French toast stuffed with cottage cheese

If you live near a farm where homemade cottage cheese is sold, I recommend it for this recipe. The commercial cottage cheeses tend to be watery (not to mention that they're packed with a few too many sketchy ingredients) so they wouldn't work well here. The cheese I used here, as well as the wheat bread, comes from Nezinscott Farm in Turner, Maine.

In a flat-bottomed bowl, mix three eggs with 1/4 to 1/2 cup of milk (rice or soy is fine) and salt to taste. Spread about 1/4 cup of cottage cheese on a slice of wheat bread, trying to stay away from the edges. Cover with another slice of bread and pat down. Place the cottage cheese sandwich in the egg-milk mixture, letting each side soak to the degree of sogginess you like. Be careful when turning the sandwich over, especially if it is soaked. Fry in butter on a heavy skillet until brown on both sides. Serve hot with more butter and applesauce and whatever fruit you like. Cinnamon is always good as well.

Garlicky croutons

There's nothing more simple than making your own croutons, and they are a lot less expensive and healthier for your than anything you can buy at the store. All you need is a little bread (the older, the better), some garlic, salt and a little time. It's worth the little work it takes to make!

Slice up a thick slab of old bread and then cut the slice into cubes, and then finely mince a clove or two of garlic. In a non-stick pan, melt a few tablespoons of butter. Sautee the garlic over low to medium heat for a few minutes and then add the cubes of bread and salt generously. Shake the pan occasionally to turn the pieces until all (or almost all) of the sides are nicely browned. Serve on a salad or straight out of the pan as a poor man's appetizer. They are delicious!

Nut bread

This is a variation of the wheat bread recipe, which is the post that preceeds this one, so please refer to that post for the recipe. The only thing you do differently for this variation is kneed nuts of your choice to the dough before setting it under the towel to rise for an hour. I used coarsely chopped walnuts and sunflower seeds, which is what I had on hand, but any nut variation would do. My favorite nut for bread is hazelnut, and I also enjoy hazelnut and chocolat.

Easiest wheat bread

This recipe comes from my 99 year old aunt, Jeanette Moreau Pomerleau. Originally, it's a recipe for raisin bread, but I make it without the raisins and it's lovely. The recipe calls for sugar, but I leave it out without much change in taste or texture. I also use olive oil instead of lard, as my aunt does. And finally, you can replace the molasses with honey, though it makes for a lighter colored bread. This recipe, along with a few more easy bread recipes, is included in the cookbook I wrote based on my mother and her sister's recipes.

• 4 cups each white and whole wheat flour (see note below*)
• 3 tsp sugar (optional)
• 1.5 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp yeast
• 3 generous tbsp melted lard (or olive oil)
• 1/2 cup molasses (or honey)
• 3.5 cups hot water
• 3/4 cups raisins (optional)

In a large bowl, mix the flours together. Make a hole in the middle of the flour and add all of the ingredients (even the raisins if you choose to include them) into the hole, adding the water and the molasses last. With your hand, starting in the middle of the hole, mix by making little circles until all of the flour is incorporated. You may need to add more flour if the dough is still sticky at the end. Knead on a floured surface until you get a large, smooth ball. I don't knead for that long, maybe five minutes or so. Rub a small amount of oil over the dough and place in deep bowl. Cover with a towel and allow to rise until it doubles in size, about an hour. When the dough has doubled, separate into two or three round balls. Place them on a baking stone or in bread pans (depending on the size you choose to make) and allow to rise again, covered, for about an hour.

Bake at 375 for about an hour. For a crispier crust, spray the inside of the oven with water every ten minutes. Enjoy with butter as a side with soup, or for breakfast with more butter and jam.

*Note: I made this bread again since posting this and realized in the process that I had no more white flour. What I did have was some unbleached white flour (about a cup and a half) and wheat flour. I made the recipe with this and discovered that the bread had better flavor. The next time, I may just try it with all wheat flour to see what happens.