Wheat Bread Recipe

I've been making the bread for our house for the past month or so. I've made 3 or 4 batches, with the last two being double batches. My double batch of this recipe makes 8 smaller loaves. I should clarify that when I say double batch, I essential mean I make two batches at once, not simply doubling the recipe. I'm not sure if just doubling it would work or not, and I think that doubling it would make the dough difficult to manage in someone's home kitchen.

I got this recipe from Pennies & Pancakes. The first two times I attempted it I followed the recipe exactly, using the combination of white and wheat flour. The resulting bread was good, but had a stronger yeast flavour than I really liked. This may have been some technical error on my part, but who knows. After that, I found multigrain flour on sale and decided to try it instead of the whole wheat. I substituted cup for cup and was much happier with the results. I find that I need about a cup, give or take, more flour when using the multigrain to get the right constancy and the dough is a little stickier, but its still a simple, tasty recipe.

Wheat Bread

3 C lukewarm water
1 1/2 Tbsp dry active yeast
3 Tbsp honey or sugar
1/3 C oil
2 1/2 tsp salt
3 C white flour
4-6 C whole wheat flour

In a large bowl, dissolve the yeast and sugar or honey in the warm water. Cover and let the yeast bubble and grow for at least 10 minutes. Longer is fine, but at least 10.

Before

 After

While I'm letting the yeast feed and bubble, I measure out my dry ingredients.

I sift the 3 C of white flour into a second bowl. For a recipe with strictly white and wheat bread, I add 4 C of wheat flour to the white and leave out an additional cup to add in while I knead it. I do the same with the multigrain except that I leave out 2 cups for kneading in.

I add in the salt and then mix to combine the flours evenly.

White flour, multigrain flour and salt

Go back to your yeast. Once it looks all bubbly, add the oil.

Incorporate the flour into the yeast mixture. I find it easiest to add about half of the flour, mix well and then slowly add the rest, mixing with a rubber spatula. It will get difficult to mix, but use the spatula as long as you can before you pour it out onto a floured surface. It will still be quite sticky.

Knead the dough, slowly adding enough flour to make the dough a little tacky to the touch (more so with the multigrain) but no longer sticky. It should be smooth and elastic. It takes a little longer when using the multigrain flour. I usually end up kneading it for 6-8 minutes.

Cover and let the dough rise until it doubles. It usually takes mine just over an hour, but it depends on the warmth of your kitchen. My kitchen was on the cooler side one day so I turned on my oven and cracked the door open for 20 minutes or so to warm things up.

Doubled

Punch the dough down in the bowl. The original recipe directs you to divide the dough in half and form it into 2 loaves. I found that it made loaves that were too large so I've been dividing mine into quarters.

Slightly knead each portion and then form it and place into a slightly greased pan. I only have 2 loaf pans so I form the other portions into round loaves and place them on a greased cookie sheet. Cover and allow to rise for a second time. The original recipe that divides the dough into two says to rise for the second time until the highest point is about 1/2" above the level of the pan. When I divide it into quarters I usually let it rise until the loaves in the actual loaf pans reaches about the top edge of the pan. While the dough rises for the second time, preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

After forming

After 2nd rise

Bake for approximately 25 minutes. I find these size loaves usually require about 30-35 minutes but check them at 25, depending on your oven. Remove and let cool completely on a wire rack.

Ta-Da!

Homemade Granola Bars

I made some yummy homemade granola bars this past weekend that were as good or better than any store bought ones that I've ever had. I can't find which website I got the recipe off of but it's a good one. It's simple, uses basic ingredients and is super yummy.

So here's the recipe.

1/2 C honey
1/2 C packed brown sugar
1/3 C Peanut butter
1/4 C unsalted butter
2 C rice krispie cereal
4 C quick oats
3 tsp vanilla

Mix the rice krispies (I used the Shopper's drug mart brand and I think I prefer them to brand name. The pieces seem bigger and add more crunch) and the oats together in a bowl.

In a saucepan, combine the honey, brown sugar, peanut butter and unsalted butter. Heat over medium heat until sugar is melted. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla. The first time I made these I didn't realize until I needed to add it that I was out of vanilla. I added about a teaspoon of coconut extract and it worked well.

Note: It's not a good idea to place ingredients on the stove to melt, then forget them there because the cell phone company calls to talk about your available offers for upgrades, and while you're on the phone with the cell phone company your not quite 2 year old pulls off his poopy diaper and run around the house, so you put him in the bath while you keep talking to the cell phone lady, only to remember the melting, now almost burning, sugar and butter mixture on the stove because you happen to walk back into the kitchen . My bars this time have a slightly more toasted flavour….i remembered it before it had actually burned but it definitely cooked too long. So, pay attention to your mixture!

Once it's all melted, mix hot ingredients into rice krispies and oats, until everything is combined. Press mixture into a 13"x9" casserole pan and let cool to room temperature.

The original recipe suggested cutting them into bar shapes and then either wrapping them individually or storing in plastic bags. We haven't gotten past just eating them directly out of the pan yet, but I plan on making a double or triple batch sometime in the near future and individually storing them.

If you wanted to add some chocolate chips, the original recipe suggested just pressing them into the mixture once it has been spread into the pan so that they don't get melted by the hot mixture. I might try adding some nuts or maybe dried cranberries to my next batch.

Give them a try….you won't be disappointed!

Here is the nutritional breakdown for the ENTIRE recipe. So remember to divide it based on how small you make your portions.

Calories: 2,688
Fat: 100g
Cholesterol: 122mg
Sodium: 739mg
Carbs: 740g
Fiber: 22g
Sugars: 262g
Protein: 41g

So, if you got 12 bars out of it, each one would contain 224 calories, 8g fat, 61mg sodium,
61g carbs, 2g fiber, 21g sugar, and 3g protein. They aren't the most healthy things on the planet, but they are tasty. I might try to change the oat/krispies ratio next time to 3 cups of each and see how they turn out.

