Soaked Flatbreads

This is such a versatile recipe. We love Flatbreads in our family and would eat an entire double batch if I wasn't so firm about saving some for the next day. They are actually quite easy too. Here goes...

Soaked Flatbreads

Note: you will want to start this recipe either in the morning or the night before to allow time for the yogurt to fully predigest the wheat and neutralize the phytates. We call this "soaking"... read more about it here.

First thing in the morning, mix the following ingredients in your electric mixer:

• 3 cups of whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup of warm water mixed with 1/2 cup of plain yogurt
• 1/4 tsp. non-aluminum baking powder
• 1 tsp. sea salt
• 1/4. cup of extra virgin olive oil

Knead the dough until it forms a smooth ball. I use my mixer for this and let it knead for about four minutes.

Cover the dough lightly with wax paper or plastic wrap, and leave it for 10 or more hours at room temperature. (Soaking is a process and if you can only let the dough sit for seven hours, that is definitely better than no soaking at all.)

When ready to make the flatbreads, divide the dough into 12 equal sized balls. (I double the batch and make 24.) Either roll the dough to a six inch circle or use a tortilla press. Here you see I use a tortilla press, but these are definitely not as thin as tortillas. To make thin tortillas, I would have to roll the ball out to ten inches, which can be done with a rolling pin.


As you can see in this picture, after pressing (or rolling) the dough flat, I throw the breads onto a very hot, ungreased griddle. I use a large griddle to cook six at a time... and yes, it is coated with teflon (!), but in an ideal world where I had lots of time at my disposal, I would cook these one by one in an ungreased cast iron skillet heated to high.

These breads only cook for a minute or two on each side. You'll notice that they start to get brown circles on them (like tortillas) when one side is done. If you let them get too brown, they will be on the crunchy side instead of all-soft.

Let them cool on a rack. Serve them fresh!


So what do we do with flatbreads? We love them filled with Gyro Meat (homemade without preservatives), Tzatziki Sauce and tomatoes. Or we love them filled with hummus and other chopped veggies. They are also great dipped in soups. Last night I served them with a salad made with Grilled Meat, Tomatoes, Cucumbers, Garlic, Parsley and a Feta Cheese Dressing.



Tonight, I think I'll melt some cheese onto them and put some chili beans inside.

Enjoy!

Wheat-Free Muffins, Grain-Free and Low-Carb too!

The recipe I am sharing today is a wonderful alternative for those steering away from wheat, grain or carbs. Whether you are gluten-intolerant or whether you just want to cut down on the amount of grain in your diet, this is a great muffin to try! We call these Love Muffins... only because my husband requested them... and he almost never makes specific requests... so I consider them an expression of my love for him... the extremely loving man that he is!

Love Muffins:

Blend together 12 eggs. I use some very healthy yard hen eggs from a friend of mine. See how dark the yolks are! (I am doubling the recipe here... some for now, some for later... these freeze well.)

Add:

• 1/2 cup of melted butter
• 1/2 cup of real milk
• 3/4 cup of raw honey
• 1 tsp of salt
• 1 tsp of vanilla

Then, combine 1 cup of sifted Coconut Flour with 1 tsp of non-aluminum baking powder. Add these dry ingredients to your eggy mixture and blend until there are no lumps.

Note: you really want to start with sifted coconut flour so that you don't get lumps.

Second Note: you will be really surprised at how much the coconut flour expands. I think it must more than double its bulk as it absorbs the liquids.

Pour batter into greased muffin tins. (The recipe says it will make 24 muffins, but I have always made 12 really big muffins instead.) Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes or until the tops are starting to brown. They burn quickly! Take it from me, you don't want to let the time escape you!

This recipe is from the book Cooking with Coconut Flour: A Delicious Low-Carb, Gluten-Free Alternative to Wheat By Bruce Fife. The recipe comes with many variations. We have tried the Orange Poppyseed Muffins and the Cinnamon Raisin Muffins. But, since these are primarily for my husband and he prefers the taste of honey, we continue to make the basic recipe... our Love Muffin recipe.

You Can Make Bread in 5 Minutes Too!

I am so eager to share this recipe with you! I have been baking our family's bread for nearly ten years now. In that time, I've tried a lot of different methods and recipes, including a few "soaked" and sourdough breads. (What is soaking grains?)

I can usually get a really nice, sliceable loaf of 100% whole wheat bread by using normal bread making procedures. However, I want to make a soaked loaf for its health benefits. I have had trouble with soaked breads crumbling before I can make them into a sandwich. Or, they crumble as you lift them to your mouth. In addition to sliceability, I also need a method that is quick. I'm here to tell you... making enough bread for my family takes a lot of time. Figuring on 8-10 sandwiches a day, that's 6 loaves a week! (My husband and Spiderman always eat two; Rainbow and I usually have one and a half... then the little girls... it adds up.)

