Homemade Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread

I have been on the hunt for a Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread recipe as a way to bump up the nutrition in our bread and also cut down on cost. But the WW bread recipe in my bread maker cook book produced a loaf that was too soft, and the smallest piece I could cut without smashing the bread was about 3/4 inch wide; way to much bread for a kids sandwich. Then while reading Marilyn Shannon's wonderful book Fertility Cycles and Nutrition I came across her recipe, and had perfect results when I tried it in our bread maker! 

Here is the bread, you can see how thin I was able to cut it without any trouble or special guides, and the taste is wonderful, though like all homemade wheat bread it is best if eaten in the first two days.

Here are two of the satisfied customers!

Now for the recipe; I did change a few thing, but the important ingredient is gluten; you don't want to leave it out! That is what gives the whole wheat the extra stretch and strength to be cut thin like white bread. I use Vital Wheat Gluten because that's what I found at Publix. 

This recipe is for a two pound loaf. I bake it up every few days, so to save time I measure out all the dry ingredients (except salt) for a loaf into a bag and stash a few bags of my "loaf mix" in the freezer. On the day I need to make bread I take out a bag and let it come to room tempeture (1-2 hr.) then add it to the wet ingredients in the bread pan and bake. If a two pound loaf is more than your family can eat in two days, extra dough or baked bread can be kept in the fridge or freezer, then you will not need to bake it as often.

 Marilyn Shannon's Bread-Machine Whole Wheat Bread  

•  1 1/2 cup Warm Water
• 2 tsp Salt 
• 2 tbsp Butter 
• 3-4 tbsp Honey 
• 3 3/4 cup Hard Organic Whole Wheat Flour
• 2 tbsp Gluten 
• 1 tbsp Nutritional-Yeast 
• 1-2 tbsp Granular Lecithin
• 2 tsp Granular Baking Yeast 

Place all the ingredients in the pan in the order they are listed. 

Bake on the Basic Loaf program, or the Insta-Bread program if using Rapid Rise Yeast.

When the bread is finished let it cool then cut into slices about 1/2 inch thick.

Store it in a bag on the counter or in the fridge, and enjoy!

Everybody in the pool!

I decided to pick up some kiddie pools for the kids now that the weather is really getting hot. Unfortunately this decision was made at the store, and it wasn't until I went to load them that I stopped to consider whether they would fit in my humble mini van. Luckily I like a challenge, and after moving a few car seats, groceries, and putting down the back seat we were able to squeeze it all in.

We bought one baby kiddie pool for the back patio (for Lulu to splash around in while I cook dinner, etc.) and one big kiddie pool for the front driveway (for when all the big kids want to splash around). A little excessive? Maybe, but the little one was only $10, and I fully expect to get our $10 worth out of it this summer!

Lulu was a little displeased with the mess I had made of her van. 

JP and Lulu ready to swim!

Mmmmm, soggy graham crackers.

The kids have really enjoyed the pool, I think we have used it three or four times in the last week!

I love the kids little swimming shirts. I don't have to slather them up with sunscreen from head to toe, just a little on the face and ears and they are good to go. I still have to get one for Immy. I am looking at the pink one at Lands End paired with their little swimming skirts, so cute! 

The BumGenius diaper covers make a perfect swim diaper when you take out the inserts. 

Splash'n around!

Ghee

I can eat butter! (That may not seem like much to shout about, but when you have a milk protein allergy it's a big deal!) I was recently told about ghee by Katie over at Kitchen Stewardship, I contacted her asking what she recommended for cooking since she (and others I have been reading) does not recommend using margarine, including the Smart Balance I have been using. She suggested ghee or coconut oil, both are wonderful fats that are solid at room tempeture, and since ghee is a cooked butter with the milk protiens removed it is perfectly safe for me to eat!

 I made up a batch of ghee, as soon as I could get my hands on some butter, using this info.

 After simmering 1lb of butter for about an hour (yes time consuming, but so worth it) it was ready. I strained it through a mesh strainer, over cheese sloth, over a wide mouth funnel; into a heat resistant jar. It was bright gold colored with no dark specks, and it cooled to a nice light yellow colored solid - perfect! I ended up with about 12oz of ghee.  

It has a wonderful taste, a little stronger than butter but not as salty. I used salted butter, but I believe the salt is removed with the proteins and impurities during the process. I'm not sure if salt is suppose to be added in since it is shelf stable as is, but I just add salt to whatever I am using it for. 

Happy Easter 2010!

Easter morning, before the kids woke up.

Immy

New shoes!

