Tortillas

Last night it was as if the clouds parted, a choir of angels descended and began singing, "Hallelujah! Hallelujah!  She did it.  Made tortillas!  Hallelujah!!!"  Ok, I might be exaggerating a tad, but seriously my quest for decent from scratch tortillas has been a multi-year quest.  It has finally come to an end.

I have tried several recipes and while they were all tasty, I hadn't found "the one."  Most of the time, I couldn't get them rolled thin enough and they ended up being more like flatbread than a tortilla.  I posted my problem on the kitchen forum on Diaperswappers a while back and Nikki offered her recipe.  It was super simple, required no special ingredients, was whole wheat... what more could I ask?  Tortilla making has been on my "to do" list for a while and last night I finally got around to making them.  The dough mixed up very easily, and rolled out really well.  I don't think I had my skillet hot enough for the first couple tortillas, but once I got going it was super easy.  While I had one cooking in the skillet, I rolled  the second and so on.   Once I was finished, I made myself a bean and cheese quesadilla that was so yummy.  It was just refried beans, cheese and tortilla.  Please do keep in mind that it was nearing 9 pm and I still hadn't eaten, so that could've been part of the reason it was soooo good.

I bagged those bad boys up in a Ziploc bag and into the refrigerator they went.  I was a bit worried this morning when I pulled them out and there was condensation all over the bag (oops, didn't let them cool completely), but when I got them in the pan this morning for sausage, egg and cheese quesadillas, they crisped up nicely.  I also had a little extra spaghetti meat from earlier this week and thought, "Heck, why not?"  So I made up some egg, meat and cheese burritos.  Now, it's not something I would have every day, it wasn't half bad.  I added extra cheese and we all know that cheese makes everything better!

So, without further adieu, I present my tortilla recipe (and Nikki's and anyone else who might have decided to try it)!  LOL

2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp. salt
3 Tbsp. oil (I used EVOO)
2/3 cup warm water

I placed the flour and salt in my food processor and gave it a quick whirl to combine it.  Then I drizzled in the oil, followed by the water.  The dough was slightly sticky when I pulled it out of the processor, but a quick dusting of the counter and kneading it a couple of times, it became very workable.  I rolled it into a ball, placed it in a bowl, covered it with a towel and let it sit on the back of the stove for 20 minutes. 

When the 20 minutes was up, I scooped the dough out of the dough and kneaded it a few times.  Then I separated the dough into equal portions.  I even went so far as to weigh the dough and divide it into 11 equal portions (but you definitely don't have to do that)!  Roll each portion into a ball and place on a plate, cover and let rest for 20 minutes.  I just threw them together in a pile on a salad plate and well they REALLY stuck together.  In the future, I will be sure that the dough balls don't touch.

OK, 20 minutes is up and you are ready for some tortilla making.  Let your ungreased skillet get hot, and by hot, I don't mean warm, been there done that!  Take a ball of dough out and on a lightly floured surface roll it out to a 6-8 inch circle.  I didn't need to flour the counter, they weren't sticking so I skipped that part.  Also, my tortillas weren't really circles, but I figure  practice makes perfect on that.

Lay the tortilla in the skillet and grab another piece of dough to roll out while you count to 20.  Flip the tortilla in the skillet, continue rolling and count to 20 again.  Remove the tortilla from the skillet and place on a plate and cover with a towel.  Place the tortilla you've been rolling into the skillet and start all over.  Toward the end, my skillet was hot enough that it only took 15 seconds to adequately cook a side, so I was speed rolling to keep up, but all of them managed to get done and I didn't burn any (surprise, surprise)!

Honey Wheat Bagels

For a long time I held off trying to make bagels from scratch.  The process seemed intimidating and with so many steps, I could easily see myself skipping something and screwing the whole thing up.  About a year ago, I found a bread machine bagel recipe and loved it.  With my recent switch to whole wheat flour, I'm finding that I can't just switch out the all-purpose flour for whole wheat (on some things that works fine, but with yeast breads, I've had more trouble).  So, I went on the hunt for a whole wheat bagel and immediately found one at Heavenly Homemakers.  I will say at the start that this recipe has a lot of steps, but if I can follow them and have beautiful bagels at the end, so can you!

I followed the ingredients and directions exactly as written, so head on over to Heavenly Homemakers and check it out.

I did it-wheat bread success!