I have been searching for a way to make enough sliceable, soaked bread for my hungry family WITHOUT bread baking commandeering my life. You can imagine my excitement with Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. Really, it took me 30 minutes over a 48-hour time frame to make four loaves of bread and rolls. It would take considerably less time if I wasn't grinding my own grain. I didn't believe the title at first, but after making the quick master recipe, this bread REALLY only takes 5 minutes.

One more thing before I get to the recipe. The book includes an abundance of really helpful information and a multiplicity of tempting variations. Being the practical-mind that I am, I've just zeroed in on the bread we will eat on a daily basis. I highly recommend purchasing this book both for the troubleshooting help and for the extra recipes. Personally, I am looking forward to trying out the bagels and pretzels!

For six loaves of 100% Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread, you'll need the following ingredients. You can cut this in half if you only want three, but bread freezes well, so why not six?

• 3 cups of lukewarm water
• 3 cups of lukewarm milk
• 3 Tbsp. yeast
• 2 Tbsp. plus 2 tsp. salt
• 1 cup of honey
• 1/2 cup plus 2 Tbsp. EVOO (that's extra virgin olive oil)
• 13 1/3 cups of whole wheat flour. Because my flour is freshly ground and not yet settled, I have had to increase this to 14 cups.

First, you are going to make your master recipe. In the following pictures, I used my mixer to combine the ingredients. Honestly, I probably won't use it again. There is no kneading to do, and the dough is really wet. So, it is more simple to combine the ingredients with a wooden spoon in the bucket I will use for storing the master dough. It is easy to mix by hand and then I won't have to wash all the parts of my mixer!

To make the master recipe, mix the milk, water, yeast, salt, honey and oil in a 5-quart container (or the larger container you will store your dough in). If you don't have a mixer this big, don't worry because like I said, it's really easy to combine by hand.

Once the first 6 ingredients are combined, mix in the flour. Don't knead. Just stir until the dry ingredients have been thoroughly incorporated. The dough will be very wet. If you have experience in breadmaking, you will be tempted to add more flour. But don't. According to the book, a stiff dough prevents rising whereas a wet dough allows the yeast to create nice air pockets. And again, the book stresses: "Do not knead." Here is my mixer doing the job:

Once the dough mixture is all wet, you're done. Making the master recipe is that simple. Grinding my wheat took about 15 minutes. Measuring and combining the ingredients took about 5 minutes.


The next step is letting the dough rest. Cover, but not airtight, in a large container and allow to rest at room temperature for two to three hours. Here is my bucket... the book gives suppliers for nice containers made especially for dough storage, but I am just using a three-gallon bucket with the lid placed on top but not closed tightly. A five-gallon bucket might have done fine, but would be hard to put in the fridge. You'll see in these next two pictures that you need to have plenty of room for expansion!

You will know that the initial resting is done when the dough rises to a round top and then flattens again... like it popped. Here, it is still rounding up. It flattened just near the top of my bucket, which was covered until I snapped this picture.

After this initial rise, transfer your container to the fridge and let the dough soak for 24 hours to 14 days. It has been our experience that the dough gets more and more sour the longer you keep it. Because we like slightly sour bread, I use my master dough within 48 hours. But, it will keep for two weeks.

Once you are ready to bake your loaves (or loaf if you want to spend five minutes for a fresh loaf every day), spray your bread pans with EVOO cooking spray. Then, pull off a cantaloupe sized ball of dough. This is the only tricky part... you want to make a "gluten cloak". It's like your covering the dough ball with a layer of stretched dough. The dough will be pretty sticky, so use wet hands. To make the gluten cloak, "quickly shape it into a ball by stretching the surface of the dough around to the bottom on all four sides, rotating the ball a quarter turn as you go." Did you get that? I stretch the top layer of dough to underneath the ball, turn it a quarter turn, stretch the dough to the underside again, turn, stretch, turn and stretch to the bottom one last time. That is all the shaping you do. I couldn't take pictures of me in action here, but the picture below shows that the top is a smooth layer of stretched dough... and the underneath is not a pretty sight.

Leave the loaves uncovered to rise for one hour and forty minutes. They will not double in bulk as other breads do. You'll see below that mine have only risen slightly, but the bread still turned out considerably springy for a whole wheat sourdough loaf. The book says to slash the tops of each loaf with a knife. I have had no success with this. This time around, I only slashed half and I found that it made no difference in the end.

5 minutes before the dough is finished rising, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. When the rising time is up, place the loaves in the oven (before temperature is reached) and bake for one hour. If you desire a crispy crust, place a shallow pan in the oven when you preheat it. Then, pour a cup of water into the pan immediately after you put your loaves in the oven and close the oven door quickly. My children like a soft crust, so I skip this step.

These rolls were perfectly delicious right out of the oven. The loaves need to cool completely before slicing so they hold together when cut thinly. Here are our rolls... YUM-O!

And here are the four loaves of bread... I am still working on tearing off that cantaloupe sized ball uniformly! You can see that my loaves are not all the same size.

After you try this recipe, please come back to post your comments and thoughts. If you have a question about the process, I'll answer it as far as I'm able. Or, if you learn other tips, please share them with us! Like I said, this book is very helpful. While I've tried to provide you with a reliable, healthy bread you can conveniently make for your family, there are so many more "company breads" worth trying out too!

