Nothing Beats Bread!

So I've been reading about traditional cooking and I was surprised about this new technique used to make bread.

Of course I believe that whole grains were better for you, even if some traditionalist don't think so, but wheat was really doing a number to my sweet baby's system. I thought sourdough was the only way to go, and from this post you can hear me complaining about the time and care it took to make one loaf of bread.

Then there was "soaking".

After finding another traditional living website, KitchenStewardship.com, I stumbled on to this FREE gem of an ebook there. All I had to do was sign up for a once-a-month newsletter (no problem!).

In her post here she explained how and why to soak whole grains. Here are a couple of little excerpts I've taken from that post.

The Why:

The Basic Science Behind Soaking Grains

• Grains are seeds. (All this information therefore, pertains to legumes, nuts and seeds as well.)
• Seeds are meant to pass through the system relatively undigested so they can be planted elsewhere (think in nature).
• To make it possible for seeds to pass through undigested, there are some anti-nutrients built in to make them difficult to digest.
• Seeds also need to be preserved until the time is right for sprouting, so they have certain compounds that stop the active enzyme activity of germination.
• These compounds also serve to hinder active enzyme activity in your digestive system.
• Beginning the sprouting process makes seeds more digestible and help your system obtain all the nutrients in the food.
• “Soaking” grains is one way to mimic the sprouting process

Added Bonus: This process begins to pre-digest the grains, including breaking down complex starches and tannins that can irritate your stomach, as well as beginning to break down proteins like gluten. For some, this reduces gluten sensitivity (like it did for Nugget!)..

The How:

Soaking your whole grains…

1. in water (warmer than room temp, ~100-110 degrees or so)
2. with an acidic medium added
3. at room temperature or above
4. for 12-24 hours

Ok that doesn't sound too hard does it?
Heck no, compared to sourdough!

So instead of trying out her bread machine recipe out from the ebook first I decided to reformulate one of my favorite bread machine recipe, Light Whole Wheat Bread (it has a small amount of all-purpose flour that I plan to use unbleached and unbromated flour), from this book:

(find it here)

You can find the recipe on page 69 if you have the book, but here it is and my adjustments:

Light Whole Wheat Bread (Mix Recipe Option)
(I use the Medium size option because it make the best
 size for our family and I believe it will work in most machines)


Mix with a pastry cutter or a whisk real well:

3c whole wheat flour
1 1/3c white flour (unbleached and unbromated)
2t sugar (I used a natural cane sugar)
2T fat (well it was butter but I only had shortening :P)

I then put this in a Foodsaver bag along with a little packet that had two compartments with:

1 1/2t yeast
2t salt

See the little packet of yeast? :)

To use:
Set aside 1/4c of the flour mix and the yeast/salt packet. Stir the rest of the mix in the bread machine pan with -

1 3/4c liquid

It calls for water but because we need to help the soaking process along I have used up to the full amount with buttermilk. If you want a less tangy tasting bread you can use water and only replace at least 2T with buttermilk, apple cider vinegar, yogurt, or even kefir!)

Next put the 1/4c of the mix you set aside on top of the dough. Make a well in the flour and put the salt and yeast in it (we don't want these two ingredients to be in contact with the dough just yet because they will hinder the soaking process)

Fresh bread tomorrow, YAY!

Set it in your bread machine for a least 12 hours or what I like to do is leave it overnight and then in the morning I turn the machine on - use the basic/normal setting and medium crust (I only have the option of light or dark and dark did just fine)

Here is a picture of a loaf that is almost gone -

It slices so nicely once its cooled!

It rises better then a 100% whole wheat bread and I think it has a better mouth feel too. Also I feel that the small amount of white flour (unbleached and unbromated) and its taste and texture is worth it not being 100% whole wheat.

Remember this bread will go bad long before store bought, but I haven't had the trouble of not eating before then! :)

Menu 6/21-6/30

Here is my honest menu.

I am posting again this week because this post was made as a menu plan that I was going to make regardless if it was online or not and I thought that everyone reading this blog would like to see how I working at eating more traditionally.

When I bought all these groceries the lady who was checking me out commented on how healthy all my choices were. :) But I could to better!

I've tried hard to make these meals follow as closely to my ideals of removing processed junk, adding healthy fat, preparing grains properly and making them easy.

A lot of these meals I prepared ahead of time and froze - I'll let you know how they turn out! :)

Ok here they are (and sorry I don't have pictures for everything. I'll add them later when I make these recipes again!)

