In the Kitchen

It's been a little while since I've shared a recipe or a food-related post. I'll start out again with a little peek into my kitchen ...

There are a few new items in my kitchen since the start of the New Year ... a new cookbook - The Bread Lover's Bread Machine Cookbook, and also a new Cuisinart bread machine! 

A blogger whom I follow - Jessica, at Good Cheap Eats - convinced me that I should dig out my very old bread machine and start using it again. And the reason ... she recommended using The Bread Lover's Bread Machine Cookbook, a book filled with great recipes and tips for making the best bread with a bread machine. 

I purchased a copy with some Christmas money (thanks, Cristy!), and dug my bread machine out of storage. It was great to have the aroma of fresh bread filling our home ... for a week or two, and then part of the very old machine broke apart. By then I was convinced, and we decided to use a Bed Bath & Beyond coupon and replace it ... finding a beautiful one that even matches my kitchen. 

It's been fun for me to be using a bread machine again! I will still continue to use my Bosch machine at times to mix up large batches of bread ... but using a bread machine again works so good to bake a loaf at a time for the two of us. I love it that there is hardly any mess at all to clean up with a bread machine. 

I'll surely be trying many of the 300 recipes included in this book. For breads and also for things like pizza dough, etc. I already love the pizza dough recipe in this cookbook - it makes the dough for two crusts at a time ... one to use right away, and one for the freezer.

Although the bread can be baked right in the machine, I prefer to use the bread machine to mix and knead the dough, and then transfer the dough to a bread pan to bake in the oven. I just prefer the shape of the loaf when baked in a pan.

About every four days or so ... the aroma of bread baking fills our home. So very thankful! 

What have you been busy with in the kitchen?

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