Easy

Things have gotten easy around here lately. You would think that that would be a good thing, but its not. 

It's gotten easy to make crappy food choices on a daily basis. Cheat meals have slowly turned into cheat days, and now that has kind of morphed into cheat weeks. I'm slowly being sucked back into my old food habits. There haven't been enough veggies on my plate in weeks. 

It's gotten easy to skip workouts. I used to feel antsy and uneasy if I missed one day a week in the gym. Lately, I'm lucky if I get there one day a week. I haven't been to a class in weeks. I have been doing some at home workouts on the Wii, but they are sporadic and my body is really missing the tough weight training. 

It's gotten easy to not step on the scale everyday, to not be too worried by the fact that my weekly weigh ins have be +'s for weeks.

I've fallen off of the wagon and been run over by it. And gained about 10 lbs in the process.

The actively losing part of this weight battle was easy for me. I knew where I wanted to get to, along the way I learned what I needed to do to get there, and I just did it. I never felt deprived food wise, because I still allowed myself treats. And the end goal was far more important to me than the cookies, or ice cream or junk food. The weight came off of my body fairly quickly. The problem is that I don't feel like my brain could keep up.

It's a hard feeling to explain though. Since I hit my goal weight last September (holy crap….that's almost a year ago!) I've been waiting for an "ah ha" moment, some epiphany that would some how make everything easy, but in a positive way. I had no idea while I was losing the weight that maintaining would be such a struggle. I have never thought about my weight and worried about the scale so much in my entire life as I have since I got to goal. I thought that the habits that I created while I was losing would be firm enough to just kind of carry me along and that I would just live life at my healthy weight kind of mindlessly. 

Boy, was I wrong. My obesity is still a monster that lurks behind me everyday. And 19 months of good habits apparently aren't enough to write over 20-some years of bad ones. Imagine that.

A lot of my mental struggle is fairly childish, and of the "it's not fair" variety. It's not fair that I still have to work so hard to maintain a healthy weight. It's not fair that I can't have a metabolism that let's me eat whatever I want. And maybe the biggest one….it's not fair that after all this time and hard work, that I still have body image issues. My skin is too stretched and loose to have the flat stomach that I've worked for and 'deserve'. I still don't see an accurate version of myself when I look in the mirror. 

That's the biggest epiphany I've been waiting for…to someday be ok with my body. I expected it before now but honestly don't see it coming any time soon. I feel stuck in kind of an endless circle right now. I worked really hard and did everything right, but I still wasn't really content with my body. So why work so hard and not eat the muffins and cookies and hamburgers and fries? If I'm not going to be content anyway, I'll just eat whatever I want.

All of this sounds very 'poor me'. And honestly it is. But I do know that I am not the only one that has this struggle or these feelings. I also know that there is no going back to the way I was. I'm afraid enough of the obesity monster to keep it from ever catching me. I just need to trust that some day my brain might catch up with me body and that things will get easy in a good way. 

Until then, I'll wrap up my little pity party, remember to be kind to myself and get back to doing what I need to do.

Breakfast Rice Recipe

I posted a picture on my Facebook last week of one of my current favourite recipes. There was a good amount of interest in it, so when I made another batch during some food prep this week, I took pictures of all the steps to share. The recipe is fairly customizable and it can be tailored based on personal preference but here is the basic method.

The basic theory is to replace 1/2 of the cooking liquid with apple juice, add some warming spices, and use the resulting tastiness is a nice alternative to breakfast oatmeal or cereal.

Ingredients:

Rice  (follow package cooking instructions for rice:liquid ratio)
Apple Juice
Water
Pumpkin Pie Spices
Cinnamon - ground
Cinnamon Sticks
Vanilla

Optional additions might include raisins, cranberries, walnuts, almonds etc


I use a 7 grain medley for my rice (its the same medley I use as rice in general) because I like the texture that the different kinds provides. I haven't tried it with any other types of rice, but I'm pretty sure that any rice you prepare stovetop could be prepared using this general method.

For this batch I was making a lot to have for breakfasts for the week and to have some to share with friends that wanted to try it. If you don't want to end up with several cups of rice, then modify the amount you use.

I started with the pot off of the heat, adding:
2 cups of rice
2 1/3 cups of apple juice
2 1/3 cups of water
1 tbsp pumpkin pie spice
2 small cinnamon sticks

Cook according to package directions. The directions on mine were to bring mixture to a boil, uncovered, over high heat and then reduce the heat to a simmer, cover and cook until liquid is completely absorbed. This amount took about 22 minutes. I set my kitchen timer for 6 minutes at a time to check and stir the rice.

Boiling before being covered

Liquid reducing

My Handsome Helper

Finished cooking

I don't let all of the liquid completely reduce out because with the added sugar from the apple juice I am worried that it will burn. I don't leave it soupy, but if you push a spoon through the rice, there can still be some liquid visible at the bottom of the pot. I have found that as the rice cooks, the liquid kind of sets a little like a syrup, and is completely gone when I reheat.

After the pot came off of the heat I added 2 tsp of vanilla extract and a dusting of cinnamon. Both of these can be added to your own taste. Now would so be the time I would add any dried fruits or nuts if I were using them. Mix well.

This batch made just shy of 11 servings of 1/2 cup each. I portion them all out into my dishes and then into the fridge after they cool.

I prefer mine reheated, but this could also be eaten cold. It reheats well in the microwave and I like to add some coconut almond milk to loosen it up a bit. This morning I also added a few fresh raspberries. The tart berries worked really nicely with the sweet rice!

Give it a try and let me know what you think! Enjoy!