Wholesome Whole Wheat Bread

Bread bread bread . . . I love you so!  One of my favorite appliances in the kitchen is my breadmaker because it allows me to make delicious, healthy loaves without actually knowing how to bake.  I have a whole collection of flours and love to experiment with mixing them to come up with something new.  With very few exceptions, there is no "bad" bread: even my total fails are good in my book.  I prefer dense bread with nuts or seeds mixed in, but that doesn't go over well with the rug rats in my house.  So, to keep the peace, I compromised with this recipe.  I mixed whole wheat, spelt (super healthy) and garbanzo bean (high protein) flours.  It's denser than, say, Wonderbread (not that my kids have had that for years), but still soft enough that it gets gobbled up by my boys. 

1 cup unsweetened almond milk, room temperature
2/3 cup lukewarm water
2 tablespoons Earth Balance, room temperature
2 tablespoons agave (or honey)
2 teaspoons salt
2 cups whole wheat flour

1 cup spelt flour

¾ cup garbanzo bean flour
2 1/4 teaspons active dry yeast (1 packet)

Optional add-ins:  3/4 cup old fashioned oats (or and combination of nuts and seeds you like)

 

1. Place all ingredients in the order they are listed into the baking pan of your bread machine up to add-in ingredients (if using).
2. Follow the directions on your machine for rapid whole wheat bread, 2 pound loaf.  Don’t forget to select crust color (I chose “light.”)

3.  When prompted, add in your oats or seeds or nuts (if using).

4. Remove from machine when done and allow to cool on a baking rack for at least one hour.

 

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Tossed Tempeh Salad with "Creamy" Italian Dressing

Truth is, I could live on tempeh. That's not quite an exaggeration. I love the darn stuff, and I never would have tried it had I not given up meat. When I first started cooking tempeh I followed the advice of many food bloggers to steam or simmer it to remove its "bitterness." I still occasionally go through the steaming or simmering, but I've grown to love the way it tastes as is. My taste buds truly have changed.

I have also found that tempeh does help me lose weight. When I eat plain old tempeh a few times a week, the scale always stays the same or goes down. This is my experience, and I'm basing it on nothing other than my scale.

It’s also one of the least expensive protein sources out there, at my grocery store, anyway. Here’s why: no one where I live knows what to do with the stuff! It is most always on sale because it’s nearing the expiration date. I just check to see if they have stock ready to get pitched then buy all they have. I usually pick it up for $1.49 a package and throw them in the freezer. Depending on what I’m making, 1 package of tempeh is a minimum of 2 servings (usually it’s 4). That’s .37 cents a serving! (Or free- since I often find coupons on eBay for Lightlife tempeh, and when they're doubled my tempeh score is all free free free) Beat that, chicken wings!

Speaking of chicken brings me to my favorite way to prepare tempeh. When I fry it in oil like this, I swear it tastes like chicken to me. Often I fry up a batch and throw it in the refrigerator; I love it cold when it’s prepared this way.

Tempeh is an acquired taste, though. My husband will not eat it. He has eaten every one of my experiments, but draws the line at these soybean cakes. He says it’s not the taste of it, but rather the texture (tempeh is essentially a brick of compressed soybeans, and it falls apart when you chew it). No matter how I try to tempt him, no matter the marinade or the magic in the preparation, my husband will take a polite bite, grimace, and say “No, thank you. Sorry.” Oh- he is missing out. My gain (or loss- since I made the fantastical claim of effortless weight loss above).

Tonight felt like a salad night. Since I’ve started a 30-day vegan challenge, I was looking for a dressing that suited me. The ready-made dressings in my refrigerator door were all either cheese or dairy-based (even the Italian dressing had Romano cheese in it!). So, happily, I had another chance to eat the cashew cream I made the other day. With a few additions I had a creamy Italian dressing that made me happy happy happy!

Tossed Tempeh Salad with "Creamy" Italian Dressing

1 package tempeh
Salad fixings I used lettuce, artichoke hearts, olives, and tri-colored bell peppers
1 tablespoon cashew cream
½ teaspoon nutritional yeast flakes
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
Unsweetened almond milk, for thinning your dressing
Olive oil for frying
Sea salt to taste



1. Cut tempeh cake in half, then take each piece and cut it in half again, so you have 4 thin pieces about the size of a deck of cards.
2. Heat the oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Brown the tempeh on both sides until it is browned up and beginning to carmelize a bit. Season it with sea salt while it cooks.
3. Drain tempeh on paper towels while you prepare the dressing.
4. In a small bowl, combine the cashew cream with the yeast flakes, garlic and Italian seasoning. Stir to combine. Slowly add almond milk, little bits at a time, and stir mixture until it's thinned to your liking.
5. Add dressing to your salad fixings and toss lightly. Cut the tempeh into bite-sized chunks and add to your salad.

Note: You can easily make this dressing taste like ranch by switching out the Italian seasoning and adding chives and parsley with a tiny bit of lime juice.

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Bob's Red Mill, You Had Me at "Hello"

My Honey-Molasses Multi-flour Bread.



Bread is all mixed up with so much history and folklore. Baking bread, “breaking bread,” tearing into it with your hands, that yeasty smell while dough rises under Grandma’s white tea towel . . .

