Heart of our Home

My kitchen, the heart of our home.... and if I'm completely real with you it's also a mess :)

Yup, it isn't always perfect around here. The sink is full of dirty dishes, I've covered most of the counters with stuff as I grind wheat and make bread, the little guy is raiding the utensil drawer for flippers and other tools to make playdough cookies with, there's playdough crumbles all over the carpet, and if you missed it there's a gingerbread cookie jar up in the top peaking out that just never made it away after christmas. And believe it or not this isn't even as messy as it got today! LOL.

I've been getting back into my breadmaking groove after taking a bit of a break and the wheat berries have been running through my nutrimill double time. Six cups of berries creates about seven cups of flour ready for baking bread, muffins, pita pockets, tortillas, cookies and more. Any extra flour left over is stored in a glass one gallon jar for later use.



Hard red spring wheat berries milled into soft fine flour with every part of the wheat's goodness still there.

My favorite bread recipe rising in the warmth of the preheating oven.

Lunch was a little late as we waited for my oldest son to come in from stacking wood in the woodshed but the aroma of fresh bread and the sight of giant sandwiches waiting for his arrival washed away any tiredness. Plus I made sure his was extra big :) This mama knows what makes her growing boy happy *grin*.

Hugs,
Rosina

Whole Wheat Pumpkin Flax Bread ~ Recipe

The cold and darker days of winter make me want to bake and cook up a storm! I love to create yummy homemade food for my family but it's also a great way to help keep the main floor of our house nice and toasty with the extra heat coming from the oven :) So when I ran across a new recipe for a pumpkin flax loaf of bread I just had to give it a try using some of the pumpkin I canned in the fall.

The recipe does take a bit of preparation as it requires a sponge but trust me it only takes a minute or two to prepare it!

In a glass bowl mix:

1 1/4 cup whole wheat flour from freshly ground hard wheat berries

3/4 cup of lukewarm water

1/4 tsp yeast

Mix it all together well, cover and let sit on your counter top over night at least 12 hours. In the morning you will find that it has grown and bubbled in the bowl.

***If you are using home canned pumpkin like I am you will also want to place it in a strainer and into the fridge over a bowl so that any excess liquid can drip out of it overnight before using it in your bread in the morning :)

Now that your sponge has sat overnight and is nice and bubbly it's time to start making your bread!

You will now need:

2 1/2 - 3 cups whole wheat flour from freshly ground hard wheat berries
3/4 cup all purpose white flour (provides gluten for a good rise)
1 cup mashed pumpkin
1 tsp. yeast
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup ground flax seeds
2 Tbsp. flax seeds

Mix your pumpkin, water, ground flax, whole flax seeds and yeast into your sponge and stir until it is nice and smooth. Stir in your white flour and half of your whole wheat and again mix until smooth. Continue to add the remainder of your whole wheat flour a little at a time until you have incorporated all of it. It makes quite a sticky dough and I found that I needed to use the entire amount of flour.

A little tip for working with a dough that is a little bit on the sticky side like this one is to rub a little bit of oil onto your counter top where you will be kneading your bread and onto your hands so that you can knead it for the 8 minutes without having to add any extra flour which can make your finished bread dry.

Once you have finished kneading your dough, cover it with a cloth and allow it to rise until doubled. Roughly an hour.

Now that your dough has completed its first rise, punch it down to release the gas inside the dough and divide it into two equal pieces. Shape your dough into two nice balls and place on a baking stone or parchment covered baking sheet sprinkled with cornmeal. Cover your dough again with a cloth and let them rise until doubled again.

Once your loaves have finished their final rise you can create a pretty top to your bread with flax seeds by beating an egg white until it is frothy and brushing it gently all over the top of your loaves. Your flax seeds will now stick to your dough. You can also use a sharp knife and gently slice an X onto the top of each loaf which will create a nice look as it bakes as well :)

Bake in a preheated oven at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for approximately 30 minutes or until they sound hollow when tapped on their bottom side.

Oh my goodness is this bread delicious!!!
It is so nice and soft and if you are worried about it having a pumpkiny taste it doesn't at all. It was a huge hit with the kids so I know this is going to become a family favorite. Now I only wish that I had more of my canned pumpkin as this is really going to eat through my stash *grin*. Guess we're going to have to make sure we grow a whole bunch this year!

This recipe was adapted from this Harvest Squash Bread recipe using regular whole wheat flour and roasted acorn squash so you can definitely make this recipe even if you don't grind your own flour! Also if you don't have an acorn squash substitute in what you do have on hand. Sometimes the best breads come from those you change *grin*

Happy Baking!
Rosina

PS. Looking for more yummy recipes?? Check out this week's Hearth and Soul blog hop :)

Whole Wheat Pie Crust ~ Recipe

A couple of days ago I had mentioned that I had a new recipe that I wanted to try for a whole wheat and oatmeal pie crust and I don't know why I hadn't tried it sooner!! It's fantastic.

