Give us this day our daily bread {a bread recipe}

I have been scared of yeasted breads for years even though I longed to give my family homemade whole wheat bread without all the weird stuff from the grocery store...but I was terrified of killing the yeast! I would have out my thermometers, googling "the right temp for yeast", just ridiculous! I was so stressed out and it never seemed to come out right. One day, my friend Traci told me to chill out...yeast is easy and actually hard to kill (I think my stress killed the yeast) so I relaxed and found this yummy bread recipe in some old homeschool/parenting newsletters from my MIL. We make bread every week now and I really love it! I've never had a flop batch of bread. John says it reminds him of the bread his mom made as a kid. Well, that's because it is the same bread! Let me know if you try it out!

Whole Wheat Bread

6-7 cups whole wheat flour
1/3 cup oil
1/3 cup honey
2 3/4 cups warm water
1 T yeast (or 1 pkg)
1 t salt

Mix the yeast into 3/4 cup warm water and let dissolve. (Really, just get it warm and mix the yeast in slowly while stirring. It's never died on me.) Mix oil, honey, salt, water and dissolved yeast together with 6 cups of flour. Knead dough until it is elastic, adding more flour as needed (approx. 15 mins) (I usually call Traci and put her on speaker phone at this point...makes the time go by faster since I don't have a fancy mixer to do the work for me!) Form the dough into two loaves and put them into two greased bread pans to rise. Let rise for about an hour, until double in bulk. Bake at 350 for 35 mins.

That's it! Easy peasy! And when it comes out of the oven, slice everyone a thick piece and drizzle with honey and enjoy! I store one loaf in a cotton towel and in a little drawstring bag that was a gift and the other in a cotton towel in a large ziplock bag. They stay soft and fresh and delicious! Enjoy!