Baking Bread....well....buns....

I tried a new bread recipe today...  I wanted to cook BBQ cheeseburgers for dinner...  it feels like spring ya know!    But...I had no buns....and I really hate grocery shopping, so I wasn't going to run out just to get some hamburger buns.     Pinterest to the rescue!   I knew I had a bun recipe to try somewhere.....

I found it!   It's this recipe linked right here!!!     I saw that it was whole wheat... and.... didn't have high hopes.   I do have a ww bread recipe that I like, but....it is denser... and I don't think I'd want to use that for buns....so I wasn't sure how this would turn out.

Well, I've found my new "go to" whole wheat bread recipe, and I know I'll be making this again and again.   It was easy, the explanations are fantastic...there are helpful hints throughout the wonderful photographic instructions....and there are even troubleshooting tips at the end!  (but I didn't need them)

Look how my buns turned out!    They light and fluffy (no pregnancy butt jokes please....I'm talking about the bread)...  Seriously... this has the fluffy texture of my white bread recipes...but...it's almost 1/2 whole wheat....   Look...yum!

 I wasn't sure how much to flatten them out before the rise...  I made them sort of like hockey pucks... they worked quite well as hamburger buns...we really enjoyed them!  I split the recipe into 6 buns and they seemed just about the right size...and I baked them for about 15 minutes... 

See....just right!    Dinner was DELICIOUS!!!   

Dinner...so cheap

My meal plan didn't seem appealing....so i briefly considered pizza...then looked at my big bag of potatoes and went with suuuuper easy cream of potato soup....
When it was almost done I thought we needed fresh baguettes to go with...but, they take an hour...so...yummm bready snack for me later! Ha!
We got dinner, and a lunch meal each out of this for sooo, sooo cheap!
I'm suddenly on a mission!


Update:   The baguette recipe is this one.  They're not cooked yet in my picture...trust me...they look much better!  ha!

Seriously...it's fantastic, and only takes 1 hour from proofing the yeast to eating the bread...so good... so easy...so cheap. I've been using bread machine yeast...cuz I had it...  I've made this three or 4 times now and haven't managed to mess it up!   


Last time I froze one of the baquettes before letting it rise....then I just took it out of the freezer the morning that I wanted to use it....let it sit in the fridge all day.  Then, let it rise on the counter right before cooking as usual, delicious!


This time I think I'll try freezing one of the cooked baguettes.   


THE SOUP!    In case you're interested I pasted my soup non-recipe below after sharing it with my sister and a friend on facebook...  there ya be...  cheap and tasty meal!  

Super duper easy cream of potato soup
..a non-recipe

-buncha potatoes, I used 5 today
-2 cups milk
-onion of some form (real, powder, toasted, whatevs)
-salt
-pepper
-flour
-bacon bits (or ham...or whatever)

Peel and cut potatoes into bitesize pieces. Boil. Drain out some of the water....but leave just enough to not quite cover them. Turn the heat down to medium or low. Add about 2 cups milk. Mix up about 1/2 cup of flour with some water...as if you're making gravy, add it to the soup and slowly stir in. Add seasonings, tonight I used Epicure 3 onion dip, and Cheese Chives and Bacon dip.. 1-2T each...because I had them...but... I've just used onion powder, or onion flakes. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Microwave bacon bits, (I pick out all the fatty ones) and throw them in the soup.... I let it thicken up...

We eat it with crackers....yummmm...
SOOOOOO CHEAP!

 Yes...I'm on a Dave Ramsey style snowball mission....and I'm madly excited by the possibility of paying off my student loans early... so... how cheap (and yet still nutritious) can we eat ... to accelerate the snowball effect...hmmmm?