Bread Recipes Please

[Sherrynboo]

Boy! I see a couple of recipes I need to try out! I did try the MEN recipe, even went out and bought the baking stone and pizza peel to use with it. I guess you really need to like sourdough bread to eat that on a regular basis. I have come up with my own recipe for our bread and it is pretty good!

2 TBSP butter
11/4 C milk ( I use our goat milk)
1/4 C brown sugar
1/4 C ground flax seed
1/2 C oatmeal
1 egg

I put all of this in a small saucepan and heat to warm but not enough to start cooking the egg!

In a bowl while that is heating I put in:

21/2-3 C unbleached flour
2 tsp yeast
1 tsp salt
2 tsp dough enhancer

I then add the liquid to the dry, mix well then turn out onto my pastry cloth. I work in as much more flour as I need to make a good, easy to work with dough. I don't know exactly how long I knead it but long enough to make it smooth and elastic then put it in a greased bowl for the first rising. After rising, knock down, knead a bit more and place in a loaf pan for the second rising. bake at 350 for 40 minutes.

 

[onebuggirl]

I use my bread machine to make dough and then bake it in the oven. I make a partial wheat bread because I feel it rises nicely and it not so dense as a whole wheat bread. I use 1 1/2c bread flour and 1 1/2 c wheat flour, I use butter and instead of sugar I sub molasses or sorghum...local!!

 

[cackle]

Boy! I see a couple of recipes I need to try out! I did try the MEN recipe, even went out and bought the baking stone and pizza peel to use with it. I guess you really need to like sourdough bread to eat that on a regular basis. I have come up with my own recipe for our bread and it is pretty good!

I love sourdough bread and want to try this recipe. I had to look up pizza peal to see what they are. Do you really need the pizza peal for this recipe? Could I just use my wooden cutting board?

 

[teresainNC]

Cackle, I don't think a wood cutting board would work as a sub for a pizza peel. Instead, try using a cookie sheet that has no sides on it. Put several tablespoons of cornmeal on the sheet, spread them out evenly with your hands, the place your pizza crust on top of the cornmeal, top the pizza quickly! quickly! with your sauce, cheese and toppings. Then carry the pan to your preheated, hot oven and slide the pizza onto the stone. Close the oven door quickly and bake (450-550 F) until the pizza is bubbly and brown. Retrieve the pizza from the stone back onto the flat baking sheet - I often use tongs to help with this - cool about 5 minutes, then serve and enjoy.

Teresa - in Burlington, where are you?

 

[cackle]

Cackle, I don't think a wood cutting board would work as a sub for a pizza peel. Instead, try using a cookie sheet that has no sides on it. Put several tablespoons of cornmeal on the sheet, spread them out evenly with your hands, the place your pizza crust on top of the cornmeal, top the pizza quickly! quickly! with your sauce, cheese and toppings. Then carry the pan to your preheated, hot oven and slide the pizza onto the stone. Close the oven door quickly and bake (450-550 F) until the pizza is bubbly and brown. Retrieve the pizza from the stone back onto the flat baking sheet - I often use tongs to help with this - cool about 5 minutes, then serve and enjoy.

Teresa - in Burlington, where are you?

Teresa,

That does make sense. I wanted to try the recipe before buying the pizza peel but I may go ahead and buy one. I don't buy pizzas out because I can't tolerate cow milk so I make my own with a little goat cheese or soy cheese. I have been buying the dough from trade joes but the Mother Earth News dough looks like it might be nice to have around.

I am just trying to stay within a budget. And I blew it yesterday taking the grandkids to a movie. Next time we eat first!! Never go to the movies with hungry 7-5-3 year olds. But on the bright side I have several Bed bath and beyond 20% off coupons so I may go to their site and see what they have. There is one semi on the way home.

I am in Gold Hill which is NE of Charlotte.

Edited to add: I just looked on ebay and they have different sizes. What size do you recommend?

 

[freemotion]

I have some input in general, being a rabid cook and student of nutrition. Please don't be insulted, anyone...(oh, this is not BYC, I don't need to be so careful, do I? )

Avoid shortening or margarine at ALL costs. Anything hydrogenated is poison, I teach the science of this in one of my teleconference classes. But the good news is, use real fats that your body recognizes as food and can assimilate, like BUTTER (yum!) and save all the fat that rises from broth-making, and freeze it if you have too much at once. (If it builds up in the freezer, make suet cakes for the birds with it, they also make great gifts for your bird-feeding friends!) Canola oil is only healthy if it is cold-pressed or even expeller pressed, with no chemical solvents used in the extraction process. I use 365 brand, or Extra Virgin Olive Oil, when I need a liquid oil. Chicken fat adds wonderful flavor to a lot of things.

