No bread is an island

...entire of itself. (With apologies to John Donne!)
I live and breathe breadmaking. I’m an evangelist who would like everyone to make his or her own bread. I want to demystify breadmaking and show it as the easy everyday craft that it is. To this end I endeavour to make my recipes as simple and as foolproof as I possibly can.

I call my blog 'No bread is an island' because every bread is connected to another bread. So a spicy fruit bun with a cross on top is a hot cross bun. This fruit dough will also make a fruit loaf - or Chelsea buns or a Swedish tea ring...
I'm also a vegan, so I have lots of vegan recipes on here - and I'm adding more all the time.

Monday 16 October 2017

Rollplay at Derwent Lower School

(Similar session with my daughter's year group at St Marks primary, Basingstoke)

This week I'm making bread with each of my 3 grandchildren's (9, 7 and 5) classes, starting with:

Monday 20th June. (Further down you'll find my report and pics from the other two sessions.)
First session today, with year 3 - otherwise known as 'Foxes'. 18 children including my granddaughter Olivia, who assisted me admirably.

We arranged the tables in a semi-circle, 2 to a table, one bowl to each pair.

We were making bread rolls, basically (any shape), to this recipe:
1 mug flour, quarter of a teaspoon of salt, 1/3rd mug of lukewarm water and one teaspoon of yeast .
After showing the youngsters how I mix and knead a dough, I demonstrated a few shapes of animals, and also some fancy dinner rolls - with the following results:



Sunday 15 October 2017

HUMANE KILLING? IT DOESN'T EXIST!

There are three reasons one should adopt a vegan, whole food, plant-based (WFPB) - lifestyle:
For the sake of your health - vegans live longer and healthier than other populations;
For the sake of our planet - raising livestock produces more greenhouse gases than all transportation combined; and,
For the sake of the animals.

The most immediate of these is, of course, Animal Welfare. Every day millions of innocent beings - earthlings, just like us - are being mutilated, tortured and murdered, for no good reason.

Have a look what happens (albeit heavily censored) in a slaughterhouse. Don't watch this if your intention is to eat meat regardless of the suffering caused!

Here's the view of a farmer's daughter:
"Dairy is an Everyday Dystopian Horror"

To my undying shame, for 64 years I was a full participant in this. I was an avid meat-eater - every meal had to have some meat with it. Any veggies were just an adjunct.

In 2001, at the height of the CJD (Mad Cow) scare, I decided to give up meat and become a vegetarian. Over the next 2 years, as I became aware of the horrors and animal abuse in the dairy industry, I gradually gave up all dairy. About that time there was a graphic film on the BBC showing how male chicks are simply discarded shortly after birth - by gassing, or simply being tossed into a grinder. So I gave up eating eggs.

Friday 13 October 2017

WHY EGGS should be off the menu

10 medical reasons not to consume eggs. (Joel Kahn, MD)

Eggs vs Cigarettes in Atherosclerosis (Michael Greger, MD)


"...the head of USDA’s Poultry Research and Promotion program... “you can’t couch eggs [or] egg products as being ‘healthy’ or ‘nutritious.'”
(Who says eggs aren't healthy or safe? - Michael Greger, MD)

Smashing the myth that eggs are a health food (Jesse J. Jacoby, Plant Based News)

What's Wrong With Eggs? The Truth About The Egg Industry - (Erin Janus)


Free range is a con. There is no such thing as an ethical egg. (Chas Newkey-Burden - The Guardian)

So, to sum up: Eggs are unhealthy; egg production is inherently cruel; and is the cause of enormous pollution.

Egg replacement.
There are several alternatives for eggs - a quick online search brings up the main ones. But eggs are often unnecessary in recipes - for instance I never use eggs in my cake or bread recipes. And very good pancakes can be made without eggs or milk.