Homemade Bread Makes A Great Dagwood Sandwich

Five homemade bread loaves, mmmmmm!

(Don't forget our contest from July 1-15, great prizes!)

One of our family goals in achieving greater self sufficiency this year was to learn how to make our own bread. Wifey's been grinding her own wheat with her Whispermill (old version of the WonderMill) for most of the year to make brownies and cookies. Yesterday she used her ground wheat to make her first batch of homemade bread.

Wow, was this batch spot on! She had some doubts during the dough stage as to whether it was "sticky" enough. Not sure what that meant but I encouraged her onward. I mean, it looked like dough to me...

So, sometime this week I'll post the recipe for those of  you looking for one or are going to attempt your first bread making. I highly recommend it. The resulting odor of fresh, oven baked bread wafting throughout the house was worth it all by itself.

Light, fluffy and delicious!

We tried it out immediately last night.  I first dipped it in some balsamic vinegar and it tasted fantastic. Then I tried some with strawberry preserves...even better! Wifey sliced some up and tossed it in the toaster to crisp it up for jelly. Kids came crawling out of the woodwork to taste mom's efforts. Unanimously we declared success and look forward to making it on a regular, dare I say biweekly, basis.

The recipe ended up making 5 loaves. Since we only had three bread pans, I offered up the round cake pans for the last two loaves. Ah, but there was a method to my madness you see.  Having grown up with a healthy dose of Schlotzsky's sandwiches (aka Dagwood sandwich, from the Dagwood cartoon), I was eager to attempt my own sandwich masterpiece. I envisioned "The Dadwood Sandwich". [picture Homer drooling, halalaalaalal].

After the mayo & cheese, my hunger tripled!

I started with a round loaf and sliced it horizontally.  I layered it with mayo and shredded cheddar cheese on both halves.  Next I used my own sliced ham, as mentioned in this post (we save money buying whole and slicing it ourselves).  I pre-heated the oven, layered one side of the sammy with shaved ham, then slid both halves into the oven.

About eight minutes later, the halves emerged slightly crunchified covered with gooey melted cheese and baked shaved ham. Mmmmm.....   I quickly sprinkled it with diced dill pickles and jalapenos. If my brain was fully functional, I would have thought to add lettuce from our garden too (DOH!).  I quartered it, served it up for Wifey and me, and washed it down with delicious, ice cold Berkey filtered water.

Schlotzsky's nothing, meet the Dadwood sammy.

Wifey and I agreed it was beyond scrumptious.  A new family menu item has been born to our delight. Since our new homemade bread recipe results in five loaves, we can make three traditional loaves and two Dadwood Sandwich loaves every time she makes bread.  I will SO be the envy of the gang at work when I pull out my homemade sammy at lunchtime.  Eh, I might share...I might not.   :-)

So, if you haven't made fresh bread in YOUR homestead yet, I HIGHLY recommend it.  I'd say it only took about half an hour to make, half an our to rise (in the oven), and half an hour to bake. Not bad at all.  Oh, and don't forget the aroma of fresh baked bread lingering through the house for hours!

What do you do with YOUR homemade bread?

Homemade Dutch Oven Cornbread Recipe

Cornbread is in back, to the right. Also pictured is
our dutch oven ribs, homemade pumpkin muffins with
icing and tator tots in the oven.

Cornbread is one of our favorite side dishes. It compliments everything, tastes delicious and is very filling. It only takes about 30 minutes to make in a dutch oven (and ten minutes of that is just mixing the ingredients in a bowl.) Very inexpensive for so much food!

What you'll need to make cornbread in a dutch oven:

1. A dutch oven. We use our 4 Qt shallow dutch by Lodge Logic. Brand name doesn't matter of course...at least, not unless someone wants to sponsor me? LoL! (I prefer Lodge Logic) What DOES matter is depth. You'll want to cook your cornbread in a shallow oven for a more even cooking temperature. If you cook your cornbread in a DEEP oven, it can still be done but odds are you'll burn the bottom before the top gets cooked. (Heat has to travel farther down from the top of a deep oven to reach the cornbread)
2. Heating source. We use charcoal, both lumped and briquettes. Whatever is on sale at the time. At our last purchase, we found 40lb bags of lump El Diablo mesquite charcoal for under $8. I posted the deal here and in the future will post super deals related to survival on this blog. We loaded on up on several bags at this price. I have also used plain old wood. You just have to experiment a little to determine how much ember to use.
3. Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter; melted
• 2 cups cornmeal
• 4 eggs; beaten
• 3 cups hand ground flour (we use our WonderMill); all-purpose flour will also work
• 3 cups milk
• 4 tsp. baking powder
• 2 cups sugar



Half-eaten cornbread, gone in minutes!
Homemade brownies in background.

• 1 tsp. salt

Optional Tools: Lid lifter, thick leather gloves or a towel

Mix the Ingredients:

1. In a large bowl mix together butter, eggs, and milk.
2. In a separate bowl sift together sugar, cornmeal, flour, baking powder, and salt.
3. Mix dry ingredients into wet ingredients 1 cup at a time until well blended.
4. Spoon cornbread mixture into your dutch oven. A properly seasoned oven will not need to be greased. If you have not seasoned your oven, you can lightly grease you dutch oven and spread evenly.

Cooking:

1. Cover Dutch oven and bake using 8-10 briquettes on the bottom and 14-16 briquettes on the top. If you are using lump coal, such as the El Diablo mentioned above, break the coal into chunks. You want the chunks to fit under the dutch oven when it is placed on the coals. Place the chunks touching each other and the diameter of the chunks should not stick out from underneath the oven. Same goes for the top of the dutch oven. Generously cover the top but don't overload it. You can spot check by raising the lid from time to time and checking on the cornbread's color.
2. Cook for APPROXIMATELY 20-25 minutes or until cornbread turns golden brown. The temperature of your fire will depend on how you built your coals and how red they were before dumping them out of the chimney starter. A simple test for telling whether your cornbread is done or not is to simply stick something down into the middle of the bread. I use a fork or knife. Stick it in the center of the cornbread and push down until you reach the bottom of the oven. Then pull it out and look at it. If there is any runny or liquid cornbread on the fork/knife, then cook it a little longer. When nothing sticks to your fork/knife, and the top is a golden brown, you are done. I noticed that I can usually smell the cornbread when it is almost done cooking.

NOTE: To brown the cornbread evenly,  make sure to turn the oven and lid 1/4 turn in opposite directions every 10 minutes.

Cornbread is done when top is browned and you can
stick a fork through the middle with no gooey
batter left on the fork when pulled out.

Serve warm with honey butter (Mmmm...honey butter...hawlalallal.)  

Serves: 10-12 people easily.

Keeps fresh very nicely for days in the refridgerator. We usually put it in zip lock baggies or tupperware.








Supplies at Amazon: