Nouna's Bread

It's hard to remember the holidays without having a memory of my Nouna's Bread!! Without fail...every year on Thanksgiving and Christmas our mouths would water for this stuff. Nouna is the only one in our family who was able to truly keep alive her VeVe's special recipe for this amazing Greek bread. My mother and my nouna have been retelling the stories for years about how their VeVe (grandmother) used to make this bread, and always had a fresh hot loaf ready for them when they arrived at her house in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, no matter what time their arrival was. I am soooo thankful that my Nouna shared her love for baking because she has passed the recipe down to me. It's not only a recipe...but a HUGE task. The recipe makes EIGHT loaves...but the hard work in making it....is sooo worth it in the end. I dream of eating this bread with butter melting all over it!!!!!! (No you can never have enough butter!!!!) I have made it many times in the past. I have had MANY failures...just ask Brett....have even come home to overflowing bread in my oven....and I have had some successes. This year I decided I needed to watch my Nouna so I could be sure to have her tricks down. So, today was the day!!! I'm trying to recopy my recipe right now so I can remember all of her special touches!!

We began early this morning. Little J was so excited for "Na's" arrival that he stood at the window waiting for her for about 20 minutes!!! It was too cute!





And of course, curious Joe had to be right where the action was.



I should have taken a picture of the 8 loaves after they were baked...because not only did they turn out beautiful...but they were extra delicious!!! Thanks Nouna for sharing your day with me and for sharing this special family recipe. I hope that someday when I am a "VeVe" my grandchildren will be telling stories about my warm bread too!!!

I'm dying to decorate for Christmas....but I am making myself wait till after Thanksgiving, since we are hosting Thanksgiving at our house this year! So besides our lights outside...we are pretty much still in Thanksgiving mode around here. There has been lots of baking going on, though...and my little mister is becoming quite interested in all those goodies lying around on the counter. Here is the little guy pretty much caught red-handed!!!





And a final funny before I email my Nouna to make sure I've got this recipe written correctly.... This is how I found Sophia brushing her teeth the other night. Apparently she remembered how the dentist sometimes makes her wear sunglasses during dental work....so she put on these funny glasses her daddy had given her from one of his jobs!! Too cute!



Whoops...one more...in preparation for her "Farmer's Market" at school tomorrow, we had to pull out a bandana for Sophia to wear. They all thought it looked more funny on mama's head.