Country Wheat Bread

Few things smell quite as good as homemade bread baking in the oven.

Coffee, chocolate, and cinnamon come to mind, but that’s another post for another day.

Homemade bread baking just smells so dang good. If you’ve never made yeast bread, it’s almost worth it just to get that wonderful smell in your kitchen. Believe me. It’s awesome.

Oh yeah, the bread tastes really good too.

This is a basic country bread. It has a good crumb, it’s not dry, and it makes good sandwich bread.

I use a mixture of bread flour and white whole wheat flour. The addition of bread flour helps it to rise better than if it were 100% whole wheat flour. Feel free to use whatever ratio of bread flour and whole wheat flour you want.

Country Wheat Bread

(makes 2 loaves)

• 1 c. warm water
• 1 c. buttermilk (room temperature)
• 1/4 c. melted butter (or oil)
• 1/4. c. sucanat or sugar
• 1 Tbsp. salt
• 3 – 3 1/2  c. bread flour
• 2 – 3 c. white whole wheat flour
• 2 eggs (room temperature)
• 4 tsp. dry yeast

1. In a large bowl, combine the water, buttermilk, and butter.
2. Add the sugar and salt, and mix.
3. Add 1 cup of bread flour and 1/2 c. white whole wheat flour, and mix until smooth. Add the eggs and mix well. Add the yeast and mix. Allow mixture to sit, uncovered, for 15 minutes.
4. Continue to add flour, 1/2 c. at a time, until it becomes hard to mix. Turn out dough onto a lightly floured surface, and knead, continuing to add flour as needed, for about 8 minutes, or until dough becomes smooth and elastic.
5. Place dough in a large bowl sprayed with non-stick spray. Cover bowl, and put in a warm place to rise for 1 hour, or until dough doubles in size.
6. Punch down dough and place on a lightly floured surface. Cut dough in half and shape into 2 rectangles. Roll up the dough like a jelly roll, lightly pressing with each rotation of the dough to get out any air bubbles. Pinch the seams closed and place in two sprayed (or greased) 5 x 9 in. loaf pans. Cover and let rise until double in size ( 45 min – 1 hr).
7. Preheat oven to 375° F. Uncover and bake bread for 30 – 35 min, or until the bottom sounds hollow when tapped. [Note: If bread starts to brown on top too quickly, cover with aluminum foil for the remaining baking time.]

Stuffed Buns aka Kolache

Have you ever had kolache?

For that matter, do you know what they are?

I didn’t until we moved to Texas, and suddenly there are all these kolache places everywhere.

Kolache, pronounced ko-lah-chee, are a stuffed bun of sorts. From what I understand, they originate in Central Europe (namely the Czech Republic/Slovakia area), but they’re also similar to Russian piroshki.

Like I said, they’re basically stuffed buns, and here, you can get just about any filling in them. There’s spinach cheese, sausage egg, potato cheese, apple cinnamon, cream cheese, etc.

They’re also really yummy.

You can have these any meal of the day, depending on what you stuff them with. They can also be dessert too. They’re really great for picnics and packed lunches though!

If you’ve been to or lived in Japan, you’ll know that stuffed buns are nothing new there. You can find a lot of different stuffed buns in bakeries. Some of the more common fillings are curry, anko (sweet azuki bean paste), custard, jam, etc. They’re yummy too. Except the anko filled onces, I am not a fan of sweet bean paste. But that’s just me…

Hisa stuffing those buns!

Anyway, Hisa and I thought it would be fun to actually make our own stuffed buns/kolache, so last Sunday, we did just that. I made my standard bread dough, but really any yeast bread dough will do I think. You could even buy pre-made frozen bread dough to use if you want. We made five different fillings, stuffed them, baked them, and had a kolache feast. And it was good.

I’ve included the recipes for the fillings we made, but feel free to try out your own fillings! There’s so many options with these! Next time I want to try making pumpkin spice, custard, curry, and sausage & egg fillings. Oh, the possibilities!

Tip: Use a topping or mark your buns in some way, so you can distinguish which bun has which filling. We topped ours with a walnuts, almonds, and sesame seeds to distinguish them.