I was worried how we would like it being so used to the traditional flaky pie crusts that we're all so accustomed to eating but this has a deliciously crunchy crust and sort of reminds me of the crumb topping on an apple crumble. YUM!

You will need:

• 2 cups of soft wheat berries ground as fine as possible or 1 3/4 cups of store bought whole wheat flour
  
• 1 cup rolled oats
• 2 tablespoons sucanat or brown sugar
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1/4 - 1/2 cup of water

Set your grain mill to the finest setting and grind your soft wheat berries. You are going to want to use 1 3/4 cups of the freshly milled flour or if you don't have a mill you can use 1 3/4 cups of regular whole wheat flour :)

Mix your flour, oats, and sugar together and add in your oil mixing well. Next you just want to add enough water to make the dough stick together so that you can form a nice ball with it. I used approximately 1/4 cup of water but you may need a little more. To be on the safe side just add your water in very small increments so you don't make it to wet.

With your hands knead your dough two or three times to stick it all together and then divide it into two equal pieces for the top and bottom crust on your pie. Using your whole wheat flour give your counter a liberal dusting and pat one ball into a circular disk and then roll out with a floured rolling pin checking as you go to make sure it isn't sticking to your counter. If it starts to stick add a little more flour underneath or on top if needed. The first disk will be your pie bottom and then repeat with the other half of your dough to make your pie top :)

Because of the oats in the dough it tends to want to crumble a bit when you lift it into your pie plate so a good trick to help move it in one piece is to roll it up on your rolling pin so that it is wrapped around your pin and then lift it over your pie plate and unroll it again over your pie plate so that it falls into place :)

Let me know how you like it if you try it out! I'm a total convert now and I don't think that I will ever make a white flour pastry dough again *grin*.

Enjoy!
~ Rosina

Recipe ~ Raspberry Strawberry Scones

These scones are a huge hit around our house and they're entirely whole wheat which is an added bonus :) This batch will make 18 large scones so there is plenty to warm up for the following day.



Ingredients:

• 6 cups freshly ground soft wheat berry flour milled on your finest setting or 6 cups of whole wheat flour
• 1 cup sucanat or white sugar
• 4 teaspoons baking power, preferably aluminum free
• 1 1/2 cup unsalted butter
• 3 cups milk or buttermilk
• 1 cup sliced strawberries
• 1 cup raspberries
  

Cut the cold butter into your flour until it resembles a course texture similar to corn meal. I actually like to use my food processor to do this as it only takes a couple of pulses to cut the butter in nice and fine :)

Next add your sugar and baking powder and use a fork to sift it through your flour/butter mixture. Once you've done that you can add your raspberries and strawberries and gently coat them with your flour mixture. I had the berries frozen in the freezer from last summer but you can substitute any sort of berry in their place. Blueberries are lovely also :)

The final step is to add your milk and blend it all together just until your flour is moistened. Don't over mix it! Using an ice cream scooper or spoon similar in size scoop nice plump balls of your scone batter onto parchment covered cookie sheets and bake at 425 degrees Fahrenheit for approximately 15-20 minutes or until nice and golden brown. You can test them by inserting a knife into the center of a baked scone and if it comes out clean then it is done. Another way to test if they are finished baking is to gently press down on the top of the scones and if they spring back up after you release your finger then they are finished :)

Enjoy devouring these delicious goodies!

~ Rosina

Whole Wheat Pumpkin Muffins

I came across a really great site today called Cookus Interruptus and it's all about cooking & baking with organic whole foods! This is totally right up my alley since I love to use as much organic food as I can get my hands on and make everything from scratch. Plus they share tons of recipes so of course you just knew we were going to have to try something out :)

I rattled off some choices to the kids and we settled on one for a very wholesome Whole Wheat Pumpkin Muffin. They were delicious!! I say were because there's nothing but crumbs left *grin*.

They're made with a blend of whole wheat pastry flour & a touch of unbleached white flour, pumpkin, spices, molasses and more, making a deliciously dense muffin :) I did make a few changes to the recipe though. I used my own wheat berries instead of whole wheat pastry flour by substituting 2 cups of soft white wheat berries that I ground in my nutrimill so that we could get all of the great roughage created by using whole wheat berries, omitted the salt completely, and cut the sugar in half. I used the full amount of honey but instead of 1/2 a cup of cane or brown sugar I used 1/4 cup of organic Sucanat which is also an unrefined cane sugar. We didn't miss the extra sweetness at all :)

If you're wondering why my muffins don't look very muffin shaped above, it's because I ran out of muffin tins and put the left overs in a loaf pan *grin*. Gotta make do with what's on hand. LOL.

I'm looking forward to doing some more exploring on their website and trying out another recipe :)

~ Rosina