My Bread Endeavor: Olive Whole Wheat Bread

Last year about this time I was planning away trying to find the best bread recipe to use during our 10 Day Real Food Challenge. My husband and I had taken a vow to not buy bread from the grocery but to instead make the time to bake our own.

Well, flash forward a year and I'm still at it- except for a short burn out time where we did buy from the store. I've played around with a few recipes to finally land on my favorite sandwich bread. It only has 6 ingredients involved in the main recipe- milk, yeast, olive oil, honey, salt and flour. I sometimes add other ingredients like oatmeal or sunflower seeds but my husband would prefer an unadulterated bread for his sandwiches.

This specific evening I branched out and added olives (HA- get it- "branched out" and olives?). It made for a nice accompaniment to our meal. Before it was completely baked, I brushed some water on the crust and sprinkled a little course sea salt on top. Yum- perfect flavor!

Simple Whole Wheat Bread
(makes 2 loaves)

2 cups of warm milk
2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
1/3 cup olive oil
1/3 honey ( play around with this amount. I like mine less sweet)
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
3 cups whole wheat flour
1 tbsp salt

Add yeast, oil and honey to the warm milk (warm- not hot!). Let sit for 5 minutes or so. In a stand up mixer bowl or in a regular bowl pour milk and yeast mixture then gradually add flour and salt. Stir with spoon before turning on the mixer (make sure dough hook is attached) or continue to stir until dry and liquid combine together. If using a mixer, turn to medium high and let the dough hook knead the bread for about 4-6 minutes. Sometimes depending on humidity, the dough may still be sticky and wet. If this is the case, then add one tablespoon of flour at a time until dough becomes smooth to touch. Cover dough with towel and let rest for 15 minutes.

Next, divide dough into two loaves- either loaf shape or other desired shape and let rise for 30 minutes covered in a draft free area. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Dough should double in size.
Bake for 25-30 minutes or until slightly brown on top.

Olive Bread

Follow above recipe but add in 1 cup of diced of your choice of olives- I used Kalamata-  to dough before splitting into loaves.

Soup! Vegetarian Mulligatawny Soup!

Remember all the great connections I've made via the Kentucky Food Blogger Association? Those connections lend to helping each other out when in a pinch. Mindy from, The World in My Kitchen sent out a request for help with guest posts while she was on a nice extended trip to Europe. So many of us offered our assistance.

I shared one of my favorite soups. Vegetarian Mulligatawny. I tend do make mine a little different than you might have had at a local Indian restaurant. Would you be surprised to hear that I add a bunch of vegetables to stock it full of nutrition? Check it out over at her site.

Starting off the New Year with a Healthy Breakfast: Vegan Banana Nut Muffins

Happy New Year!!! 2012 is here. Are you ready? I am!.... I think. We'll at least I'm ready for today since I ate breakfast. Yep, that's usually what it takes for me to tackle the day. Uh-- and a few cups of coffee.

Last year I spoke about the importance of breakfast and showed you one of our favorite complex breakfast foods- Coconut Breakfast Bars. Well, check out these muffins and add them to your breakfast menu ASAP! I made them the night before and then re-heated them in the toaster oven for a few minutes before serving with a Green Power Pack Smoothie (NOTE- we have now switched the spinach out for kale!! The girls likes it this way now.)

Vegan Banana Nut Muffins

3 large ripe bananas

2 Tbsp olive oil
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup chopped almonds
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
dash of nutmeg (optional)

Directions:

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Smash bananas using a potato masher in a large bowl. Add olive oil to the smashed bananas and mix well. Combine honey, sugar, vanilla extract and mix thoroughly. In a separate bowl, mix dry ingredients -  flours, almonds, salt, nutmeg and baking soda. In small amounts, stir dry ingredients into wet ingredients carefully not to over stir. Line a muffin pan with muffin wrappers, or coat with tin with oil to prevent sticking if not using wrappers. Spoon batter into each of the muffin slots until the slot is full. Bake for 25- 30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Remove from the oven and let cool on a rack.

My Crafty Adventure: Christmas Fruit Tree

Hooray!! It's happened...I have been bitten by the crafty bug all thanks to Pinterest! I'm fairly new to this cool bulletin board like site. -- Thanks to my sister in law for her pressuring me to join and lose hours of my life thumbing through other peoples creative talents.

Ah, but if it wasn't for my time well spent on Pinterest then I wouldn't have made this healthy treat to take to school for my oldest gal's teacher. The original picture and post can be found here.

Step by step:

This took about 30-40 minutes for me to make. The most time consuming part was cutting up the fresh pineapple and cantaloupe. I would advise you to use citrus, or more acidic fruits to prevent browning from occurring. Apples could be used if first soaked in a little lemon or orange juice- just no bananas. I used about $15.00 worth of fruit from the grocery- all fresh. Grapes, pineapple, kiwi, mango, strawberries and clementines. Use cookie cutters or melon scoops to help form the shape of the ornaments. I used a small 1 1/2 inch round biscuit cutter for most of the fruit and a star for the top.

I started with a Styrofoam tree that I found for $3.00 at a local craft store. Some stores have green which I would have preferred but white was what the only one I could find.

Then you will need a box of round toothpicks to use to hold the fruit in place. TIP: Insert the toothpicks first row at a time and then place the fruit on the stick when ready. This prevents the sticks from pushing through the fruit. And- helps decrease the amount of sticks you will have puncturing your delicate fingers.

Next work your way up from the bottom scattering the fruit from row to row. Don't worry about the gaps- you can go back in and fill with grapes at the end. You'll even see if you look closely that I had some white spaces. I found that this is almost impossible to prevent. (In other words--- DON'T stress over this! Lesson learned.)

This would also be a wonderful party favor or centerpiece! My oldest is already asking for a fun shape for her birthday party in March! Hmm... might have to shop around for a creative Styrofoam shape.

Happy Holidays to you all!