Dough Girl.

Knowing my non-dairified aversion to most store-bought bread, my friend Penny suggested I come to her house to make some homemade bread, sans milk products. Making my own bread has always been a tad intimidating. My Mom made bread (without a bread maker) when I was little so I definitely love the homemade stuff, but, let's face it: Any recipe that has the words "... then let the dough rise ..." freaks me out. Don't ask me why. I have a fear of failing at efficient dough inflation. Anyway. I happily agreed and headed over there yesterday morning for a brisk walk followed by some bread making. Nothing like a workout followed by a pile of carbs!

(Random BOB Update: Loving it, still. Cub is leaning forward, which is why he looks crammed in there. I promise, he still has a lot of room! And Naomi, well, she doesn't mind it, either. Little foot.)

After our walk, Penny revealed the secret to her delicious homemade bread:

Wheat. As in, the real thing. In big buckets. I think my jaw dropped open when I saw this. I've been to Penny's house close to a bazillion times, and have never once seen her stash of wheat. I was impressed, to say the least. Sneaky Penny.

The wheat was poured into a grinder and then ground into wheat flour.

Next came some oil with some honey ...

... followed by some salt (Penny suggests sea salt as a healthier option, but this time around we used good ol' Morton) ...

... and with some yeast and some water added to the concoction, the dough was then blended.

I almost reached in and grabbed a handful. I'm not even kidding. Eight days without any sort of bread product, besides one serving of pasta, is a long time. For me, anyway. Unless rice counts.

We formed it into little loaves and let it rise (ta-da!) in her oven.

The finished product. Any weight I lost since going non-dairy was gained back in approximately eight minutes as I polished off half of this loaf. By myself. WITH NO REGRET.

Penny even showed me how to roll out some pizza dough with our, um, dough, so tonight mi familia ate homemade pizza. Can you tell which side is mine? :)

Pepperoni, chicken, bell peppers, a dab of homemade sauce, all piled on a delicious homemade whole wheat crust. Perfect.

And the token Katie-stuffing-her-face picture. The pizza was heavenly.

We have three loaves sitting in the freezer, ready to eat as we need them, so we won't need to buy any for a while. I love that this bread had simple ingredients as opposed to most store-bought bread, too (no offense to azodicarbonamide or ammonium sulfate, of course). For now, this is a great option (thanks, Penny!).

YUM.

Have a lovely day!