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!

I’ve been back to work for a month now. We’re managing fairly well, I think. Most of our ability to manage is due to the fact that I have fantastic parents who save my butt on a regular basis. My parents have always been a huge help, but they have been even more so this year, when I’ve been making daily trip to the gym at times that weren’t convenient for my husband to be home. I have no idea how we would manage this ‘two working parents’ life without their help. The boys have been moving in with Grammy and Pappy for my entire rotation and spending evenings on my days off there as well, so that I can get to the gym. So thankful for them!

I knew that going back to work was going to be a challenge. My kids were going to have to adjust to not being at home with me everyday (and vice versa...I love being home with my boys). I was going to have to figure out how to find time to get to the gym around a job with shift work. I was going to have to prepare myself food-wise for busy days/nights at work and also for the slower days/nights where I’m-bored-so-I’ll-just-eat-something is so easy. Add into that mix the fact that my husband works on a potato farm and has been working 100+ hour weeks digging since just after I returned to work. 

So far I have managed to stay on track. I’ve been getting to the gym at least 3-4 days a week. I was worried about keeping the desire to hit the gym. During the time that I was going to the gym just before I found out that I was pregnant with Hudson, I tried to go after work. It was easy for a short time, but then it became a chore and I started opting to just go home more frequently that I chose the gym. I wasn’t really having any success with losing weight so really didn’t have any motivation to keep going. And I hadn’t been going long enough for it to have become habit. Both of those things are different this time around. I’ve hit my goal weight and don’t want to undo all of the success that I have had, and I’ve been at this long enough for my workouts to be part of my life and not just something that I have to do. I feel like the workout part of this return to work adjustment is solid.

I did some food prep before starting back to work and I’ve been able to keep my eating fairly on track. At least work-wise that is. I’ve been struggling a little with eating more crap than I should be, and adjusting to the maintaining-not-losing frame of mind, but that’s another post all together. 

I pack a rather large lunch cooler for each shift with 3 meals and lots of healthy snacks for every shift. I come prepared. I wasn’t entirely prepared for how easy and tempting it would be to fall back into old habits. I’ve read and heard stories about people losing huge amounts of weight only to gain it all back, and the thing that always came to my mind is why?!? and how?!?. I never understood how, after working so hard, they could let them slip back to ground zero. Being back to work has given me a little glimpse into the why and how. 

It would be so, so, so easy to fall back into old habits. 

My job seems to conspire against me. Our base is behind a local pizza place. On a regular basis the wind wafts the tantalizing scent of pizza and garlic fingers across our parking lot and into the building. Standing outside around lunch or suppertime to enjoy the beautiful fall that we’ve be blessed with is dan-ger-ous!

It's a good thing there is a fence between us and the pizza place

Work has been pretty busy since I’ve been back. On both of my day shifts last week I spent the entire 12 hours away from our base. A reprieve from the garlicfingerpizzadeliciousness wind, yes, but tiring. That many hours away from base means trying to grab something to eat quickly before the radio tones go off, calling your truck number and you’re in gear again. It means fueling up the truck then walking into gas stations and being confronted with chips, candy and chocolate. It means that all of the fast food places look soooooo tempting for an easy, sinful supper on the way home.

Add to that, night shifts add hours to my day. At home, after the boys go to bed around 9 pm, I go to bed. I don’t stumble down the stairs in my sleep to stand at the fridge and snack, so for about 8 hours I don’t need to try not to eat crap. At home I get 8 safe hours when I don’t need to convince my stomach that it is just bored, not hungry. On night shifts, that is not the case. We are able to sleep some when we’re not busy but I prefer not to be woken to do calls so I stay up much later than at home. Even on slow nights when I’m not awake doing calls, I routinely see 1 am. That adds 3-4 hour more waking hours in which I need to battle the beast. 

A co-worker of mine has a son that's selling chocolate bars as a fundraiser for his gymnastics group. An ambulance base that has people in and out all day long is a fantastic place to stick a whole case of chocolates and have them sell. When my boys have junk to sell for fundraisers you can bet that I'm going to haul it all to work and let everyone else buy it. But for now, the chocolate covered almonds stare at me from across the room. 

Falling back into the old habits and my old lifestyle would be so easy, but in the past month I've also been reminded that it is so worth it to not go back. I have a job that can be very physically demanding at times, and I notice a gigantic difference between trying to do the job at 250lbs and now at 165lbs.

