by on March 6, 2013   •   54 Comments Bakeshop

Honey Wheat Sandwich Bread: Tackling the lunchbox

Wheat-Bread-Shaina-Olmanson-foodformyfamilyWritten by Shaina of Food for My Family.

I can still hear the tin of my Voltron lunchbox echo as I swung it up onto the long, laminated tables and plopped down on the long blue bench. Carefully I would pull out the packaged contents of my lunch: peanut butter and honey or ham and Swiss on wheat. A random mix of fruit and vegetables accompanied them, but each day my mom would press fillings between two soft pieces of bread, tuck them into a red Tupperware container with a white lid and slide it into my lunch box.

My children don’t often have sandwiches tucked into their lunchbox. This is not because they don’t fancy two slices of bread filled with a variety of meat and cheeses, spread, lettuce, and a pickle spear side. It is more due to the fact that I have not been good at baking sandwich breads that fit my sandwich bread needs: soft, evenly shaped for slicing, not too dense, nor too sweet.

Instead, I buy them infrequently when I find myself near a suitable bakery, and in between I stuff their sacks with alternative items: Frittatas, soups, fried rice, pasta salads, tortilla wraps, and baked oatmeal.
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by on January 2, 2013   •   14 Comments Quick Bites

Quick Skillet Roasted Vegetables on Cheese Toast

Written by Allison of Some the Wiser.

Most of the time I feel good about my eating habits. I like fruits, vegetables, and whole grains and we eat a lot of them most days of the week. However, after all of the holiday festivities from the past month, I feel like I need to re-focus my menu and food choices.

Considering all the candy canes and pumpkin pies I have consumed recently, it feels really good to cut out sugar this month and find my way back to the fresh produce aisle. It can be harder this time of year to find fresh vegetables, but although there isn’t as much variety in the winter, there are a lot of delicious ways to prepare root vegetables.

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by on December 19, 2012   •   25 Comments Bakeshop

Swedish Tea Ring

Written by Megan of Stetted.

When I was a girl, I never really noticed how the small moments of our ancestry touched our family celebrations. I only knew that my taste buds had not evolved to the point of being able to enjoy the spiced breads my grandfather would share, and that I could eat a lot of the fried fattigmund cookies that appeared at Christmastime.

Now that I have a child of my own, I’m wishing I had spent more time getting to know the foods of our family, from the Germans on my mother’s side to the English and Swedish on my father’s side. The Swedish part of me I find most intriguing – perhaps because it is a country I know little about to begin with. Wisconsin and Minnesota are full of people with Swedish heritage, but sadly it seems several of the Scandinavian traditions are going away as the last immigrants are leaving us.

This Christmas, I’ve decided we need to add back some of the “Old World” to our lives. Our morning will be spent opening presents, of course, but we’ll also sit down to a breakfast of Swedish Tea Ring, a sweet cardamom-flavored bread that appears on numerous Swedish tables all year long.

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by on October 3, 2012   •   25 Comments Bakeshop

Oatmeal Applesauce Bread

Written by Simple Bites contributor Allison Ruth of Some the Wiser.

There is nothing more comforting to me than a loaf of homemade bread fresh from the oven.  Just the smell of hot bread baking takes me back to my childhood, to Grandma in her faded apron, to after school snacks and my brother’s “famous sandwiches.”

I hope someday my own kids will catch a whiff of hot bread and think of home and happiness, which is why I carry on the labor of love and make bread from scratch.

With Autumn at our doorstep and cooler days just around the corner, I’ve been spending a lot of time in the kitchen.  Somehow the seasonal business of canning applesauce coincided with a sudden shortage of sandwich bread and I decided to get creative.
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by on November 11, 2011   •   53 Comments Bakeshop

Baked Pull-Apart Pumpkin French Toast (Overnight Recipe)

It’s a little difficult to focus on writing this post because all I want to do is head to the kitchen and mix up another batch of French toast for the morning.

I already know I have pumpkin puree in the refrigerator, and Danny sheepishly arrived home from work with two loaves of whole wheat miche under his arm “…in case you wanted to make more of that baked French toast.”

It’s official: we’re completely smitten with this pull-apart Pumpkin French Toast. It bakes up crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside, serves up in slices just like pan-fried French Toast, and is marvelous with a homemade Molasses-Cinnamon Syrup.  You have to try it this weekend.

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