Adventures in bread making

This has been an adventure filled weekend for us. First off we did our first round of bread making with this beautiful new bread machine. Yes I am sure it is just as easy to make bread from scratch in the regular ol' oven, but the novelty of the bread machine was just too much to pass up. Plus this one also does jams and chutneys, so I really couldn't resist.

Here are some reasons to make your own bread:

-Simple and nutritious, easy to use high fiber ingredients

-You know what's inside...no preservatives!

-You can have whatever kind you want

-Great if you follow a gluten free diet

-Cheaper than regular bread (if you buy a bread machine there is cost for the initial investment)

So, for our first loaf we selected a nice honey whole wheat recipe. Boy was I glad the commissary had whole wheat flour.

Here is what the ingredients looked like before we closed the lid and let the machine work it's magic!

Here is Ryan making a nice ball of dough after he removed the kneading paddle.
Look how perfect looking this turned out.

Nice slices...

It was really soft inside and had a nice crust.

So for breakfast the next morning we made some runny fried eggs to have with our bread.

I took the end piece.

Then we got started on loaf number 2! This time was a dessert type bread. I made a low fat chocolate sour cream tea loaf. I did include the dried cherries, but I left out the chopped nuts. I personally hate nuts inside baked goods even though I like them plain. Does that make me weird?

Turned out looking pretty nice. The chocolate chips and cherries all went to the bottom, and we flipped it over so it then became a nice looking top layer.

So, those were our adventures in bread making, but there were still more adventures to come our way.

Saturday night we went to a local book fair since they advertised they would have some English books.

I bought some books about the island and Portugal.

We stopped in to a local bar/cafe/restaurant called Mar a Mesa and had a quick coffee.

We were a little hungry (and I guess we may have missed dinner) so Ryan ordered a tosta mista, which seems to be a popular bar food. I asked Ryan what this was and he explained it was like a hot ham and cheese sandwich.

Since I don't eat ham I thought about the option available to me. Then the light bulb went off and I ordered a tosta mista sem fiambre (without ham) and POOF...I got a grilled cheese sandwich!

It tasted really good.

The next morning Ryan had this idea for our fave storage containers...the lock and lock. Let's see what Ryan did with this awesome container...

Yep, he cooked an egg in it!

The he made sandwiches for us for breakfast using the honey whole wheat bread we made the day before.

The egg fit perfectly.

So those were some of our adventures so far, but there was still one more adventure for the weekend. Sunday some of the guys were going out spear fishing, so I decided to pack up my gear (in my awesome bag pictured below) and go out for a snorkeling adventure.

So we stopped here first to meet up with everyone, but this site in Porto Martins was too rough.

But I did take a few pics while we waited since this is a really nice area with great views.

Then we stopped over at this location towards Biscoitos, but again, too rough.

Another location, but again, too rough. Boy, were we ever gonna find a good spot given the windy weather.

After an hour of searching we located this spot near the pink hotel in Angra, just to the west of Monte Brasil. Much calmer!

So we got into the water at that location and the guys fished while I snorkled around. This spot had lots of great fish to look at. Lots of pretty colors. After a while I was out far enough that is was no longer rocks below, but white sand. I had a great time, and I actually got to see Ryan spear 2 fish and pull them back up to the surface. It was super neat to see the whole process. After a while I headed back in, but when I was in shallow water I got freaked out when I spotted a decent sized octopus. Holy Cow!!! It was a lovely shade of purple and blue, but serious, too many arms for me and I panicked. Luckily I wear a knife, and in this case I was in shallow water and could stand up.

Afterwards we were starving since it was dinner time. I got to see the sun set on the west side of the island, which was nice. We opted for kono pizza since many things were closed as it was Sunday. I love this kono car.

As always I had a nice salad.

Of course we also got pizza cones to go with the salads. I had smoked salmon and cream cheese in a cone and Ryan had tomato and cheese.

What a super way to end a super adventurous weekend!!!

QUESTIONS: What was your last adventure? What is your favorite kind of bread?