 

General Stuffing/Baking Instructions:

1. Pinch off a piece of dough. I would say larger than a ping pong ball, but smaller than a tennis ball. But really, make them whatever size you want [note that a larger size bun might need to bake longer].
2. Roll out the dough piece into a circle. You want it fairly thin. Place about 1/4 c. of the filling in the center, fold the sides up over the filling, and pinch them closed. Place on a greased baking sheet, pinched side down, and cover and let rise for 10 – 15 minutes.
3. Beat an egg in a small bowl. Use a pastry brush and brush the top of each bun with the egg.
4. Baking the buns at 375° F for about 20 minutes, or until the buns are golden brown. Place on a cooling rack to cool.

One of the meat filled and spinach and cheese filled buns. Ooh, they were so good.

 

Russian Style Meat Filling

• 1 Tbsp. butter
• 1/2 lb. ground beef
• 1/2 diced onion
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 tsp. dry dill weed
• 1 Tbsp. tomato paste
• 1 boiled egg, crumbled
• 1/4 c. plain Greek yogurt
• salt and pepper

1. Melt butter in skillet over medium high heat. Add ground beef and onion, and cook until beef browned. Add garlic, dill weed, and tomato paste, and cook another 2 – 3 minutes.
2. Remove from heat. Add boiled egg and yogurt, and mix well. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
3. Allow to cool to room temperature before stuffing dough for buns.

Potato, Ham, & Cheese Filling

• 3 medium-large russet potatoes
• 1/2 small onion, diced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 c. diced ham
• 2 Tbsp. butter
• 1/4 c. milk or cream
• 1 c. shredded colby jack cheese (or whatever cheese you’d prefer)
• salt and pepper

1. Put a pot of water on to boil.
2. In a small skillet over medium heat, saute onion and garlic in olive oil for 3 – 4 minutes. Remove from heat.
3. Peel, wash, and cut potatoes into cubes. Boil until tender, then drain, and return to the pot.
4. Add butter and milk to pot. Mash potatoes until the desired consistency. Add onion/garlic, ham, and cheese, and mix well. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
5. Let mixture cool to room temperature before stuffing dough for buns.

Spinach Ricotta Filling

• 2 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 small onion, diced
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 5 – 7 oz. fresh spinach (a little over half a bag)
• 1 1/2 c. ricotta cheese (or cottage cheese)
• 1/2 c. grated parmesan cheese
• salt and pepper

1. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add onion and garlic, and saute for 3 – 4 minutes. Add spinach and cook until wilted.
2. Add spinach mixture, ricotta cheese, and parmesan cheese to a bowl and mix well. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
3. Let mixture cool to room temperature before stuffing dough for buns.

These were like bread stuffed with apple pie. Delicious. And yummy for breakfast too!

Apple Spice Filling

[note: everyone had their own preference for how strong they like the spices for this type of apple filling. Add more or less than the recipe says according to your preference.]

• 2 large sweet apples, peeled, cored, and cut into small cubes
• 1 Tbsp. lemon juice
• 1/3 – 1/2 c. brown sugar (depending on how sweet you want it)
• 2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 tsp. allspice
• 1/2 tsp. nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp. ginger powder

1. Add cubed apples and lemon juice to a pot over medium high heat. Cook, stirring occasionally, for about 5 minutes. Add sugar and spices, reduce heat to medium, and continue cooking until apples tender, another 5 – 10 minutes. Adjust spices/sweetness to taste.
2. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature before stuffing dough for buns.

Sweet Potato Filling

[note: everyone had their own preference for how strong they like the spices for this type of apple filling. Add more or less than the recipe says according to your preference.]

• 2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into small cubes
• 1/3 – 1/2 c. brown sugar (depending on how sweet you want it)
• 2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 tsp. allspice
• 1/2 tsp. nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp. ginger powder

1. Boil, steam, or bake sweet potato cubes, according to your preference, until tender. Add to a bowl, and mash until smooth.
2. Mix in the brown sugar and spices. Adjust spices/sweetness to taste.
3. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature before stuffing dough for buns.

 

Roasted Vegetable & Pesto Pizza

I’m writing this post from my new desk at my mom’s office, where I’m helping out for the next few weeks.

