By Bonnie Kenyon
McCarthy: – Laurie Rowland’s up-to-date (especially for McCarthy) kitchen was the setting for a wholesome bread-making party. Eight local ladies gathered around Laurie’s spacious island to watch Katie Helkenn of Kenny Lake demonstrate her tried and true Bosch food processor. The ladies in attendance were: Betty Adams, Hannah and Laurie Rowland, Peggy Smith, Lynn Welty, Chris Haley, Anna Wallin and Bonnie Kenyon.
The party began at 11 a.m. with an introduction to the Bosch Ultra Mill which did a fine job of grinding the Prairie Gold wheat berries that Katie brought with her. One trip through the mill produced a fine, light-colored flour that we women could hardly keep our hands out of!
As Katie blended the other ingredients in the food processor, she explained the benefit of adding leftover cooked oatmeal to the dough. It keeps your bread moist longer. Even those cooked potatoes you had the night before will add nutrition and moistness to your favorite bread recipe. Olive oil? It, too, keeps your bread fresh longer than other oils. She also informed us that sesame seeds are high in Vitamin C so they are a great ingredient to include in creating a wholesome loaf of bread.
Once the 5 loaves of bread were rising, Katie informed us the next project was to make homemade pizza for lunch. If it hadn’t been for Chris’s delicious “smoked salmon spread” and her own “moose spread,” we ladies might have fainted at the delicious aroma that emanated from Laurie’s oven.
The third project was sweet rolls. Half of the ladies got into that big time. The rolled-out dough pretty much filled Laurie’s island countertop. By the time the rolls came out of the oven, the Rowland “boys” came home from a hard day of work. You should have seen their eyes when they spotted the three huge trays of freshly-baked rolls. Katie and Laurie (thankfully!) made sure we ladies left with a plate of rolls for ourselves and husbands at home.
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