21] Cheesy-Beefy Pasta - made before and Honey likes it :)

• Whole Wheat pasta (soaked 8 hrs with 1T apple cider vinegar - drained, rinsed, and then boiled, for less time of course.) 
• Pasta sauce - bottled from the store. Remember real life here! :) I added 1/2lb of ground beef/pork sausage. Almost bought grass-fed beef but it wasn't in the budget. 
• Mozzarella cheese - low moisture, skim. Next time I buy cheese it'll be full fat and hopefully fresh!
• Frozen Veggies - heated with a little olive oil. 

22] Breakfast for Dinner! :)

• Eggs - just regular eggs that I have on hand
• Bacon - low-sodium. I can't have bacon any other way now.
• Pancakes - leftover from the oatmeal pancakes!
• Hash-browns - homemade! (grated, blanched, and then froze 2lb of potatoes!)

23] Leftovers! - meals from 6/20 (Shepard's pie), 6/21 or 6/22

24] Squash Soup

• Butternut Squash - cut in to cubes 
• Garlic, Ginger, S+P - cooked with the squash in the pressure cooker
• Chicken Broth - water and Better then Bouillon - eh, better then just water for flavor. 
• Chicken - leftover and frozen from Honey Mustard Chicken (w/out sauce)

25] Roast Pac - everything was frozen together in a Foodsaver freezer bag!

• Beef roast - :) just regular beef and real life!
• Carrots - part of the 2lbs of carrots I peeled, chopped, blanched, packed with the beef then frozen
• Potatoes - same as the carrots only I processed 10lbs! = 4c mashed potatoes (Shepard's Pie), 2lb hash browns, and the rest 1in cubes
• Beef bouillon - salty and has MSG but I have nothing else!

26] Pizza bread

• Bread slice - light buttermilk bread - soaked with some white flour (I still plan on buying white flour and using it partially in my bread baking for the time being) 
• Pasta sauce - same as in the pasta meal
• Chicken - leftover and frozen from Honey Mustard Chicken (w/out sauce)
• Cheese - same as in the pasta meal

27] Leftovers! - meals from 6/24, 6/25 or 6/26

28] Sweet'n'Sour Pork - this is the most compromising meal, but my Honey loves it!

• Pork - regular. Coated with cornstarch, dipped in egg and then pan fried in all meat shortening
• Sauce - 3/4 cup sugar (white, I didn't want to use the pure raw cane sugar I have in this but I could have), 4 tbs ketchup (one day I'll make fermented!), 1/2 cup distilled white vinegar (I could have used ACV but I don't know how much that would have changed the flavor), 1 tbs soy sauce (I want to buy a more fermented brand, like this one), and 1 tsp garlic salt - The Healthy Home Economist had this Teriyaki sauce recipe that looked good. I might try it instead next time  
• Fried rice - rice, eggs, mixed veggies, sweet'n'sour sauce, and all meat shortening

29] Stew Pac - everything was frozen together in a Foodsaver freezer bag (SHOPPING DAY!)

• Beef roast pieces - cut from beef roast
• Mushrooms - leftover from Beef Stroganoff
• Carrots - from roast process
• Potatoes - ditto
• Celery - washed, chopped, blanched, frozen with everything
• Stew Mix packet - a packet that has spices and cornstarch ( and MSG : P)

30]Leftovers or Pizza bread (Anything left!)

Other meals we had this month (excluding leftovers and going out for Fathers Day on Saturday):

Beef Stroganoff 

• Beef roast pieces - cut from beef roast
• Mushrooms - sliced baby portabella
• Sauce - onion, beef bouillon (: P), flour, beef fat, sour cream, AND 1/2 can cream of mushroom soup. I was so sad I had to add this but the beef bouillon I have is crap and I accidentally add way to much sour cream and the sauce was runny. Oh well. 
• Noodles - whole wheat. Didn't think to soak.

Spicy Shepard's Pie

• Ground beef - regular 
• Mixed veggies
• Sauce - leftover 1/2 can of soup because I'm not going to waste it and a roux made with the fat from the cooked ground beef, flour and 2 cups milk. I added 7 drops of After Death hot sauce for a nice spicy kick!
• Crust - mashed potatoes (from mass process earlier), 1 egg and extra milk

Honey Mustard Chicken (*****) Five Star!

