Soy-Free Saturday: Bread

I looked everywhere for soy-free, whole-wheat bread.  Well, almost everywhere.  Ok.  I looked in a lot of places.  And I didn't see a lot of options.  Soy oil was used in everything!

Happily, I usually make most of our bread, and that's been not only a big money-saver, but it's then very easy to make sure it's soy-free!

It's a pretty easy recipe (at least it usually is), and you can check it out here.

However, let's be perfectly honest: I do not always have time, nor energy, to make bread.  I often do, and I enjoy it, but I still wanted to have a store-bought option for those times.

Finally, I managed to find whole-wheat bread at Trader Joe's.  Unfortunately, it's $2.99/loaf.  And though we do still sometimes buy it for the sake of convenience, I prefer the price, and frankly the taste, of the home-made stuff.  I have figured that it costs about 40 cents a loaf to make it at home, which can be motivating.

For anyone looking for easy bread recipes, you can also check out MoneySavingMom.com's butterhorn rolls.  They are easy, delicious, and my favorite part - they can be made ahead of time and frozen for later.

Note: I changed a few things from her recipe - I used only whole-wheat flour and added a few tablespoons of vital wheat gluten (see my bread recipe for more on that ingredient), and the next time I make them I think I will try to make at least 10 rolls per circle, if not more - the rolls turned out really, really big!  

So, if you are trying to reduce or eliminate soy, and especially soy oils from your diet, make sure you check the labels of your bread!  And try being even more adventurous and making your own - if I can do it, anyone can!

**Disclaimer: These Soy-Free Saturday posts contain only my opinion, and should be used with discretion according to your doctor's assessment of your personal needs.  

Dough-slapping silliness

We have been crazy busy, and I was shocked today to realize that Isaac had never made bread with me before.  I had made some right before he came to live with us, and that lasted a little while, and we actually bought a loaf from the store (gasp!...I know...).

Actually, I have one more reason that it's becoming more and more important to me to make my own bread:  it's WAY cheaper, it tastes better, it's really healthy, AND it's SOY-FREE.  I looked at a ridiculous amount of labels before finally just settling on a loaf of bread that had soy oil, just further down the list.  Every.single.loaf had soy oil in it.

So...today we made bread.  I was a little torn with the idea - on one hand, it's crazy-hot here - a heat index of 110....on the other hand, it's a good day to do indoor activities.  I rationalized it by reminding myself that it would be an educational activity for Isaac, and plus, Dave loves fresh bread.

It was.....awesome.  He had SO much fun learning more about my stand mixer, and how to operate all the buttons and levers (don't worry, safety and fingers were discussed at length).

Once we had the dough all mixed and kneaded, I pulled it out of the bowl to shape it into a ball and grease the bowl for rising.  While shaping it into ball, it was kind of moist, so I was sort of "slapping" it into shape, rather than using a soft touch.

At first Isaac just sort of stared at me, speechless, then he just dissolved into giggles.

Then, when I told him he could slap it, the giggles were just about endless.

He slapped and giggled, laughed some more, slapped it from a different side, and laughed so hard he almost fell off his stool.

After we were done slapping the dough, he wanted to know if we could get a slapping attachment for my mixer.  I don't think KitchenAid makes those.....

Anyway, it's been fun to see how the smallest of things are so much fun to a little boy.  He loves to help in the kitchen, and it's been a fun way to work on fine motor skills (pouring slowly, dumping flour gently, stirring in different directions), math skills (counting how many cups of flour, adding and subtracting to see how many of things we need), and build our relationship (the giggling!).

For anyone interested in trying the bread recipe, you can see that post here (note, dough-slapping was not included in the instructions, so feel free to add it in!).

Whole Wheat Bread Recipe

I bake pretty much all of our own bread at our house.  Partly because I like how it makes the house smell, and partly because it fits really well within the rules of how I decide when something is worth making from scratch versus store bought.  As we have worked on eating healthy, I have made an effort to make more food from scratch, at least when it makes sense to me.

I have a few basic guidelines for scratch versus store bought, and they are as follows:

• Is it significantly cheaper to make it at home? (at least $15 savings per hour of hands-on time?)
• Is there a notable health difference?
• Is there a notable taste difference?
• Is it enjoyable to make?

If I can't say yes to at least one, preferably 2 or 3, of those guidelines, I skip the guilt, look for coupons, and buy it at the store.  Bread, however, fits pretty much all of those guidelines (for me, anyway!).   

