My Favorite Things

I think I'll do a weekly post, for the summer anyway, called My Favorite Things. I have lots of favorite things, depending on the day. Today is my husband's birthday, but my post has absolutely nothing to do with that, although he is definitely right up there at the top of my favorite things list. (I was going to post a photo of him, but blogger doesn't seem to want to put photos in right now). I'm not really thinking people-"things" though.

Anyway, right at this moment in time, the recipe below is one of my very favorite things. Our kids, especially the youngest, love sub sandwiches. They like going to that restaurant that specializes in sub sandwiches, but it hurts me to pay almost $4 for a turkey and cheese sandwich. Plus, when we had a garage sale last summer, my sister was selling this cool baguette pan and it works great for this recipe. Anyway, I tried buying lunchmeat and "sub" shaped bread at the store, and that was somewhat successful. We found a bread called Sweet Italian Subs at one store and the kids loved it, but it wasn't always available and was, again, kind of expensive. So, I found the recipe below at Recipe Zaar. It's a hit, and it's so easy! If you have a bread machine with a dough setting anyway. Give it a try. I'm going to use whole wheat flour next time (to which the kids yell NOOOOOOO, but I'm going to do it anyway :).

Sweet Italian Bread

1 cup water
1 T. olive oil
7 T. sugar
1 egg
3 1/2 c. flour
2 t. yeast

Put all ingredients into bread machine. Mix on dough setting. When cycle is complete, put dough onto greased surface and let it rest for 20 minutes. After dough has rested, cut in half (or however many loaves you want . . I made individual sub loaves). Form into two long loaves (I like to cut little slits along the top of the loaf to make it more like that sub restaurant). Bake at 375 for 20-25 minutes. Brush with butter.

Yum. It's even good by itself.