When The Captain’s Wife Goes Down…She Bakes Bread….

All night I’ve been dealing with being sick…I’ll leave it with this…it wasn’t the top part of me that was sick…and that’s all ya need to know about that….but it’s left me icky and weak today…I’ve drug my feet since I got up but one of the first things I realized I HAD to do was make a fire to keep it warm in here…with a house full of sickies we couldn’t have it cold now could we?

So I fired up the wood stove and then I began thinking…if I’m going to be heating the stove all day, why not bake something? I saw on Foodgawker they talked about Paprikabread and I thought, hmmm…sounds interesting, but when I looked at it I thought, my kids will never eat that with all the pepper on top of the bread….but perhaps if I chop the pepper real small and put it IN the bread, they’d eat it??

So that’s what I did, I came up with this little number myself which is why my recipe for you will be a bit hipsom hopsom but for those of you who bake regularly I’m sure you can take this and fly with it.

First, wash your hands….real good, especially if you’re sick like me…

Next, all after your own taste, rasp about 5-6 garlic cloves and put in a bowl. Then add about 1-2 finely chopped red peppers (or use a variation of colors, that would be great..I only had red in the house and I used half of a sweet pepper and half of a regular big red pepper)

In a big bowl, put about 1 tbsp of salt and 1tbsp of dried basil. Again add whichever spices you desire here, this is open territory and it’s all after what you feel for…I was making for me and the kids and needed to keep in mind if there is too much “green stuff” the kids will buckle down and say no thanks!

I added maybe 2dl of Spelt Flour…not sure what that would translate to in English but you can just use regular flour if you want throughout the whole recipe, I just dumped in a fair amount then added about 6dl of warm water which I had mixed my 30grams of fresh yeast out in…then I added 6tbsp olive oil (extra virgin, cause that’s what I had) and then the pepper and garlic. Mix everything well and continue to add flour until you can knead the bread without it sticking but don’t over flour your bread or it will be heavy…

Back in the bowl to rise….which it did quite well over a couple hours..

I then greased two bread pans (the biggest ones I had- not completely sure of the measurements) and then divided the dough in two and gave them a quick kneading- not much and rolled them into sausages and put one in each bread pan and then let them rise for about an hour…brushed them slightly with a mixture of egg, water, and salt and into the ol’ wood stove…

I absolutely love bread baked in the wood stove but considering we only heat up in the winter, this is purely a winter time activity…the crust gets so crispy and the inside is perfectly soft…a wonderful combo…

Voila, doesn’t that look scrumptious? Well, with some butter and swiss cheese on it, this was simply to die for…YUM YUM YUM…

I’m staying home tomorrow from work, don’t want to infect the kiddos with whatever has gotten to me and where I work infections run like wildfire so it’s best not to take any chances…have had a break from the bathroom since this afternoon but my stomach is still bubbling like a boiling teapot…if I make it through the night without any bathroom visits I’ll head back to work on Tuesday…keep your fingers crossed and your wood ovens hot my friends…

Until next time….