"Man Does Not Live By Bread Alone"

So says Jesus in Matthew 4:4. But in a literal sense, bread surely is a staple. I bake bread at least every week. I practically never buy it unless it is for hamburgers or hot dogs for visitors. Except for baking cookies, I don't think there could be another better smell to perfume the house either. I'm kind of an instant gratification person, though, and don't exactly enjoy the all-important process of kneading the dough, as I would rather spend my time doing other things that aren't quite as messy. So one of my best and favorite purchases has been my wonderful bread machine. My current one is actually my second or third machine. It was the most expensive, but, after close to twenty years of continuous use, it is still helping me create wonderful loaves of bread. While for my daily consumption at breakfast I typically make either a standard loaf of white or Irish Soda bread. But I do like trying new recipes out, too. Yesterday I tried this one out for the first time and think I will add it to my list of regulars. It is Wheat Cornmeal Bread. It makes a large heavy loaf with a lot of texture thanks to the addition of the stone ground corn meal. I wasn't expecting to go out yesterday for a notary signing and did not anticipate any problem with getting the bread ready for baking. But shortly after midday, I accepted an offer at pretty good pay and when I did, I had not remembered I was in the process of making bread since at that point the machine had been doing all the work. I only use the bread machine to do the heavy work of mixing and rising up to the point of shaping. I don't like the look of bread baked in the machine because it doesn't look natural to me. So after the first rising, I take the dough out of the machine, shape it, and put it in a loaf pan for the final rising and baking. My oven has a wonderful bread proofing setting on it which makes that second and final rising just about fool proof, too. But yesterday afternoon I realized that I was not going to have the time to proof and bake the loaf before having to leave for the signing. So I got it shaped and into the pan and then covered that with plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator in the hopes that that would slow things down enough so that the bread would not over rise while I had to be gone. Never having made this recipe before, I wasn't at all sure how that was going to work out. But, as you see, it did, thank goodness. At the end of the day I was thankful that my new bread recipe had turned out so well and that I had also gotten a chance to make a little money at the same time. Not too bad for a day that was otherwise dark, gloomy, and rainy.