Friday, January 17, 2014

Friday with Food: Sugar, Sugar Everywhere, and Nothing Fit to Eat...Except Some Awesome Honey Whole Wheat Bread

“There is sugar in my Rice Chex!” I was pretty sure that Ed didn't mean the kind of sugar someone might spoon in. No, he was reading the ingredient list, and didn't like what he saw. Ed has become an avid label reader in just a few weeks. He had started looking at those things we already had in the house including his favorite cereal, Rice Chex. He has since switched to shredded wheat. It only has one ingredient: wheat.

I'm not going to go through the whole sugar thing in this post. I have some other things to talk about, but I will tell you just to read the ingredient list on food labels. You will be amazed at how often you will find sugar.

I did want to talk about our basic food plan, and some of my favorite food related websites.

No refined white or brown sugar. Natural sugars (coconut sugar, pure maple syrup, raw honey) in moderation. Stevia in moderation. All other sugar comes from fruit and veggies.

No white flour. Use whole wheat  and experiment with other types of flour. I really like almond meal, but its expensive.

No white rice. Experiment with other grains. I like Quinoa. I grew some last summer, but never got it harvested.

Read the labels. If we can't pronounce it, we don't eat it. If it has sugar, we don't eat it. That includes corn syrup and of course, high fructose corn syrup.

So what do we do about all the things that we consider staples that aren't real food? We take one step at a time, and learn how to make real food replacements. More about that in a minute.

My favorite food related website is100 Days Of Real Food. For Lisa Leake and her family, a challenge to only eat real for food just a hundred days, turned to a whole new way of eating. She has a ton of information

I recently found this one. I found particularly interesting because most of these sites are maintained by moms. This one is a young dad, and I found his perspective refreshing.

Whole New Mom deals with a lot of special diet issues.

One of my favorite all round sites is this one: The Prairie Homestead. Jill writes about a little of everything to do with the homesteading life including great recipes using real food!

I've also started drinking green smoothies, and you can find out about them here. I don't do all the different recipes, just the basic idea. I have to get a little creative, because the ingredients can get pricey in a hurry. Anyway,  I really like them.

Ok, back to making real food replacements for packaged staples. Remember last Monday, when I said I made some honey whole wheat bread?

Well, we are starting our real food replacements with bread. After spending a significant amount of time searching the bread aisle for something that really was as healthy as its label claimed, I made an announcement. I am just going to make our bread. I've made bread for years. As I've said before, its the one thing Grandma could teach me because my left-handedness didn't matter. However, most of my baking has used either white all purpose flour or unbleached flour. Time to learn something new.

I went back to 100 days and found this recipe for honey whole wheat bread. Lisa just gives the ingredients, because she uses a bread machine. That was ok, because I know enough about making bread to be able to figure out what to do. 

Here is her ingredient list:

4 ¼ cups whole-wheat flour
½ teaspoon salt
1 ½ cups warm water
¼ cup honey
2 tablespoons olive oil (or melted butter)
1 packet or 2 ¼ teaspoons yeast

Simply because I am used to doing it that way, I put the water, salt,  honey, and olive oil in a 3 qt sauce pan and warmed them all up together.  Then I let it cool back down to luke warm. Technically it should be about 105 degrees. Too hot and the yeast dies, too cold and it's sluggish and your bread won't rise properly.

Once it cooled, I added the yeast and enough flour to make the sponge.  Basically, that means the batter loses its runny look, and looks more like, well, a sponge. I noticed I was having to add a lot of flour to achieve the sponge, compared to what I would have needed with white flour.  When I did, I covered it with a dish towel and let it rise until doubled in size. Normally that takes at least 30 minutes, but usually it's more like an hour.

This was right at 30 minutes. Then I turned the dough out on a floured board to knead it. Kneading usually involves working in 1-2 more cups of flour into the dough while you fold and push the dough until it gets that “smooth and elastic” look and feel. Honestly, I don't know how much more flour I put in, because I couldn't believe it was still sticky, and kept thinking that just a little more should do the trick. I lost track after 8 cups.  Next time I make it, I'll keep better track. It had nothing to do with the original recipe. It was just the adjustment for the different method. Eventually, it was ready to be formed into loaves, for a second rise.

This time I let it sit an hour. I used three loaf pans because that is what I normally use. Next time I will use two, because I want higher loaves that I can use for sandwiches. I put in a 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes.

It smelled wonderful! I sliced a piece off and spread on some butter.  I was wonderful! I took some to Ed. “Oh this is good!” he said. Ok, I found our replacement for bread. However, Katherine wouldn't even try it. Its ok. She's like that with everything new. It just takes her some time.

This weekend, I”m going to make some more of this bread, and I'm going to work on bagels. I'll let you know how it turns out, and yes, I'll remember to take pictures!

Oh, speaking of pictures. I wanted to leave the bread out on the counter, so we could just slice some off when we need it. So, I used a dinner plate and a glass trifle bowl that I got at a yard sale for a dollar.
Instant cake plate!




Have a great weekend!

See ya Monday!

Connie


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