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Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread

Due to our proximity to the nearest grocery store (really far away), the rate at which my husband burns through a loaf of bread (rapidly), and the expense of the fancy whole wheat bread that I like, I’ve been experimenting with making my own sandwich bread.

It’s easy to be intimidated by anything that involves yeast, kneading, and rising. However, if you’re lucky enough to have a stand mixer, it really is a snap. If you don’t have a stand mixer, it’s still a wonderful experience, it just takes a bit more time and muscle to knead the bread with your own hands.

I tried many variations, and experimented with different flours, grains, and add-ins. While all of them tasted good, the texture is important for a daily use bread. I wanted a loaf that was soft, but still held together, full of whole grains, but not overly dense. I didn’t want eating my morning toast to be a workout.

Here’s my favorite recipe so far:

Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread
Yields two loaves

1/4 cup warm water
1 tsp sugar
1 envelope active dry yeast
1 1/2 cups warm water
1 1/4 cups warm milk
1/4 cup molasses
3 T vegetable oil
2 tsp salt
1 cup wheat germ
1/2 cup ground flax seed
3 cups whole wheat flour
3 cups bread flour

1) Dissolve sugar in 1/4 cup warm water (approx 110 degrees – it should feel like a nice bath), and stir in yeast. Let sit for a few minutes until foamy.

2) Warm additional 1 1/2 cups water and milk, pour in mixing bowl. Add molasses and oil.

3) Scoop in remaining dry ingredients: salt, wheat germ, flax seed, whole wheat flour and bread flour.

4) Mix on low in stand mixer with dough hook until everything is incorporated and dough begins to pull away from bowl. The dough should feel tacky, but still form a nice ball. If it doesn’t, you may need to add additional flour – do this a few tablespoons at a time, as you don’t want to add too much flour.

5) When dough is the right consistency, let the mixer knead it for about 10 minutes, until is is smooth and elastic. Alternatively, slap the dough onto your clean, floured counter top, and knead it until the dough feels good, and you feel like you’ve gotten a good workout.

6) Put your lovely mound of dough into a large, oiled bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm, draft-free place. (I typically turn my oven on low for a few minutes while mixing up the dough, then turn it off. This is a nice and cozy place for my dough to rise.) Let rise for at least an hour, but you can leave it for several if you have other things going on.

7) Punch down your dough and divide it in half. Shape each half into a nice, oblong loaf and tuck into two oiled loaf pans. Cover with a clean dishtowel, and let rise for another 20-30 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

8) Bake for 40 minutes until golden, and loaf sounds hollow when thumped. Let cool in loaf pans for about 10 minutes, then slide onto a cooling rack. Try not to cut it until it is completely cool.

Notes: you can substitute honey for the molasses if you like. Molasses has a distinct flavor that not everyone enjoys, but it also gives the bread a gorgeous caramel color. This bread makes incredible grilled cheese and egg salad sandwiches.

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Posted 18 February 2010 | baked goods   bread   vegetarian | Comments (3) Tagged: , ,

Chewy Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies

Sometimes I make these cookies when I want to pretend like I’m eating something healthy, but what I really want to eat is a cookie. The inclusion of cranberries, oatmeal, and honey make it somehow seem more wholesome – but in reality, the amount of butter and sweeteners in this cookie make it just that: a delicious cookie.

I also love that this cookie contains no leaveners – its structure and height depends on oatmeal alone.

The dough (especially when frozen in cookie form for later baking) is fabulous, and a good portion of it never hits a cookie sheet at my house (remember, raw eggs people – use your own judgment here.)

Chewy Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies

2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
1 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 cup raw or turbinado sugar
2 large eggs, room temperature
1/3 cup honey
1 1/2 cups unbleached flour
4 cups old fashioned oats
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups chopped frozen cranberries

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees

2) Cream butter and sugar together in a stand mixer using a paddle attachment. Cream the heck out of them, until they are really light and fluffy (up to five minutes.)