The MEN recent recipe is wonderful! We have been making pizza from it, without a peel. I roll the dough out on parchment, while my stone is heating, and flip it onto the hot stone. Yes, then I have to top it, but it is a good compromise for me. If you don't have a cookie sheet without sides, you can turn it over and use the bottom, btw. One BIG exception I take to that article, though, is the bitter taste of whole wheat. That is not typical of ww, only rancid ww flour. I started grinding my own, it is SO easy and QUICK, and has opened up a whole new world for us.....a world of healthy, tender, and yummy baked goods.

Another great tip for digestion and utilization of nutrients is to lacto-ferment the grains. For complete info on this, check out Nourishing Traditions, a cookbook by Sally Falon...it is also a textbook. She has SOOOO much good info and studies on real food, you will be delighted to know if you raise any of your own animal products or hunt. A simple method is to add whey from yogurt or cheese making to the liquid in the recipe, and let the dough rest for 12-24 hours. This works great with the MEN recipe, you can also substitute yogurt for part of the liquid if you don't have whey. Many people with wheat issues can eat it if prepared this way. I have pie crust in the fridge, made it last night, and will roll it out tonight. I will make my MEN bread dough tonight, for pizza on Monday.

This also helps form the protein bonds that make for a good texture in the ww bread, less crumbly.

Also, any oatmeal bread recipe, as many offered in this thread, improves the texture of a ww bread.

Avoid powdered milk, many types of proteins, when altered, become neuro-toxic. That's your brain cells, ladies and gentlemen!

And gotta love lard! Again, check out Nourishing Traditions for the skinny on lard. I will be picking up my leaf lard from the butcher tomorrow for rendering (oh, I wish dh would let me raise a couple of pigs! Cityboy!) I scolded them a couple weeks ago for selling my ordered fat to someone else, so they gave me a couple pounds of trim, and the last of it is in my above-mentioned pie crust. Lard is the ONLY way to make pie crust! Unless it is for chicken pot pie, then I add some chicken fat, too.

Don't fret too much about dh or anyone else buying junk after your efforts. Any bit of healthy food helps, and you will go to your grave knowing YOU did your best. My dh pretty much keeps the junk out of the house now, but he is very naughty when he goes anywhere. I will have no guilt (ok, we will talk about this later, I probably will!) if he has a coronary!

Oh, I can just smell the wonderful, healthy bread baking all over the country! A fresh slice, slathered with butter.....MMMMMMMM!!!

 

[cackle]

I have some input in general, being a rabid cook and student of nutrition. Please don't be insulted, anyone...(oh, this is not BYC, I don't need to be so careful, do I? )

Avoid shortening or margarine at ALL costs. Anything hydrogenated is poison, I teach the science of this in one of my teleconference classes. But the good news is, use real fats that your body recognizes as food and can assimilate, like BUTTER (yum!) and save all the fat that rises from broth-making, and freeze it if you have too much at once. (If it builds up in the freezer, make suet cakes for the birds with it, they also make great gifts for your bird-feeding friends!) Canola oil is only healthy if it is cold-pressed or even expeller pressed, with no chemical solvents used in the extraction process. I use 365 brand, or Extra Virgin Olive Oil, when I need a liquid oil. Chicken fat adds wonderful flavor to a lot of things.

The MEN recent recipe is wonderful! We have been making pizza from it, without a peel. I roll the dough out on parchment, while my stone is heating, and flip it onto the hot stone. Yes, then I have to top it, but it is a good compromise for me. If you don't have a cookie sheet without sides, you can turn it over and use the bottom, btw. One BIG exception I take to that article, though, is the bitter taste of whole wheat. That is not typical of ww, only rancid ww flour. I started grinding my own, it is SO easy and QUICK, and has opened up a whole new world for us.....a world of healthy, tender, and yummy baked goods.

Freemotion your post as usual is right on target. I am not insulted in the least. I have not used anything but canola oil, butter or olive oil in my kitchen for years. My father rest-in-peace was a health food advocate when we were growing up. We were not forbiden to eat junk food when we were out but at home everything was homemade. I use more processed food then I should and I know that. But I do try to cook from scratch when time allows.