• Chicken thighs - marinated in (heaven): 1/3c whole grain mustard, 2 T. honey, 2 t. italian seasoning (no salt or MSG :),1 t. paprika, 1 T. lemon juice, and 2 T. AC vinegar and enough buttermilk to cover. Marinate overnight. Take chicken out of marinade, put in a 9x13 baking dish, drizzle with olive oil. Cover and bake at 375 degrees for 30 min then uncover and cook 30 min longer. Chicken is done at 175 degrees or when juices run clear!
• Sauce - more whole grain mustard, honey and some of the tasty stock that the came off the chick after it cooked, boiled down to a thick heavenly sauce!
• Spinach - wilted to help with iron absorption 
• Potatoes - cubed (from mass process earlier) roasted with some chicken fat until browned

Chicken Noodle Soup - OMG this is tasty! Another (*****) 

• Chicken - frozen from leftover Honey Mustard Chicken (w/out sauce)
• Stock - sad story: I dropped the container that was holding my chicken stock from the Honey Mustard Chicken! Lost every drop! So I saved up the bones from each thigh and cracked them open, added them and leftover chicken skins to a pot with a little Better then Bouillon, water and Mrs. Dash Garlic Herb. Brought to a boil then covered and simmered for 45 min. Fished out the bones and skins. Then added the chicken and boiled the noodles in the stock. Added the carrots last because they were par-cooked 
• Carrots - from mass process
• Noodles - whole wheat - didn't think to soak

Here was the rough shopping list:

Dairy:

eggs

milk

buttermilk (bread and pancakes)

sour cream

Meats:

(you can stretch  these pretty far and have leftovers!)

beef roast (3lbs divided - 2 lbs cut into cubes 1lb left whole. I did this myself, but you could ask your butcher)

chicken thighs (I don't remember the weight :(  )

pork chops

1 lb ground beef 

low-sodium bacon

Veggies:

spinach

carrots

potatoes

onions

mushrooms

frozen mixed veggies

butternut squash

ginger

Other:

whole wheat pasta - egg noodle and spiral

Things I had on hand:

cheese

Mrs. Dash

bouillon

garlic and garlic salt 

honey

mustard

ketchup

soy sauce

sugar

hot sauce

whole wheat flour

pasta sauce

celery

vinegars (white and apple cider or ACV)

canned cream of soup : P

A rough guess is that I spent about $140-150, but that is including non-food items so I'm not 100% sure!

Next shopping trip/menu post I write I'll include:

1. Actual costs
2. Breakfast and Lunch menu
3. and a better recipe format ( I think I just post each recipe separately and link them on the menu post) 

Oatmeal Pancakes and the Future

Oatmeal Pancakes :) Soaked too!
The tasty and warm breakfast treat!

Wait...

(husband)
"Whats in that bowel?"

"Oatmeal pancake batter that is soaking."

"Why do you have to ruin pancakes by putting oatmeal in it?!?"

"They aren't ruined, they taste really good. Trust me I've had them before."

(murmur)
"I hate oatmeal."

"What?"

"Huh?"

"Why do I put up with this man?"

Anyway,

because the man doesn't make or bake anything harder then heating a can of soup he didn't have a choice.

(The future part of the post is this: I wanted to do it in this post but I can't yet; I want to write how much it cost me to make all of my recipes. I live in the southeast USA so you might have lower or higher prices, but I want to show that you can eat better and still budget! I'll update the posts as I make the recipe again.)

I found this recipe at multiple websites so I'm not going to link it anywhere.

Oatmeal Pancakes 

Ingredients:

2 cups dry oatmeal

1/2 cup whole wheat, spelt, or buckwheat flour (Yeah! I had a itty bitty tiny bag of ww flour in the freezer!)

2 cups buttermilk 

2 medium eggs

2 tablespoons coconut oil (I used all meat shortening - one day coconut oil, one day!)

1/4 – 1/2 cup whole milk (I just used more buttermilk)

2 tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

(optional - I added blueberries! Yum!)

Instructions:

The night before, combine the oatmeal, flour and buttermilk in a large bowl. Stir well. Cover with plastic wrap and set overnight. 

(Now some sites said that you could put this in a blender and liquefy it if you want - I didn't, but I might try it out next time.)

The next morning, add the eggs, oil, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon.

Stir together. Add 1/4 to 1/2 cup milk till it’s a good pancake consistency. Mix until just combined.

Fry the pancakes on a hot, buttered griddle. They’re ready to turn when the top side is bubbly and puffed up and looks cooked around the edges.

Brown the second side and transfer to a plate. (I kept mine warm in the oven) Continue until all of the batter is used up.

Serve with lots of real butter and maple syrup. 

This recipe serves about six.

The itty bitty bag of ww flour I had!

The batter all mixed up after soaking over night.

Blueberries!

Nugget!

"So Honey how do you like the pancakes?"

"They're ok I guess."

"Would you like them better if you couldn't feel the oats?"

"Yeah."

"Ok next time then. :) "


I saved the extra in the freezer, I just put the pancakes, single layer on a cookie sheet in the freezer and once they were hard I vacuum sealed them