Bread recipes

Bread baked yesterday. It's whole wheat and I'll re post the
the recipe below. I originally posted this recipe and another
On Feb11Th's blog. I will try to find time to share some sourdough
favorites as well. I need to freshen my sourdough, so will post
pictures and recipes of what we make.

The one on the left has air pockets in the top,
see the sunken crust. I was in a hurry and didn't work the air
out when forming the loaves. Oh! well it tastes just as good,
especially hot from the oven with fresh butter, YUMMY!


Homemade Bread( whole wheat) is an area to save and provide a more nutritious food.
Here are a couple of our family favorites.


Whole Wheat Bread
3c. very warm water( I use filtered)
1/3c. oil or melted lard
1/4 c. sugar
2 tsp. salt ( or to taste, we use 1 tsp.)
1 egg( beaten)
3 c. whole wheat flour
1-1/2 Tbsp active dry yeast
4-5 c. unbleached flour
Stir together water, oil, sugar, salt and egg into a large bowl. Mix yeast with 2.c. whole wheat flour and 2c. unbleached flour. Then add to liquid. Stir vigorously for a minute. Add remaining 1 c. whole wheat flour and enough unbleached( 3-4c.), one cup at a time, to make a soft dough. Fold out onto a well floured board or counter top. Knead for 8 minutes( yes the whole entire time if you want good texture) Place kneaded dough into a well greased( large) bowl. Let rise until double in size. Punch down and flip over, now let rise a second hour until double in size. Punch down and form into loaves( this recipe makes 3 large loaves), buns, bread sticks, etc..... Let rise again until double and bake in a moderate 325-350F oven until golden brown and sounds hollow when tapped on. I typically brush with olive oil or butter to soften the top crust. If making into bread sticks brush with oil or butter and add seeds( sesame, sunflower, flax, etc....) and or cheese( Cheddar, Romano, even Feta)before baking. Just be sure to watch items with seeds or cheese as they burn easily.
Enjoy!



Birdseed Bread( a whole grain bread)
This recipe may be doubled or tripled if necessary( it would be a lot of dough to work with, so I just do batches)
Oven setting: 375F
Yield: 3 large or 4 medium loaves
4 c. warm water
2Tbsp. Yeast ( or two packages)
½ c. brown sugar or molasses ( I prefer molasses)
½ c. honey
½ cup oil ( olive or grape seed is what I use)
4 tsp. salt( otherwise bread has a flat taste)
About 12 c. flour ( usually use unbleached white and whole wheat with a 4:1, white/wheat ratio
1/2c. Of any or each of the following wheat, spelt, oats, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, barley, course ground corn meal, millet and any other grains you may have.

Boil the hard grains ( do not boil the sesame or sunflower seeds) in more water than needed until they are soft and chewy.When draining the water from the boiled grains measure the water toward the 4cups needed for the recipe. This contain vitamins, minerals and gluten for the elastic power of the dough.Cool grains and water before adding the following mixture:Dissolve yeast in warm water, add molasses, honey, oil and salt. Stir well and add cooled grains and sesame and sunflower seeds. Measure flour into separate bowl. Add flour mixture to wet mixture, holding back about 2cups You’ll have to get in there with your hands and mix it well( messy part). Now flour counter or board heavily and knead dough( HINT: do not over add flour, it supposed to be sticky, use oil on hands to keep dough from sticking) until smooth and satiny with grains( about 8-10 minutes). Place in a large, well greased bowl. Cover with a damp cloth and let rise in a warm area until double. Punch down and repeat a second rise( this rise is not necessary, but helps give a finer texture to the bread) Punch down again and form into loaves, placing in greased and floured pans. (Dough can be frozen at this stage. When frozen place in pan, cover lightly and let thaw and then rise.) Let rise about 20 minutes. Bake for 10 minutes @375, then reduce heat to 350 for 30 more minutes. Bread will be a beautiful chestnut brown, and will sound hollow when “thumped” on the top. I butter the tops and place on a cooling rack for about an hour (Well, we may sneak some while it’s still hot ) Freeze cooled bread and when thawed it will be as moist and nice as fresh baked bread.

ENJOY!!!!!!

It was Mikes day off and we needed to run into the city for an appointment. After the appointment we ran a few errands before heading for home.

Once home Mike began working on getting our pump for yard and garden up and running. We ended up having to purchase a new pump as the old one rusted( our water here is heavily laden with minerals that literally eat metal *sigh*) Since we bought a new pump, Mike wanted to add more spigots so we can have three for just the garden and he is going to make PVC line spigots( I'll get pictures when he's through making them) so we have 8 faucets to run hose with bubblers. We probably won't run all 8 at once, but even 3-4 will be a blessing in helping to get the garden flood irrigated quicker. He got the pump up and running and he worked on getting the onions flooded and then hooked up a rain bird to water the potato patch. I was watering flowerbeds and the wildflowers on the root cellar. We also flooded fruit trees and had a sprinkler running on the strawberries( which are beginning to bloom)

If our weather cooperates and the wind doesn't blow like today, we hope to get the remainder of our seeds planted and the cabbage all planted. Tomatoes and peppers we'll wait until the weekend, so we can have Mike's help in getting the "walls of water" around each of them. One thing my back doesn't take well, is standing bent over for long periods of time and that is exactly what you do when setting up the "walls of water". So I plant the plants and Mike and Cortney get the walls of water all set up and filled, then I go back and water everything in good.

Well, I need to write a letter to my Grandma, who BTW is 93 yrs old and is my best pen pal! Her handwriting is getting tougher to read, but we still love her letters.

May the remainder of your week be blessed and productive.