For us, the whole-grain bread we had been buying at the store was around $3 per loaf.  The ingredients for a loaf of bread is about $0.50.  And, since it only takes about 15 minutes of hands-on time per 2 loaves, that's a savings of $20 per hands-on hour (2.50 per loaf x 2 loaves at a time = $5 /15 minutes = $20/hour).  

There's a significant health difference, as it's 100% whole-wheat, and I know for sure that there is no soy oil used in the bread.  

We love the taste. A lot.

And I enjoy making it!

So, bread is a from-scratch item at our house, pretty much all the time.  I've had a few people ask me about my bread recipe, and I've kept tweaking it enough that I was hesitant to share until I was happy with it.  However, I finally arrived at a recipe I love!  The bread that I made this week was the softest loaf to ever come out of my oven.

So, whether you're thinking about making all your own bread at home, or are just interested in trying a loaf every now and then, I hope you enjoy!  

100% Whole Wheat Bread (makes 2 loaves)

Ingredients:

2 cups plus 5 T of hot water

2 rounded T evaporated fat-free milk

1/4 c canola oil

1/4 c raw sugar (turbinado)

1/4 c pure honey

2 t sea salt 

6 cups whole wheat flour (See notes for more on flour)

4 heaping T of Vital Wheat Gluten (available at Walmart, in the flour area)

4 teaspoons yeast

*2 T whole flax seed (optional, but we love it, and it's oh-so-healthy!)

Notes:

I use my kitchen-aid mixer for this recipe.  If you use a bread maker to make the dough, you will want to cut the recipe in half, and I would recommend baking it in the oven and just using the dough cycle.  If you don't have a stand mixer with a dough hook, you could also knead it by hand (at least, you could if you are stronger than I am).

If you're not familiar with Vital Wheat Gluten,  the kind I get looks like this:

*Check it out on Amazon

It really helps the texture of a whole wheat bread, and also adds protein.  Great stuff!

Flour.  The type of flour used in bread will make a HUGE difference in the end consistency.   Ultimately, I really, really would like to get a small grain mill and make my own flour.  Until then, I have used Wheat Montana's Bronze Chief 100% whole wheat flour.  It makes the softest bread.  They also have another line of flour, Prairie Gold.  The difference in flours is explained on their Amazon page:

The difference between 'Bronze Chief', (Hard red Spring Wheat and Prairie Gold (hard White Spring Wheat). Nutritionally both the Hard Red Spring, Hard White Spring, and Hard Red Winter varieties that we grow are the same (15-16% protein and 9-10% moisture). Basically the difference is in the end product: Bread made with Hard Red Wheat is darker and denser (more of a brown traditional look). Items made with Hard White Wheat "look a little more like white bread". They bake up a beautiful golden color and do not possess the stronger taste associated with the traditional whole wheat breads. Chemical Free. GMO Free.      

Directions:

Add the ingredients in the order listed, and mix until everything is just mixed together.  Let dough rest for 10-15 minutes.  

While your dough is resting, turn your oven on "Warm," or whatever the lowest setting is for a few minutes.  You don't want it to be super hot, but it should be nice and warm.  Do remember, though, to turn the oven off before actually putting towel-covered dough in there.

Knead on speed 2 for about 4 minutes.  Sometimes I finish the kneading by hand.  Lightly oil your bowl (I spray the bowl with olive oil), set your dough in it, cover with a towel, and set in your warm oven for about 40 minutes, or until it's about doubled in size, like this:

At that point, use a sharp knife to cut the dough in half.  Flatten it out a bit, then roll it up into a loaf, tucking the ends under and pinching the seam.  Put both loaves into oiled loaf pans, cover with a towel, and put them back in the oven to rise.

Let them rise 40 minutes to an hour, until they are about doubled in size.  

Then bake them at 350* for about 20 minutes.  You will know they are done when you tap lightly on the top and it sounds hollow. 

Slice and enjoy it while it's warm!

Final note:  This bread has no preservatives in it, so for best results, store in the fridge.   We usually microwave a slice for about 8-10 seconds before eating, and it tastes just like it's out of the oven all over again!

 *This is my referral link. 

Baking Bread without the Fire Extinguisher

As many of you know, we had a bit of excitement about a week ago when I accidentally set my kitchen on fire trying to bake bread (which I do on a very regular basis, so I don't quite know what happened this time!).  I lost a few towels to the flames, and made an extraordinary mess, but everything was ok, and Dave was really quite kind about the whole fiasco.  

