I have never enjoyed baking: too many steps, too much work, too exact in measurement.  Savory cooking has always been more up my alley (a little of this, a lot of that, dash here, i need to use this up so why not?).  But, given the fact that I’m paying a mortgage now, every penny really does count.  Also, every eating experience needs to be comforting and enjoyable.  If you’re saving money by cutting back on some of the luxuries you’re used to, you need to replace those luxuries with something equally as fulfilling.  For me, what I cut down on in the grocery store (i.e., processed foods, convenient baked goods, expensive beauty products), is balanced by making each meal a great experience.  Three times a day, I feel like I sacrifice nothing, if I play my cards right.

One of the easiest ways that I’ve found to stay on budget is to bake my own breads.  I don’t know if you suffer from the same type of supermarket baked goods section as I do, but I have found that, regardless of the brand (or even the store’s bakery products), the bread smells “off” once I get it home. With all those chemicals and preservatives and even with the “sell by” date a long way in the future, the bread just smells sub-par, as though it’s been sitting on the shelf for a month.

So, the ick factor of store-bought bread and the desire to put an amazing/affordable product on the table each meal meant that I had to switch the expensive store bread for something home-made. I was still scared of baking a loaf of breadfrom scratch; I’ve done it before with a bread machine, but I don’t have access to one at the moment.  So I looked for alternatives. Armed with the internet and awesome recipe databases like Allrecipes.com and EatingWell.com, I systematically tested recipes for pizza dough, breadsticks, naan, tortillas, and pita, and found that, not only could I bake, but that the bread smelled–wait for it–like BREAD.

Gone was the nasty “half-moldy” scent of store-bought bread.  Suddenly the house filled with the aroma of yeast and fresh dough. It didn’t matter what dish I used the bread for, it tasted ten times better than using the store-bought alternative.  Each recipe only took me about ten to fifteen minutes of prep and active time, and each was ready in less than half an hour.  I could freeze the product after baking it and I would have a supply in reserve.  But here’s the most rewarding part: compared to a $3.00 loaf of bread that is supposedly full of “quality ingredients” (most of which I can’t pronounce), a batch of simplified naan, for example (yeast, flour, water, sugar, salt), cost me $0.60! 

Seriously.  Sixty cents versus three dollars.  You should be googling naan recipes right now.

A truly quality product that you can feel proud to have made for your family, that you can control (if you want whole wheat breads, do half white, half whole wheat flour in the recipe), and that you can make in bulk, freeze and have on hand for less than the cost of one loaf of partially stale, off-putting store bread: I am telling you, get baking!  You won’t regret it and neither will your bank account.  To start you off, take a look at this pita recipe: simple, quick and low-fuss, but extremely yummy and versatile.  (If you don’t have a bread machine, several reviewers take you throgh the steps of making the dough by hand–almost easier than the machine!) Now, go bake something and enjoy it!