3) Beat in eggs one at a time, then add the honey.

4) In a separate bowl, stir together flour, oats, cinnamon, and salt.

5) Add dry ingredients to butter mixture, and mix on low until just combined.

6) Stir in chopped cranberries.

7) Drop spoonfuls on cookie sheet, flatten slightly, and bake for 10-12 minutes. After a few minutes, move warm cookies to cooling rack.

Notes and variations:

You can use frozen cranberries without thawing – in fact, they are much easier to chop this way. You can use dried cranberries if you don’t have any fresh.

Adding a few cups of dark chocolate chips never hurt this cookie.

The honey is what makes the cookie chewy, and the raw sugar gives an interesting flavor nuance and slight crunch to the finished cookies. Omitting them would result in a different cookie (although I’m sure it would still be tasty.)

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Posted 11 February 2010 | baked goods   cookies   dessert | Comments (1) Tagged: ,

Plain and Simple Pancakes

While it is important to have dinner as a family as many times per week as you can manage, sometimes schedules just don’t allow. A lush and leisurely weekend breakfast can make up for some missed family dinners — and nothing says weekend breakfast like pancakes.

For such simple fare, there are a gazillion pancake recipes out there. Fruited, yeasted, sour creamed…the variations are tremendous. Diversity is great, but it pays to have one plain and simple,  perfect pancake recipe in your pocket.

There is no need to start from a mix – it really only takes seconds longer to prepare the batter from scratch. And the end results are well worth it.

I do like having a large cast iron griddle that fits over two of my stovetop burners. This allows me to make more pancakes at a time, so that I may actually enjoy eating them with my family.

I found this recipe in one of our town’s weekly newspapers. Here is the link. It is from the mother of a local woman, Ingrid Rockwell, who has a fabulous lunch cart, and she generously shared this recipe (and her husband’s waffle recipe) in the Isthmus.

It has an unusual ingredient that totally makes the recipe – vinegar. It doesn’t specify what kind, so I’ve been using cider. This makes a lot of pancakes.

Enjoy hot off the griddle,
with additional butter and warm maple syrup.

BB’s Pancakes (by Ingrid Rockwell, as featured in Madison, WI’s the Isthmus)

3 eggs
3 1/2 cups milk
6 T oil
3 T vinegar
3 1/2 cups flour
3 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1) Whisk eggs, milk, oil, and vinegar in bowl (I mix everything in my large pyrex liquid measuring cup, measuring out the milk first then adding the rest.)

2) In separate bowl, mix flour, baking powder, and baking soda. Whisk to combine evenly.

3) Add liquid ingredients to dry ingredients, and stir until just combined. There will be a few lumps, and that’s ok.

4) Let the batter sit for a minute while you heat a skillet until a drop of water sizzles on the surface. Melt some butter, and fry up some flapjacks.

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Posted 08 February 2010 | breakfast   comfort food   kid stuff   vegetarian | Comments (2) Tagged: , ,

Pea Pasta

This recipe is one of Ina Garten’ s (of Barefoot Contessa fame), and was featured in Oprah’s magazine years and years ago. I don’t have the actual recipe, and I’m sure I’ve changed it a bit. I make it all the time. It is simple, uses pantry staples, and offers a bright, clean flavor that is sorely needed this time of the year.

Spring may still be weeks off (maybe months, depending upon where you live), but this vibrant green sauce can help tide you over until spinach, asparagus, and watercress are abundant at your Farmer’s Market.


Pea Pasta (adapted from Ina Garten, featured in O Magazine a long time ago)

1 lb pasta (preferably something short, like radiatore or penne rigate)
1/2 red onion, chopped
5 T olive oil
2 T sugar
1 scant T kosher salt
2 cups frozen peas, thawed
1/2 cup low-salt vegetable or chicken broth
1/4 cup olive oil
1 T butter
pepper, to taste
freshly grated parmesan for sprinkling
1) Prepare pasta al dente. While bringing the water to boil and cooking the pasta, you should be able to complete the sauce.