Here is a photo of the nastiness that was the inside of my oven:

Now that things are back to normal, I thought I'd try baking bread again, but I was a little nervous.  Didn't want to set another fire, you know.  Although, Dave said that if it caught fire again, we'd just get a new oven.  It was tempting, but I didn't want the embarrassment of 2 house fires that close together, so I played it very safe.

What a relief it was, then, to have my bread rise without incident!  I was so happy after the first rising cycle that I turned part of the dough into celebratory cinnamon-raisin bread.  And added a few rolls for good measure (there were 4, but I had to taste-test when they were fresh out of the oven....)

See?  Isn't that a much nicer picture than the one above?

I was pretty happy with the cinnamon-raisin bread, too.  I hadn't ever tried that before, and I think that one will stay in the repertoire now.

It's such a relief to have baked bread without incident after the last time.  Next time I might even try leaving the room while it's rising.  For now, though, I'm just enjoying the way the house smells!

Tossing My Cake (and a request for ideas!).

Don't worry, this post is not about puke.  I don't write about that, because I don't like thinking about it, writing about it, or, for that matter, reading about it.  Blech.

This post is actually about cake.  And the kind of sugar that goes into it.  I made an awesome carrot cake over the weekend.  I say that, of course, with all humility, as it wasn't my recipe in the first place.  I merely worked to re-create someone else's awesomeness.  I did play with the recipe a bit, though, and while some of them were healthy changes that are great for non-birthday cakes (ie, the changes that allowed it to be made with all whole-wheat flour), some of them were....well, I don't know.  Intended to be healthy, but didn't turn out that way?

When I went to add the sugar to the cake, I found that all I had was Splenda, as I don't really do that much baking that involves white, refined sugar - I mostly make whole grain breads, rolls, and muffins.  Although the cake turned out tasting good, I have, over the course of the week, decided that I don't like using that much "fake" sugar in my food.  I've still been using Splenda in my coffee (partly because we have a Costco-sized bag of it that I refuse to waste, and partly because I haven't found another alternative).

So I'm tossing the rest of my cake.  Even though it tastes delicious.

From here out, though, I need to figure out an alternative solution.  I still don't want all the calories and such that comes from regular, refined sugar.  And I don't really want all the fake sugar in my diet, either.  And yet, I have a relentless sweet tooth that refuses to quit.

I've used agave nectar in the past, but it affects the moisture content of a recipe since it's a liquid, so I found it to be a better alternative for brown sugar than white in recipes (although maybe some of you  readers have a good suggestion about how to alter a recipe to accomodate that?) .  A friend recommended Truvia, but I've only found that in the individual packets at the one store where I looked for it.  I'm definitely not ripping open 50 packets next time I need a cup of sugar, so I'll have to look elsewhere to see if they carry it in a non-packet form.

So, I think I'm going to be experimenting with more natural sweeteners over the coming months.  Besides, it will probably be better for our upcoming kiddos, anyway (and I still mean that in a very vague way.  We haven't received any news yet).  I  don't really know wether kids should have fake sweeteners, but my instinct says it's probably not a good idea.

Do any of you have experience with natural-based sweeteners?  I'd really like to learn more about what can be swapped for white sugar.  Please comment if you have any ideas to share!

In the meantime, I think I'll make bread tomorrow, since my recipe uses honey anyway.  Hopefully it goes better than it did the last time!

Why you should never, ever miss a hair appointment.

Have you ever had that nagging feeling that you're missing something?  And that it's probably important? I felt that way this morning, and even though I was busy getting things done, I couldn't shake that thought.  So, I got out my calendar, and discovered that I was an entire week off.  And currently missing my much-needed hair appointment.

I had it in my mind that my hair appointment was the week after we finished PS-MAPP classes.  And we finished them this week.  Unfortunately, I forgot to adjust my thinking for the snow day we had last week that pushed the end of our classes back a week.

At any rate, I quickly called my hair place, and they were very nice, and gave me an appointment for this Friday.  Which, in all actuality, is still about 5 days earlier than I had thought it was.

So, since I was feeling pretty caught up for the moment, I decided to make some home-made whole-wheat bread and rolls.  I have been tweaking the recipe over and over, and was going to try to make the best loaf yet.  I was pretty sure I had figured out how to get my recipe just about perfect (well, perfect for our tastes anyway).  So, I whipped up the bread dough and let it rise for an hour.  

Then, after punching the dough down for the second rising (probably my favorite part of baking bread), I shaped half the dough into a bread loaf, and made rolls out of the rest of it.  I even got a little creative and braided some of the bread, just to see if it would turn out.  Then I realized that I had put the rolls on a pretty big pan, and that pan and the bread pan didn't quite fit in the oven and allow the door to shut all the way.  