I made wonderful 100% whole wheat bread!  Woo-hoo!  For years I've been trying to do this and it has always turned out super dense, crumbly and very dry tasting.  Not this time though!  I am such a nerd that I would name this as one of the most exciting things that has happened in a while! LOL

I picked up the recipe from Food.com.  I haven't had the best luck on there in the past.  I'm more of an allrecipes or taste of home kind of girl usually, but when I searched "100% whole wheat bread recipe," this one popped up.  There were 60+ reviews and almost all gave it 5 stars and said wonderful things.  They had me hooked.  I printed the recipe and headed to the kitchen last night (at 9:00 pm of all times).  The dough was a little hard to work with, but I resisted the urge to add extra flour, which the recipe specifically said to try and avoid.  I'm so glad I actually followed the directions.  I could tell when the bread started to rise that it had promise.

As you can see, I made one large loaf and 3 mini-loaves.  The daycare kids like the smaller loaves and it works out great for me because I only have one loaf pan.  I baked them for 36 minutes as the reciped directed, but the large loaf took an additional 5 minutes.  The top picture only shows 2 loaves, because we cut in, and ate, one of the minis within minutes of it coming out of the oven. :)

Here's the recipe.  I'm cutting and pasting the original recipe and I'll note my changes (which were minor).

Ingredients:

• 2 3/4 cups hot water
• 1/3 cup olive oil, any oil is fine (I used canola-still trying to use it up.  I'll try coconut oil next.)
• 1/3 cup honey
• 2 tablespoons molasses
• 1 tablespoon salt, Sea Salt is good
• 7 1/2 cups of 100% whole grain wheat flour  (See direction 4.  I used 6.5 cups.)
• 2 tablespoons dry active yeast
  Change Measurements: US | Metric

Directions:

Prep Time: 30 mins

Total Time: 3 1/4 hrs

1. 1 Place the first five ingredients in the bowl and mix.
2. 2 Add: 2 Cups 100% Whole Grain Wheat Flour. (to cool the water and end up with warm dough) Mix then add 2 Tbs of Dry Active Yeast. If your not sure about your yeast proof it in a little warm water first.
3. 3 Add: 4 Cups of 100% Whole Grain Wheat Flour.
4. 4 Mix until the consistency is some what even. Then continue to slowly add flour 1/2 Cup at a time until the dough quits sticking to the sides of the bowl. It should be tacky to the touch. The trick is to have enough consistency to stand up with the least amount of flour so the bread will be fluffy. It will most likely be 6 1/2 cups but in any case do not exceed 7 1/2 cups of wheat flour. You can trade one cup of wheat flour for one cup of all purpose white if you wish. Don't over mix or the bread will be tough.
5. 5 When your dough is finished, leave it in the mixer, cover the bowl and let it rise for about 30-45 minutes. The dough will be larger but it doesn't need to double.
6. 6 Grease two bread pans with Crisco. You can also flour the pans to reduce sticking.
7. 7 Mix the dough again just enough to knock it down at least close to the original size.



All that remained of the first mini loaf!

8. 8 Drop the dough on a floured surface so you can work the dough and shape it. Shape it with your hands to make a nice ball getting enough flour on it so it isn't sticky. Divide the ball in half and do it again. Shape the loaves by turning the dough under it's self over and over. When the dough is shaped the sides and ends will be sealed and all you will see is a nice oblong shaped loaf with smooth sides and top. Drop the loaves in your bread pans and let them rise until almost doubled. Bake in a preheated oven at 350 for 36 minutes. If you forgot to preheat 41 minutes. (gas oven).
9. 9 When done turn the bread out of the pan to a rack to cool. You can eat it right away (a great time for real butter) don't wrap it until completely cooled. (Condensation will make it soggy) Put in tinfoil to store on the counter. If you put it in the refrigerator it will turn into a brick. Enjoy.

Read more: http://www.food.com/recipe/100-whole-grain-wheat-bread-181106#ixzz1GXVixIeL

Now that I understand the whole "sticky dough" concept, I'm going to go back and try those garlic twists and French bread again and see if I can get them a little fluffier than before.  I'll update as I get around to doing those.  Bagels are on the menu this coming week.