It’s interesting to be working again. I haven’t worked full time in quite awhile now. I’m finding it difficult to fit in my workouts, cooking, and of course, blogging!
I got up  at 6:30 am yesterday morning, and did my workout before work, and today I got up at the same time and went to swim laps. 6:30 am wasn’t too bad for lap swimming really, as Hisa and I usually get up at 7 am, so it wasn’t that much of a difference. The main difference was I had to swim faster than usual, and I had to keep checking to clock to make sure we left in time, so I would have plenty of time to get ready when we got home.

Anyway, enough talk!
On to the pizza!

This is a great vegetarian pizza that’s a nice change from your regular tomato sauce pizza. Instead of tomato sauce, I used pesto as the base sauce on the pizza crust. Then I spread the shredded cheese over that, and roasted zucchini, onion, and green bell pepper on top.

You can make your own pesto in a food processor (which I really want to do, but have yet to try!), or just use the stuff in a jar like you buy in the grocery store.
You can also make the crust ahead of time and keep it in the fridge, and then stick it in the fridge 24 hours before you’ll need it. Pizza crust is pretty forgiving stuff. And tasty too. 🙂

I used a pizza stone to bake this. If you use a pizza stone (and I highly recommend you do, but it isn’t necessary), stick it in your pre-heated oven for about 20 minutes before you bake your pizza. This will get the stone really hot, bake your pizza fast, and make your pizza crust wonderful! Basically, the hot stone mimics the hot bricks that bake the pizza in a brick pizza oven.
You don’t have to use a pizza stone for this. If you don’t have one, you can bake your pizza on a regular baking sheet. Pizza stones aren’t expensive though, so I recommend trying one out. 🙂

Roasted Vegetable & Pesto Pizza

(makes 2 round pizzas or 1 large rectangle pizza)

For the crust:

• 2 1/4 tsp. dry yeast
• 1/2 tsp. brown sugar
• 1 1/2 c. warm water
• 1 tsp. salt
• 2 Tbsp. olive oil
• 1/2 c. corn meal
• 2 1/2 – 3 c. bread flour

For the pizza toppings:

• 1/2 c. pesto
• 2 c. shredded mozzarella cheese (or whatever cheese you like on your pizza)
• 1 green zucchini, sliced
• 1 yellow zucchini, sliced
• 1/2 onion, thinly sliced
• 1 green bell pepper, thinly sliced
• salt and pepper
• extra virgin olive oil

1. Pre-heat oven to 400° F (200° C).
2. In a large bowl, dissolve yeast and sugar in water. Let sit for 10 min.
3. Add salt and oil, then stir in corn meal and 2 c. bread flour.
4. Turn out dough onto a floured surface. Knead, adding flour until smooth and elastic.
5. Place dough into a well oiled bowl, cover, and let rise for 1 hour, or until double in size.
6. Place sliced zucchini, onion, and pepper, in a greased baking sheet. Drizzle with extra virgin olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Toss to coat the vegetables. Bake for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are tender. Remove from oven.
7. Punch down dough, roll out dough into 2 round crusts or 1 large crust. Place in an oiled baking sheet and let rise 10 – 20 minutes.
8. Pre-heat oven to 425° F (220° C). If using pizza stone, place dry stone in oven to heat up for 20 minutes.
9. Remove pizza stone from oven. Carefully place rolled out pizza dough on stone. Spread pesto on pizza crust. Sprinkle cheese on top of that, and then place the roasted vegetables on top of that.
10. Bake for 15 – 20 minutes, or until pizza crust is golden brown.
11. Remove from oven, cut into slices with a pizza cutter, and serve immediately.

 

 

Lacto-fermentation and You (i.e. Why Making Your Own Sauerkraut & Sourdough Bread is Important)

Homemade sauerkraut, ready for some lacto-fermentation action!

What comes to mind when you think, “fermented”?

Hopefully it’s not “ewww”, because fermented foods can be incredibly tasty, not to mention they have a ton of health benefits!

Fermentation is the way most cultures all over the world preserved certain foods so they wouldn’t go bad long before refrigerators and freezers were invented. You can find methods of fermenting foods all over the world that have been around for thousands of years!

There are two main types of fermentation:

• lacto fermentation 
• alcoholic fermentation (also called ethanol fermentation)

They’re both similar in that they both convert the sugars present in foods (glucose, fructose, and sucrose) into something else via friendly bacteria.

