The Quest for the Holy 100% Whole Wheat Loaf

Okay here it is, I've done it! After reading this post over a month ago I was inspired... no, challenged to take on the task of finding, or formulating a light, flavorful, nutritious 100% whole wheat loaf. Like many who had read this and then bumped into the author on the street I was never compelled, to her dislike, to post a comment to her blog.

I admit, this is mostly because everytime I would try out a new method or recipe, it flopped (figuratively and literally sometimes). My ego would not let me air my misfortune. I have to say however several of my frankenstein creations tasted really good, in spite of their grotesque brick like resemblance.

Finally I was able to experiment with a long fermentation of a starter (biga or poolish, I don't remember which it would most resemble). It is actually an adaptation from Jim Lahey’s recipe found in an article a friend of mine sent me from the New York Times.

His method is pretty cool but I think it is more tailored to a white bread flour and not 100% Whole Wheat as my first try would have made a nice cornerstone in an old Victorian Style home, but tasted AMAZING!

I brought my water content up near 50% on the second round and was much happier with the moisture in the mix. This is where I made a bold decision. I've been wanting to utilize milk in a recipe as I read that it aides in the rising process, without giving the bread the flavor of corrugated cardboard like when adding Wheat Gluten. I knew however if I substituted milk for water in Jim's recipe I'd have a stinky unhealthy curdled milk mush in my kitchen after 24 hours of sitting around. So I decided to combine my Whole Wheat "starter", which had been fermenting for about 48 hours at 70 degrees, with another "Milk Bread" recipe I got out of a great book from the Library called the Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book (A guide to Whole Grain Breadmaking)

So without any further ado....here's the 411

Starter
3 cups Whole Wheat Flour
1/4 tsp active dry yeast (Yep that's all)
1/2 cup warm water
1 1/4 tsp Salt
3 cups Warm Water
In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 3 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be almost runny, I'd say a bowl of mush. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 24 hours, preferably about 48, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.

The Day Of - Dough
2 cups fresh whole milk (if this came from the Colorado Grown cow it would be amazing!)
1/4 cup honey
2 tsp active dry yeast
6 cups whole wheat flour
2 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 Tbsp cool butter

Scald milk and cool to lukewarm (use an ice bath in a big pot). Stir in honey while cooling milk (start this right after you place pan of milk in ice bath so honey will dissolve better in the warmth).
Dissolve yeast in the warm water.
Measure flour and salt into a large bowl and stir together lightly. When milk is cooled down to same temp. as warm water mix the two liquids together. Make a well in the flour and pour liquids into it. Stir from center outward, until all the flour is mixed in, making a stiff dough.

*Here's where things get interesting*
Add the 48 hour preferment to the new dough and knead for about 15 minutes without adding more flour. (The dough is going to be very wet and sticky so keep a bowl of water handy for your hands, and I even used it to keep the dough from sticking too bad to the counter I was working on)

After 15 minutes knead in the butter in bits, continuing to work the dough until it is silky.

I put the dough glob into an ungreased bowl (the larger the better this makes 3 loaves) and covered with plastic wrap. Let the dough rise for 1.5 hours, but be careful, my bowl was a little too small and the runny dough started to expand over the sides.

After 1.5 hours I gently punched it down and took a shortcut by skipping a second rise and went ahead and split the dough into three pieces and plopped them into my pans. (I found by accident it didn't make much of a difference if these were greased or not, 2 were, 1 was not)

I proofed these for another hour but probably could have gone with 45 minutes because one loaf began to pour over the sides of the pan. I gently nudged the doughs back within the sides of their pans and put them into a preheated 325 degree oven for 1 hour.

These turned out wonderful, high rise, flavor like I have never tasted, a well structured crumb (at least according to my likes), and a decent carmelized crust. I think that skipping the second rise made the open air pockets in the bread a little bigger than they would have been otherwise, but they were still rather uniform and didn't affect the breads ability to hold together too much, but I think next time it would be worth investing the extra time in a second rise.

