My new toy, my bread machine :)

I know, I know, I've been absent.  Sorry about that, I'm near the end of my pregnancy (yay) but with that comes exhaustion.  I have actually kept up with the cooking though :).  Crafting, on the other hand......has kind of gone the way of its own.

But, I have a new toy I MUST write about.  If you do not know, my family struggles with multiple food allergies, some of them very severe.  My son cannot be within 10 miles of an egg or nuts or sesame seeds without being hospitalized (that's an exaggeration, but that's how we think of it).  He also cannot have soy products, legumes of any sort, most seeds, and now apparently, shellfish :/.  I cannot have milk or whey products.

I don't know the last time you've viewed the ingredients list of your bread, but you have NO IDEA how hard it is to find bread that is void of eggs, soy, nuts, seeds, AND milk!  That means cannot even be processed on equipment that is shared with these items.......yes, its impossible.  Fortunately, I work near  Whole Foods, and their organic bread doesn't have any of these ingredients :).  So, for the past few years, we have been eating fantastic Whole Foods brand bread.  Its good, don't get me wrong one bit!!!!!!

But, as I mentioned, I work near Whole Foods (not live) and I'm about ready to POP any second.......so, there's no driving the 30 miles commute to get bread anymore.....so I had to think of an alternative.  I will be on drugs (postpartum) so I needed something my husband could also easily handle.

The answer......the bread machine!  Its the perfect balance.  Easy-peasy to use and I control the ingredients!

So, my first dip into this endeavor is cinnamon raisin bread.....I can smell its awesomeness already and I am salivating worse than Pavlo's dog :).  I am totally excited about this!  The manual was probably not the best, but at least the buttons on the front made sense.

So, doing the tastetest in a few minutes when this lucious bread is done :) :).