2) Heat 5 T olive oil in large skillet. When warm, add 2 T sugar and 1 T kosher salt. Stir over medium heat until sugar and salt are dissolved.

3) Add onion, and cook until soft and translucent.

4) Add peas (if you want to reserve 1/2 cup of peas as a garnish, leave out and warm up in the microwave) to skillet, and cook a few additional minutes.

5) Put mixture in blender, add 1/2 cup broth and 1/4 cup olive oil, blend until smooth. Stir in butter.

6) Toss with pasta and any reserved peas. Add pepper to taste, and serve with generous amounts of freshly grated parmesan.

Note: if you’re sensitive to salt, reduce the initial 1 T a bit, although it is the salt that really gives this sauce its bright taste. If you must use regular table salt, reduce even more as it tastes saltier than a course salt.

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Posted 04 February 2010 | pasta   vegetarian | Comments (3) Tagged: , ,

Homemade ‘Fish Sticks’

My 20 month old son is an amazing eater. I have watched him eat foods that many adults won’t touch (kale, quinoa, green smoothies, zucchini, figs, blue cheese, to name a few). The one thing he has shown a distaste for is salmon.

I want him to enjoy fish, so I decided to back up and start with something more traditional and universally liked by children – basically, any protein in a breadcrumb coating. Store-bought fish sticks, like any frozen food, have a lengthy ingredient list with a good handful of things that I can’t pronounce or identify, so we decided to make our own.

My son scarfed them down, and so did I. We served the fish with a quick tartar dipping sauce, and some steamed broccoli. (As you can see, they are not so much fish sticks as irregularly shaped nuggets – but funny shaped fish nuggets didn’t sound quite right.)

Homemade Fish Sticks

2 lb wild-caught Alaskan cod (frozen, slightly thawed)Approx 1 cup whole wheat flour
Lawry’s seasoning salt
3 large eggs
2 cups panko or plain breadcrumbs
olive oil as needed for frying

1) Rinse fish and pat very dry. Cut cod into sticks, nuggets, or whatever shape floats your boat. The fish is easy to cut and handle when still slightly frozen.

2) Set up three shallow dishes: the first should contain the flour with a generous sprinkling of Lawry’s seasoning salt (or Old Bay, or salt, paprika, and pepper – whatever sounds good to you). The second should hold the three eggs, beaten. The third dish is for the breadcrumbs.

3) Preheat your oven to 350 degrees, and turn on your vent or open a window to prevent your entire house from smelling like a Wisconsin supper club on a Friday night. (The smell is great that evening in your kitchen. Not so great when it has soaked into the bathroom towels.)

4) Dredge the fish in flour, then dip in egg, then coat in breadcrumbs. Set on plate until there are enough pieces to fry.

5) Heat olive oil in non-stick or cast iron skillet on medium-high (you will need to coat the pan to prevent sticking, and you may need to add more oil if you cook more than one batch of fish.)

6) Fry fish pieces until golden on each side, then place on cookie sheet in preheated oven as you continue frying batches of fish. This will keep them warm and crunchy, and will finish cooking the fish if you didn’t already in the pan. Check a piece or two to make sure it is cooked – fish should flake with a fork.

Note: You could probably spray a cookie sheet with non-stick spray and bake these in a 375 degree oven for about 15 minutes if you wanted to avoid the oil. They may not be quite as tasty, but it would reduce the overall fat.

Quick Tartar Sauce

2 parts mayo to 1 part sour cream
fresh lemon juice, to taste and thin (at least a couple of tablespoons, depending upon how much tartar sauce you are making
a few spoonfuls of dill pickle relish
salt and pepper to taste

Whisk together, and enjoy fish with tartar sauce and additional lemon wedges

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Posted 01 February 2010 | fish   kid stuff | Comments Off on Homemade ‘Fish Sticks’ Tagged: ,