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My grandmother gave us a bread maker for my anniversary, and I have been baking bread almost everyday since.

My mother and great-grandmother are/were the spectacular bread makers in the family.  My great-grandmother’s bread was the most fabulous light sweetness I’ve ever eaten in my life.  My mother makes wide varieties of breads, and I was raised with it in the house all through the cold months.  White homemade bread with butter and honey remains my favorite thing to eat when I need comfort.

There’s something spiritual about making bread for my family.  Despite the technology of the bread-maker, I feel like I’m doing something that generations and generations of women have done to take care of their family.  I’m prone to drifting away into my imagination, and I love to think of that while Buttercup and I measure the ingredients carefully into the basin.  It’s like I’m helping my great grandmother squeeze out perfect rolls of dough again, and for a minute, she’s with me again.

So far I’ve made honey wheat, white, three-cheese, parmesan peppercorn, cinnamon and raisin, and a rustic Italian loaf.  It’s delicious.  The honey wheat makes the most tempting French toast.  The cinnamon raisin is good for that, too.  It’s a good thing I joined the Y, or I’d be in great danger of getting a little more wiggle in my jiggle.

I want to make stuffing and bread pudding with the leftovers.  Next, I’m going to try my hand at pizza dough and someday soon – I’m going to attempt to make soft homemade pretzels :)

While I can’t quite make bread by hand as well as my mother or great-grandmother, I can do a decent job.  With the bread maker, it’s so much less time consuming that I can make all the bread for the house.  Considering the cost of a decent loaf of wheat, I’m happy to do this.  You can even use powered vitamin C as a preservative.  How much healthier is that than the alternative?  I can’t wait to go to the farmer’s market and check out the local flours available.

One of the things that I’ve enjoyed about raising a child the most is introducing foods.  Usually, I never have to struggle to get her to try foods.  She’s not picky and pretty much willing to attempt any dish.  There are a couple things she just doesn’t like. 

The first is lima beans.  I made them with ham and onions.  Usually, she goes for anything made with ham and onions ;)  She put one in her mouth and announced, “YUCK!”  This is coming from the toddler who eats asparagus, green beans, carrots, and drinks V8 (low sodium kind) like they’re the second coming.  I was surprised.
“But, Pop-Pop loves lima beans, don’t you want to try again?”  She considered this calmly, and she did attempt another bean.
“YUCK!  Pop-pop eat!”  She looked around the kitchen like he was going to appear to eat those “yucky” lima beans for her.  If she just wasn’t so cute…
Broccoli is a no-go so far.  I tried to entice her with telling her they looked like little trees, “How fun!”  You know the routine.  She just wasn’t having it, raw or cooked, Buttercup is not a broccoli fan.  I even tried the cheese sauce, didn’t work.  She wrinkles up her face like I’m trying to poison her ;)

Now, the latest surprised me.  We finally gave her peanut butter after the pediatrician said it was a go.  She detests it.  I made her a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and she picked the jelly off and left the peanut butter ;)  I might try putting peanut butter on her bananas next.

Today, we had cinnamon raisin toast for breakfast with cream cheese.  It was the first time I brought home cinnamon raisin toast.  Oh, dear God, she went to town, gobbling it up like you would not believe.  It was the sweetest thing, and I love giving her food she likes.

I remember being a kid, and my mother always made these delicious healthy snacks for us all the time.  There was just always the most incredibly good food in the house.  We rarely had soda or chips (Buttercup has never had soda), but she always pulled it off, making these tempting little snacks to keep us healthy and full.  I want to do the same for Buttercup, my little food connoisseur.