Fresh, Yo!

I hadn't had much domestic bliss to write about lately because, well, I've been damn lazy.  Winter tends to do that to me, especially freaky-deaky weather like what we've been having here in Vermont.  One day its 55 (but 35 mph winds of course) and the next its -20 (also with 35 mph winds).  Ya just can't go outside!!!

Perfect day for baking!

After a month or so of this crap I start to just withdraw and have spent too much time watching reality TV.  Teen Mom 1 to be exact.  I just can't believe Gary lets Amber beat on him like that and that SRS doesn't come take Catelynn's brother away from her crack head mom.

But I digress.

Since Thanksgiving as you may know I have been adding fresh juices to my diet.  I'm not fasting (nor do I think I have the discipline to.  Ever.) but I am trying to add 2 veggie juices a day to my regular eating habits.  I also have not had a soda since Thanksgiving.  This is huge for me because I was a big Diet Coke addict from the age of 15 (I'm 34 now) and I didn't think I'd ever be able to stop.  We'll see if I can keep it up in the summer.  I don't feel any different to be honest.  I actually have gained about 6 pounds total since I stopped my antidepressants (when I started juicing) and began eating healthier.  Of course not exercising hardly at all doesn't help.  The juices are not calorie-free so I'm really hoping that when this weather crap breaks I can start walking outside again and even myself back out.

Along with juicing comes an awareness of the other foods you are putting into your body.  I am turned off by pasta now, and by a lot of the snacky foods that I was eating before.  Namely cereal, crackers, and candy.  I was also a York addict but the thought of putting that much pure sugar into my mouth at one time makes me want to gag. I do still eat chocolate though, but I prefer the good stuff.  One thing that I also wanted to learn about was what exactly was in the bread that we all eat so much of.  I have to wonder at times if I am not gluten sensitive.  I have learned from this juicing process that red meat really messes up my insides as I get an episode of IBS every single time I eat it.  I used to think it was vegetables that did that to me until I stopped eating red meat and then reintroduced it.  Holy moly.  I also notice that when I eat a lot of bread I often do not feel that great after.  When I say a lot I mean 2 slices of whole wheat Pepperidge farm type bread and probably a dinner roll in the same day.  That's a lot for me.

I did some research on the type of wheat flour that is used today and found out some interesting facts.  The first thing that I discovered was that the wheat of today is drastically different on a genetic basis than the wheat of our ancestors.  In the last 50 years we have been fed "dwarf" wheat.  Here is a quote from an article on HuffPost that is a real must read:

The Bible says, "Give us this day our daily bread." Eating bread is nearly a religious commandment. But the Einkorn, heirloom, Biblical wheat of our ancestors is something modern humans never eat.

Instead, we eat dwarf wheat, the product of genetic manipulation and hybridization that created short, stubby, hardy, high-yielding wheat plants with much higher amounts of starch and gluten and many more chromosomes coding for all sorts of new odd proteins. The man who engineered this modern wheat won the Nobel Prize -- it promised to feed millions of starving around the world. Well, it has, and it has made them fat and sick.

Here is the full article: Mark Hyman, MD: Three Hidden Ways Wheat Makes You Fat

Naturally I decided to try to find this einkorn wheat. Nope, nowhere to be located in Chittenden County!  Not even in the hoity hippie food stores.  I went online and found out that some people call it "farro" wheat flour.  Without spending more than a few moments on that I remembered seeing that kind of wheat in the bulk section of the Healthy Living market.  The next day we went back there and I bought about a pound and a half of it.  Not super cheap, but perhaps worth it?

Yesterday I tried to find recipes for bread that use this flour.  Zilch.  I found plenty of recipes using the grain itself, but nothing with the flour that was doable in a reasonable time and price range.  Crap.  Several sites kept calling it spelt (which it is not) and emmer (which it kind of is...sometimes) and then I was all confused.  On the advice of my friend Astrid I emailed the King Arthur Flour bakers.  Unfortunately they did not give me a recipe as I had asked, merely gave me more information on the wheat.  I'm thinking at this point that I am wasting my time trying to figure it all out, and decided to just go all in and make a regular bread recipe using this flour.

