Bread

I have never been a bread-lover.  I could not eat another piece of bread the rest of my life, and I honestly would not miss it.  In my quest for a soy-free diet (by choice, you can read about it here), I have been on a search for a bread made without soy.  I finally found one a while ago, from Whole Foods, it's their 365 Organic brand Early Bird Multi Seed Bread.  I, unfortunately, can't find a webpage that shows it (and don't have a picture of it).  It's a wheat based bread and has sunflower, pumpkin, sesame and poppy seeds in it.  It's sooo good, I love it!  I do not eat it a lot, mostly because I have never been a big fan of bread, and also because each slice is 4 PP+ per slice.  The slices are a good size, and I usually cut one in half and make a sandwich with the two halves of the slice.

I usually buy two loaves at a time and freeze them in four slice packages.  One four-slice package usually lasts over a week - that's how seldom I eat bread.  I defrost one package in the refrigerator, then put it in the bread box until I eat it.  I have yet to have any go bad (yeah!).  When I eat the last slice of bread in the bread box, I put another package in the refrigerator to unthaw.

I went to pull another package out of the freezer the last week and noticed that there was only one left in the freezer, and it was time to buy more bread.  About this time I had been browsing the King Arthur website.  If you are a baker, this website is like baking porn!!  Anyway....I happened upon a recipe for Molasses Multi-Seed Bread on their website.  It sounded really good and intrigued me.  I spent a few weeks thinking about it, and finally decided to try making it for myself.

So, I bought the ingredients I needed, and instead of the seeds in the recipe, I used the ones in the Whole Foods bread that I like.  I also used slightly less than a quarter cup of molasses, and made up the rest with honey (I like a slightly sweet bread).  I used my Kitchen Aid mixer to mix up the dough, and switched to the dough hook to finish the job.  I then kneaded it a few times by hand.  The recipe makes two full loaves of bread, so I decided to do some experimenting.  After the first rise, I split the dough in half and formed one half into a loaf (sort of....didn't have an actual loaf pan).  And the other half I split in half again.  I made 9 dinner rolls and 5 hamburger buns from that half. 

The dinner rolls were put into an 8" square pyrex dish and allowed to rise again.  The hamburger buns were put on a cookie sheet, and the "loaf" was put into an 8"x12" pyrex dish.  They all went back into the oven (gas oven w/pilot light) to rise a second time.  Gotta love pilot lights!!

Once they were risen, I proceeded to bake them.  The first ones I baked were the hamburger buns.  Here's what they looked like when they came out of the oven:

Don't my buns look good?!?!?!?!?!

Once the hamburger buns were cooled, I cut one in half to see how it looked and tasted.  It was FANTASTIC!!!!!!!!  I've never tasted bread so good in my life!!!!  I literally ate the entire bun in less than a minute.

Mmmmm......lots of seedy goodness!!!!

 
The hamburger buns were HUGE!  They clocked in at 6 PP+ per roll (yikes!). 


The dinner rolls, on the other hand, came out to 3 PP+ per roll - a much more reasonable amount of points for bread (at least in my opinion).  I think I may try making the dinner rolls in a slightly bigger pan, to yield slightly bigger rolls and use those as dinner rolls and hamburger buns.  I don't like huge hamburger buns (the ones in the store are even too big for me).  Here are what the dinner rolls looked like when they came out of the oven:

And after pulling them apart:

I can't wait to eat one and see how it is!!!


Here is the "loaf" of bread that I baked.  It's not quite loaf shaped, and I wasn't quite sure how to cut into it, etc...... so I gave it away to Muffin's family!

My plan is to buy this Pain de Mie pan from King Arthur, and make my own sandwich loaf bread!


So...I may have to retract my "I'm not a bread lover" comment and replace it with I love certain kinds of bread.  It was truly scary how excited I got over the home made bread!!!

~Chelle

Planning

This week's meeting topic was Planning.  I almost didn't make it to the meeting (thank you New England black ice!) but so glad that I did - this was a topic that I REALLY needed to hear!

When I plan, I do an awesome job, if I do say so myself.  I purchase a ton of food, bring it home and prep it and cook for the week.  That way, dinners and lunches are just heating stuff up.  When I get home from work, I'm lucky I have patience to heat up food, let alone actually cook it!  So, cooking ahead of time is crucial for me.

I have been neglecting this lately.  Probably for a few weeks or more.  It's starting to show, lol.  I went out shopping last night and am planning on doing some cooking tonight and tomorrow night.

I have been attempting to follow the Simply Filling option, and if I actually followed it properly, it'd be going great.  The problem is, I haven't been, lol.  Starting this week I am though, and that's what matters most!

~Chelle

An update.....

Wow, I didn't think it had been so long since I posted!  It's amazing how time can get away from you so quickly.

Well, Christmas ended up being a non-event.  Some of the food wasn't as bad as I was anticipating, and some of it I didn't like, so it was easy not to eat them.  I started the day by eating a good, filling breakfast before heading over to my brother's.  I knew we would not be eating as soon as we arrived, and we ended up eating about an hour later than expected - I was very glad I ate a good breakfast!

They pulled out crackers/cheese, chips/dip, and assorted appetizers.  I brought a grape tray and opened that and munched on grapes instead of the other stuff.

Turkey: so delicious I ate and entire leg and thigh (no skin)
Stuffing: he made a cornbread stuffing that had no soy in it!  I had a small amount and it was delicious!
Green bean casserole: I took a reasonable portion and simply avoided eating the fried onions
Yam Balls: a thick sweet potato mash "wrapped" around mini marshmallows, rolled in bread crumbs and sprinkled with more marshmallows.  I tried a small bite, and it was way too sweet for me.  Was not hard to avoid eating the rest of what I took.
Mashed Potatoes: as previously stated, I did not like them and didn't have any
Fried pickles: did not get made, apparently they forgot about them.
Asparagus: I brought this and roasted it in the oven - YUM!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pies/Dessert:   There ended up being four pies, and not one of them was cut into before we left to go home. 

So, all in all it was a good day.  I ate reasonable portions of food, ate what I really liked (and didn't eat what I didn't like), and at the end of the day (literally) I was the ONLY one that had not eaten too much food or was stuffed.  I even had leftover turkey for dinner!  It was a really good feeling to not be stuffed.

I was also so glad I brought the asparagus to roast, as there were no other vegetable present on the table.  I love vegetables and can't imagine eating a meal without them.

~Chelle