Lacto-fermentation gives us delicious goodies like yogurt and sourdough bread!
picture credit

Lacto-fermentation is the process by which sugars are converted into lactic acid via friendly bacteria (actually, if you want to get scientific, the sugars are converted into cellular energy, and lactic acid is the byproduct, but close enough). Lactic acid is what gives lacto-fermented foods their tangy, delicious flavor, and what preserves the foods so they can be stored without refrigeration for weeks to come.
This type of fermentation is seen in the creation of things like yogurt, sourdough bread, sauerkraut, kimchi, and a wide range of fermented vegetables and fruits. Even some condiments like ketchup and chutney are traditionally lacto-fermented foods!

Without alcoholic fermentation, there would be no wine or beer! OR yeast bread! *gasp* Terrifying thought, I know.

Alcoholic fermentation is the process by which sugars are converted into alcohol and carbon dioxide via friendly bacteria, in this case, yeasts.
This type of fermentation is used to create wine, beer, and yeast bread (in case you’re wondering why your yeast bread isn’t alcoholic, the alcohol is burned off when the bread is baked. Tragic, I know).

Lacto-fermented fruits and vegetables are very easy to make.
You simply add salt (and sometimes whey and/or spices) to vegetables and fruits, pound them a bit so they release their juices (this is more common with vegetables than fruit I believe), and store them in airtight containers. Then you wait for them to ferment before eating them. Easy.

So why is all this important?
Besides keeping foods preserved without the use of a refrigerator, freezer, or canning; lacto-fermented foods have many health benefits as well.

Health Benefits of Lacto-fermented foods:

Those friendly little bacteria in lacto-fermented foods that create the lactic acid, known as lactobacilli, help us not only to digest those fermented foods better, but they also increase the vitamin content of those foods.
In human intestines, we have a wide range of friendly bacteria all the time, known as intestinal flora. These flora are extremely important in helping our bodies digest foods better, absorb nutrients better, fight off dangerous bacteria and pathogens, , get rid of dangerous carcinogens, develop our immunity, and help prevent allergies.

Although we already have some lactobacilli in our intestines, when we eat lacto-fermented foods we get more of these helpful bacteria, and they, in turn, help produce other useful bacteria in our intestines (in addition to helping with the things I mentioned above). It’s a win win situation!

Unfortunately, when food began being mass produced in factories, they started pasteurizing (heating at high temperatures for a specific length of time) traditionally fermented foods, which kills all of those helpful lactobacilli.

Some people believe that it is the pasteurization of so many of our foods that has led to a severe decrease in the helpful bacteria present in our intestinal flora, which has, in turn, led to an increase in things like allergies and dangerous deseases in our society.

Disclaimer: I do not have a scientific background or published studies to list as references for all this. I’m sorry. I wish I did. This is just what I’ve read over a long time in a wide range of well documented books and websites, particularly, Nourishing Traditions and The Weston A. Price Foundation. Their information is very well referenced, and I recommend reading their information on the topic if you want more in depth information.

If you want a bit more scientific info about fermentation and intestinal flora (and who wouldn’t, right? Afternoon coffee reading right there), here are some links to the handy dandy site we know and love, Wikipedia.

• Lactic Acid Fermentation
• Alcohol Fermentation
• Intestinal Flora

Next week, I’m going to be introducing you to some easy homemade lacto-fermented foods (that are not scary. I promise) that you can make and enjoy.
Here are some of the recipes I’ll be introducing you to:

• sauerkraut
• ketchup
• Making a Rye sourdough starter (and making bread with it)
• ginger ale

I’m hoping to also try my hand at making homemade yogurt next week, so I’ll let you know how that goes. 🙂

Whole Wheat Bread

I was looking at Lucky magazine over breakfast this morning. Their spring shoe sandals section. *sigh* It really made me want to go shopping, bust out my spring clothes, and go to the beach.

Unfortunately, it’s still February, and although it’s been pretty warm here the past few days, it’s still not warm enough for sandals or spring clothes, and everything is still shades of brown and gray outside. Bummer.

But looking forward to the warmth and colors of spring during the winter months is one of the things that make it so wonderful once spring finally does arrive. Don’t you think?

