Soaked Bread Machine Whole Grain Bread

Hello all!

So I finally made this soaked whole grain bread for the bread machine and I think we have found our new favorite basic/staple bread.  It's not very sweet, but it is pretty good for your every day sandwich bread, toast, anything basic bread need.

I also ground the wheat and the flax right before I put it in and it really makes the house smell yummy while it's rising and baking!  And much more nutritional.  The wheat flour you buy at the store just does not have any smell!

I wanted to post the recipe here, because she has stopped doing her blog and I don't know how long it will be up and I don't want to lose it.  I just cooked mine in the bread machine because I was leaving the house.  When you add the yeast, just start the whole wheat cycle you prefer on your machine.  I also did not add the vital wheat gluten and the texture was still fine.

Also, I've made several soaked recipes now, and I think it's this hot dry Utah air, but I feel like I have to add more water to make sure the grain doesn't dry out overnight.  I didn't add more water to this recipe when I made it, but it was pretty dry in the morning.  You could also just add all the ingredients at once and make it without soaking first.

Someday when I know I will be home, I will probably do a double batch in the dough cycle and then take it out and bake each separately.  But, who knows when that will happen... it's just so nice to throw it in and forget about it.

Soaked Whole Wheat Bread in the Bread Machine (produces 1 loaf)

1 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar (or whey, kefir, buttermilk or yogurt) plus enough water to make 1 cup

2 3/4 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup oats

1/4 cup honey

3 Tbsp. melted coconut oil (or olive oil or melted butter)

2 Tbsp. coarsely ground flax seed

2 Tbsp. hot water

1/4 tsp. honey

1 3/4 tsp. yeast

1 1/4 tsp. salt

1 Tbsp. vital wheat gluten

Put water/vinegar mixture, flour, oats, honey, oil and flax seed in the pan of your bread machine in the manufacturer’s recommended order (mine says to do liquids first then solid ingredients). Turn the bread machine on the dough cycle and let run for about five minutes, until all the ingredients are well mixed. Turn off the machine and let this sit for 12-24 hours.

After the soaking period, combine the 2 Tbsp. water, honey and yeast and let sit for 5-10 minutes to activate the yeast (mixture should rise and become foamy). Add the yeast/water/honey, salt and gluten to the flour in the bread machine. Select the dough cycle and watch it for the first few minutes to make sure it doesn’t need more flour. I only needed to add about 1 tsp.

When the dough cycle is finished (mine takes 120 minutes), dump the dough onto a flour surface. Roll into a rectangle, then roll up to fit in your loaf pan. Place in greased loaf pan and allow it to rise until doubled, about 30 minutes. Bake at 350 for half an hour, until crust is brown and it sounds hollow if you tap on the bottom of the loaf. You can brush the crust with melted butter to keep it extra soft.

Soaking Grains

I don't know how many of you already do this, or at least know about it, but soaking grains was brand new to me up until about a month ago.  Since then, I have done a lot of research and started to incorporate it into our existing routines.  I have found this page to be the most informative and it has a lot of great resources for recipes, etc. as well.  I love that she breaks down how to soak different kinds of grains so that you can take an existing recipe and figure out how to turn it into a soaked version.  Especially if any of you have digestive issues, this might be helpful!  We have made soaked tortillas, soaked whole wheat bread, soaked cereal, etc.  Plus, it's another great way to use Kefir.  A word of advice on the cereal, though... you can taste the acid medium, so it's best to use plain kefir or something more bland than lemon juice or apple cider vinegar if that's going to bother you.  I even made my own whey...seriously easy.  I'll post more later if any of you all are interested.

Here's a good soaked tortilla recipe

Here's another

Here's a good resource for recipes, many of which are soaked, from my newest favorite blog.

And another good resource for recipes, many soaked, from my other newest favorite blog.

Here's a soaked whole grain bread

And here's the same soaked whole grain bread (minus the millet) adapted for bread machine.

Soaked homemade granola

Soaked granola bars

Happy soaking!

Barley and Veggie Soup

This comes from my cousin, Jamie's friend.  I wanted to post it so I could find it again easily.  This one is a keeper!  Jamie served it to me for lunch the other day and I loved it, so I had to make it again for dinner tonight.  Both Jamie and I did not add the milk at the end and it was still deelish.  

