"rye bread" news and stories

As soon as I heard about Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, I had to have it. I love bread. It's my most important food group, and I'd go into a never-ending fit of withdrawal without it. In the past, I used my bread machine, but it just didn't produce loaves as tasty as the artisan variety, and that damned whirring noise right next to my desk was quite annoying.

This week, I attempted to make the rye bread recipe. I'd recently bought a whole slew of different grains and flours, so I didn't check my ingredients first. The one thing I didn't have: rye flour. Since I already had my little yeasties going crazy in the lukewarm water, I decided to find a substitute. I used multigrain flour, and hoped for the best.

Oh, it's so very worth it. It's got the soft chewyness of a white bread, the tasty grains from multigrain, and that added caraway kick. It baffles me why caraway seeds have been relegated only to the dark and tasty halls of rye bread. Next time you run out of rye flour, or are in the mood for something different, try it out.

This time around I decided to get ambitious with Midnight Snack, or as ambitious as I get when a case of the late-night munchies hits. Earlier in the week I'd purchased a nice hunk of Roquefort cheese, some Polish bacon and a loaf of hearty Russian bread, that, I kid you not, is named "Healing Rye Bread." I've been happily noshing on those all week. Today I grabbed a couple of Fuji apples at the market.

Now I'd love to say that I planned to combine these ingredients in advance, but that's simply not true. Hunger is the mother of invention: And in this case that invention is a savory little thing I like to call the BAC. No, not blood alcohol content, but bacon, apple and cheese. It's essentially a grown-up grilled cheese.


Charlemagne's favorite cheese and the humble apple wait to meet their pal Mr. Bacon. In retrospect, I may have been a bit heavy-handed with the cheese. But the combination of the salty Roquefort, meaty bacon and the sweet apples woke up my sleepy palate.

Ingredients:

• 2 slices Russian rye or other whole-grain bread
  
• 5-7 slices of bacon
  
• Half an apple, Fuji or otherwise, sliced
  
• 2-3 slices of Roquefort or other blue cheese
  

Recipe

• Slice apple and cheese.
  
• Place each on a respective slice of bread.
  
• Cook and drain bacon.
  
• Place bacon on top of cheese, layer apples on top, close sandwich.
  
• Place sandwich in pan and cook until both sides are golden brown.
  

Note: If you must, drain the bacon grease before cooking the sandwich. This is a step that I decided to skip. After all, I used "Healing Rye Bread."