy recipe!

While hunting for a low cal bread machine bread, I found this one and am in heaven! (My kids raved and claimed it looks like from a bakery -they might be a tad biased though when it comes to their mom! ;) )

While it's by no means really healthy with all the amount of white flour, for the first try I wanted to stick to the recipe a 100% and see how it turns out! 

Next time I might try 50/50 and see how it goes!

~* Basic Machine French Bread *~

1/2 cups water, at about 105 degrees 4 cups flour (a flour with at 4 grams protein per serving is best) 1 1/2 teaspoons salt (I use kosher) 2 1/2 teaspoons dry yeast Directions: 1 Add to the bread pan in the order yours needs. 2 For mine it is water first. 3 Then I add half the flour and the salt followed by the rest of the flour and the yeast on top. 4 This will run well on the normal, rapid, and delay start cycles.

I followed Miss Diggy's further instructions as she mentions on the site and it worked amazing! Here's what she writes:

"I made it on the dough cycle, and then took it out, rolled it out into a 15x8 rectangle and then rolled it up on the 15 inch sides. Then I pinched the edges together to be "seamless" and then rolled it back and forth, gently, to taper the ends (bring to almost a point) and then put it on a greased baking sheet with a little cornmeal. I put a few slits in the top about 1/4 inch deep and brushed on a little bit of cold water all over the top of the loaf. Let it rise for another hour and then used 1 egg white to brush over the top of it, and then baked it at 350 for 25-35 minutes (when it was a golden brown and sounded hollow when I thunked it)"

And the result:

I wish I had some 'Caponata' left that I made the other day to eat with it! (Recipe will follow soon; it's very easy!)