I love stories when the hero traipses off to seek his fortune carrying nothing but a sack filled with crusty bread and a jug of wine. I could totally do that. Add a stockpile of vegan jerky and I’m all for it.

I never made my own bread before becoming a vegetarian. I always loved to cook, but was never a baker. Anything with pastry or dough or a kneading stage was definitely out of my comfort zone. I know now part of that is that one should really follow a precise recipe to get the best results from baking. That’s not me at all. I’m a “little of this, little of that” kind of cook. Actually, I think it goes deeper. I have a real attitude problem and don’t like being told what to do. Then for my first post-meat Christmas I asked Santa for a bread maker. Soon I realized that even if I “screwed up” and the bread had a big old crater in the middle, it was still delicious.

With the bread maker I’ve become a (sort-of) bread baker. I’m still intimidated to go all “old school” and do the hand kneading and punching down and greasing of loaf pans. But now I love combining different flours and grains and coming up with a new loaf. Sometimes it’s a delicious (but damn ugly) loaf. Sometimes I get lucky, and it looks as good as it tastes.

A Book of Verse

A book of verse, underneath the bough,
A jug of wine, a loaf of bread - and thou
Beside me singing in the wilderness -
Ah, wilderness were paradise now!

- Omar Khayyam

NOTE: All flours and grains used in the following recipes are from Bob's Red Mill. Their products are wonderful and the sheer variety of grains makes me a happy baker!


One more note: I get my honey from a personal friend who is a caring, educated, ethical bee-keeper in Michigan. His honey is fantastic. If you're in Michigan, you can contact Don Schram via email (don@mibees.com), at his website, Huron City Bee Company, or Facebook. If you'd prefer, veganize these recipes by swapping out the honey for agave nectar. I just recently made the multi-flour loaf with agave in place of honey, and it was wonderful!



My Honey-Molasses Multi-flour Bread
This bread is dense, moist and “rustic.” It rises about half the height of an average loaf. It’s really good toasted for sandwiches.

1¼ cups water (warm for rapid setting)
1½ teaspoons fine sea salt
2 tablespoons grape seed oil (or canola oil)
2 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon molasses
1 tablespoon brown sugar
2 cups spelt flour
¼ cup buckwheat flour
¾ cup whole wheat flour
½ cup flaxseed meal
2 teaspoons bread machine yeast

Add the following on the “add in” stage:
1 tablespoon flax seeds
1 tablespoon raw sunflower seeds (or coarsely chopped pumpkin seeds)
1 tablespoon coarsely chopped almonds

Directions:

1. Put the ingredients into your machine in the listed order, up to the seeds and nuts. Make a well for the yeast in the dough so it stays dry as long as possible.

2. Choose setting on bread machine: light crust, 1.5 pound loaf, rapid wheat settings.

3. Add the seeds and nuts at the “add-in” stage of the cycle.
 


My Soft White Bread

1¼ cups warm, unsweetened almond milk
1½ tablespoons honey
1½ tablespoons Earth’s Balance No-Soy spread, cold
1 tablespoon almond or cashew cheese (optional. If you add it the bread will be really soft. If you don’t the loaf will be yummy and soft as it is)
1½ teaspoons fine sea salt
3 cups unbleached white flour
1½ teaspoons bread machine yeast

Add the following on the “add in” stage:
¼ cup rolled oats OR wheat germ

Directions:

1. Layer ingredients in order listed in your bread maker

2. Use the white bread setting for a 2 pound loaf. Use the LIGHT crust setting

3. Add the oats or wheat germ during the “add in” stage


My Dense Wheat Germ Bread

1¼ cups warm, unsweetened almond milk
1½ tablespoons honey
1½ tablespoons Earth’s Balance No-Soy spread, cold
1½ teaspoons fine sea salt
2 cups unbleached white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
½ cup wheat germ
1½ teaspoons bread machine yeast
½ plus ¼ cup rolled oats

Directions:

1. Layer ingredients in order listed in your bread maker, stopping at the oatmeal

2. Use the white bread setting for a 2 pound loaf. Use the LIGHT crust setting

3. Press start. When your machine reaches the “add in” stage, add the ½ cup of oats

4. When the dough reaches the final rise, sprinkle the ¼ cup of oatmeal on the top


Teff-Amaranth Bread
Stolen from Bob’s Red Mill with a few minor adaptations

1 cup water (room temperature)
¼ cup unsweetened almond milk (room temperature)
1½ tablespoon Earth’s Balance (room temperature)
3 tablespoons turbinado sugar
¾ teaspoon sea salt
2 tablespoons wheat germ
2 tablespoons teff whole grain
1 tablespoon amaranth grain
1 tablespoon vital wheat gluten
½ cup whole wheat flour
2 cups white flour, unbleached
¼ cup organic amaranth flour (I used soy flour)
1 tablespoon active dry yeast

Directions:

1. Make sure all your ingredients are at room temperature and follow your bread machine cycle instructions. Set machine for a 1½ pound loaf with a LIGHT crust setting

2. Allow bread to cool on rack 15-20 minutes before slicing

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