Not to be deterred, I loosely covered both pans with a towel, set the oven on "warm," and let it sit for a few minutes, with the door just slightly open.  I went back a little later to turn the over off and just let them rise in the warm oven, when I noticed our entire kitchen filled with smoke.  Rushing over to the stove, I found my towels completely engulfed in flames.  

Now, as foolish as it might sound to most people to put towels in the oven, I've actually done for quite some time, and never had a problem.  Until today.  

So, I tried shoving the oven door shut, hoping the lack of air would kill the flames.  It didn't.  I tried again.  Still no luck.  Actually, the flames were getting more impressive.  Nearly in a panic at this point, I thought, "I should call Dave at work.  He could be here in time to keep the house from burning down."  

As a side note, I'm working at thinking more clearly in crisis situations, but I (thankfully) don't have very many opportunities to practice, so it's taking me awhile to improve.

Before I moved to call Dave, I remembered the fire extinguisher that we keep under our kitchen sink (which was the smarter move.  See?  I'm getting better).  I grabbed it and pulled the trigger, and POOF.  Our entire stove was covered in that nasty fire-extinguisher film.  It actually took most of the stuff to put all the flames out.  

I threw Yarbo outside, and opened every window in the house, despite the fact that it was about 14 degrees out, and called Dave in a panic, telling him that the house had been on fire but that I was pretty sure it wasn't anymore (I'm also not very good at reporting crisis situations in the moment.  Again, I'm working on that...).

So now, after our house was just cleaned top to bottom, I have to re-clean everything.  The "dust" from the extinguisher is in 3 different rooms, completely covering everything.  I mopped the floor closest to the oven 3 times, and it's still disgusting.  I haven't even touched the inside of the oven yet.  

I guess we're going out to eat tonight.

Oh, and the the final kicker?   Aside from the excessive amounts of extinguisher dust all over them, those rolls and the loaf of bread looked like they were going to be absolutely amazing.  Sigh...

I will never, ever miss a hair appointment again.  I hope.

Tasty Traditions

Lots of families have traditions.  We are a family with lots of traditions, especially around Christmas.  Some of them revolve around Christmas music, some of them are about the order in which things are done on the night we open gifts (which we pretend is Christmas Eve).  

In case you're wondering, the proper order of things on pretend Christmas Eve is: Dinner (always the same. Chili, Oyster Stew, and these little sandwiches that my brother can eat 8 of at a time), clean-up/put together the tray of fudge, cookies, and other such Christmas treats, sing Christmas carols around the piano, read the Christmas story, have family prayer time, then open the gifts one by one till they're gone.  That may have been more details than you wanted.

At any rate, one of the traditions we had growing up was an entire night devoted to decorating Christmas cookies as a family.  Some years we went all out - there were snowmen with plaid scarves holding a broom, holly leaves with family member's names written on them, and candles so detailed that there was frosting-wax dripping from the frosting flames.  For whatever reason, we haven't done it for a few years, but this year, we brought it back. 

My parents, brother, his girlfriend, and one of his residents (my brother's a CA on his dorm floor at ISU) all came over on Friday, and we decorated like crazy.  It takes a surprisingly long time to decorate all those cookies!  

Also, while looking at these photos,  it occurred to me how much our family really does like sports.  There were at least 2 ISU cookies, at least 2 Husker cookies, and a Chicago Bears cookie.  

I guess where your heart is, there your cookie decorating skills shall be also.

But I love the memories it brought back, and I loved having time to sit around the table with family and friends.  Plus, our house smelled like sugar cookies, which is just about the most cozy smell I can think of.

And, in case anyone is curious, we definitely listened to Mannheim Steamroller while we frosted!

Fluffy Fun.

Did you know that it is possible to make marshmallows at home?  I'm here to tell you it is.  And they are, in short, incredible (if I don't mind saying so myself!).  I made some vanilla ones, that are just fluffy bites of deliciousness, some that are dipped in chocolate and then crushed candy canes, and some peppermint flavored marshmallows that I think will be lovely in hot chocolate.

Also, I think they're really pretty in the pan, before they're cut.

Not that you can see the difference in flavors, but this is a vanilla one.

And a mix of peppermint ones and chocolate/candy cane dipped ones.

Yum.  I love holiday baking!  So far I've made gingersnaps, sugar cookies, and these marshmallows.  I'm usually more into making whole wheat bread, whole-grain muffins, etc, but this is a very fluffy, fun, diversion from the norm.