40 Minute Wheat Buns

I made these as whole wheat rolls for the first time today and I can say that I love them.  They are tender, soft, slightly sweet and they almost melt in your mouth.  I paired them with salmon patties-a recipe I found on Green & Thrifty (Hi, Marishannon!).  The daycare kids were a little skeptical at first, but once I got them to take the first bite, they were hooked (funny pun, LOL!).  My son ate three and was mad that there wasn't more.

Oops, off track... back to the buns.  The kids didn't need any encouragement to dive into these.  I managed to save enough so that hubby and the girls can have one with dinner tonight.  If they give them thumbs up, which I'm sure they will, these will be our new go to dinner roll/bun recipe.

The original recipe came from Taste of Home, but I modified it a bit.  Imagine that! :)

1 cup warm water
2 T. yeast
1/3 cup oil (I'm using up my canola oil, but will most likely use coconut oil next time around)
1/4 cup honey
1 egg
3/4 tsp. salt
3 cups whole white wheat flour

In a small bowl, dissolve the yeast in water and let stand for several minutes.  While the yeast is doing it's thing, put the rest of the ingredients into a large bowl.  I used my stand mixer for this recipe.  Start mixing the ingredients in the big bowl together and then add the yeast mixture.  Mix together.  I added a bit of extra flour here-maybe 1/4 cup as my dough was a little too gooey (this is a soft dough, but it has to be workable too).  Turn the dough onto a floured surface and knead about 5 minutes.  Immediately cut the dough into 12 pieces, rolling them and shaping them into balls.  Place on a greased baking sheet and press slightly to flatten (or you buns will be the size of softballs-yeah, I did that!).  Cover and let them rest 10 minutes.  Bake in a 425 degree oven for 10 minutes or until golden brown.  Place buns on wire rack to cool.

UPDATE 03/23/2011:  Given that I've now figured that sticky is better for whole wheat dough, use as little flour as possible to make these buns.  I did it the other day with 2 3/4 cups, but it wasn't very humid (that can be a big issue in Missouri).  I roll the dough into balls and put them in a muffin pan to bake.  They made wonderful dinner rolls-great with homemade strawberry jam!

Garlic twists

I made these garlic twists last week as part of my "whole wheat" week, but failed to get them posted.  They grew on me.  At first I didn't like them, but after a couple days, they were ok.  I think it's taking some time for me to get used to the wheat flour.  The white wheat that I'm using does make breads less dense than red wheat, but they still have a stronger flavor than something made with all purpose flour.  My 2nd child grabbed on of these rolls and said, "I like these, but they are a little too wheaty!"  Really?  How am I supposed to respond to that?  "Uhh, maybe it's beacuse they are wheat rolls."

Anyway, the recipe

1 cup warm water
1 T. yeast
2 1/4 cups whole white wheat flour change to just shy of 2 cups-only put enough flour in to make them workable-less is better!
3 T. wheat gluten
1 T. sugar
1 T. oil
1 egg

Mix the yeast and warm water and set aside.  Put the remaining ingredients in a bowl and begin stirring to combine.  Add the yeast water when it is foamy and continue stirring until the dough comes together.  Turn the dough out on a floured surface and knead about 8 minutes.  Cover and let rest 10 minutes.  Then roll into a rectangle approximately 10" x 15" (jelly roll pan size).  Spread the dough with

1/4 cup softened butter
1/4 tsp parsley
1/4 tsp dill weed
1/4 tsp garlic powder
liberally sprinkle with cheddar cheese (I recommend sharp cheddar.)

Fold in thrids (top down, bottom up) and cut into 1 inch strips.  Twist and tie in a knot.  Let rise for 30 minutes and then bake at 375 degrees for 15-20 minutes.

A variation (which I actually like better) is to use these as cinnamon rolls.  Make as directed, except spread with 1/4 cup butter, 1/2-3/4 cup brown sugar and 1 tsp cinnamon.  Frost with cream cheese icing while still warm.  Mmm!

UPDATE:  I found that these are soooooo much better when you put less flour in.  Wheat flour tend to absorb more liquid, so if you are modifying a recipe that uses white or bread flour, using the same amount of whole wheat flour will cause your bread to be very dense and, as my little girl puts it, "too wheaty!"  Only use enough to make the dough workable-sticky is ok!  In this recipe, I start out with 1 3/4 cups wheat flour and add a little at a time until the dough begins to pull away from the sides of the bowl-for this it ended up being just shy of 2 cups, but I think humidity plays a part, so it might vary a little each time.

