Our Daily Bread

I used to love a good budget. For eight years, from the age of fifteen, I worked for a bank. I enjoyed receiving my pay and planning out my expenses. I'd lay-by items I wanted and pay them off slowly. No credit card. It was a good system. I still crave a budget today but the reality of living entirely off an agricultural enterprise means that our income is very unpredictable.

Our middle daughter is eight and for almost all of her life our grazing property has been drought declared. Occasionally during that time we've had good rain and attempted to increase our numbers, only to have no follow up rain and have to sell stock. Our answer to this uncertainty is to live simply - always. We try to recycle, make do and have reasonable expectations. There are times, however, when I wonder whether the measures we take will be enough. I read my grocery bill with utter dismay. $8-20 for vanilla essence, $10-00 for a kilo of powdered milk and $4-69 for a loaf of healthy wholegrain bread.

I'm guessing that there's all sorts of arguments why this doesn't make economic sense, but I've decided to try to supply homemade bread to my family. After a bit of googling for recipes I managed to assemble the ingredients for a home made loaf, using organic flour, for around $1.50.

This is my first loaf of bread. It was made using the 'no knead' bread making recipe, originally published in the New York Times. The method was simple, didn't take a great deal of time and resulted in delicious bread. I especially enjoyed this style of bread toasted as it becomes nice and crunchy without being dry and crumbly.

The loaf at the top of the post was made using our old bread machine. I've often been disappointed when I've made wholegrain or wholemeal bread in the machine. I think this is because these recipes call for extra water and I think the machine doesn't cope well with baking this type of dough. For this loaf I just asked the machine to make a dough. When the machine beeped at the end of the dough cycle the mixture was over the top of the bread pan. I scooped it onto a floured board and quickly knocked it down and shaped it. I then placed it into a loaf tin to proof. About half an hour later I pre-heated the oven and when it was nice and hot I brushed the dough with water and placed it in the oven. I also placed a cup of hot water into another vessel in the oven, as I've read that good bread is baked in a moist oven.

The girls love the bread and don't seem to mind the more dense texture of wholegrains and wholemeal. With a little time and love I've put organic wholemeal bread on our table for about $1-50 a loaf. Economically justified or not, it just feels right.