I am learning how to get back to doing what I love to do: bake. I can sit on the island in our kitchen! Yippie!
You may wonder why that makes me happy. You see, I like to make our own breads, pasta, and other delights, but because I broke my leg and am under a doctor’s orders not to put weight on it, I can’t stand as I ordinarily do when I work in my kitchen. I thought my days of creating culinary delights were temporarily suspended.
However, I found that I can sit on the island in my kitchen and reach everything (or almost everything). Yesterday, my partner put all the ingredients on the island that I needed to make yeast-raised parmesan bread. I measured the ingredients and put them into a breadmaker which kneaded the dough. When the dough was ready, I formed four small loaves and put them in an unheated oven to rise. To hasten the yeast doing its work, I asked my partner to put a large bowl of hot water in the oven with the dough in the small pans.
A couple hours later, the dough had risen and it was ready to bake. I heated our bread oven (which is pretty much like a regular oven, but is only 10″ high and is lined with ceramic tile). I transferred the bread into the hot oven, and 33 minutes later, voi-la!
At dinnertime, I sliced the bread. My partner pan broiled some chicken breasts. When the chicken was ready, I put it on the sliced bread and placed some sliced mozzarella cheese on top. We put that in the oven and broiled it for about three minutes — and out came a “new” kind of hot chicken sandwich on fresh bread which made a great dinner. We enjoyed it with a small side salad.
These buns will be tasty today when I cover them with homemade meatballs and sauce so we can have a hot meatball sandwich for lunch. My partner will need to have a hot sandwich about that time, as he will have had to go remove snow again from our drive and walks. Sheesh, that snow is unmerciful this year!
Life is short: enjoy buns! Especially hot ones! (LOL!) [Sorry, I reserve my partner’s buns exclusively for me. Look, I may have a broken leg, but I’m not dead!]
Good for you. There's really nothing I like better than baking. Wishing I had one of those bread ovens.
I find whenever I bake for the group I live with that no matter how anything else turns out if I bake some bread right before they eat everything is good. It's all about the smell. Fresh baked rolls and coffee is about the best thing in the morning; I gladly get up at 4:30 just to get that going. Plus I love having the kitchen to my self.