Bike week 2008

Today kicked off Ride Your Bike to Work Week. This annual event is promoted by the League of American Bicyclists, which has been advocating bike travel since its inception in 1880 when it was first known as the League of American Wheelmen.

An interesting quick fact, the League of American Wheelmen is noted for spearheading the The Good Roads Movement in the late 1800's which eventually led to the development of our National Highway System.

Another interesting fact, the initial funding for The Good Roads Movement came in part from the Agriculture Appropriation Act of 1894.

So as you pedal your way to work this week wave to the local farmers and ranchers and maybe push your velo over to the Weathervane Farm and show your appreciation to our agricultural partners for smooth paved roads by purchasing some of their delicious happy chicken eggs. Or better yet sign on with their CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) to ensure your kitchen has a continuous weekly suupply of fresh produce straight from your local farm.

"But Brian, I've never commuted by bike before and I'm worried about trying it for the first time", you say. Well here are some resources on kicking off your first Bike to Work Week.

The Hows, Why's, and Simple Pleasures of the Two-Wheeled Commute
A pamphlet from the League of American Bicyclists with lot's of helpful tips

Commute By Bike
This link will take you to an index of helpful commuting articles, everything from riding at night to not showing up for work looking like you just came off the set of flash dance (if you don't get the reference that means you're too young and I'm officially too old)

Below are a couple of other links on the topic



bikecommuters.com


bikecommute.com


There is really a plethora of information and fun stories on the topic of bike commuting that can be found on the web. The best thing I think that can be done to start riding your bike is to do it with a friend or coworker. Bike to work week is a great opportunity to join together and try something new, or for those who are already enjoying getting from point A to B without cranking up the combustion engine, take this opportunity to share the experience with someone you know. 30% of people who try Bike to Work Week/Day are hooked the very first day. That must mean it's a good thing.

I know I've really enjoyed it. Give it a try, you just might find a new interest in your life.


And if you need some local story info you can review two of my other posts listed here

"Why I LOVE commuting by bike"

"Life on two wheels"

Where are you going so fast?

Most things taste better with time. I've come to see the truth in this as I become more and more involved in an artisan lifestyle. Investing extra time in things like the rising of dough, allowing the yeast to transform otherwise undetectable molecules into fantastic creations of flavorful tastebud stimulants. Or the aging of an enlightened monk's malted creation for a thirst quenching experience of perfectly melded simpleton ingredients. Or the anticipation of late summer meals made with fresh garden ingredients we planted last month.

There are however exceptions to the requirement of adding time to your list of ingredients. For example, the 40 minute hamburger buns I am working on right now (seen above before baking). This is a meal saving recipe I found on recipezaar.com that turned out surprisingly good despite cutting out the usual rise time required of traditional bun making recipes (for those who don't bake, the time allowed for dough to rise/ferment plays a crucial roll (pun intented) in the quality of flavor in your baked good). The substitute for flavor inducing fermentation (have I mentioned how much I love yeast!) is some other highly flavorful ingredient, in this case it's sugar. In others it may be salt or some other mouth party guest, like added fat, which is the main purveyor of flavor in the food world- big reason Crisco was so popular when I was a kid. These supplements can be a respectable substitute in a pinch, but only once in a while.

The problem however is that over time these additives to our food and our lives (metaphorically speaking) begin to take a toll on our health, both physically and mentally. The shortcuts we take to cram every ounce of pleasure out of our short finite lives begin to degrade our well being. This in turn reinforces our drive to cram even more into our file cabinet of sensory overload in hopes of living our lives to the fullest. In the end some of these shortcuts pay of and the rest will just pile up in a heap of "been there, done that, give me 2 egg McMuffins w/ cheese so I won't be late for the job I got myself into, so I can sit in a small corner of a building clawing my way towards a 5% annual pay increase in order to pretend I'm on a stable track to retirement so that I can waste my youth ensuring I won't have to turn around when I'm 75 and supplement my dwindling social security "benefit" by microwaving some up and coming corporate climber's, McD's breakfast "sandwich" so he won't be late for the meeting some other mindless mokey could have filled in for.

