Pinch My Salt

Pinch My Salt is a blog with a friendly, bubbly tone written by a woman named Nicole, who is — we imagine — herself pretty friendly and bubbly. She has created an amusing blog with really approachable recipes and one fun-to-follow challenge, in which she and a group of ambitious followers bake their way, recipe-by-recipe, through The Bread Baker’s Apprentice, by Peter Reinhart.

Nicole describes the challenge thusly: “We are a group of home bakers with a crazy goal in mind: to attempt every single recipe in Peter Reinhart’s wonderful book.” OK. Simple enough. What we love about the challenge is that she has created a worldwide community of participants who not only bake along with her, but post photos of their breads at every step of the baking process, from proofing yeast, to dough balls and finished, baked bread, on a Flickr page: “Our kitchens are scattered across the world, but we…are on this journey together and will lend support to each other through photography, e-mail, blogs and twitter.”

In addition to the BBA Challenge, Nicole keeps the blog filled with simple recipes, like a Brown Rice Salad with Cumin and Lime Vinaigrette (one of many), that skew healthy, and fruit-and-vegetable-focused, like Strawberry Freezer Jam.