It feels like they made the ambulances bigger while I was gone. We work in some pretty cramped places, and the back of an ambulance is far from spacious but I don't feel stuffed into it anymore. I can move around and get the things done that I need to so much more comfortably. 

I can wear my work sweater on calls now. I never could before because the littlest amount of activity, or a home with the heat turned up had me sweating from the minute we walked in the door. I used to be drenched at the end of most calls, even ones that were relatively easy. 

The intermediate and advances care medics carry a drug pouch that has our controlled medications in it. I used to have to wear mine at my side because if I wore it at the front of my belt I couldn't see into the pouch past my stomach to see which drugs I was taking out. I wear it quiet comfortably at the very front of my belt now. 

I wear tall work shirts so that they stay tucked in when I'm moving around on calls. Before, I would tuck my shirt in then pull it most of the way out again so that they untucked part "hid" my stomach. I don't have a stomach to hide behind a puffy shirt anymore.

I'm sure I will continue to have days when slipping back to old habits would to be easy thing to do. I just hope that I can keep finding reasons to never go back again.

Body Image

Body image is such a weird thing.

When I was over weight, I obviously knew that I was over weight, but I don't think that I really saw it in the mirror. I always saw myself as smaller than I really was, and that allowed me to not do anything about it. I would get unpleasant reminders when I needed to buy a new piece of clothing and had a hard time finding things my size, but for the most part, I don't think I really saw it.

I looked in the mirror and saw an athletic build, with too much belly, but an athletic build. I've said it before, but I honestly thought I was just built bigger and that the healthy BMI range for my height was a ridiculous underestimation and wouldn't be achievable. I was strong and saw myself in that light.

Some of this semi-comfort definitely came from the fact that I knew that my family and especially my husband loved me as I was. I'm not sure where else it might have come from, but it was there. It wasn't confidence...far from that. I just didn't see enough of a problem to want to change it.

This distorted body image did nothing for my health, but in a weird way it served me well, in that I didn't hate really myself. I wasn't happy with my body, but I didn't really loath it either.

I assumed as I lost weight, that I would either continue to see myself as smaller than I was or start to see myself accurately. I was wrong on both guesses.

It has come as a complete surprise that my self perception has actually done a 180. When I look in the mirror now, most of the time, I don't think I quite see myself accurately. I don't see the old me, but I'm not really seeing the new me yet either. My brain can't compute just how much smaller I've gotten.

Since I've started back to work, every time I hold up my work pants to put them on my brain looks at them and says, "There is no way those are going to fit" and there is still a feeling of surprise when I can not only pull them on higher than my knees, but all the way up and fasten them. 

My husband has taken to calling me Skinny Minnie, people have asked if I'm done losing weight and people have actually used the word skinny, string bean, and tiny to describe me. These are words that never in a million years did I ever think would be used to describe me.

I'm assuming and hoping that as time goes on I'll get more accustomed to this body that I'm walking around in. I had 29 years to get used to that old body. I just need some more time to get used to this one. 

I did some food prep to get ready for my return to work this weekend and a few people wanted the recipes that I used, so here they are.

The first recipe came from Trainer Awesome at my gym. I love cabbage rolls but have never made them because the process sounded too daunting. I’ve typed the recipe as I received it, but I changed it some when I made it.

This casserole is YUMMY! and was super easy.

I changed the recipe for two reasons. One, to suit my own tastes, and also because I was making it with the intention of being able to portion and freeze.

My plan was to just double the recipe, so I used 2lbs of ground pork (I much prefer ground pork to ground beef), 2 onions and 3 smallish stalks of celery. I also added 1 orange pepper, chopped, and 6-7 white mushrooms sliced, to the veg.

I didn’t have any version of garlic in the house, so there was none in my casserole. I did use probably 1 1/2 Tbsp of chili powder and maybe 1/2 Tbsp of cumin. I may have added a few shakes of italian seasoning too, but I’m not sure. I’m kind of a just throw it in the pot kind of cook. The spice measurements are very much ballpark...add to your own tastes.

After I sauted the veggies and then added and browned the meat, I cut up my cabbage. I despise our grater and didn’t feel like digging out the food processor for just 1 head of cabbage, so I just quartered it, sliced each quarter in fairly thin strips and cut around the core when I got down to that point.

