Scratching It Up

     There is one in every group.  Someone who is just killer in the kitchen.  They make Julia Childs look like a short order cook.  That is the someone I secretly aspire to be.  I would love to be known as a great cook.  However that means something a little different to me than many others.  To me, that means cooking from scratch.  In a world of instant gratification taking the time to made something from scratch may seem a little unusual.  I'm okay with that because it is a major part of our simpler life.   I promise you, in this case simpler is NOT faster. Actually, it is the exact opposite but it is just SO much better and healthier.  As I said yesterday, I enjoy "going old school".  What could be more old school then fresh baked bread? 
     To be fair I have been baking bread for a great many years now and I'm a good baker, if I do so myself.  That, however, has not always been the case.  As a newly married woman more than twenty-three years ago my husband and I faced the same problem as the majority of our society.  Money.  So, we looked at ways to save money. Combine that with my lifelong love of learning the old ways and you find my first attempts at bread making.  My poor husband.  He was so encouraging during those first attempts.  He, my mother-in-law and family suffered with my offerings.  You see, I had one major problem.  My mom is not a baker or even a cook.  She HATES to cook and never developed many skills in the kitchen to pass on to me.  She operated everything on one of two temperatures, high and off.  Therefore, one thing I never learned was that yeast needed to be proofed before it could be used or that the temperature of the water/milk really mattered.  So my "bread" never rose ... at all.  My husband would take the loaf, slice it half and turn the loaf into two slices for his sandwich.  The flavor was great but the density of the loaf was similar to a cement brick.  Completely unacceptable.
     So, the quest began.  I sought to make a better loaf of bread.  I would remind you that this was before the says of the internet and Google.  Cookbooks and people were my only resources.  Bread making was not a popular thing even then so there were not very many people to ask.  Countless recipes were tried and discarded.  Until one recipe talked about the importance of proofing the yeast and the temperature of the liquid.  My determination (read stubbornness) eventually led me to my answer.   The rest is history.  My bread is often fought over by friend and family alike all because of the discovery.  Our pizza crusts are never from a mix or box and the calzones disappear as quickly as they appear.  So, with a focus on a simpler life, bread is being baked on a regular basis in Kansas.  Just not the same was as before, it is being baked with a slight twist now.  Making our own cheese changed it all.
     One of the byproducts of cheese making is whey, and a lot of it. Not being wasteful, and wanting to use everything led me to Google.  After all, why waste the whey?  What do you do with a gallon of leftover whey?  Bake bread products.  Bread in it's simplest state is flour, yeast, salt and water/milk/liquid. Whey can be substituted for that water, milk or liquid.  It adds protein and nutrients to the bread.  We tried it and the whey totally changes the texture of the bread product.  So, we tried it.  After all, we had to use the fresh mozzarella on a pizza.  Wow!  It was incredible.  The pizza dough was so much lighter and more moist.  Likewise, the whole wheat honey bread and white bread loaves were lighter, softer and so much more moist.  It was like the difference between eating the crust of an Italian bread and the soft, warm inside part.  Okay, it might not be exactly that much of a difference but you get the idea. 
     It is over.  That is it.  Now I will be "forced" to make incredibly wonderful mozzarella and other cheeses just to get the whey to make bread.  Hmm. This waste not want not attitude of using everything could add a couple of pounds to my waistline for sure!  However my family and I are loving it.  There is just something about fresh bread just out of the oven that makes the day better.  So join me and make some for yourself.  Even if you don't have whey, you can still enjoy some delicious bread baked fresh from your own oven.  Simply comment below and tell me which recipe you would like:  white bread (makes two loaves from one packet of yeast), honey whole wheat bread (makes one loaf), pizza dough or calzone dough.