Pay Back

All those years of having my bright, inquisitive, little daughter standing on a stool next to me at the kitchen counter have paid off.  That time seems so long ago now (it was), but I do remember how every now and then I couldn't help thinking that I could cook and/or bake anything about three times faster without my little kitchen helper beside me.

 

Now as a grown woman, dear daughter lives by herself, loves to cook and bake, but it's not something she does a lot with only herself to feed.  So yesterday she did wonderful things in my kitchen.

 

Not only did she make a batch of Black Bean Burgers for the freezer (yum) and try a new recipe for chapatties made with einkorn flour (a dismal failure -- how do recipes like that get published?), but baked six loaves of bread.

 

Two rye loaves which gained her great favor with her dad, two loaves of Egg Bread, one made into Cinnamon Bread -- be still my heart -- and one left plain.  Also, two robust loaves of Oatmeal Bread that had yet to come out of the oven when I took the above picture.

 

I really want to drizzle some white powdered sugar frosting over the top of this loaf, but that makes such an ooie-gooie mess in the toaster!  Toasted Cinnamon Bread for breakfast with an egg fresh from the hen house . . . can't be beat.

 

No, we didn't sit down yesterday and stuff all six loaves into our wee mooths (as my Scottish grandmother used to say).  All but one loaf, the Cinnamon Bread, went into the freezer for the benefit of having a stash of homemade bread put by for the future.

 

So, yes, I'd say this is definitely pay back for those years of clouds of flour floating through the air and apple peelings littering the floor along with the million questions of "Why?" from my little kitchen helper.  Now she's a big helper and I love it!