Grinding Wheat Flour

My mom has a wheat grinder so in the spirit of trying to eat more healthy food (mentioned in my organic produce post) I thought I'd grind some wheat into flour and bake homemade whole wheat bread.

The grinder is amazing. So fast and such fine flour!

I thought the bread turned out pretty well, although it took about 5 hours to rise and the dough was WAY to tough for my Kitchen Aid. I felt like I was trying to knead a ball of rubber. It tasted just fine in the end though. See the recipe I used here.

French Bread

I really love bread. I could eat it all day. Here is a recipe I really like.

French Bread
Ingredients:
6 1/2 -7 cups flour
2 pkg yeast (7 tsp) *see note below
2 1/2 cup water
2 Tb sugar
1 Tb salt
1 Tb shortening
yellow corn meal

*I just realized that 2 pkg of yeast to not equal 7 tsp...but that is how the recipe came to me. I have prepared this dough both ways and it didn't seem to make a difference. Maybe that's why I only needed about 30 minutes to rise last time. I'll experiment with yeast quantities and get back to you.

In large bowl combine 3 cups flour and yeast. In saucepan heat water, sugar salt and shortening just until shortening starts to melt.
(looks like this at first)

(now it's ready!)

Add to flour mixture, beat at low speed 1/2 minute, scraping bowl. Then beat 3 minutes at high speed. Stir and knead in enough of the remaining flour to make a soft dough. Turn onto floured surface and knead in remaining flour. Knead until smooth and satiny, about 10 minutes. (This is when you would add rosemary leaves or other ingredients if desired.)



Rise in oiled bowl until doubled (cover with damp cloth). The recipe says this should take 1 1/2 hours, but I never have to wait longer than about 30 minutes.

Pour out onto floured surface.

Divide into 4 loaves.

Shape loaf by flattening into rectangle...

then roll up...

pinch ends together...

roll ends up...

then flip over onto cookie sheet spread with cornmeal.

Slash tops and cover. Let rise until double.

Bake at 375 degrees for 25-30 minutes.

Yum!

Pita bread is SO easy!

Today I made pita bread for the first time. My sister, Holly, showed me how AMAZINGLY EASY it is...I'll never buy pita bread again! I also didn't think I liked hummus until she fed it to me. Her homemade stuff was delicious.

Find the pita recipe and a helpful video tutorial here.

Lovely little balls of dough ready to be rolled out.

Who would have thought those little dough disks would puff up so quickly!!! Check this out:

I usually don't have the courage to cook without a recipe, but the hummus recipes online felt forgiving so I just threw stuff in the blender.

Hummus Ingredients:

One can of garbanzo beans (with a little of the juice)

Toasted Sesame Seeds

Olive Oil

Lemon Juice

1 clove garlic

(hummus recipes call for "tahini" which is really just toasted sesame seeds pureed with olive oil...so I just threw in the raw ingredients)

After I blended these into a nice paste, I took out half the mixture and made two separate spreads...one blended with a roasted red pepper (red pepper cut in half and baked up-side-down on cookie sheet in oven at 375 until the skins look like they will fall off, remove skins) and fresh parsley, and the other with fresh cilantro and another clove of garlic. Yum!