Entries in the 'Breads & Pastries' Category

The goodness of homemade bread from scratch

Last weekend was the second weekend in a row that I’ve baked bread. The storebought bread that is more air than bread is barely enough to last us an hour. Yup, eat 2 slices at breakfast and within an hour, I’m hungry again.

So I’ve decided that from now on, I’m going to be baking my own bread. And that’s exactly what we did last Sunday after my daughter came home from accompanying her friend to a plus size formal dress fitting.

Someone asked if I use a bread machine. The answer is no, I don’t own a bread machine. A friend gave us a loaf she had made with her bread machine and when left overnight, the bread was hard as rocks. My kids will not eat rocks.

So no bread machine for me. I make my bread from scratch, complete with an added inspiration – sweat. It’s a great way to tone my arms as well. My wholemeal bread, dense, rich and topped with nuts tastes so so good.

From scratch, by hand

With school back in full swing, I’m more determined than ever to continue my baking pursuits. Teens are always hungry and with the long school days, the commercial air bread that we buy is hardly enough to keep them full for more than an hour. Seriously I’m tired of paying for air.

So I’ve started baking my own bread. And no, I do not own one of them funky bread machines that some of my friends have trained their maids to load up at 5 o’clock in the morning to churn away in time for breakfast.

If you fling a loaf of overnight bread machine bread at someone and they’re not wearing a Scorpion EXO-1000 helmet, you’ll probably make a hole in their head. That kind of bread is not for us. I make my bread from scratch by hand, the old school way and my teens love it. Their favorites are wholemeal nut loaves that taste so so good, even after a few days.

Nothing like good old chicken pot pie

One of our family favorites is the chicken pot pie. It’s been something of a comfort food (sorta) to the kids since they were little.

Of course, these days, instead of paying through our noses to eat this outside, I usually just whip this up at home using store-bought puff pastry. Store-bought is heaven-sent to busy moms like me who are trying to make lunch while looking through ads for Medical Office Manager Jobs and a bunch of other stuff.

Spicy breakfast

Occasionally on the weekend, we like to have a big spicy breakfast. There’s nothing like a kick to knock the sleep out of everyone’s eyes.

Here’s our roti canai (aka flatbread) served with chutney, chicken masala and glass of iced coffee. Our breakfast is served on banana leaves which act both as plates and mini mats.

After a meal like this, we usually skip lunch because although this may not look like much, it’s really very filling.

Expired muffins, anyone?

I’ve recently pulled out my mixer and spatula and started baking again. All because I found a pack of orange and poppyseed muffin mix which had been sitting out of sight in my pantry for I don’t know how long now. The use-by date says it expired last month but what the heck, I went ahead and baked the muffins anyway.

They tasted great and we’re none the worst for the expired ingredients or adapexin reviews. Not too long ago, stuff never used to carry expiry dates. No one knew and no one cared about expiry dates, and we’re still here to tell the tale.

So as long as something doesn’t look or smell questionable, I wouldn’t throw it out. Besides if you buy prepared food from the store, how would you know if they used expired ingredients, right?

By the way, these muffins were yums… a little too sweet but yums nevertheless.

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