Everyday Granola

(Submitted by Kathleen. Source: www.perrysplate.com)

3 c. old-fashioned oats (I used rolled oats)
1 c. coarsely chopped nuts (like sliced almonds)
1/2 c. unsweetened shredded coconut
3 T. (packed) brown sugar (optional)
2 T. milled flaxseed
(I also added a small "handful" of millet)
3/4 t. ground cinnamon
1/2 t. ground ginger
1/4 t. salt
1/3 c. honey, real maple syrup, or agave nectar
3 T. coconut oil (or veggie if you don't have coconut)
1/2 t. vanilla
1 c. dried fruit

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 300.

2. Mix first 8 ingredients in large bowl. Stir preferred sweetener and oil in saucepan over medium-low heat until smooth. (Do not boil). Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.

3. Pour sweet mixture over oat mixture. Toss to coat evenly. Spread on lightly sprayed sheet pan.

4. Bake until golden, stirring evern 10 minutes for a total of 30-40 minutes. Place sheet on rack. Stir and cool. Mix in fruit.

Store in airtight container.

Suggestions for add-ins or replacements:
citrus zests
other extracts and spices
crystallized giner (add halfway through baking)
mini chocolate chips (add after mixture has baked and cooled)

Sour Cream Brownies

(Submitted by Kathleen. Source: www.cooks.com)

Sour Cream Brownies
1/2 c. butter (1 stick)
2 sq. unsweetened chocolate
1 c. organic sugar
2 eggs, slightly beaten
1 t. vanilla
1/2 c. whole wheat flour
Pinch of salt
1/4 c. yogurt cheese*
2/3 c. chopped walnuts (optional)
2 T. ground flaxseed (optional)

Preheat oven to 375. Melt butter with chocolate in top of double boiler over hot water. Slowly heat chocolate mixture. Add sugar and eggs and beat well. Stir in vanilla. Add flour, 2 tablespoons at a time, mixing well after each addition. Stir in salt, yogurt cheese, and walnuts. Pour in greased 8" square pan. Bake 30 minutes.

*Yogurt cheese - Place a strainer over a deep enough bowl to drain liquid without it touching the strainer. Place 4 layers of cheesecloth in strainer. Place yogurt over cheesecloth. Cover loosely with Saran wrap. Place in refrigerator overnight. Drain liquid and store yogurt cheese.

"Maple" Syrup

I live in the land of real maple syrup now, and my children don't even like the taste of it.

So I decided to make my own syrup this morning - a combination of 1 1/2 c. water, 1 c. Sucanat, 1/2 c. honey, 1 t. vanilla (I don't have maple flavoring on hand).

It tastes pretty good, and my oldest even had some which is surprising! I made whole wheat/flax pancakes. I love that I can put flax in just about anything - I grind it finely in my blender (it is too oily to go in the wheat mill). My kids don't like fish, and only 2 of them really like eating eggs, so I can give them a good dose of Omega 3s unbeknownst to them! :-)

Whole Wheat Bread

(Note: This post is all about wheat and breadmaking. If you don't mill your own wheat, no worries. You can still follow the recipe and just use whole wheat flour from the store. I recommend King Arthur's. But do still read about milling your own.)

I have a lot of friends who mill their own wheat and make bread. A couple of years ago, I just didn't get it. "They sell bread at the grocery store, you know," I would say to them. They would tell me about the many health benefits of milling your own wheat, but I ignored the growing desire to follow them into the world of Make-Your-Own-Bread. Quite honestly, I was more intimidated than skeptical. (I would go into the health benefits of using the freshly milled WHOLE grain vs. what flour manufacturers do, but it is so lengthy. Google it.)

Finally, I decided to make my own bread. But I would do it my way. I still didn't fully understand what processes a bag of store flour goes through, so I decided I would just use the whole wheat flour from the store. And I bought a breadmaker.

I was so excited. I was going to do this. But I had found a short cut. The breadmaker did make things easy. About 10 minutes to throw the ingredients in, and then it did the rest. And the house filled with a wonderful bread-baking smell. And when it came out, though it was an odd square shape, it did look good. "Fresh bread!" I called to the kids. They came running...and devoured the whole loaf in 10 seconds flat.

Yeah. 1 loaf of bread for a family of 6. Not brilliant. I must note, though, that I hang on to my breadmaker for one single use on one single special night of the year: on Christmas Eve the bread machine makes perfect dough for my Clone of a Cinnabon recipe which makes a DELICIOUS addition to Christmas morning breakfast. I'm not so sure I can healthify those yummy rolls; however, I do have 85 days to figure it out. I'll consider that my challenge.

