Maggie, poached eggs, just rice&beans

Maggie, our 2 year old dog, just chewed up my brand new eyeglasses in our front yard. She grabbed them, that stealthy little sago-mangchi (literally chaos-hammer in Korean, but translates as trouble maker in English) and then proceeded to crunch on them with her huge doggie teeth in total puppy bliss right in front of me. I didn't realize what was going on until I heard the crunch. But, by then, it was too late. Argh! Good thing that they're covered under a one year warranty. (sigh)

Although I should be reviewing notes and readings for an exam I have tomorrow (heart anatomy & physiology, the blood and the endocrine system), I can study later tonight and even tomorrow morning since my boys are away for a few days. They'll be home by Saturday night. Until then, it's just Maggie and me... oh, and Oscar, our other dog, who's hiding low somewhere under our bed in fear that he'll get blamed for something getting Maggie-ized.

Well, it's late, way late- 11:18pm. And, I would love some Eggs Benedict right now, minus the bacon, plus some smoked mozzarella or gouda, on a thick slice of toasted oat wheat bread. Yummm.  If only I knew how to poach an egg without making something that looks like a very wrong rendition of egg drop soup. To be honest, my previous experiments resemble something more like a gloppy- curdled scrambled egg soup than a glistening, pale yellow and white, elegantly poached egg. I have heard that mastering the poaching of an egg can really be quite challenging. Maybe it's time to add a new project to my ever-growing list of things I need to do (aka things that I would love to do but rarely get around to actually doing, like my bicycle 4 times a week!) and learn how to poach an egg properly. Later, of course, after my exam, and just before I ride my bike 4x this week. But for tonight, it's rice&beans.

Oh, and guess what my Maggie just did while I was writing this? She Maggie-ized a large zucchini that I had just picked out of my garden.

A zucchini!

I mean...

Really!!!

Argh!!!!!

(sigh)

There's riding, and then there's writing...

Well, it is true.  I am a total beginner at this blogging venture.  So, please bear with me as there are several technical glitches that I have yet to smooth out:
1.  the author is shown as Grace Grace... well it's supposed to be Grace!
2.  I cannot get the Labels to cooperate... not too big of a deal, but it is still very annoying!
3.  My camera card is broken... time to invest in a new camera?
4.  My site looks way too cluttered... yuck!
5.  My site looks way not inspired... pooh!

I'm just going to have to bumble along and mend as I go.  In the meanwhile, I think that I have to take my bread making posts much more slowly and earnestly.  I can 'go' on bikes, but bread making has its own time and it's more like 'slow'.  I have to remember, these things take time.

I peddled for 30 minutes yesterday: 5 minute warm up with a 20 minute workout and a 5 minute cool down.  It was great, tiring, and then kind of invigorating.  I sweated, even dripped with sweat.  And then I went to help split some wood.  I weighed myself this morning: 122.2 lbs with 22.6% body weight (I'm 5'6.5" tall).
I ate a bowl of oatmeal with a cup of coffee (milk and sugar in both), and then had a big bowl of homemade veggie soup with a slice of homemade bread (whole wheat oat) and a 2 oz. of cheese.

This afternoon: bake a quadruple batch of the Whole Wheat Oat Bread to take to church.  I hope they sell out!  30% of the proceeds will go to a mission project in Mexico, 30% to our community outreach service.

Tonight: ride another 30 minutes while reading The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, or the front sections of The Bread Baker's Apprentice by Peter Reinhart (he's just so good at writing bread books).

Bread roots + pedals

I just posted my Whole Wheat Oat Bread recipe.  But then, I decided that it was maybe not in depth enough.  Plus, my blog is looking a little emaciated, so another entry would help fill it out.  So, I decided to review a wonderful book that helped me in my early days of simple living and bread baking.

 

Brother Juniper's Bread Book by Peter Reinhart.  It is, to this day, one of my most favorite reads.  It has good basic bread making recipes and how to's.  When I first read this book, I borrowed it from my local library.  I started to copy the pages that I thought were helpful and had recipes that I liked.  Well, I guess I liked the entire book because I basically copied the whole thing cover to cover (yes, I eventually even copied the front cover!)  I just gave it away to a WOOF-ing intern, Anna, last year.  She came to spend the summer with us and is now baking oat bread with her friends at college and family when she is home.  Her dad loved my Whole Wheat Oat Bread so much when he came to visit, that he specifically asked her to get the recipe from me when she got home.  I don't think this book has such a recipe in it, but it has a good basic wheat bread recipe and really good tips on kneading, forming, oven prep and baking.

OK, gotta go, gotta pedal some bikes, or more like a bike.

Whole Wheat Oat Bread

I have converted almost everyone who has spent more than a week eating in my house from buying and eating store bought sliced bread to baking and savoring (maybe more like inhaling) homemade-oven-fresh bread with this oat wheat bread recipe.  This bread is our daily bread: we eat it for our mid-morning snack, for lunch if we are having sandwiches, for our late afternoon snack, and for dinner if we are having soup.  I actually prefer to free form my loaves, I think they look more homey and more yummy- plus less dishes to wash!  I just put all three loaves on a large cookie sheet.  It is such a tasty, simple and nourishing bread.  You can play with the proportions of whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour, and bread flour until you get the loaf you're looking for.  My family prefers a heartier bread with 50% whole wheat.  But this recipe is about 30% whole wheat.  Just use less all purpose and more whole wheat for a heartier loaf.

Oatmeal Bread: three 4.5x8.5 loaves or two big free form loaves
2 cups unbleached bread flour
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cups raw oats
3 teaspoons sea salt, coarse
3 teaspoons instant yeast
24-26 oz. of water, room temp.
cornmeal for dusting

Combine all of the dry ingredients in a large bowl and mix with a spoon to evenly distribute them. Add 24 oz. of water. Mix with a large, stiff spoon or spatula. Just before all of the ingredients are thoroughly mixed, add additional water (or bread flour) until a very tacky, almost sticky ball of dough develops. Let the dough rest, covered with a wet tea towel or a piece of plastic, for about 8 minutes. Knead dough for another 4-6 minutes until dough is smooth and starts pulls away from the sides of the bowl. You can add flour as you need to, but the wetter the dough, the more fluffy the bread will bake. If your dough is too stiff to knead in the bowl, flour a counter top or sturdy kitchen table, and knead on that. However, this means that quite a bit of flour was added, and so the bread will be denser and you will need to knead the dough 3-5 more minutes. No worries, it will still be very tasty.

Let rise for 1-1/2 to 2 hours, or until the dough doubles in size (if the room is cooler than 60 degrees, it can take more than 2 hours, but if the room is warmer than 70 degrees, it can rise in 1-1/2 hours). Punch it down, let it rest for 5- 10 minutes. Form into loaves and place on a cornmeal dusted cookie sheet or well greased loaf pan. Cover formed loaves with a wet tea towel or a piece of plastic and let rise until doubled in size. If you let either rise go too long, the dough will start to smell boozey, like alcohol. If you don't let it rise enough, the bread will not be very fluffy and not near as tasty. But no worries, it will still be pretty tasty.

Preheat oven to 500 degrees, or even 550 degrees if you can, for about 20 minutes. Slash the top of your loaves with a sharp knife or razor. Put loaves in the oven bake for 5 minutes. Turn the oven down to 375 degrees, rotate the loaves 180 degrees, and bake for another 10 minutes. Rotate the loaves again, and then bake for another 10 minutes or until a thermometer reads 190 degree for internal loaf temperature.

Wait 10 minutes until slicing and eating this good bread, otherwise you might burn yourself. Oh well, no worries, some lessons are learned the hard way and the bread will still taste good.