I heart my breadmaker!

Bacon cheeseburgers with Honey Wheat Sandwich Roll

My MIL called one day when they were on the way to the Goodwill with a load of stuff to donate. She thought I might want this bread machine... I didn't know if I would ever really use it, but took it anyway with the thought that I'd try it out someday. It sat on the top of my fridge for months.

In this quest to be more frugal, I had started buying bread at the Franz outlet. Even though I was trying to buy the most healthy kind, whole wheat, whole grains, etc, I still thought there's gotta be stuff in there that we don't know what it is, or how it affects us, and I would really feel better about making my own. When I was in high school, my mom made bread all the time. She had a wheat grinder and a Bosch mixer (what an amazing appliance! And of course they don't make those specific ones anymore...) and had perfected her recipe. Soon, the job turned to me, and before I knew it, I didn't even need to look at the recipe. That however was over 15 years ago!

My sister had a bread machine she used just for making dough. So I thought I'd try mine out. Down it came, and then the hours spent looking online for the user guide. I finally found a free one to download, and I was in business. In reading people's blogs, and looking for recipes, I found there's TONS of recipes just for bread machines! And since I don't like baking the bread in the machine, I was super happy about discovering sites like www.recipezaar.com. I've been making pizza dough, bread, and rolls by putting the ingredients in the machine and walking away for an hour and a half! Come back, set things up for a 2nd rise if need be, and then bake in the oven. Super easy!

Honey Wheat Sandwich Rolls in the bread machine.

A favorite of mine to make now is Honey Wheat Sandwich Rolls. My sister and I were grocery shopping together, both with hamburgers on our menus. We looked through the bread sections for healthy buns, and the ones we going to settle on were approximately $4 for the package. "Do you want to split them?" we asked, not wanting to spend that much on a bread product. Not really. Well, I guess were going home to look for a hamburger bun recipe! She found the recipe, tried it first and liked it, so I made my attempt. My husband loves them!! They're great for sandwiches, hamburgers, or just eating them plain (my 17 month old gobbles them!).

Rolls rising, and fresh out of the oven.

I started out following the recipes I've found exactly to see how they turn out and now I'm experimenting with adding whole wheat flour, flax meal, etc to make things more healthy. As bad as I felt about eating white bread in the beginning, I thought at least I know whats in it! Now, I'm using my mom's old wheat grinder and we have fresh ground wheat flour! So much better for us than store bought. I've read there's more protein in fresh ground and many more benefits I'm sure that I haven't even found out yet.