BBA SOS: Casatiello

I seem to lack motivation these days. I'm not sure why as I tend to be a "get it done" sort of girl, but I haven't been able to motivate myself to blog, or to run, or to call people back (although, honestly, I've never been really good at the last one). I'll blame it on summer vacation. Being back in school is great, and summer vacation is even better. This means that I have time to do all of the fun things that I've wanted to do since I moved to D.C. Even better, people come visit, and life is a big social event. I *heart* summer vacation. Or maybe it's that I spend my days motivating my students to write and I'm motivated out by the end of it? Who knows, really? And excuses are just that, excuses.

All excusing aside, I devoted a large chunk of my time to catching up on the BBA challenge this past weekend, and I managed to get through ciabatta bread. In the meantime, I'm going to post more than a week late on the casatiello bread. Casatiello made its debut in the Singleton's kitchen this past winter, but I never posted it. Sooo, I was really just going to cheat and post my pictures from the first time that I made this delicious bread. But then I saw Nancy's post. She made the cutests casatiello rolls. Now, I'll admit, there are many times when I cheat because Dudley is here to help me eat a lot of what I make and bake, so it isn't always a true Singleton's kitchen. Or, I give things away frequently. But, I can tell you, more often than not, one of the biggest issues I have is what on earth, or how on earth, I'm going to deal with all of this food? There's only so much food one person can eat, and I only have so much space in my freezer. This is why I love anything that can be broken down into single serving portions and saved for later. Eat some, freeze some, give some away! The saving for later part is VERY important! With that in mind, I made the minis and I'm looking forward to working my way through them at a later date.

By the way, casatiello rocks. It's soft, delicious bread, and it really is sort of a meal in itself. I think that these rolls are the perfect accompaniment for a nice green salad. They're very rich, it must be due to that whole butter and egg combination again, but they're soft and pillowy, and I just love the added meat and cheese. The first time I made casatiello I purchased authentic Italian cured salami. This past time, I used the some sliced sopressata that I had leftover from an antipasti platter. I do think that this is such a versatile bread and the add-ins are numerous. It's just one more reason why I adore Peter Rheinhart and all of his fabulous bread!