Weekend Blogroll: Bread Blitz and Necessary Stuff!

White bread is a staple in most Amish kitchens.  The ingredients are easily assembled and, presto, you have a loaf of white bread which can be used for sandwiches, toast, and when it begins to get stale as bread crumbs for casseroles and even for "bread pie."   Sometimes an Amish person won't make their own bread.  If they have a huge gathering and just don't have the manpower available to bake bread, they'll go to a Butternut Thrift Store or an Aldi's and buy 100 loaves of bread for a church gathering.  I've been dispatched to such stores at the behest of Amish people on such errands and I always received interesting looks from the cashier when I bring up a cart loaded with 100 loaves of bread.  But for everyday household use, most Amish cooks bake their own.

AMISH WHITE BREAD:  I've posted many recipes for Amish white bread on this site before.  I think I'm just sharing this recipe because I like the name of the blog "You Bake Me Happy."  LOL, clever...I give points for cleverness.   They do rave about the bread recipe and it does look easy.  The Amish Cook's original white bread recipe is quite similar but also calls for lard (about the size of an egg, in the original instructions) to be added.   So if you want an easy white bread recipe that definitely seems to fit within the traditions of an Amish white bread recipe, click here.

AMISH FRIENDSHIP BREAD:  I've written before about how Friendship Bread was one of the first recipes readers requested when the column began back in 1991.  I was thrilled to find this website totally devoted to Amish friendship bread and it's many variations.  Click here to explore the site.

CORNBREAD FRIENDSHIP BREAD???   Not sure how I feel about this..I found a recipe posted this past week for "Cornbread Friendship Bread" on the "Hillybilly Housewife" blog.  Interesting. Click here to see the recipe.

There's not a really good way to make a transition from talking about gently baked bread to...um...this...so I won't even try!:)

NECESSARY ROOMS:  Tom the Backroads Traveler offers a selection of shots of the "necessary" in one of his recent postings, some of them Amish, others not.  Interestingly, I'm not sure if I've ever heard the term "necessary."  It might be a regional thing, a generational thing, or I'm just sheltered.  But the Amish I've been around usually just called it the outhouse or, more often, referred to it by a German word.   Indoor plumbing is more and more common among the Amish.  In fact, in 1990,  the first Amish home I ever ventured inside had plumbing.  That was in the Adams County, Ohio community.   The most conservative ones still use "necessaries", but - and this is only a guess - I'd say about 25 - 30 percent of Amish still lack indoor plumbing/toilets.  This is a shot of an outhouse near the Geneva, Indiana settlement that I took years and years ago in the waning days of winter.    Amazing how something as simple as an outhouse can bring back good memories, but this one does for me.  It was a simpler, more innocent era.  Definitely miss those days.  And, yes, as Tom points out in his post there are outhouses with "double" and even "triple" toilets inside.  I like my privacy in the privy (now that is a term I have heard) so you wouldn't find me doing my business in that close of quarters with someone else!  Click here to see Tom's full selection of necessary photos!