Bun fight

It wasn’t an actual bun fight, more of a bread fight. And it wasn’t an actual fight. No voices were raised, no punches thrown. It was more a difference of opinion – like the bacon debate. (I like my bacon very, very crisp. Mike liked his what I would call “heated up”. I don’t know how he could have eaten it that way, but he did.)

Anyway, bread. Mike liked plain brown bread. The most basic. What I referred to as “air bread”. I like a denser loaf with grains and seeds. What Mike referred to as “bird food bread”. Who got the hump about the bread in the breadbox depended on who did the shopping. Happily, more often than not, it was me who did said shopping.

In the months before Mike died, bread was off the menu – along with rice and pasta and spuds. He was trying to lose weight before his knee replacement surgery, so it was Mediterranean diet all the way.

After he died, I started making my own bread for the first time, thanks to a fabulous recipe my friend Jane had shared with me. Nice, dense, slow rise (no kneading!) bread. Mix it up before you go to bed, throw a tea towel over the bowl, go to sleep, wake up in the morning, bake bread – and have a still warm end slice with melted butter and good jam for breakfast. Yum, yum, yum!

Unfortunately, I’ve been forgetting to mix the ingredients before bed. So no bread and jam for breakfast. That’s okay. I’ve got my granola and fruit and yoghurt. Bread and jam tomorrow. Oops. Next morning, no dough ready to go into the oven.

After forgetting for three days and therefore going without my leftover turkey sandwich, yesterday I gave up and bought some bread at the store.

Pretty good, eh? Lots of seeds and grain with this “Alpine Grain Bread”. 

Pull a couple of lovely, nice and fresh slices out of the bag and pop them in the toaster. Uh, oh, I thought as I was buttering them. And I was right. Air bread! Grains and seeds, yes, but air bread nevertheless. Gah.

Now I’m stuck with the rest of this loaf. I can’t just throw it out. If I was likely to be invited to a dinner party any time soon, I could save it to make a bread and butter pudding for dessert. (Not that I’ve ever made one, but I’m told it’s pretty easy.) But no one has invited me to a dinner party and I’m not going to host one just so I can use this bread for pudding.

Other suggestions welcome.