It’s snowing outside, so I stayed home from work, today. I actually had every intention of going in, but when I went out at 6:30am to check things out, our driveway and street were sheets of ice, and my neighbor across the street had her car stuck in the middle of the street. A few pushes and grunts got her back into her driveway, but it set the tone for my drive down the hill to work. Down the hill. A winding, 2-lane road-hill.

At 23, I would have jumped into the car and slalomed into work. At almost 63, I’m no longer quite as reckless. The mind is willing but the recovery takes so much longer…

So… with a free day off and nowhere to go, I decided it was time for some baking. I’m still working on getting my mom’s cook books together and one of the recipes I have rediscovered is for a Bacon and Tomato Swirl bread. It’s another one that is extremely easy and totally rocks. The recipe makes 2 loaves or 12 buns. Or, in my case, one loaf and 6 buns.

Bacon and Tomato. In bread. I mean, really. How could one resist? Did I mention it was an easy dough to make?

Naturally, I had all the ingredients necessary, so I set to work.

I didn’t think to take pictures of the making of the bread and rolls, but suffice to say that it’s pretty effortless.

The rolls came out great, albeit a bit irregularly shaped.

But boy-oh-boy were they good!

Really light with lots and lots of flavor. I see more of these in our future. They held together perfectly and would definitely lend themselves to any number of fillings.

I haven’t sliced into the loaf, yet. I’m saving it for dinner…

As is typical of me, I more-or-less followed the recipe. The key to this one is watching how much flour goes in – and that is going to be determined by the amount of bacon fat and liquid in your tomatoes. I used just under 4 cups of flour and had a relatively soft dough.

And since I made buns, I decided that I needed to grill hamburgers for lunch.

Damn the snow!

The grill is covered.

Cold, but covered. We do grill year-round, especially during snow-storms. It’s kinda a rule.

The burgers were excellent. I loaded mine up with sprouts. Victor and Nonna won’t touch them, but I love ’em.

As for the bread… the recipe calls for “1 can (1 pound) tomatoes.” I used a 14 1/2 oz can of diced tomatoes in juice. Worked just fine.