Bisquick? Who needs bisquick?

Yesterday was National Pancake Day, or something like that. So we played our part and went to IHOP for dinner with the kids because EVERYBODY GOT A FREE SHORT STACK!  *

Of course my kids flipped for pancakes, with the big one eating her entire stack plus a quarter of the little one’s. My 14 month old ate almost half of his, which is pretty amazing since we’re coming off his second stomach bug this winter that seems to drastically reduce the foods he is willing to eat again. So now we’re up to cheerios, bananas, blueberries, cheesey eggs, pancakes, and his favorite- asparagus.

This morning I thought that pancakes might be a good option for the kids since they liked them so much last night and I found myself thinking “Wish I had some bisquick or some healthy bisquick alternative to just mix in a lil milk and have pancakes galore in no time at all!”

I racked my brain, my cookbooks, and my pantry and came up with this breakfast baking mix:

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour

1/2 cup unbleached white flour

1/2 tsp sea salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

2 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

Mix all these together and store in an airtight container.

I took a cup of this mix, added a tablespoon of flax seed, a half tablespoon of both oil and maple syrup (the real kind, not the 2% maple syrup 98% corn syrup!) and somewhere around 3/4 c milk. I mixed it all together for a healthier pancake for the kids! It made about a dozen kid-sized pancakes.

Breakfast success!!! Took a little time today, but next time I’ll already have my own healthy mix ready!

*In keeping with my clean eating deal, I ordered an egg white veggie omlete w/ no cheese. No fun, I know, but those white fluffy pancakes would’ve sent me spiraling into sugar self destruction. Keith was happy to eat mine and to point out that my meal cost $10 while the rest of the family’s was free! Not complaining, just observing he said. LOL.

Bread in five minutes a day. Honestly.

I took out Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day from the library over the summer, and have been working on perfecting the basic boule loaf ever since.

I think I’ve got it now. And now it really does take me five minutes of active work to make the dough, shape the loaf, and stick in the oven. At first it was sticky mess that took waaaaay longer than five minutes, but now the recipe lives up to it’s name.

Now, onto bigger, more complicated things. Because, you know, I just have to make things complicated. I’m a Martha, not a Mary, remember? Busy, busy, busy.

I have been following the blog of the authors of Artisan Breads, and am thrilled that they are coming out with Healthy Breads in Five Minutes a Day at the end of this month. Just in time for my birthday, I told my mom. She thought it was kind of funny that I wanted either a bread baking book for my birthday or kettle bells & a kettle bell workout dvd. Carbs or weights. Yada yada. But that’s another story.

So… I have been noticing some new recipes on Jeff & Zoe’s blog and was drawn particularly to their Garlic, Chard, and Parmesan Bread. I love swiss chard and had a ton in the garden, but never got around to making this during peak harvest.

I picked the last of the chard this past week, but was a little insecure about bringing more chard over to our neighbors for dinner (and particularly end-of-the-harvest- chard), so I opted to use some bagged baby spinach I had on hand. I’ve been somewhat addicted to spinach this pregnancy so there’s always some around here. I also opted to use the bread dough that I had in the fridge, which is the basic boule recipe (found here) and I used the cheese I had on hand. Part Skim Shredded Mozzarella and some romano cheese. I don’t like parmesan much and Keith would eat the kind that’s in the green tube without flinching. Yuck. Thank goodness I do the grocery shopping around here. We’re a romano cheese kind of family.

Mmmm. It was delicious! I enjoyed a slice, but left the rest of loaf at the neighbors, or else I would eat it all. And THAT would negate my spin class workout, right?

Plus there’s enough temptation coming out of the oven on a regular basis over here anyways.

Deceptive but not Delicious

I got Jessica Seinfeld’s book, Deceptively Delicious, out from the library this past week in a feeble attempt to get my child to eat more than yogurt, oatmeal, the occasional apple or banana, and crackers.

The first recipe, Mac N Cheese with pureed butternut squash, was a monumental failure. I roasted, I pureed, I boiled, I drained, I mixed, all during Sweet Pea’s nap.

Here you see the picky eater eyeing it.

It doesn’t look like the stuff from the box, mom.

Doesn’t stick on the spoon the same way.

Nope, not even going to try more than a miniscule sampling. No thank you no thank you no thank you.

I should have just taken a nap too.

Bread Baking semi-S.O.S.

I seem to have figured out the whole wheat breadbaking deal, many thanks to Katie’s encouragement and others! I have a few favorite recipes from the King Arthur’s Website:

100% Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread–

I haven’t been able to get a photo of a finished loaf because it starts disappearing as soon as it comes out of the oven! Keith’s PB&J sandwiches have been on this bread lately. Remember how he had once suggested I give up on bread baking? He now proudly tells his coworkers now that we make our own bread at home :).

Then there’s the King Arthur’s 100% Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread. Sounds like the same name, but it’s different. This also vanishes before being photographed.

This one uses some honey and calls for nuts and seeds. I omitted the nuts & seeds and replaced with 1/4c of ground flax seed. This bread was yummy, but I was advised by Sweet Pea’s pediatrician to not give her honey, even if it was cooked in a recipe until after she was 1 year. So, I gave her a slice (she’s 11.5 months- I thought she was close enough) and then we had a crazy spell of diaper-madness for a few days. I’m not sure if it was related to the bread or the inordinate amount of broccoli she consumed, but I stopped making this kind of bread.

It’s too time consuming to make one loaf of bread for the adults and one for the child!!!

Then, I decided to try Italian bread on 2 separate occasions, using the Italian Bread 101 recipe.

