I used to write well. The humanities were my strength in high school, then after years of technical writing I realised that I could no longer string a sentence of prose together. I started blogging because I needed writing practice – I put little thought into who would be reading. It didn’t take me long to discover though that blogging is all about community. About building relationships and sharing ideas. I have learned more about gardening over the last year than I imagined was possible, and it’s all thanks to the posts of others and the comments made on my rookie efforts. I am so grateful.
Joining in on things like Linda’s Tuesday Night Vego challenge has also helped me be more disciplined and committed to my family’s healthy eating. Tonight I used Linda’s second recipe in the Vego challenge – her Bean Burgers.
I made some wholegrain burger buns quickly this evening. One benefit of making sandwich bread daily is that you get very practiced at it, and it’s easy to whip up some dinner rolls within a couple of hours because you don’t have to slave over a recipe. All up it probably only takes 10 minutes of actual intervention – the rest is rising and kneading time (which I do in machine).
I was a bit short of salad ingredients (all my lettuce has bolted) so I bulked up the burgers with Liz’s Bread and Butter cucumbers. These are the best pickles I have ever tasted – do yourself a favour and make some immediately before the cucumber season is over.
Head over to Linda’s Blog to see other simple and delicious vegetarian meal ideas.
500m2 in Sydney 
Like the look of those burger buns. For years I’d baked bread intermittently, when I felt in the “domestic goddess” mood. But never been consistent enough with it to get to the stage you are talking about, where you don’t need a recipe, you don’t need to shop for ingredients, you don’t even need to think about it. About two years ago I started baking sourdough regularly, a couple of loaves a week, and haven’t bought bread since. Now it seems just so very easy and worthwhile that I can’t imagine not doing it, and, like you say, if dinner needs bread rolls, no prob, I’ll just whip some up.
That’s exactly what I’m talking about Linda. I didn’t realise that it would ever become second-nature, but it does.
I like them with burgers too…So what you are telling me is that a bread maker would be a good investment?
I hate to admit using a breadmaker because it seems so much like cheating, but I’ve come to the realisation that it is more energy efficient, and frankly – easier.
I sometimes use the breadmaker and sometimes the kitchenaid. I suspect that the kitchenaid is more thorough in its kneading, and for bread rolls in particular it might be more tempting because you need to shape and bake them separately anyway.
But yesterday I used the breadmaker, even for the bread rolls. I wanted to finish them quickly, so I took them out before the rising was technically finished then hand shaped and did the second rise in the oven on the ‘rise dough’ setting. I then baked them in the oven.
So in summary – yes. If you can pick one up at a reasonable price, then they are worth it, but I wish it wasn’t always on the benchtop. If you are going to buy one though, pay close attention to the shape and dimensions of the bowl. My first breadmaker (I recently gave it away on freecycle) had a silly tall and narrow loaf pan, so made it impractical for sandwiches. My current one (inherited from my Gran when she died) is much better, and so it gets used a lot more. I do wish there were more manual settings though. I have found myself wanting to increase the kneading times in certain scenarios, yet I’m limited to the presets. Annoying.
No, you didn’t need to post the link to those cucumbers… You really didn’t…