Rye baguettes

jotimaz whipped up these little rye baguettes for us for dinner the other night. They were very yeasty, good smelling AND good tasting.

Irish soda bread

I realize now that I should have put up this wonderful little loaf up for St. Patty’s day! Oh well.
jotimaz and I had this with dinner the other night after a trip to Fred Meyers where we encountered Irish soda bread for the first time. Of course, the trusty bread books (each at least 2 or 3 inches thick) held the recipe to make our own. Oh my goodness! It was a gigantic warm crusty biscuit bread. I would have this bread again in a heartbeat. It would be a perfect “sop up soup” bread or even a nice bread to have with a cup of coffee or hot cocoa. Oh, and the beautiful cracks in the crust happened completely on their own! It came out looking like a rustic artisan bread even after jotimaz had forgotten to score it before going in the oven. =) YUM!

Orange zest bread

Tis the season for mandarin oranges at the ol grocery store! Thus, jotimaz and I had an overabundance of orange peels that needed to be put to good use as zest. We saved several days’ worth of peels, let them dry and then ground them up in my trusty food processor. jotimaz has several recipes in his bread books that call for orange zest so it was not hard to find a good loaf for the week’s sandwiches. Oh man was this loaf aromatic! It made the whole house smell like wonderful bread and oranges. On the sandwich side, the citrus taste goes surprisingly well with turkey breast, cheese and mustard. AND – it kept for over a week in the fridge!

Whole wheat hamburger buns

Well…chicken burger buns in our case. Big fluffy whole wheat buns, fresh out of the oven, are awesome. It is so nice to be able to just make the size, shape and amount that you need.