Rice Bread ~ Lunchbag Week 4

Sometimes, it's all about the bread . . .

Even the most ordinary ham and cheese sandwich gets a little more attention at lunchtime if it's on fresh-baked bread. I grind my own wheat and bake up several loaves every Monday, and my arms are so sore from all that kneading at the end of the day! Yeah, right. I am too lazy to even stop by a bakery, let alone bake my own bread. I cheat - I have a bread machine. In less time than it would take me to find a parking space at Panera I can dump a few ingredients into that big ol' machine, punch a couple of buttons, and come back from carpool to the smell of fresh bread. THIS is the way technology is meant to be used - to give me good things to eat with minimal effort. Now if I'm feeling up to doing just a little more work I will take the dough out before it starts to bake and shape it into rolls, then bake it that way. The picture above is rice bread made into sandwich-sized rolls - MMMMM! I usually make rice in my bread machine at lease twice a week (another dump-and-press-a-button recipe), so I've always got a bit of leftover rice lying around, and this recipe doesn't take much.

Place 1/2 cup cooked rice in a 2-cup measuring cup. Add 2 Tbsp olive oil and enough warm water to equal 1 1/2 cups. Dump into bread machine. Add 3 cups bread flour, 2 Tbsp sugar, 1 tsp salt, and 1 1/2 tsp active dry yeast (Don't buy those little packages, go ahead and buy the jar and measure it yourself - it's SO much cheaper). Select "basic" setting to bake a loaf, or "dough" setting if you want to make rolls. If you selected "dough", take it out when it's finished, form into 8 rolls, and bake at 375 degrees for 15 minutes. I've frozen them before baking, too, and you'd never know the difference.

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