Barley & Veggie Soup

2 TBSP butter

1 large onion

½ Cup oat flour

4 Cup chicken stock

3 cloves garlic, minced

4-6 carrots, diced

½ large cauliflower, diced

1 head broccoli, diced

1 Cup water

1 Cup barley (soaked overnight)

1 tsp  basil

1 tsp oregano

1 tsp salt

½ tsp pepper

½ cup milk

Saute butter & onion in pan. Add flour and stir until it browns up. Slowly add 2 cups chicken stock while stirring. Allow to thicken before adding additional cups of stock. Add remaining vegetables, soaked barley, & spices. Simmer on low for 15-40 minutes (gets better with time). Stir in ½ cup milk about 10 minutes before you are ready to serve.

Multi-grain hot cereal

I finally had the time to track down all the different grains needed for this multi-grain hot cereal from The May Files blog, and we are fans!  If you are in the Orem area, Sunflower has amarinth, kamut, and millet and Real Foods has amarinth, whole barley, rye, spelt, and red quinoa.  I didn't go to my usual, Winco, but I know they have some of these things too.

It looks a little bit like birdseed here, and quite honestly, if you make it in the microwave it tastes a little bit like bird seed.  But if you make it in the rice cooker as she suggests, it comes out perfect.  It may as well be oatmeal, but you have 8 different kinds of whole grains.  Jocelyn loves xylitol and cinnamon, Cory likes his with raisins/craisins and agave or maple syrup.

Here is the recipe and some of her directions that are helpful.

She also has a recipe for blender pancakes that you can use this grain mix in.  Here is her original blender pancakes recipe and here is the one that she uses this mixture for.  She just uses one cup of this multi-grain mixture instead of the 3 grains listed in the original recipe, and that's the only difference!  It's so very handy to have all those grains pre-mixed and be able to get breakfast on the table quickly.

Paella

A very successful dinner last night! I was a bit worried about all the different flavors, but they actually went really, really well together. The whole family had more than one helping and there were smiles and compliments all around. It's a keeper for sure! I was actually thinking it would be a good recipe to make with guests over.

I got it from Betty Crocker's Easy Everyday Vegetarian Cookbook.

Paella

1 cup uncooked brown rice
1 pound of asparagus, cut in 2 inch pieces
3 cups fresh broccoli florets
2 teaspoons olive oil (I omitted this and it was fine)
1 medium red bell pepper, chopped
2 small zucchinis, chopped in bite size chunks
1 med. onion, chopped
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon tumeric
2 large tomatoes, chopped
2 cans garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
10 oz. frozen peas, thawed and drained

Cook rice as directed on package. Set aside and keep warm. Heat some water in a large pot (all of those veggies will NOT fit in a skillet- go for a soup pot!) Add asparagus and broccoli- steam about 4 min, and drain any excess water. Add oil to pan if using, add pepper, zucchini, onion, salt and tumeric. Cook about 5 min more. Stir in remaining ingredients including rice. Heat through and serve.

Yummm!

Quinoa Skillet and Cornbread

I made this and this over the weekend.  Cornbread got rave reviews!  The quinoa,  not so much, but I loved it!  My favorite quinoa dish so far.

Kefir

Sorry for all the posts today.  I'm on Spring Break, can you tell?

So, I have been trying to include Kefir into our diet more.  Even though it is dairy and we've been trying to get off dairy 100%, Cory and Jocelyn are about to begin an aggressive pro-biotic treatment through this specialist that we've been working with, and I thought I'd do whatever I could to help it out.  Have any of you done those little shots of pro-biotics that they have in the refrigerated section of whole foods stores?  Just wondering if they would help/work.

So we made these waffles (I won't repost, but here's the link), which were a hit.  We used Maple Syrup for the sugar which gave it a nice flavoring. My cousin tried it and didn't think they were that great, but we thought they were good... I guess take my review with a grain of salt.

And then I've been making extra smoothies with Kefir in them and freezing them for popsicles.  This particular kind has blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, banana, almond meal, ground flax seed, etc.

In my research, I've also found that you can substitute Kefir in any recipe that calls for Buttermilk.