Getting to my point, evaluate what it is you mean to accomplish, make sure it is really all that valuable to you, and give yourself the time to properly enjoy the process of obtaining that delectable creation.

But in conclusion, I am reminded as I pause from rambling to stoke the charcoal grill with some chemical, flavor altering, petroleum based lighter fluid, there will be pleanty of instances where a reasonable shortcut is justified in order to get the "burgers off the grill at the same time as your 40 minute buns come out of the oven".

Knowing where it comes from

Jody and I have begun for the first time to grow our own food, well some of our own food. A few weeks ago we ordered some seeds and transplants from the Seed Savers Exchange. SSE is an invaluable resource for maintaining a living collection of hierloom varieties of plants, both flowers and vegetables. Many of these varieties have beautifully unique shapes and colors as well as wonderfully variable flavors from the dumbed down, nitrogen ripened grocery store varieties. It's crazy how much of the food I've been eating until recently is lacking of so much natural flavor. Even if you can't grow your own, try to visit a farmer's market this summer and taste the captivating flavors of fresh, homegrown, local produce. It will change how you look at your food choices, you might even eat more vegies!

So, Jody and I have started to grow Sweet Genovese Basil, Purple Dark Opal Basil, Cilantro, Calabrese Broccoli, Monnopa Spinach, Yellow Borettana Onion, Cracoviensis Lettuce, and Rooster Spur Peppers. All of these started as little seeds about 2 weeks ago and have all broken the surface as of today. In addition we had 3 varieties of tomato transplants sent to us- Amish Paste (for tomato sauce), Mexico Midget (tasty little snackers), and Brandywine-Sudduth's Strain (for slicin' on burgers). All of these little puppies have finally started growing in size, even though we were worried at first that the Brandywine wasn't doing so hot. I've got to say (although I don't have any experience with it yet) it's kind of like raising little children. Although everything that I've seen shows that you can't just stick your kids in the window and squirt them with water from time to time and hope they grow up normal. But we'll keep an eye on these little guys and hopefully in a few months Jody and I can eat our green/purple/red younglings in culinary bliss. Stay tuned.

Easy Cheesy!

I made my first pound of Mozzarella this weekend. As I mentioned in my last post about Animal Vegetable Miracle there are great recipes at the end of each chapter. One such recipe is for 30 Minute Mozzarella. Barbara shares a trip with us in her book to a class at the New England Cheese Supply Company where a group of up and coming home cheese makers learned the fun and flavor of making homemade cheddar, queso blanco, and other such yummies.

As with many of Barbara's chapters I was drawn and inspired. So I went onto the New England Cheese Supply Company website and ordered myself some supplies for making my own cheese. Jody and I have already been making our own pizza from scratch- Wheat crust, fresh basil, tomato, and brocolli. The only thing needed was fresh mozzarella. Making the mozzarella was amazingly easy and went exactly according to recipe. It's really cool to see the curds pulling together and to have it scoop out nicely from the whey. I can't say I was able to fold and pull the cheese without burning my hands a little bit but all the same pretty entertaining to pretend like you're pulling fresh mozzarella in an Italian bistro (see pic).

In the end the flavor was pleasantly familiar, the only difference we found was when we baked the pizza the cheese actually began to brown a little on top and didn't melt down to that stretchy-gooey pizza cheese we see on TV. I'm guessing that is because of the speedy method of making this cheese compared to normal cheese making methods. All the same, great flavor, quick to make, and a lot of fun.

Our next cheesy adventure...ha, that's funny... is going to be an herbed goat cheese. This one will age for at least 4 weeks and I'm guessing will have some tremendous flavor. My only problem is finding goat's milk that isn't "ultra-pasteurized".

