If you want your home to smell amazing, bake some bread. It’s tough to beat the yeasty aroma, unless you happen to follow it up with cooking some bacon which is what I did yesterday. To break in the KitchenAid Mixer that my boyfriend surprised me with (I know, I’m the luckiest :)), I decided to make french bread for BLTs. Or BLTCs, as we added cheese to our sandwiches. While the bread was rising I cooked the bacon. Once the bread was in the oven, we played a few rounds of rummy, then prepped the toppings and a homemade vinaigrette.

For the vinaigrette, I shook together some red wine vinegar, olive oil, garlic powder, Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper. We sliced open one of the loaves while it was still warm, poured some of the vinaigrette on both sides and let it soak in before assembling our sandwiches. Bacon, lettuce, tomato, and cheddar is a simple, but classic combination that is tough to go wrong with. And when you add fresh, warm bread to the mix? It doesn’t get much better than that. I’ve followed this french bread recipe twice now, once by hand and once using a mixer. Both times yielded excellent loaves of bread. This recipe is a keeper.