Now that I’m back in the U.S., I’ve realized that my winter wardrobe is severely lacking in certain areas. In Japan, due to the lack of central heating, I would always wear a long-sleeved shirt as a kind of undershirt, and then wear a sweater of some sort over it. As a result, although I have plenty of sweaters to wear, I seriously only have four long-sleeved shirts (one of which is old, and getting faded and icky). Now that I’m in the U.S. (The land of central heating!), I don’t need to wear a heavy sweater in doors usually, so I’ve ended up wearing one of my four long-sleeved shirts every day.

This is something my husband (and a lot of guys) will probably never understand, but I can’t stand wearing the same four shirts over and over. Now if I’m traveling or something, then sure, it’s not a big deal, but just at home every day? No thank you. I need variety in my life and in my wardrobe. Therefore, I think I’m going to have to go shopping this weekend for some more long-sleeved shirts. Darn! 🙂

I tried out a new whole wheat bread recipe this week. Like a lot of whole wheat bread recipes, this one is made with a mixture of white flour and wheat flour, but it’s about half whole wheat flour, and rises really well, so that’s a good whole wheat bread in my books.

I found this recipe in my mom’s 1975 Doubleday Cookbook. A very informative cookbook by the way. It has very detailed sections on everything from making bread, to canning and preserving, to a section on nutrition (1970’s style).

This bread was really good. The crust was chewy and crunchy (almost like a baguette crust, but not quite that tough), and the inside was light and fluffy. It goes great with soup and also makes really good toast.

First, bring 1 cup milk and 1 1/2 cups of cold water to almost boiling. Remove the heat, then mix in 1/4 cup molasses, 2 Tbsp. brown sugar, 1 Tbsp. butter, and 1 Tbsp. salt. Cool to lukewarm.

 

Meanwhile, add 1/2 cup warm water to a large bowl. Sprinkle 5 tsp. dry yeast on the water, and mix until it dissolves. Once the milk mixture is lukewarm, pour it into the yeast mixture.

Gradually mix in 4 cups of bread flour, 1 cup at a time. Next, mix in 4 -5 cups whole wheat flour (the recipe called for 5 cups, but I could barely get 4 cups mixed in), 1 cup at a time. Although the recipe says you don’t need to knead the dough, I found it was easier to knead some of the flour in rather than trying to mix it in with a spoon near the end (of course if you have a stand mixer, this probably won’t be a problem).

 

Place the dough ball in a buttered or sprayed bowl, cover, and let rise in a warm place for about an hour, or until double in size.

Beat down the dough (the funnest part of bread making in my opinion), and divide in half.

 

 Shape into loaves making sure there aren’t any large air bubbles in them, and place in two greased 9 x 5 in. loaf pans. Cover and let rise for another 45 – 50 minutes. Bake in a 400° F (200°) oven for 20 minutes, then lower the temperature to 375° F (190° C) for 45 more minutes. If the tops of the loaves start getting too dark, cover them with a sheet of aluminum foil (although this makes a “richly brown” bread as the recipe calls it).

Let loaves cool on a wire rack.

 

Lovely ♥

 

Whole Wheat Bread

(makes 2 loaves)

• 1 c. milk
• 1 1/2 c. cold water
• 1/4 c. molasses
• 2 Tbsp. brown sugar
• 1 Tbsp. butter
• 1 Tbsp. salt
• 1/2 c. warm water
• 5 tsp. dry yeast
• 4 c. bread flour
• 4 – 5 c. whole wheat flour

1. Bring milk and cold water almost to a boil in a saucepan. Remove from heat and mix in molasses, sugar, butter, and salt. Let cool to lukewarm.
2. Add warm water to a large bowl. Sprinkle in yeast, and mix until dissolved. Stir in cooled milk mixture.
3. Mix in bread flour, one cup at a time. Then, mix in whole wheat flour, one cup at a time until you have a stiff dough.
4. Place dough in a large greased bowl, cover, and let rise in a warm place for 1 hour, or until doubled in size.
5. Beat down dough, cut in half, shape into two loaves, and place in two greased 9 x 5 in. loaf pans. Cover, and let rise another 45  minutes, or until doubled in size.
6. Bake for 20 minutes in a 400° F (200°) oven, then reduce the temperature to 375° F (190° C), and bake for 45 more minutes, or until bottoms sound hollow. If the tops of the loaves start getting too dark, cover them with a sheet of aluminum foil.
7. Remove to from pans to cool on a wire rack. Serve warm.

recipe adapted from the 1975 Doubleday Cookbook