Tuesday, March 10, 2009

survival bread baking

Considering current events in general; this post by David Wilkerson; spring tornado season coming shortly; and hurricane season not long after that, we have decided to get serious about our emergency supplies. In figuring what exactly to "hoard", I want to be sure not to waste money on anything we will not use. I wondered if we should store up wheat or flour - how would you use it in case there's no power? I figured there must be a way, because bread was around before electricity. But how would the average person manage to bake without power and without gas appliances?

I puzzled on that for a while, then I remembered our little grill. This thing has been my friend through many power outages. I have boiled eggs in a pan on it, boiled water for coffee, and of course cooked hamburgers and hot dogs. But would it be possible to build a fire UNDER it, and bake in it? We decided to give it a try today, to find out for sure if we should store some extra flour.

Here's our dough, first rising:
Dough, second rising, on parchment paper and grill rack;
Grill, with dough inside, over our fire. (I don't claim to be an expert fire kind of person. Don't laugh.) I did cover the wood handle with aluminum foil, just in case.
And voila! Bread! And it only took slightly longer than it would in the oven. It tastes a little bit like hamburger, I guess because of drippings in the bottom that I didn't get scraped out well enough. But it's not entirely unpleasant, and if we were hungry I know we would eat it. So now we know.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

i'm telling you, if all hell breaks loose, i'm coming to your house.

Kim said...

*tee hee* Bring some saft if you have it! "End of the World as We Know It" party at my house!

Anonymous said...

i'll have to make some. i'll need you to send me another plum tree in a month or so. :)

hopefully the chaos can hold off for a bit...

Kim said...

Plum tree, we can do. Ditto on the chaos.

Anonymous said...

What pretty bread! I saw this pita bread recipe on a blog I frequent, and since it tells how one may bake it in an iron skillet on a stovetop, I bet it would work on your grill, as well.
http://smittenkitchen.com/2009/03/pita-bread/

Kim said...

Oooh! That looks great! I'm going to have to try it. Thanks for sharing!