French Toast Casserole

Is it Friday yet?  I've been cooking and using eggs all week, but there's just been too much other stuff going on to blog about it.  Today I'll try to crank out several posts on what I've been working on.  We'll see how long that baby will sleep today!  LOL!

Last week I made whole wheat French bread.  It was ok, but I wasn't in love with it, so I tossed it in the freezer hoping to find a better use for it.  A use presented itself fairly quickly as French toast was on my menu this week.  My mornings are usually rushed getting the girls off to school, so I don't usually fix anything fancy for them (scrambled egg sandwiches are the highlight).  I decided that I would put together a casserole the night before and wake up early to bake it.  Surprisingly I did well.  I got up at 5:20 and set it out and turned the oven on.  At 5:50, I hopped up and stuck it in for 45 minutes.  The downside is that I had it all set up to eat at 6:50, which would give the girls 15 minutes.  Unfortunately, I took the foil off the pan and that hindered the baking process.  It took an extra 15 minutes to bake.  The girls didn't get to try it until today, but they enjoyed it just the same.  Acutally, they probably enjoyed the French toast not being ready because hubby felt bad for them and got them a treat at the gas station on the way to school (I'm sure it was oh-so healthy... unlikely!)

Anyway here's the recipe.

1 pound whole wheat bread torn in pieces or cubed
6 eggs
2 cups milk
1 Tbsp. sugar (I had to use powdered sugar as I was out of both my regular and brown-it worked ok, but next time I'll use honey or maybe maple syrup)
1/2 tsp salt

Put the bread in a realatively even layer in a greased 9x9 casserole dish.  In a separate bowl, mix the rest of the ingredients together.  Pour over the bread.  Cover with foil and refrigerate overnight.  The next morning set the casserole out for 30 minutes and preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  Remove the foil and sprinkle cinnamon sugar on the top and replace the foil.  Bake 45-50 minutes or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.  Serve with maple syrup if desired.

Whole wheat waffles

It had originally been my plan to work on my yeast breads this week, but with things being so crazy this week, that got put on the back burner for a day or two.  Hubby is out of the hospital and all the tests were negative, so that is good, but it was definitely an interruption to the daycare and cooking schedule.

This morning both girls had their yearly eye exams, which meant that they didn't have to leave right away for school this morning.  To celebrate, I made waffles.  Of course, about half way through, I remember that we are out of maple syrup, so today we had cream cheese and strawberry jam on our waffles.  The kids thought they were great and each ate 2 whole waffles (even my teeny, tiny, daycare baby girl).  Above is my guy.  He is definitely "in the zone!"

Whole wheat waffles (adapted from the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book, you know, the red plaid one)

1 3/4 cups whole white wheat flour
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
2 egg yolks (separate from the whites and put them in their own small bowl)
1 3/4 cups milk
1/2 cup coconut oil, melted
2 egg whites (these are the ones that you saved)

In a mixing bowl, combine the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, and salt).  In another bowl, combine the milk, egg yolks, and coconut oil.  Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir to combine.  With the egg whites that are in the small bowl, beat them until they form stiff peaks.  I suggest doing this with a mixer.  I've tried doing it by hand and my arm just gets tired and I still don't get stiff peaks.  Dump the egg whites into the waffle batter and gently fold in.  Follow the directions for your waffle iron.  I have one of those cheapo Black Friday Belgian waffle makers and for it I use 1/4 cup per side and it takes about 4 minutes to get done.  Something I've learned is the watching is more important than time on waffles.  The waffles aren't done until all of the steam stops coming from the waffle maker.  If you remove them before that, the waffles will end up soggy.

And just for fun, here's a better shot of my waffle-eating kiddo!

Whole Wheat French Bread

When I first started making my own bread, I used my breadmaker.  I had several recipes in my collection and the breadmaker recipe for French bread from Towards Sustainability was (and still is) my favorite.  French bread appeared in all sorts of places in my meal plan.  It could be found as simply French bread with spaghetti or as slices of French toast or even as garlic parmesan croutons.  All were yummy.  Sadly, one day my breadmaker pan started leaking.  I had used it to the point that one of the welds on the bottom broke and started leaking any liquid that I put in the pan.  Let's take a moment of silence...

