My recent foray into bread making has been a wonderful, life-changing experience. There is something empowering about turning so little into so much. 

You’ll need:

• 1 1/2 packages active dry yeast (1 1/2 tablespoons)
• 1 tablespoon plus 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup olive or vegetable oil, plus more for greasing the bowl
• 5 large eggs
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 8 to 8 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 3/4 cup warm water

In your mixing bowl, dissolve your yeast and 1Tbs sugar in the warm water, whisk in oil then eggs one at a time. 

Add remaining sugar and salt then gradually add your flour. 

Once your dough holds together, it is ready for kneading. 

You can knead by hand, or using the dough hook of your mixer. Stop kneading before you think you need to or the dough will get tough. You just want it to look a little shinier and be smooth. http://bakingbread.org/how-to-knead-bread-dough/

Clean your bowl, then dry and grease it.

Return your dough to the bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let rise until it has doubled in size (1 hourish)

To test it push your finger into the top of the dough ball, if it doesn’t spring back its done.

On your cutting board, release the air from the dough by gently folding it in on itself a few times.

Let rise for another 30 minutes. 

Now the fun part! How to cut and braid your challah

Beat the remaining egg and brush it on your loaves.

Let rise another hour. 

Brush with more egg.

Bake 375 for 30-40mins until golden.

You just made bread! Your house is going to smell awesome.

• I just made a food people lived off of for centuries. 
• My house smells better than it ever has.
• I turned flour, eggs, water and salt into something amazing.
• This begins the start of french toast week 
• I can do small steps throughout my day. Each step in the process takes 10 minutes or less.

• I pretty much followed this one to the letter, as you usually should with baking. 
• After it was done I sliced right into and spread on some softened herb butter that a mixed with a mix of spices like oregano, thyme, garlic powder and marjoram. You can mix it whatever is in your cabinet and smells yummy. 

Thanks Chris Rim Photo for the awesome pics of my food!

I don’t get to encounter the elusive eggplant anywhere near as often as I’d like. Most of the time I eat it in vegetable tempura while out for sushi OR roasted with various other veggies in my oven as a side dish. I’m not a huge Italian food fan so I’ve never had the drive to make Eggplant Parmesan. If I do anything italian-y at home its usually a bowl of pasta.  So I set out on a mission to find an accessible, tasty eggplant alternative. Time after time in my internet searchery this eggplant and olive pizza from Smitten Kitchen was in the top eggplant recipes on my go to culinary sites. 

Luckily I had all the ingredients! Here’s what happened:

No pizza stone? No problem! You can check out Smitten Kitchen’s tips for pizza making. Or just do what I did… 

Mix the ingredients to form the dough and allow it to rise. Give yourself an hour and a half. I used this crust from Smitten Kitchen. 

Fire up the grill or grillpan and grill eggplant slices while brushing them with olive oil. Optional: toss some garlic in the oil for extra flavor. 

Chop up the eggplant, olives and slices of provolone cheese. 

Form your dough (once it has risen) into whatever shape you so desire, (square? circle? oval? hexagon?) on a cookie sheet. 

Put another cookie sheet in your oven, on the lowest rack. Fire your oven up as high as it will go so that you’re preheating the second cookie sheet. 

While that gets warm, assemble your pizza! I went sauce, eggplant, olives, cheese. I don’t think it matters though. 

Once the oven beeps at you and tells you its preheated, slide the pizza onto the preheated cookie sheet already in the oven. 

Set your timer for 10 minutes. The last two minutes switch your oven to broil. 

Let cool on a wire rack.

• It made my house smell amazing. Think fresh baked bread and melted cheese. 
• No meat! Normally I’m a cheerleader for meat but I did not miss it in this dish one bit. That is saying a lot.
• Baby Olive can eat it. Baby Olive loves it. 
• I can make the dough the day before and throw dinner together faster than it would take to order a pizza. 
• It was actually crispy. With all the hearty toppings and this being my first pizza and having no pizza stone I was certain of sogginess. Not even a little.
• The green olives pack nice little packets of saltiness that are fun to bite into. 

• Next time I’ll look for a different crust recipe. It was a little too dense and bland. I’m thinkin’ herbs and spices in the crust or at least around the outside rim of the pizza. (Anyone know a recipe that incorporates cheese into the crust?)
• Next time I’ll cut the olives smaller than halving them. The punches of saltiness were delicious but could have been reigned in a little bit. 
• I think this would taste marvelous with some smoked Gouda or another stronger cheese along with the provolone. I’m a cheese junkie though. 

Thanks Chris Rim Photo for the awesome pics of my food!