OOOh... and definitely try making cheese toast with this bread. Very tasty!

Coconut Corn Muffins

It's been a long time in coming... but I'm posting a photo! YAY... this is big news for me, you see... because I am the world's worst at remembering to take pictures... and really, my wonderful husband took this one so I can't even take the credit.

These are the Coconut Corn Muffins we ate with our supper last night. Here's the recipe:

• 3 cups of corn meal (buy organic, not from GM corn)
• 2 cups of whole wheat flour
• 1 Tbsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup Sucanat or Rapadura
• 1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

Mix these dry ingredients together; then mix in:

• 2 cups Real Milk
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 cup EVOO (that's Extra Virgin Olive Oil)

Spoon batter into muffin tins sprayed with EVOO cooking spray. Bake for 15 minutes in an oven preheated to 400 degrees. This recipe will make 24 muffins, even though my picture doesn't show them all. You know what my theory is: make some for now AND some for later.

Serve these up with some good ol' crock pot beans and you've got a wholesome, frugal meal. I made black beans seasoned with salt, cayenne and cumin. It wouldn't be totally nourishing to eat this fare every night, but our family has made the commitment to eat one cheap meal per week so that we can use the money we save in other ways.

Pancakes All Day!

I mentioned before that keeping wholesome foods accessible is a key to raising healthy children. When good things aren't available, we reach for something less nutritious.

I have found that one of the best snacks to have on hand is pancakes! Here is my slightly sweet pancake recipe. There's a bit more sweetener in it than in other recipes. That is so the kids eat them plain. There's not always time to pop them in the toaster and pour on the REAL maple syrup. This version will go well plain, with peanut butter, with fruit-sweetened jam or rolled up with honey.

Slightly Sweet Pancakes

3 cups of freshly ground whole wheat flour **
1 Tbsp aluminum-free baking powder
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 - 1/2 of Rapadura, Sucanat or other natural sweetener (If your littles are acquiring a taste for healthy food, start with 1/2 cup and eliminate a Tbsp every time you make the recipe.)

Mix these dry ingredients together.
Add in:
3 eggs
3 cups of Real Milk (If I don't have milk, I use thinned down yogurt and this makes an even fluffier, tangier pancake.)
2 tsp. vanilla
1/4 EVOO (that's extra virgin olive oil)

Whisk this all together. The recipe makes about 36 pancakes.

** If you're using whole wheat flour from a bag, you might have to add some additional liquid since my milled flour is not packed-down. Also, if your children are just getting used to whole wheat, use 1/2 whole wheat and 1/2 unbleached flour. When they are ready, you can reduce the amount of unbleached flour until you've got them enjoying 100% whole wheat.

What are you cooking for Thanksgiving?

I stopped by our local health food store last week to put in my order for a "real" turkey. While there, I enjoyed a sample of some yummy sweet potatoes made with marmalade. Since then, I've had an insatiable craving for all things orange-y. So, this evening for a festive and seasonal treat, I made some Orange Cranberry Muffins. Do you want to try them?

2 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 Sucanat (Rapadura or other non-refined sweetener)
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup "real" milk
1/2 cup orange marmalade (You can buy the kind sweetened with fruit juice.)
1/2 cup melted butter
1 farm fresh egg
1 cup chopped cranberries
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Mix the dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, mix the melted butter, milk, egg and marmalade. Mix the dry and wet ingredients together. If you were making this according to the recipe, you would fold in the cranberries and walnuts, spoon into muffin cups and bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes. My husband happens to not like cranberries. So, I divided the batter into two parts and put mini-chocolate chips in one part and the cranberries in the other. The Orange Cranberry Muffins are like a comfort-food. However, the Orange Chocolate Chip Muffins were a surprising hit. I don't know which one we liked best. You could make both. Have the Chocolate Chip ones for a dessert and the Orange Cranberry ones for breakfast!

Note on Whole Wheat: If you are just now considering making the switch to whole wheat, let me say a few things. First, it is worth it for your family's health! Second, I know that white flour habits die hard. Third, it is worth it for your family's health! Fourth, try making the adjustment by degrees. First use 25% whole wheat until your family gets used to it. Then, step it up to 50/50. Here's the final thing though: when you do make the switch to 100% whole wheat, keep in mind that the store bought whole wheat tastes a lot heavier than fresh ground. Once you get your family eating 50/50 0r even 75/25, consider buying a grain mill. Your family will enjoy the lighter flavor. (Wanna hear more about Grain Mills? Comment to let me know!)

Note on other ingredients: This world is crazy with debate about which foods are good for us. I hesitate to use any new-fangled food like butter or sugar substitutes. I use three principles from the book What the Bible Says About Healthy Living. This is my rough paraphrase: Eat what God made. Eat it as close to how He made it as possible. Eat everything in moderation. (Have specific questions about why I use certain ingredients? Comment to ask them!)