Yeast bread

These bread mixes use six basic ingredients and cost only pennies per loaf. Having a mix ready to go makes the bread-making process super efficient and low-effort. A one-loaf mix fits perfectly in an 8oz instant coffee jar.

The tiny Tupperware cups hold the yeast, sugar and salt.

(I use instant coffee in my mochas, so I end up with about three empty jars per year. If you don’t use instant coffee, try empty 30 oz mayo jars. )

The mix ingredients are: Flour, sugar, yeast, salt, margarine and powdered milk (not pictured).

I like to make up four to six mixes at a time.

Here are the finished mixes lined up in the back of my frig.

The breadmaking process goes from mix and liquid, to the bread pan in two steps, to a finished loaf. (Of course the top of this loaf caved in slightly, because I was planning to take a picture. Sigh. )

Download the bread mix recipe here:

Basic Yeast Bread Mix for Bread Machine Download

Preparedness tip:

When the pandemic was declared, the store shelves were immediately emptied of bread; and yeast, flour and other baking staples. Thereafter, they were unavailable or in short supply. As a regular bread maker, I had a supply of yeast and flour on hand, plus some DIY bread mixes made up; and a couple of freshly-made loaves in the freezer. Never expecting a pandemic or grocery shortage, I’d considered that modest stockpile to merely be a convenience. But it ended up getting me through the the shortage.

In addition to the bread mixes, I try to keep an extra unopened 4 oz jar of yeast in the frig, and a spare bag (or 2) of flour in the freezer, plus however much is in my flour canister. Flour came back to the store shelves fairly quickly, but four months into the shortage, I was down to less than half a jar of yeast. This month, jars of yeast finally came back to the store shelves. Even if you don’t do a lot of baking, don’t be afraid to buy yeast by the jar, and don’t worry if you can’t use it up before the sell-by date. In my experience, it keeps well past its sell-by date.

Slicing made easy.

Do you dislike slicing a bread machine loaf as much as I do? The loaf shape is awful for slicing. To make the process happier: Cut the loaf into quarters, and then slice and use one quarter at a time. The other three quarters go in the freezer. When I need one from the freezer, it thaws in just a few minutes, or 30 seconds in the microwave.

My bread machine is this one, which has been discontinued, but there are still some models in the Amazon warehouse. I’ve never been picky about what features are on my bread machine. I’d probably be happy with any machine at any price.

Desert Island Music!

(It’s the Slicethelife 2020 Album Draft!)

Which ten music albums would you want with you when stranded on a desert island? Ten bloggers (me included), are participating in a 10-round desert island ‘album draft’. Round 2 is currently underway. All of the album draft bloggers except me are ‘proper’ music bloggers; and some are musicians as well.

The link below will take you to a listing of the draft picks so far. Check in now and from time to time over the next eight weeks, to see what albums have been drafted and why they were selected. Feel free to drop us a comment about the picks.

2020 Album Draft

A selection from the Run-Sew-Read picks so far:

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This savory yeast bread is something to make when you are going to be home all day. Seriously, it takes awhile. In the 1990s, it was a winner of the Pillsbury Bake-Off challenge. I clipped the recipe from a magazine back then, and am still making it to this day.

The bread has quite a variety of ingredients, and requires several steps in addition to the full yeast bread making process. It’s totally worth it.

This bread, is the reason I …

Roast, skin, and chop fresh Poblano peppers from the little grocery store around the corner.
Grow a tomato plant each summer, and harvest, chop and dehydrate the tomatoes;
Keep two bricks of Monterrey Jack cheese and two cans of black beans on hand. The recipe only calls for one of each, but I want extra on hand.
Keep frozen 1/2-cup portions of plain yogurt on hand.

(You can buy sun-dried tomatoes and canned chopped green chili peppers, which is actually what the recipe calls for.)

Here is a store-bought fresh Poblano (next to my pitiful attempt at home-grown), and after roasting for 15 minutes in the air fryer.

Home-grown, dehydrated chopped tomatoes

Jarred tomatoes

Now, about making the bread.

Here is the list of ingredients:

½ cup sun-dried tomato, without oil, chopped
1 (15-ounce) can black beans, drained
½ cup nonfat plain yogurt
2 teaspoons cumin
1 teaspoon dried oregano leaves
1 teaspoon dried parsley flakes
1 garlic clove, minced, or 1 teaspoon garlic powder

5 ½ to 6 ½ cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon salt
2 packages fast-acting dry yeast
1 cup water
½ cup canola oil or other vegetable oil
1 egg
1 (4 ½ -ounce) can chopped green chili, drained, or 2 T. finely chopped jalapeño pepper

2 cups (8 oz.) Monterey Jack cheese, cut into ½ -inch cubes

The Southwest flavor steps in pictures:

Measure the spices and add to the food processor with the beans (drained) and yogurt. IMG_20200416_072655469a IMG_20200416_073325350a

Process until well-blended IMG_20200416_090508329a

Stir in the chopped pepper and dried tomato.

…

[Add the bean/spice, tomato and pepper mixture to your yeast sponge, then stir in the rest of the flour, knead, and set the dough up for its first rise.]

…

After the first rise, punch the dough down and shape into loaves. With a knife, slice into the dough loaves, and push the cheese cubes into the cuts.

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Pinch the dough shut around the cheese. IMG_20200416_113004676a

Let rise until double in size. If some of the cheese becomes exposed, it’s okay. (If you do want to pinch it back into the dough, be very gentle about it so as not to deflate that part of the loaf. )

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