Animal Vegetable Miracle

I've been reading an incredible book- "Animal Vegetable Miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver. Barbara is a captivating author who has successfully drawn me into her little family experiment of living off of food grown and raised on their farm and those surrounding them for an entire year. The idea doesn't sound all that far fetched at first, until you think about how much we take for granted that isn't naturally available in our area. This "sacrifice", however, is not what is so enthralling about this book. It is more the brutal reality of our nation's food choices both in what we consume and how it gets to our table. One startling fact is how we export nearly the same amount of potatoes as we import...how does that work? Well in business it does, but for the quality of nutrition and the number of calories burned in fossil fuel for what is finally put in our bodies the ratios are outragious!

"Healthy", "Organic", and "Natural" have become increasingly mainstream. However financial implications have continued to steer the quality and sincerity of what this type of labeling truly stands for. I have found myself frequently looking for better deals and negotiating compromises in order to continue to appease my desire to eat a "Natural" diet. This in itself has become part of the problem as the large corporate food suppliers/manufacturers work to sustain their bottom line by adapting to market demand. Already, however, trend watchdogs have warned that "Organic" food supply is not sustainable to the mass market. This is true in the sense that the proper planting and harvesting of food crops and raising of livestock cannot be done successfully by large scale farming and distribution operations. At least not for the general population for a sustainable amount of time. What is however possible will be to return our country back to its agricultural roots by supporting local farms and businesses so that our food doesn't need the petroleum, chemical, CAFO (concentrated animal feeding operations), and hormoneal assistance to reach our gullet plump, perfect, and tasteless.

I have to say this book is endlessly entertaining in addition to all of the facinating information about our food sources. Barbara takes you through the year month by month in each chapter, highlighting the anticipation each new calendar month brings in the way of changing seasons and harvests. I am nearing the end of this book and have been inspired to pick up many new hobbies as I have made my way through it's chapters. Here's a short list. Baking pizza from scratch (crust, fresh toppings, and all), cheese making, bread baking (no bread machine here), fresh buns, Jody and I just got our heirloom tomato transplants in the mail from the seed saver's network, also some great varieties of seeds from the same source for things like purple basil and rooster's spur peppers all of which will be going in our greenhouse which we intend to build soon. I'm really excited about the cheese. Buena Vista has a new goat farm that should be in operation soon. I intend on getting fresh milk from them to make my own Chevre and Herbed Soft Goat Cheese, MMMMmmm!

So here is a link to Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. I encourage EVERYONE to pick up a copy at the bookstore or better yet, the Library (another new hobby of ours). Even if you don't intend on going as "crazy" as we have this is a very informative and entertaining book that won't dissapoint, but I expect will have even a slight impact on how you make your food choices. And please come back here from time to time and see how we're doing growing and making our own REAL FOOD!

P.S. This book also has some really great recipes after each chapter, recipes that correlate to the month previously discussed. These alone are a great reason to check this out.
Like Friday Night Pizza w/ 30 minute mozzarella!

Here's a link you might find interesting about the newly named Locavores "movement" from the New York Times.

Why I LOVE commuting by bike!!

I suppose some of the deeper meaning you feel comes from having to plan better. Which I feel makes what you are doing more efficient and less impulsive. For instance, last Monday Jody and I rode our bikes into town to run some errands, including grocery shopping. Before we began our adventure (how often can you call it that when you’re driving a car?) we made a plan to minimize running around, put together a shopping list, borrowed a bike trailer from The Trailhead and dressed appropriately for a 16 mile round trip. We knew what we had to do and we set to it. Everything we set out to do went according to plan, including the all important quality time relaxing together. Small occurrences made things more interesting than an all consumptive drive into town, such as the massive herd of elk out by our house and a minor mechanical issue that nearly sent Jody over the handlebars (fortunately a bike mechanic was close by). By the time we made it back up the hill and back home we had filled most of our day touring up and down the north end of the valley feeling very self sufficient with our trailer full of a weeks worth of groceries and not a cent spent on carbon rich fuel! And that's all a great feeling!!