But what I'm wondering is how you gals feel about Kefir?  I'm so new, but it seems that doing the little bit of dairy in Kefir is worth it if you want/need the pro-biotics.  Also, my question is, does cooking the Kefir alter the effectiveness of the pro-biotics?  I can't find the answer anywhere online.  Thanks in advance for educating me!

Pesto Quinoa

This is my first success with Quinoa.  I have shared it with a few others that have tried and loved it as well.  The picture and recipe is from allrecipes.com.

Ingredients

• 1 cup quinoa, rinsed and drained
• 2 cups chicken broth
• 2 tablespoons basil pesto
• 1 tomato, diced
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Bring the quinoa and chicken broth to a boil in a saucepan; cover, reduce heat to low, and simmer until the moisture is completely absorbed, about 15 minutes. Remove from heat; stir the pesto through the quinoa. Fold the tomato into the mixture. Season with salt and pepper to serve.

Nutritional Information 

Amount Per Serving  Calories: 207 | Total Fat: 6.4g | Cholesterol: 5mg

Slow Cooker Moroccan Stew over Couscous

Combine in Crock Pot and cook on high 4 - 4 and a half hours or more on low:

1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 onion, diced fine
1/3 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground curry powder
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
3 garlic cloves, minced
5 med-large carrots, quartered lengthwise and chopped into 2 inch pieces (large julienne)
3 gold yukon or 1 large russet potato, cut in bite size pieces
1 can chickpeas, drained
3/4 cup pitted prunes, chopped
1/2 cup golden raisins
3-4 cups veggie broth

Add during last 30-45 minutes of cooking:

1 red bell pepper, cut to bite size
1 zucchini, cut to bite size

Serve over:

whole wheat couscous

This is a recipe we were introduced to at a Progressive Dinner. I changed it slightly to be completely vegetarian and a little less expensive. It's still kind of an expensive dish, but it makes a lot and it's really good. We splurged this week and made it. I don't think I would have picked this out of a cook book to make, so I'm really glad someone else made it and I just got to try it. My whole family really, really loved it. It was refreshing to have such different flavors for dinner. We sometimes get in a rut and this certainly was unique and tasty.

Original recipe came from THIS cookbook which I think I am going to buy. My friend told me that it has very healthy recipes and a lot are vegetarian- without being PURPOSELY vegetarian. There's not a vegetarian section or anything (I was glad to hear that, I think naturally vegetarian recipes are usually better than the ones that someone created just for the purpose of being vegetarian).

--Ashlee

An Indulgent Sunday Breakfast

Hello veggie loving darlings. Our breakfast this morning was good. SO good. Way better than I thought it would be actually. It looks like just another breakfast bar, but we thought it was very special. Try it if you like. I call it indulgent because it has more sugar than we all would like, but there are a lot of great things in it too- and my kids won't eat nuts, but they loved this, so I figure it's worth it. Promise me if you try it that you won't healthify it too much. I know, I know. We all LOVE to do that to recipes- but just don't with this one will ya?

And to give credit where credit is due this recipe is from Ellie Krieger over at the Food Network. I got two of her cookbooks from the library and am absolutely in love. She's their "healthy," chef and for the most part I think she does a truly great job. I got the books "So Easy," and "The Food You Crave," (which is a collection of favorite recipes made healthy. Tonight we are trying her macaroni and cheese which has 20 ounces of pureed winter squash in it, and significantly less cheese than normal recipes... it's baking as we speak and smelling SO good)

Walnut and Dried Cherry Bars

1 cup quick cooking oats
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup toasted wheat germ (I toasted normal wheat germ in a pan over med heat for a few minutes- worth the extra effort in my opinion)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup honey (okay I didn't put the entire 1/2 cup but it was close)
1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/4 cup canola oil
1 egg, beaten
1 egg white
3/4 cup chopped dried cherries or cranberries
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/4 cup fruit only apricot preserves

Preheat to 350. Spray 8x8 pan. Stir dry together. Stir wet together until well combined. Stir walnuts and dried fruit in wet. Stir wet into dry until well combined. Spread in pan. Bake 30-35 min. When bars are nearly done heat preserves in small saucepan until runny. When bars come out immediately spread preserves on top. Cool and cut into bars.

They are very filling so one bar and a piece of fruit is a very satisfying breakfast! Yumm! And for pete's sake do NOT cut the preserves out of the equation. That was a stroke of genius!