Fraker Farm Friday Foodie

Just a little friendly advice- do not invite me into your kitchen to bake bread unless you want to spend the next three days cleaning up the ingredients. This picture was taken AFTER I tried to clean my mess up, so you can imagine what the BEFORE picture was like.

Like many of you I am a dedicated follower of Susan over at Farmgirl Fare. When I read her posts about the wonderful breads she turns out, it makes me have this burning desire to be a bread maker, too...... I make decent sweet loaf breads from time to time, and of course, biscuits and cornbread, but I would really love to not be so intimidated by bread. In fact I would love to feel confident enough to try all the wonderful breads I see on Susan's blog. While Hubby was off from work last week, we ate at one of my favorite restaurants- McAlisters. They're a little pricey on some things, but I love eating there because they serve delicious creamy soups in homemade bread bowls and it is absolutely wonderful. I found a recipe similar to McAlisters' famous potato soup, and I've been wanting to try it out in the new Lodge dutch oven Hubby bought for me last week. (squeal) Rainy days get me in the mood to bake, so since it was wet and gloomy outside my dining room window yesterday I thought, "why not try to make your own bread bowls?"

I searched the internet for homemade bread bowl recipes, and finally found one that sounded easy enough for a beginner like me.

This was the start of a very messy experiment. You know things are not looking good when you make this kind of a boo boo just opening the bag of flour.

Once the yeast dissolved and I mixed the other ingredients together, I placed the bread lump in a warm oven to rise.

While the dough was rising, I turned my attention to cleaning up the awful mess I had made in my kitchen.

(This next picture makes me want to run away. It really should make you want to run away, too. I can't believe I'm actually showing you my messy kitchen. But, like Pioneer Woman says, I'm just keepin' it real.)

The next step... make the soup! I found the recipe for it in this book given to me by my wonderful in-laws. (They know I'm a recipe junkie.....)

It's called Bacon Potato chowder... if you can't see this picture very well but would like the recipe, let me know and I'll be happy to email it to you. (My email address is on my profile page.)

Meanwhile, back to the bread baking.....

The big lump is divided into four little lumps, and once they rise for 30 more minutes, they're ready to bake. Go here for the recipe I used- I followed it pretty much as is, but I did cut the sugar down from 1/2 cup to a 1/4, and I also divided my dough into 4 large rolls instead of 8 smaller ones. (Oh, and I also brushed the tops with egg whites.)

Ta-da!! A dutch oven full of potato chowder, crumbled bacon for the top, and my first ever bread bowls...

And now for the moment of truth.....

Well, Hubby's too busy eating to let me take his picture, but I did get a thumb's up!! Yay!!

Have a great weekend everybody!!