Just kidding (kind of)!  I didn't have the funds to replace the breadmaker so I started making bread by hand.  I found that it wasn't very difficult and given the amount of bread I make, I have arms of steel (kind of). LOL

Anyway, enough of my blabbering, I was concerned that when I switched to whole wheat bread, that I would have trouble making all of the yeast breads that add so much to my meal plan.  I picked up a loaf of whole wheat bread at the local Mennonite store and read the ingredients:  Prairie Gold whole white wheat flour, honey, canola oil, water, salt, yeast, wheat gluten.  I had everything on hand except the gluten.  I decided that I would pick some up and give it a try to see what effect it had on my breads.

Recipe for French Bread
1 1/2 cups warm water
1 1/2 tsp yeast
1 Tbsp. sugar
3 3/4 cups white whole wheat flour
1/4 cup wheat gluten
2 tsp salt
3 tsp olive oil

In a small bowl mix warm water, yeast and sugar.  Stir a bit to dissolve.  Let sit 10 minutes or so to let the yeast do its thing.  Meanwhile, in a large mixing bowl, combine flour, gluten, salt and olive oil.  Add the yeast mixture and stir to combine as much as you can.  When stirring gets tedious, turn the whole thing out on a clean counter.  Use your hands to push it all together, working all of the loose flour into the dough.  As it comes together, knead for several minutes, maybe 8-10.  Form the dough into a large ball and place it back in the mixing bowl.  Cover and place somewhere warm for an hour.  When the first rise is finished, punch down and I usually divide the dough in half to make 2 baguette type loaves, although making one big loaf is fine too.  Make a few diagonal slits across the top, cover and return to the warm place to rise a second time.  I usually do another hour.  At the end of the second rise, brush top and sides of loaves with milk and bake at 400 degrees for 20-25 minutes.

My review:  It smells awesome.  Every daycare parent that came to pick up their kids, noted how wonderful my house smelled.  I think the bread turned out ok.  The crust is a little tough.  It always was with the bread flour as well, but I think it's more noticeable with the wheat flour.  I probably baked it a bit too long.  I also used 4 cups of flour and then added the gluten, because I'm a little ditzy and forgot that I should take out some flour to make the gluten and flour together equal 4 cups.  The bread will still be really good for French toast and if there is any left, I'll make some croutons, but I think it's a little dry to just eat toasted with butter.  With the small changes, I'm sure that would soften it up a bit and make it a better whole grain French bread.

My middle child thinks it's awesome and was trying to chew some off the end of the loaf.  She's 8.  You wouldn't think I would have to explain how inappropriate that is, but I did!

Week 9: Whole White Wheat Flour

Flour is an essential item in our home.  It probably ranks higher than any other food item.  Because I make so much of our food from scratch, we can't do much if we run out of flour.  Therefore, having a good quality, healthy flour is important to me.  In order to keep up with the superfoods recommendations, I am purchasing only whole wheat flour. 

This isn't something new.  I've been buying whole wheat flour for years and for most of those years, I hated it.  All of my "whole wheat" recipes were 1/2 whole wheat at best.  Anything more than that and the food became heavy, dense and sometimes even grainy.  Yuck!  I want to be healthy, but I don't want to compromise quality and taste.

After doing some searching, I found that the whole wheat flour I had been purchasing all these years was ground from red wheat.  Red wheat is known to be denser, lower in gluten and doesn't do well in baked goods.  I needed flour ground from white wheat berries.  There are hard and soft varieties, but overall white wheat does much better in breads, cookies, muffins, etc. 

Armed with this new information I found whole white wheat flour and the difference is simply amazing.  No one can tell the difference between cookies or muffins made with white wheat flour versus all purpose flour.  Yeast breads are still a little denser (although nowhere near what I had been making), but the flavor is more in line with an all purpose or bread flour.  To combat the density issue, this past weekend I purchased wheat gluten and will add that to my breads to see how it turns out.

I found a local bulk goods store that has ordered a 50 pound bag of the white wheat flour.  It comes in on March 7th.  I'm so very excited, I can hardly contain myself!  When I pick the flour up, I'll also pick up large quantities of evaporated cane juice, rolled oats, brown rice, pinto beans, etc.  This will take a large chunk of my grocery budget, but I am certain that it will save me money in the long run.

In the meantime, I picked up another 5 pound bag of flour to get me by until the 7th.  This week I'll be experiementing with whole wheat yeast breads and hopefully be able to share some awesome recipes.