I forgot about the upside down cookie sheets. I bought new ones from Sam's yesterday. The old ones were looking pretty...well used.. I have been making pizza on the cookie sheets but I think I need to get a stone. Are they all pretty much the same? Pizza was one of the things I gave up when I gave up dairy. I would order them without cheese from time to time but they just were missing something.. Funny story is we were in a Restuarant in NYC with a crowd of people and I asked if they would make me a pizza with goat cheese and mushrooms. Everyone at the table asked where I saw it on the menu and could they have a small taste. I think that is when I started making them at home with goat cheese.

I have been saving my chicken fat to use in rouxs. I figure it will add flavor. I have stock in the crock pot now in it's 14th hour of cooking on low.

I have a neighbor who swears by lard in her pie crust. I use butter as I am lazy and would probably not make my own lard. And I question that in the store. But then again I use store bought butter?

Tell me about what I need to look for in buying Canola oil. Also do you have a from scratch pizza sauce recipe? Can I use almond milk in my bread?

 

[freemotion]

Mmmmm, homemade broth....

Lard from the store unfortunately isn't the same as butter from the store. The only lard that I have found in the store lists partially hydrogenated lard on the label!!!! Aaaargh! How can you go wrong with something as simple as pig fat, melted down and strained? Well, my guess is that they use every scrap, and trim makes a very soft lard, so they have to firm it up by hydrogenating it. Lard is made from the organ fat, like the suet from beef, it is a different type of fat and different texture. Hence the flaky crusts.

So simple to make, just cut it in little bits or better yet, run it through the meat grinder. Put it in a pan with some water to prevent burning, and melt it just below a simmer. Skim off the melting fat occasionally and strain it into hot jars. I use a wire mesh tea strainer, the type that looks like a little version of a wire collander. My chickens love the rest of the fat when I get tired of rendering. I have never had the patience to get cracklings, maybe I will try for that this week. Supposed to be great in cornbread!

Butter is a good substitute for lard in crusts, I think. I've used it with good success.

My cooking stone is from Pampered Chef, one of those invitations I could not ignore. I've heard you can use a large tile from a flooring store, but my folks owned a flooring store, and they said don't. You are risking lead and all kinds of issues that are allowed in floor tiles but are not suitable for cooking. I also cook crackers and some breads on my stone.

As for pizza sauce, I use my basic spaghetti sauce recipe, I just increase the amount of spices by half again or even double if I am in a spicy mood! I use a bit more paste and make a thick, smooth sauce, no tomato chunks in it. You can make it chunky, but I find a smoother sauce lets me load up the pizza more!

I use a whole pint of home-canned sauce on one pizza, it is quite thick. My pizza dough is rolled out very thin, almost to the edge of the stone. Some of the toppings slide off onto the stone. To me, a sign of an extra yummy pizza, not a single bite has no toppings! Mmmmm! Now I want some!

One of my ss goals for next year is to make my spaghetti sauce and my pizza sauce entirely from my own garden, and top my pizza with goat cheese from my goat....can't wait!

For any vegetable oils, including canola, look for the words "expeller pressed" on the label, or even better, "cold pressed." If they are produced using either of these methods, they will proudly label it as such, to justify the higher price. Here in MA I can find 365 brand of canola oil, and it is reasonable. I will pay a bit more, gladly, to not have hexane in my salad dressing! And I made a batch of my "zippy mayo" this morning with it and some homegrown eggs. Yummmmm..... Makes a great parmesan/pepper salad dressing, too.

As for the almond milk, I don't know. I am allergic to tree nuts, so haven't used them at all. If you can use milk, do so. It has unique properties in baking. If you are lactose intolerant, as I am, you can thin down some plain yogurt in place of milk in most recipes, with great results. It is getting harder to even find plain yogurt, they are now putting pectin in it so the water does not separate....not an unhealthy ingredient, but then you cannot strain your yogurt to get cheese and whey, as I discovered one day. This is why I always read labels. They are always changing the ingredients and methods, rarely for the better. It is harder to find truly whole foods....even at Whole Foods Market!

On and on I go, and no recipes. Let me know if you still need a recipe, or if this is enough info!

 

[prairiegirl]

We are lard and butter users here. I have had good results substituting lard in many bread recipes that call for oil.

Freemotion, I agree, as would everyone that eats my pies, that lard makes all the difference in pie crust. Lard also makes a nice sugar cookie.

 

[teresainNC]

I would get a pizza peel at least 12-inches wide - up to 14-inches. Any smaller would be just for individual pizzas, any larger would be overkill. I usually make 10" to 12" pizzas as I find larger more difficult to transfer to the stone. JMHO

Cackle, I know Gold Hill; lived in Salisbury for quite a while.

Teresa