Friday with Food: Bagles!

Welcome to Friday with Food!

I had planned on making more of the Honey Whole Wheat Bread and trying out this bagel recipe from Kaitlyn Cooks last Saturday, but I ended up going to the hospital instead. That left me playing catch up all week, but I am happy to say that I got my baking done today!

It is not unusual for me to have several baking projects going on at once. Its simply a matter of timing things where you don't need to be doing something with two projects at the same time. I started the bread first, and this time I got the water temperature right to start with, so I didnt need to do anything else. I added my yeast and flour and let it rise for about an hour.

In the meanwhile, I started the bagels. Here is the list of Kaitlyn's ingredients as she has them at the link above. The notes are hers. Any changes I made are mentioned as I made them.

• 1 1/2 cups of warm water
• 1 tbsp brown sugar
• 1 tbsp dry active yeast
• 1 tablespoon canola oil
• 1 tsp salt *optional (I always omit)
• 4 - 5 cups whole wheat flour. Bread is best but I used Bobs Red Mill Organic Whole Wheat All Purpose Flour with excellent results
• Large pot of water
• 1 tbsp brown sugar
• 1 tsp of baking soda

 I used coconut sugar instead of brown sugar, and olive oil instead of canola oil. I did not omit the salt.

I mixed the yeast, sugar, salt and oil in the warm water and let it sit for about 15 minutes.

See how it bubbled up? Thats a sign your yeast is working. Then I started adding flour. I used generic whole wheat flour. It was exactly 4 cups. 

Once it started to form a ball in the bowl, I put in out on my floured cutting board to knead for about 15 minutes. Then I put it back in the bowl, covered it, and set it to rise for an hour

By that time, the hour was up for the bread. This is what it looked like.

Just as I had done with the bagel dough, I turned in out on my floured cutting board and kneaded about 10 minutes. Once again, I put it back in the bowl to rise for another hour. I should mention here, that I used a differnet brand of whole wheat flour this week, and I didn't have the problem of the sticky dough that I had before. 

When the hour was up for the bagels, I punched the dough down, and let it sit for a few minutes. then I turned it out on the board and tore it into eight pieces. 

Poking my fingers through the middle of each piece, I formed them into bagle shapes. Here they are in the boiling water

Waiting to go in the oven while I boiled the other four.

Following Kaitlyn's directions, I set my kitchen timer for nineteen minutes. Then I turned them over for the last minute. Look, it's bagels!

They are very good!

Back to Lisa's bread 

See how pretty it looks after rising for an hour. Time to knead again and put in bread pans.

I don't know why, but I can never get my loaves the same size. Oh well! One more rising. This time about 30 minutes.

Ready to go in a 350 degree oven for about 30 minuutes.

All done! Even better than last time!

Now, I have to finish cleaning my kitchen. I have a tendency to wear as much flour as I use! 

Have a great weekend!

See ya Monday!

Connie

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