A Day for Everything- In My Kitchen, Continued

But isn't it cumbersome? Do you live in the kitchen?
It can seem daunting- this cooking from basics. But let me just encourage you here: with the right rhythms, routines, and plans, providing good, healthy food for your family does not have to enslave you to your kitchen.
Let's take bread, for example.
Some people, when I mention that I make all of our family's bread, look at me cross-eyed. A few years ago, I would have looked at me cross-eyed, too. When we were first married Phil was intent on buying a 5 gallon bin to hold our flour. Mind you, I had never had anything but those storage canisters that sat on the kitchen counter-maybe a bag of 5lbs of flour in the cupboard. And when he mentioned this 5 gallon bin you have to believe I was ...less than thrilled. I would NEVER be baking that much, I assured him. What's wrong with buying flour more than once a year? Not in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that one day I would be so thankful for that flour bin, that I would wish I had more to store oats and rice and wheat flour and sugar. Because as much as I love to cook and bake, we do end up going through a lot of basics. And those basics aren't easily grabbed at the local grocery store when you live Out in the Stalks.

A day for everything: One of the best things I have done (that, by the way, was not my idea) was to start a baking day. Every Wednesday I set out to make the week's bread. This way, I create the big mess only once, I clean it up only once, and I ensure I have the right ingredients on hand. Before I started that, it would feel like I was in the kitchen all the time, because I would make just one batch of bread. And, that fresh bread would be eaten excitedly by myself and my boys...leaving me feeling like I had done a whole day's worth of work just to use it up that night.

This way, we all have something to look forward to (Wednesday baking day!), and when I am tired at the end of the day, I know I have a week before it comes again. I am refreshed and ready once again when that last loaf is sliced.

That bread, then, is used in a number of ways to make or add to simple meals:

Breakfast items: French toast, regular toast, "eggs in a basket", torn in pieces and made into a ham/cheese breakfast casserole (to name a few).

Lunch: Sandwiches, adornments for soups

Dinner: Toast and butter, add garlic and Parmesan to make a side for spaghetti, put with a big chef salad, etc.

Stale bread can be made in to croutons or bread pudding.

So, making four loaves of bread once a week pays off as the bread easily adorns many meals. It can be a quick snack for kids, too. This cuts down on our purchases of crackers, snack bars, granola bars, etc. Not that those things are bad, but my $.50/loaf for whole grain bread is hard to beat at the grocery store.
Practice and Persistence: When you first learned to drive, all of your attention had to be completely on the road. Where is my foot? Are my hands correct? I can't see back there and up here! It was a learned skill, that art of navigating within a vehicle. Now, we hardly think twice about it- it all comes so naturally. We can drive and talk, drive and listen to music, drive and think. Our brains can be involved in other places, too. Cooking is much like that. When I first learned to cook, I had to follow recipes exactly. If a recipe called for coconut and I had none, I would have to stop mid-way through a recipe and head to the store. (By the way, one of the best teachers for substitutions has been my lack of ability to do just that!)

The recipes I use over and over again have become known in my bones, so that throwing together a batch of bread is more physical work than it is mental. This, like driving, just comes with time- with mistakes- with perseverance. It is a skill like any other, and in my opinion, such a blessing to learn.
What tricks have you learned to help feed your family?

Next up: My winter favorite: Soups