Anyway, we were visiting some dear friends in MO, and Kim is a wheat grinder, bread maker (don't you love the titles I so lovingly bestow upon people?). While we were there, she made bread for us, and I was able to not only taste how delicious WHOLE bread is, but also observe how very easy it is!

So then I had to decide - with my husband's help and wisdom - if we wanted to do this or not. It is about a $600 initial investment, but when you look at it as an investment in your health...well, I had my husband sold on that part. What he was skeptical about was if I would purchase all this stuff and then add it to my Shelf of Unused Appliances after a week or two. (It's not like he didn't have a good argument. Exhibit A: The Bread Machine (though I had to argue that the Christmas Cinnabon Rolls totally make that worth it)). But in the end, we decided to take the plunge, and I'm happy to say that my mill and mixer get much more than just a once-a-year workout.

Anyway, this is the equipment I use:


On the left is my Wondermill, and on the right is my Bosch mixer, which can mix enough dough to make like 10 loaves of bread. I only make 6 at a time, so I don't exactly remember its capacity, but it's adequate for our family. I got all of my start-up equipment and bulk ingredients like yeast and dough enhancer from Urban Homemaker.

Then of course you need the wheat. Hard red will give you that very unique "whole wheat" taste. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I only use hard red for bread. I use hard white for everything else. (Again, if you are not ready to take the plunge into the fun world of wheat and milling, use King Arthur's whole wheat flour.) You can also get soft white which is recommended for cookies and cakes. I had some for awhile, but I really didn't notice a difference between the two, and I found the soft wheat harder to work with because it didn't always measure 1:1. Perhaps if I was doing pastries, I would opt for the soft wheat. I keep my bulk hard red and hard white in big buckets like this that will store grain forever!




I used to always get my grain at Bread Beckers. That's because they are located in GA. Even to ship a 50lb. bucket of wheat to my home an hour away in GA was only $14. To CT? Shipping is about $47! It looked like my wheat milling, bread making days were over because I could find NOTHING like Bread Beckers up here. THEN I found Honeyville Grain. They ship for a flat $4.49. Yes, that's four dollars and forty-nine cents! So I recently got a 50lb. bag of hard white wheat shipped to me from California for $4.49!

So anyway, let's get on with making the bread. This is such an easy recipe. I heard got it from my MO friend who heard got it from a friend who...(I'm hearing REO Speedwagon right now for some reason). It's actually Marilyn Moll's recipe (from Urban Homemaker).

Mill enough wheat berries to get 10-12 c. flour

Warm together:
6 c. water (or 5 c. water + 1 c. plain yogurt)
2 c. of the flour
3 T. yeast
Sponge mixture for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat together 2/3 c. honey and 2/3 c. oil

Mix together:
remaining flour
1 1/2 T. salt
3 T. dough enhancer (lecithin)
1/4-1/2 c. wheat gluten (optional)

Add honey mixture to yeast mixture and stir; while mixing, gradually add flour mixture.

Knead in mixer for 8 minutes. Turn out on to oiled surface and dividein to 6 loaves. Place in oiled pans and let rise 30 minutes. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

So I start by milling my wheat. I don't know how it works, but you get more flour than you use wheat (ex: 1 cup of wheat berries generally yields about 1 1/4 c. flour). I know there's an explanation for this, but it probably involves math, so I'll leave it alone.


Anyway, in GA I had to only use 8 cups of wheat berries to get the right dough consistency. Up here for some reason, I have to use 9 (everything costs more here, so that must be why). So I mill 9 cups of wheat berries.

Then I put 5 cups of the hottest tap water possible into my bowl. I then add 1 cup of yogurt. The cold of the yogurt makes the hot water cool to lukewarm which is perfect for yeast. Add the flour and yeast and pour into your mixer.

Then you have 15 minutes to do whatever you want to. My 15 minutes included administering a grammar test to 2 wiggly boys. And cleaning up my mess so far (I am obnoxiously meticulous about cleaning as I go - ask my husband. I make him so mad because he'll call us for dinner, and I'll immediately clean up the mess before sitting down for dinner; I just can't enjoy a meal with a messy kitchen). And preparing for the next step: I put the lecithin and salt in the remaining flour. I also grind up some flax seed which I also add to the flour. Finally, I combine and then heat up the honey and oil for about 45 minutes in the microwave. This blends it better and adds a little more heat for that yeast.

