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.