My daily bread

So there I was, minding my own business, when ...my wife, Garnet, walked through the front door. She was returning from a two-hour shopping trip to town.

"Are you cooking something?" She asked.

"Yes I am," I said. "There are three loaves of bread in the oven.

"Bread?" she said. "You know I get nervous when you putter around the kitchen. Plus I've only been gone for two hours and it takes at least four hours to bake bread."

"Well, not my bread. I just mixed flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt an egg, buttermilk and olive oil, poured the results into loaf pans and put them into the oven."

"I didn't hear the word yeast."

"There is no yeast in my bread."

"Haw! That's it," she said. "You're not making real bread."

"Now look here," I said flopping the cookbook on the table in front of my wife. "What is this word?"

"Bread," she said.

"Yes," I said. "B-r-e-a-d, Bread."

"Well, it is not real yeast bread, which takes up to four hours to make and bake," Garnet said. "The breads you are making tend to be crumbly and are called quick breads. Corn bread is a quick bread."

"We'll see," I said going into the kitchen and turning on the oven light.

So I pulled up a chair to watch my three babies for a few minutes. The loaves were beginning to mound at the top, making me smile. My confidence was high about my breads holding together when cut and not being crumbly, yet I consulted the recipe just the same.

The basic recipe consisted of the items listed above, but it is adaptable and flexible. The baker can add shredded cheddar cheese, black olives and onions for one loaf or pesto and shredded parmesan cheese for another loaf.

One of the loaves in the oven was filled with minced jalapeno peppers, finely chopped onions and shredded cheddar cheese.

The pans were removed after 45 minutes at 350 degrees. They looked golden brown, but the inserted toothpick did not come out clean. Back into the oven for another 20 minutes they went. This time they were completely baked and looked like a regular loaf of bread.

They were placed on a wire rack to cool. The wait was difficult, but finally a small slice was cut from the end of each loaf. A taste test followed and the bread deemed edible, tasty actually, and not a bit crumbly.

The loaves were covered with plastic wrap and placed in the freezer. Garnet asked why?

"It is an experiment," I explained. "You see my idea is to make several loaves ahead of time, freeze them and then take them to deer camp."

"What if your hunting partners don't like the bread?"

"I'll make sure mine is the only bread in camp, so they will have to eat it."

A week later the bread was taken from the freezer and each loaf was placed in the microwave oven for two minutes followed by another two minutes. This procedure thawed the bread. It was a pleasant surprise to find the texture and taste acceptable to the point of being delicious in my mind.

Won't my hunting partners be surprised?

Tomato paste

The availability of many pounds of tomatoes has encouraged me to process them in some way. In the past my method has been to place a tomato in boiling water, then in ice water, remove the skins and place them in a freezer bag. The tomatoes were frozen for future use in stews and soups.

This year the urge was to make tomato paste. The reasoning was sound, as paste will take much less space in the freezer than quartered tomatoes.

The process is labor intensive. First the tomato was washed and any bad spots removed. Next it was quartered and placed in a blender.

A filled blender of tomatoes is reduced to liquid in 30 seconds. This slurry was poured into a Foley Food Mill and the solids removed from the liquid. The resulting pulp was poured into a slow cooker, which will cause the liquid to boil, but not scorch or burn.

After five hours on the high setting, the liquid is poured into a strainer. A spoon pushed the liquid through the strainer, leaving the paste.

I was proud of the finished product, which is destined to be used in deer and elk stew. Garnet, on the other hand, shakes her head when she enters the kitchen as I am preparing another batch.

"How much do you think each batch of your paste costs, including your time and the electricity involved?" Garnet asked.

"I don't know, but it can't be too much," I said. "How much does regular tomato paste cost?"

The next day I prepared a fresh batch of tomatoes for paste. The slow cooker was full and cooking on high, when I headed outside to mow the lawn.

When entering the kitchen an hour later, there were two small cans near the slow cooker; one on the right and one on the left. A simple note was attached to each can; "44 cents" was written on the tomato sauce can and "33 cents" on the paste can.

I countered Garnet's move immediately. When she again entered the kitchen, she found a note attached to the slow cooker: "Priceless."