The first thing I tried was an All Recipe bread.  I used half all-purpose flour and half farro.

The bread did not rise and came out very dense.  My entire family devoured it though and Alicia stated that it was "SPECTACULAR".  I think they are just deprived of good home cooked foods because, let's be honest, I HATE COOKING so they never get any.  They are probably so excited that I actually used the oven for something other than a countertop that they think anything tastes SPECTACULAR.

This morning I was determined to make a real loaf of bread, one that looks bread-y.  Thanks to the magic of Facebook I was offered a delicious sounding recipe from a friend who I have not met in real life but who loves baking.  I substituted 3/4 of a cup of honey for the 1 cup of white sugar since I didn't have any turbinado sugar to use, and I used 1.5 cups of farro plus 3.5 cups of King Arthur Flour Bread Flour.  I also bought new yeast, the Fleischmann's fast rising active yeast, which made a big difference I think.  With the first load I had used an organic Rize brand yeast which was a week out of the sell by date.  I didn't think it would matter but apparently it did!

The first step was to melt a stick of butter and add it to evaporated milk and hot tap water in a separate 1 quart bowl.  She didn't specify how much evap milk and I had only bought small 5 oz cans so I used a total of 8 oz.  I wanted to go easy on the liquids anyway because I was using honey.  Next I had to mix 3 tbsp of yeast with very warm water in a separate small bowl.  This was probably the most difficult part of the entire process.  The yeast immediately clumped up and became nearly impossible to stir so I had to add about a half or 3/4 of a cup of water to it in order to be able to stir it for 3-4 minutes!  It kept sticking to the spoon.

Then I poured in the first liquid measure, added a cup of bread flour, and then added the yeast.  I kept adding flour until I had put in 3.5 cups of KAF bread flour and 1.5 cups farro flour.  The dough seemed to be the right consistency to start kneading.  I spread bread flour on my (clean) counter and then slapped that sucker down.  My only example of kneading to go by was what I remember my mom doing when I was eye level with the counter top.  Can't be all that hard, right?  Those muscles on the backs of my arms started screaming after about, oh, 45 seconds.  I kept going though, picturing the 2 cm shard of glass that is in my left hand in between my metacarpals grinding around, probably puncturing something.  Maybe I really SHOULD get a bread machine.

I kneaded that dough for a good 10 minutes.  I measured the time in Dr Phil commercial breaks.  I then placed it in a greased plastic mixing bowl.

I really do not have a lot of the tools necessary for successful baking, seeing as I have always hated cooking.  I covered it in a damp towel and placed it on top of the oven, which was preheating to 330 degrees.  Within a half hour or so the dough had risen substantially.  I punched it down and kneaded it again for 10 more minutes (or 3 commercial breaks).

 Then I divided it in half since I only have 2 small bread pans, greased the metal one, and placed the dough inside.

I let it rise again until it was about 2 inches higher than the edge of the pan and then put it in the oven for 25 minutes.

Sorry for the blurry pic but my camera lens is busted and if I get a pic in focus its from luck!

After 25 minutes I took them out and knocked gently on them.  Three times.  It sounded hollow to me, which is what the recipe said to listen for.  Yay it was done!!

Except, something wasn't quite right.  The one in the silicon pan was a bit obese due to no support on the sides, and seemed like it was falling in on itself.  I shrugged and walked away, being told to let it cool before messing with it. I waited an hour and went back. I took the one in the metal pan out and decided to cut off the end and eat it.  It was lunch time after all.

Uh....what?

It is hollow!  Like, a huge hole I can stick my head in hollow!  Back to the drawing board.

Shadow says "I'm going back to bed."