As I mentioned before; righteous and awesome bread mix engaged my bread machine in combat and defeated it. Well played!
My bread machine is dead, long live my bread machine.
Despite the fact that my late lamented bread machine has gone to appliance heaven I decided to get a replacement. There’s a logic to this. I consider bread machines essential homestead equipment. Survivalists/homesteaders/Curmudgeons tend to wax poetic about sexy equipment equipment like guns and 4x4s. I think that’s unwise. Yes, a 4×4 is handy and shooting things is good for the soul (and fills the freezer with deer) but it’s the little things that matter most.
You gotta’ enjoy the little things.
If I’m going to go Galt, while off grid, during the zombie apocalypse I intend to do it in style. That means I place a high priority on the supply line for a daily hearty breakfast of coffee (more on that later), eggs (from my hens, which have been trained in anti-zombie drills), and toast. Hear that zombie apocalypse? You don’t get top billing! Frankly, a little jam and toast goes a long way to separating us from cavemen. (Doubt me? Go ahead and eat MRE’s for a month and see how much you crave actual food.)
I bravely ventured into enemy territory (a Goodwill store, boy did that suck!) and parted with six bucks to get myself a “new” (used!) bread machine. I plan on buying a second (or third) but the other two in the store looked like shit. I’m in no hurry, I’ll find another cheap one soon enough. (One has a spare tire for their truck, why not a spare bread machine?)
So there you have it. While other blogs are debating night vision scopes and claymore mines, I’m baking bread. Don’t blame me, I call ’em like I see ’em.
A.C.
P.S. The bread machine saga is linked below:
I trust you have a generator to run that bread machine.
The generator is allocated to other tasks.
In the event of zombie apocalypse I’ll have to knead my bread. The horror!
gonna need some extra wood for the cast iron stove to bake the bread.
You do have a cast iron stove…right? right?
Of course! What homestead would be complete without a stove?
I hear tell you can make bread over an open fire with a dutch oven. So all is not lost lacking even a stove. I’m gonna try that someday soon. Darn, now I’m hungry.
Dutch ovens are the coolest gadget this side of the telescopic rifle sight. In the hands of a master, They can do anything. (Dutch ovens I mean.)
Speaking of “anything”, one can make bread in many ways and that’s why humans can live on wheat; fodder more suitable for range animals and top predators. Bread is clearly a key concept in making food from darned near nothing. It’s practically magic and it eventually led to such overwhelming awesomeness that humans mastered fuel injection before the rest of the animal kingdom can’t make a spearpoint.
You don’t even need a Dutch oven. Many moons ago I mastered the arcane art of making bread from “frozen bread dough in those spiral containers” over a campfire using no utensils other than a stick. I did this several times, usually while camping in the winter, and often in the middle of nowhere. It worked and I was delighted with my little conjuring act. Trust me on this, if you can hunker down in a snow storm and an hour later be eating “fresh” bread using only a stick and fire… you are a camping God!
Alas the whole thing went pear shaped. I tried to bake my famous “fresh bread over a fire” for Miss Curmudgeon (before she was Mrs. Curmudgeon). I succeeded at making nothing more than charcoal. Devastating!