When my 15 is up, I start the mixer, swirl the oil/honey in, and then start adding flour. This is very important. The mistake many people make with bread is making the dough too stiff. You don't want a consistency like pizza dough. You want a soft dough. The way you know it is right is when the dough just begins to pull off the side of the mixer NOT when it is cleanly swept off the sides like with pizza dough.


So get the right amount of flour and then run the mixer for another 8 minutes to knead the dough. Then - and here's a great trick I learned from my MO friend - you know how usually when you throw some dough on the counter you sprinkle some flour down first so the dough won't stick? Well, that flour always ends up drying out your dough. So instead, spread some oil over your countertop. Get lots on your fingers and hands too so YOU won't stick to the dough!


OK, so at this point occasionally I will use a scale to get uniform loaves but usually I do not have the time to give in to such compulsions, so I just eyeball it. I cut it into 6 "equal" pieces and form loaves with 5 of them. With the 6th one, I spread it out, sprinkle a Sucanat/cinnamon mixture on it, roll it up, form it into a loaf, and plop it into a pan.

Oh, and my pans - I got them from Urban Homemaker too. They are on the smaller side (8" maybe vs. 10"??), so I get 6 loaves. If you use larger pans, you might only get 5 loaves.

Then the loaves rise for 30 minutes (time to do school with the littles one, clean up, start this post).


Then in the oven at 350 for 30 minutes. And done!


Once they're all cooled off, into my professional bread bags - you can buy them by the 100 from Bread Beckers or Urban Homemaker (or you could just save some from the store bought bread you used to buy).

That's it! It really is an easy process, especially once you've done it a couple times. I mean, I taught my kids some school and cleaned my kitchen and baked bread all in an hour and half!

Banana Bread

Today was a busy day. For one, last night the moment Irene made her exit, our power went out, prompting us to take our frozen and refrigerated food to a friend's house. Our power was only out for a couple of hours, but I waited until this morning to go get our food.

While I was retrieving our food, I stopped by a farm. I've said before how much I love all of the farms around here; you don't see this in the south. We have 3 or 4 of them within a mile or two of our house. If you remember, I visited one last year at the end of the season. All I got was some not-so-good end-of-the-season corn. Today, though, I was seeking two specific things: farm fresh eggs and local honey. I got both at one stop...eggs only a couple hours old and honey from hives right there on the property. ("They" say consuming local honey can help if you have allergies; we'll see if "they" are correct.)


I also had other things to do like teach the kids school, sign Michael up for swim team, and find some new running shoes for me that will hopefully help my painful ankles. As expensive as they are, they ought to enable me to comfortably run a marathon.

All this to say, today was more of a prep day than a day to focus on making elaborate new and healthy snacks for the kids. I did, however, have some yummy banana bread on hand that I had made the day before Irene visited so we would have a ready-made breakfast.

In college I had this yellow cookbook that, though lost, I can still picture in my mind. I also still use some of the recipes from it, like the banana bread recipe. Here it is:

Sift together:
1 3/4 c. flour
2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt

In separate bowl, eat until frothy:
3/4 c. sugar
1/2 c. oil
2 eggs

Add:
1 c. mashed banana

Add wet ingredients to dry and fold. Bake at 325 for about an hour.

I used freshly milled flour in this - hard white wheat. I only use my hard red wheat in bread as it does definitely have a stronger whole wheat taste. Honestly, you really can't taste that much of a difference between the processed white flour you'd find in the store and freshly milled hard white wheat, but the health benefits for the freshly milled flour are plentiful! Don't be fooled by "whole wheat" flour in the store either; it is still processed in order to allow for a long shelf life. I will tell you more about fresh milled wheat later this week when I make bread.

Anyway...for the sugar, I used the last of my honey granules; thankfully, I have my new bucket arriving sometime this week from Bread Beckers. I didn't quite have enough bananas to make a cup, so I filled the rest of the cup with organic plain yogurt, which I actually think made the bread more fluffy; I may make yogurt a regular add-in!

I meant to add some ground flaxseed because, honestly, that can be added to ANYTHING, and it's so healthful! But I forgot. I also often add chocolate chips and/or finely ground nuts of some kind (the kids don't like big pieces of nuts in bread or cookies).

So that was their snack today - whole, real food, just leftover whole, real food! Tomorrow hopefully there will be less running around so I can get more creative.