Three reasons for homemade bread.

I did it again. This weekend I baked bread like a complete mad woman.  For one thing, I wanted to try the recipe for something special coming your way (keep a look-out for my first giveaway and challenge post coming soon--yes, it has something to do with bread!). 

I'd like to share with you three reasons we've decided to start relying on ourselves for our bread, instead of buying it at the supermarket.

We save money: When we buy store-bought bread, we always buy the all organic, good for you stuff. Well, that's not cheap! This bread costs anywhere from $4 to $6 a loaf, depending on whether it's white or super healthy whole grains. And we usually go through four loaves a week. Kind of puts a dent in the grocery budget. To make our own bread, the main ingredient is the flour which costs around $5 a bag for the good organic types. You can make about four loaves of bread from one bag of flour. That's about a $1.25 a loaf--a savings of $11 to $19 a week. Not bad.

We choose the ingredients: I don't know about you, but when I read a label on a bag of bread, there's a lot of stuff in there that I don't even know what it is. Even the better breads often have questionable ingredients. When we make our own bread, the ingredients are very simple--not one preservative, dough conditioner, or added color, and we have control over how much fat, salt, sugar and oil we choose to use. 

We take a step toward a more self-reliant life: This is probably the biggest reason for making our own bread.  Though we've bought our dream farm, it's going to take time--a lot of time--to turn it into a productive food producing homestead. Bread is something we can produce for ourselves right now. And it's fun. Especially when you do with someone else. A couple hours in the kitchen with a friend and you can catch up on a lot of news!

Are you inspired? Wanna try your hand at bread from scratch? You're going to have the chance. There's a fun CHALLENGE and GIVEAWAY headed your way--stay tuned!

Joy--Fearless Farm Girl,

"Farm girl: it's a verb, because it's what you do."