A Weekend of “Firsts” {Ham & Bread}

I know, ham & bread doesn’t sound too monumental as “firsts”. But being a young, twenty-something married couple (hey, I have to say that while I still can!) we don’t really have occasion much to bake big roasts of any kind of meat (especially since ½ of this married couple –me!– is mostly vegetarian). But while Hub was grocery shopping with me the other night, he spontaneously decided to buy a 7 ½ pound ham…for himself. It helped they were on sale too I guess. (Just so you know, he’s not deprived of his protein in any way…I make him pork chops, hamburger or sausage when we have pasta, we eat lots of chicken and deli turkey, occasionally he’ll make himself a steak, and come summer he does lots of grilling…okay, I feel better now that I’ve absolved myself of any guilt!)

Before he baked his ham, I decided earlier in the day to make my first loaf of homemade bread. Growing up in the era when bread makers were highly popular, I thought that was how you made real homemade bread. Or else you bought bread from the grocery store in the long plastic bag, pre-sliced for sandwiches and full of preservatives. Or you could get really exotic and use frozen bread dough. Perhaps I was naïve but I thought no one (except true bakeries) actually made their own bread anymore. I assumed it was some really complicated process involving leavening, a bit of magic, and endless amounts of flour covering all surfaces by the time you were finished. But just recently my Mum started making her own bread from scratch and ever since Hub has been not so subtly suggesting I give it a try too. So I finally did. It was sooo good and didn’t involve too much magic. He loved putting slices of his ham and some cheese upon it too. So although unplanned, our weekend of “firsts” happened to complement each other very well!

Here’s the bread recipe as told to me over the phone by Mum:

1) Place the following ingredients in a mixing bowl in this order:
-2 packets active dry yeast
-1 cup warm water
-1/3 cup sugar
-2 eggs
-3 cups flour
-2 ½ tsp salt
-¼ cup butter – soft or melted
-1 cup warm milk
2) Beat with mixer on medium-low speed for 3 minutes.
3) Then stir in 3 to 3 ¼ cups more flour ( I used just 3 and incorporated more while kneading.)
4) Knead dough on a well-floured surface (bread board) until smooth and satiny, approximately 3 to 5 minutes.
5) Put in a greased bowl (I used a little butter), cover (with a clean dishtowel) and let rise until light and airy, about 1 hour.
6) Form into loaves or buns, or one big loaf as I chose to do…Hub kept referring to it as the “motherloaf”. I baked my one big loaf on a cookie tray sprayed first with a little olive oil. I scored the top of my loaf, brushed with some olive oil, and sprinkled with a touch of flaky sea salt and sesame seeds. While the sesame seeds looked nice, for the most part they very promptly fell off upon cutting! I baked it for about 40 minutes at 375 degrees. Adjust the length of time depending on how you’re baking your bread...rolls or mini loaves, etc…Just be sure it is very golden brown and sounds hollow when you pat it on top.
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P.S. I also finally learned that elusive (to me) knitting technique this weekend…”knitting in the round”! So exciting...I’m working on mittens!

P.P.S. Another big snow swept through these parts over the weekend too…windy conditions created some beautiful, soft snowdrifts upon the landscape: