Hot Fresh Bread

As an update from my last post, things have been going quite well with our goals. The house is getting clean, the kitchen is staying clean, we are spending less time in front of the TV and computer, and doing other things... though when i say less, i mean less than 24/7... let's just say we still have some work to do.
One of my goals is to have the dishes washed at the end of every day, and i find it much easier if i do it after every meal. Though i don't expect to stay QUITE that ambitious, it's nice to take a couple minutes (really, that's all it takes) to wash up a few dishes so there aren't that many to do after dinner. Someday, we will have a dishwasher...
But this goal has some serious benefits... I bake more! I don't know how many of you out there feel the same, but i absolutely HATE baking when there's a pile of dirty dishes on the counter! Especially if it's a BIG pile! And i have plenty of counter space, it's just that the presence of the dirty dishes somehow inhibits my happy baking zen! And i love baking!
So last night, i threw together a loaf of banana bread, using a recipe from Sherbet Blossom that i had been wanting to try.  It was good (Josh sure liked it) but i found the spices to be a bit much - they WAY overpowered the banana flavor, which is definitely saying something because i use super-ripe, extra-flavorful, frozen bananas. The texture was very nice, though. I will definitely be trying the recipe again, but with maybe half the amount of cinnamon and nutmeg.
Today, I baked a loaf of plain bread. I haven't made bread for.... wow, i'm gonna say a year at least... and it was about time. We went on a field trip to the local museum with the Show Me group today, and after they took us through, we made fresh butter! The kids really enjoyed it. They got to sample the buttermilk afterwards, and we ate the butter on crackers and bannock bread (anybody out there have a good recipe for bannock? That stuff was AMAZING!!).
All the while, i was thinking of how good fresh homemade butter would be on fresh homemade bread... mmmmm....
So of course, i had to satisfy my craving. We would probably have fresh bread a lot more often if i had a breadmaker to at least mix the dough for me. But alas, i have no such device, and have to do it all by hand. But I don't mind - it just makes it that much more of a treat when we DO  have it.
Besides, who needs a machine when you have an adorable little helper?

I love this boy - he helped me knead the bread AND mop the floors while it was rising! I hope he always stays so helpful....

He had fun for a while, and then i took over - you have to knead it for 10 minutes, which definitely gives your upper body a good workout! And then, after 45 minutes of rising, and 30 minutes of baking....

Hot fresh bread straight out of the oven! It's a beautiful thing!
Now my house smells AMAZING and i just devoured my third slice of hot bread with butter.
Then i realized that it's six o'clock. I guess it's bread and butter for supper!!