Veggie Tales!

Great smile!

Lulu

Easter gifts!

She loves her shoes!

Rabbit ears and chocolate smiles!

Oooh, Peeps!

 

New Cupcake set

Happy Easter!

Holy Saturday 2010

We had a lovely Holy Saturday. We started out at the City's egg hunt in the park, we drop off the baked goods to the bakesale and then stayed for the hunt. The kids had a great time! Lulu was too nervous to hunt with all the other kids, but she was given lots of eggs, and then went around "hunting" the empty eggs when the others had left. The kids played on the playset, then we enjoyed some goodies from the MOMS bakesale before heading home to decorate our eggs.

Here is JP and Immy in their expensive smocks, ready to dye eggs. 

Lulu didn't get to help this year, so we dyed the eggs during her nap time.

I got this wonderful idea for using whisks to hold the eggs while dyeing them from our Family Fun magazine. It worked out so well, and really made it easy for the kids to handle the eggs. I bought two sets of cheap whisks from Walmart for about $3 each. The eggs fit perfectly in to the large and med size whisks, so the kids each had two to use, and I didn't have to worry about them getting bent up because they were going in the Easter box to use for next year.

Before the dyeing the kids colored on their eggs with crayons. This is a part that I really like, and I snuck a few egg away for me to decorate. The kids did a great job, Immy drew pictures on her's and JP mostly just scribbled.

Another nice thing about using the whisk to dye with is that we didn't get any white spots on the eggs from where they were resting against the sides of the cup. After the eggs dried the kids decorated them with stickers, and Lulu was up so we let her put stickers on all the plastic eggs; they turned out really cute!

Here are a few of the finished eggs.

Good Friday 2010

This year we decided to take part in the old tradition of making Hot Cross Buns for Good Friday; well I decided to, the rest of the family just got shoo-ed out of the kitchen until I was done. They only complained a little though, because the buns were delicious! 

 Here they are fresh out of the oven!

I read through all the Hot Cross Bun recipes on Allrecipes.com to get ideas, and then settled on using the Fruit Bread recipe from my breadmaker cookbook. I used the Dough setting instead of the Loaf, and added the dried fruit and spices for traditional HCB. I was not very organized this year so we didn't get a chance to give any out on Good Friday, but we did donate two plates of buns to the MOMS bake sale on Saturday, and made short work of all the rest at home! 

I made a simple Powdered Sugar/Ricemilk/Vanilla Extract glaze to go over the top, but I had the hardest time getting it thick enough! I think I started out with 1/2 cup Ricemilk and had to use close to 2 cups of powdered sugar to get it thick enough for it to show up white on top of the buns, and I nearly burned up my cheap immersion blender getting it mixed. I ended up with a lot more glaze than I actually needed, but the buns looked and tasted great in the end.

A few things I would like to change next year: 

•  Make or prepare the rolls in advance so that we could enjoy and give them out on Good Friday.
• If using rapid-rise yeast, form the dough into rolls before it has a chance to rise in the machine. 
• Brush the egg wash down the sides of the rolls so that the golden color doesn't stop half way down.
• Make a thin frosting instead of a glaze for the crosses. 
• Glaze or frost the rolls on a cooling rack to avoid the frosting puddles that made the rolls sticky.

Holy Thursday 2010

Holy Thursday was nice, but busy! We had doctor appointments and errands keeping us running most of the day, so I didn't have as much time to prepare for our evening as I would have liked, but we did have our Sedar supper in remembrance of Jesus' Passover meal. This is the second year we have done this, and it was nice to build on the traditions started last year, the only changes were lamb chops instead of a roast and spice cake instead of ginger bread; it turned out wonderful!

I forgot to bake the lamb cake in the morning and the dinner was late, so there was no nice presentation, we just served it right from the stove and read the Holy Week stories from the children's bible while they ate. But we took advantage of the cakes long cooling time by watching The Miracle Maker with the kids after dinner, and then enjoying some "lamb cake" after that.

 

The Miracle Maker is an instant-play movie in Netflix, and it was surprisingly good! I wasn't too sure about it in the beginning, the jump between claymation and animation was kind of strange at first, but once the story got going it was really wonderful! The story was well told, and at the kids level without being to juvenile or watered down. It also used a lot of the real biblical quotes from Jesus, instead of trying to change all the wording. I thought that was wonderful because the kids could really make the connection between what they were watching and what they hear from the bible. I would definitely recommend it, and thought that it was a great movie to watch with the kids before Easter.

Oooooh, cake!