Flabound oneday

you will find Walmart sells most things including cheaper 'everyday' clothes/jeans/tees/sweats etc......white goods check out Home depot and Lowes,

Danoz

I have found meat in the US to be good, but it does lack flavor, especially beef due to the majority of it being grain feed only. But the fact that everything is aged a min 28 days before it is sold is great. I have also found all the beef cuts to be juicy and tender. Lamb appears to be a bit of a forgotten meat here, I have not seen a lot of in shops. You see the occasional rack or fillet, but no legs or shoulders for roasting. But unlike the UK, you don't mind eating beef from the supermarket here!

Pulaski

On the contrary, the two-fold problem I have with most American bread is that it has a significant amount of sugar in the recipe, which makes it taste sweet, and it lacks the salt that British bread has. There are now "low carb" breads of one sort or another fairly widely available, but the lack of salt is something I haven't been able to solve. I suspect that, after more than a decade of "making do" I might finally succumb to buying a bread making machine.

nicola s

Pulaski if you enjoy baking/cooking you don't need a machine for bread I gave mine away last month in the start of my clear out for moving. get a decent size loaf tin and try out a few recipes a damp cloth and a bowl for proving the bread is all that's required

Pulaski

Time. And time. I agree with everything else you say, but time is lacking.

Mrs P and I both have full time jobs. We also have a business which takes up time on the weekend, and I have a list of tasks to do around the house and garden, so unfortunately home baked bread is not high on the list of priorities right now.

Bluegrass Lass

I would do this, but we also suffer from lack of time. I also have a few medical issues where I get easily fatigued. So a bread machine where I just need to put in the ingredients and hit a button definitely appeals to me.

I'm thinking seriously of buying one when we get back to the US in about 2mo..unless I can nab one from a family member!

Hotscot

Try the No Knead Method.

My wife throws a loaf together every week with minimal fuss, and the bread is wonderful.

jibsymalone

We just got one for these very reasons. I have to admit, I have not missed the store bought stuff one bit. The only trouble I seem to be having is making a loaf last longer than a few hours.

nicola s

I agree time is needed for these things, and when I worked full time I used the machine, right now I live across the road from a great bakery so buy from there and its been gathering dust, and in the decluttering for the move it was one of the things to go.

I am going to be without a job when I move over to KL so im looking forward to baking etc, im currently researching how to make lorne sausage to save smuggling it over.

Steve_

I was just going to say that, expensive compared to where?

Part of the reason is the greater transport distances involved compared to the UK. And that's also the reason there's usually less fresh food too. And also the reason so many things that are liquids in Europe are powders in N America.

I think there's also more competition in the UK due to the population density, more supermarkets closer together because there are more people so you can shop around more easily. In the US and Canada the next nearest supermarket can easily be 5+ miles away.

Although Vancouver never makes sense to me, it is very crowded but when I go into supermarkets there they're significantly more pricey than in Calgary plus you have the US option we don't have. Unless you fancy a drive to Great Falls. "Save On Foods" is the worst supermarket name ever, the one near me has the highest prices on most things. They seem to use a few things like milk as loss leaders to get people in the store. But the Cost Cutter in Blaine is pretty dire, you have to go somewhere decent like Fred Meyers in Bellingham.

Ruth16

The breads not as good as we got in the UK, unless you go to the bakery, the only sliced bread I like is pepperidge farm, I buy the thin sliced this way I don't have to cut off the crusts.

mikelincs

I use a bread machine, BUT, only use the dough setting, put all the ingredients in and let it knead the dough and do the first proving, once it has filled the pan with the dough, then I turn it out into a loaf tin, making sure the paddle doesn't come out, and then do a slight knock down to ensure the dough has got into all the corners, and give it a final prove, I then cook it for 30 mins at about 180C, and it's done, I even make wholemeal the same way, but just let it prove longer.

Uncle_Bob

we have a bread machine. The best thing is being able to put the ingredients in the night before and have it timed to come on in the early morning. So you can wake up to the smell of freshly baked bread.

Pulaski

Is there any advantage to doing it that way? Does it not bake as well in the bread maker?

nicola s

Pulaski, just my thoughts but I never managed to get quite as good results from the bread maker it was always quite a dense bread, I like soft loaves but maybe others have had better results, and if you have a dough hook for a mixer it saves the kneading, although id rather do that than work out any day of the week