I kneaded, I rolled, I braided..

It rose and I was so excited! It looked delicious.

Then I did an egg wash and the whole thing deflated. It ended up like ciabatta bread, which is still yummy, but not what I intended. Apparently the egg wash was too cool for the risen bread.

So I tried again, this time nuking the egg white so it was lukewarm. Again it deflated but not as much. The other thing is that the bread had a slightly sour taste. Just slight. ?!?!?!?

Any favorite italian bread recipes? Egg wash tips?

Tortilla madness

Once again, I found myself at the store astonished at the price of… tortillas this time. Three bucks for 6 whole wheat tortillas? Ouch! Madness I say!

I just couldn’t buy them.

I looked around the internet and I found this fabulous tutorial on making your own flour tortillas. They are pretty easy to make! I’ve made them twice, and the second time was significantly easier than the first.

They’re not exactly circular, but hey! I made ’em myself!

The ingredients are common household staples that I almost never run out of:

2 c flour

1 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp oil

3/4 c milk

I’ve been afraid of doing things 100% whole wheat based on my past horrific bread experiences, so I used 1 1/3 c white flour and 2/3 c whole wheat flour. Next week I think I’ll attempt half and half.

I used my Kitchenaid mixer, with the dough hook and loosely stuck to the recommended times for kneading. The dough needs to be a little stretchy. The hardest part is the rolling of the tortillas, I almost got a splinter from my wooden rolling pin the first time, but yesterday’s tortillas were much easier to roll.

I’d also recommend warming your tortillas on a dry skillet of some kind (see photo) instead of the microwave. Microwaves do weird things to tortillas.

Happy tortilla making!

Bread Baking S.O.S.

Help me.

I have tried many times to bake whole wheat bread. I’ve used recipes from the bag of whole wheat flour and from the internet. I seem to churn out whole wheat BRICKS instead of bread.

I gave up on the whole bread baking deal for a few years, then when I went grocery shopping last week, I
was shocked and disgusted with the price of a 12 inch Boboli pizza crust- 3.50!?!?!?!?!?!? So I bought a container of active dry yeast and made pizza dough myself. I used this recipe from Cooking Light and it turned out fine. BUT it was WHITE flour.

So I decided to try baking whole wheat bread again. I used the KitchenAid Mixer’s recipe for whole wheat bread- 5-6 cups of flour, 4.5 tsps yeast, 2 c warm water, 1/3 cup brown sugar, a lil salt, 1/3 c oil… you get the idea.

Things were looking pretty good. I let the dough rise in my oven, which I turned on and then off, to get that “magic” but elusive 85 degrees.

I punched the dough down, shaped into loaves (one was a little bigger than the other, whoops) and let them rise again.

Then I baked them according to the instructions- 15 minutes at 400 and then 30 minutes at 350.

This is what happened. A wrinkly crust and a very dense loaf.

I troubleshooted on Breadworld.com and my problem (or at least one of them) is that I let the dough rise at too warm of a temperature.

OK Guilty. I kept the temp at about 100- 120 by turning the oven on to 200, then letting it get to 130, then turning it off. A hundred times. But I was afraid it wouldn’t rise at all! And I don’t know where I am supposed to get an area of my house 85 degrees. It’s NEVER 85 degrees here except in the summer. And it ain’t summer yet.

On top of it all, I was completely exhausted from the bread baking fiasco yesterday. I kept running up and down the stairs to peek on the bread and the sheer anticipation of success or failure sapped my strength. My husband, the ever positive encourager, even quietly suggested that maybe I should give up whole wheat bread dream. He reasoned that perhaps we don’t have the right equipment, like a brick fired oven or something. It’s only 3.69 to buy it at the store and that may be worth it.

What do I do? How can I fix this? I just want to make homemade whole wheat bread that is yummy and good and healthy and all that jazz.

Bread bakers of the blogosphere, please rescue me. I’m sending out an S.O.S.

This was an incredible weekend for us!

Keith and I went snowboarding on Saturday, leaving our wee one with her Grandma. They had a great time and she took her bottles really well. (Dr. Browns bottles worked for us!). I was face-down in the snow quite a bit, as we hadn’t gone boarding in 2 years, but I thoroughly enjoyed using my new board. We’ll be going every Saturday through the end of February with a group of friends. Most of the group is made up of families- we are one of two couples that did not bring their children.

When we got home, my mom and grandma had done ALL of our laundry and taken the Mercy for a walk. I also got some sympathy from my mom, who realized that my baby doesn’t take extended naps yet, just catnaps. “You must be so exhausted! No wonder you hardly get anything done!” Finally! Some respect!

With all the laundry done and the dog already walked, I was able to finish the baby’s earflap hat:

And I liked the pattern so much that I made two, one for our little girl and one for our friend’s baby.

They are Kim’s Hats from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. I used Knitpicks Sierra yarn from my stash and size 9 dpns. My only concern is itchy-ness, as the yarn is wool and alpaca. I have not had much success in lining it with fleece- I tried, but it wouldn’t stretch enough. Any ideas?

I also made some pumpkin cookies!

These are the easiest cookies to make- just mix a 15 oz can with a box of cake mix and bake for 10-12 minutes at the temperature on the cake box (usually it’s 350 degrees). They are really gooey and you don’t have to worry about them being undercooked because there aren’t any eggs! I also hear that they are one or two weight-watcher points. These cookies are so addicting I made Keith take the rest to work today so I didn’t eat them all.

I hope you enjoyed your weekend!