Once I got one cabbage sliced, I knew that there was no way that everything was going to fit in my cast iron dutch oven baking dish as it was, let alone with doubling the cabbage. I put a layer of cabbage at the bottom of my two biggest baking dishes, covered with meat/veg and then topped with the remaining cabbage. There was no more room for any additional cabbage at that point.

I added about 1 C of vegetable broth to each dish, instead of the water that the recipe calls for.

I covered and baked for what ended up being about 2 1/2 hours.

As they cooked and the cabbage wilted down there was more room in the dishes. I was happy with the ratio of meat to cabbage, but being able to add more cabbage would have lowered the calories per serving. Next time I might try sauteing the cabbage a little before it gets layered in to see if I could get 2 heads of cabbage to fit.

The way I made the recipe yielded 9 portions of about 190g each (I weigh everything...that weight portion fit in my 1 1/4 C containers) and according to my.fitness.pal, this is how the nutritional info breaks down.
276 Calories
15.9g Total Fat
65.4g Cholesterol
125.8 mg Sodium
12.9 g Total Carbs
4g Fiber
7.4g Sugar
20.3g Protein (that one seems a little high to me....maybe? Input anyone?)

I’ve been eating mine with a 1/2 C serving of a 7 grain rice blend. Love it!


Baked Cabbage

1lb extra lean ground beef (or ground meat of your choosing)
1 medium onion, chopped
1 stalk of celery, chopped
3 cloves of garlic
1 tsp olive oil
Salt and Pepper, to taste
1 medium cabbage, shredded
1/2 cup water

Pre-heat oven to 350 F. In a skillet, saute onion and celery, garlic in olive oil until just soft. Add meat, salt and pepper, stir and leave over heat until meat is cooked through. Spread half of the shredded cabbage in a 2 quart baking dish and cover with all of the meat mixture. Add the remaining cabbage. Pour water over top and cover and backe for 1 hour.



The other recipe I made was one that I’ve been making for a few months now, and LOVE! Really easy, and tasty. Gives the chowder taste and texture without cream.

I had never used leeks before I made this recipe for the first time. I love onions but was intimidated by having to clean the leeks. It’s really not that hard and they are really good. This soup is definitely worth the little extra work.

This last time I doubled the cauliflower and used 2 heads, doubled the liquid and was more careful about controlling the heat and retaining as much liquid as I could. With the double cauliflower I got about 10 servings. Each serving is 2 of my soup ladles...probably 1 C total. I haven’t run it through my.fitness.pal with the extra cauliflower, but the original recipe rings up at about 160 calories per serving, without the shredded cheese on top. Sometimes I do add the cheese, but I enjoy it without just as well.


Cauliflower Leek Soup

3 Leeks, light green and white part
1 head of Cauliflower
2 tsp Olive Oil
2 C Water
2 1/2 C Milk
Bay leaf
Salt and Pepper, to taste
3 Tbsp flour

Optional: Shredded Cheese


Cut and clean leeks well. Here is a good video to show you how, if you’ve never used leeks before. (I use the half moon technique)

In a large pot, saute leeks in olive oil until soft.

Cut cauliflower into small to medium sized florets.

When leeks are soft, add cauliflower, water, 2 C milk (I use 1%), bay leaf and salt and pepper. Reduce heat to just a simmer, and cook covered until cauliflower is soft. If the heat is too high the milk will boil over when covered. Just reduce the heat some...if you cook it without a cover you lose a lot of the volume of your soup.

Once cauliflower is soft, combine the remaining 1/2 C milk with the 3 Tbsp of flour in a separate bowl. Add slurry to pot and stir until soup thickens.

Can be served topped with some shredded cheese.



Hopefully you all enjoy these recipes as much as I do. I live in a house of picky eaters, so Hudson is the only other one that will eat these, but that just means they last longer for me! I froze portions of both of these and they thaw well. The soup does end up being a little more watery when it’s defrosted, but not overly so. Still yummy!

Some people also asked about my 'healthier' snacks. The little ziploc baggies in the picture are Pepperidge Farms Barbecue Cracker Chips and Special K Sour Creme and Onion Cracker Chips. When a bag or box of things like that come into the house I pre-portion them by weight. That way I don't sit down and eat the entire box mindlessly. I know they aren't really healthy options but they are enough to satisfy my junk cravings (most of the time) and are a little bit better than actual chips!