Whole Wheat Cinnamon Walnut Swirl Bread

I've made this bread, from Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads, a couple times now. Felt like making it again. Makes great french toast. This time I added some flaxseed meal into the starter.

Not much more to say than that.....

I made the starter doughs on Saturday per the recipe. Then you mix them together with the final ingredients to make the final dough, then let it rise. In this picture, it has already risen, then you flatten it into a square, put some cinnamon sugar on it, and roll it up to make the swirl inside...

This is what it looked like rolled up, in the loaf pan, before the 2nd rise....

and after the 2nd rise....

and out of the oven....the loaf weighs TWO POUNDS!!! It doesn't look like it should, but it's heavy for its size.

and sliced open....

and delicious! I think this is the third or so time I've made this bread and this is the best one by far. Really tender. I think maybe because I used white whole wheat flour instead of regular hard wheat flour. Anyway, Awesome.

So this is the end of the crazy cooking weekend of April 2010. I'm impressed with myself that I actually managed to get these posts up in a timely manner. Not sure what I will embark on next, but I do know that the library is holding four more Alice Medrich (aka, CHOCOLATE) books for me, with a fifth and a King Arthur Flour Whole Grain book on the way!

By the way, as I made this post, Anthony Bourdain's Food Porn 2 episode is airing. He was at a steakhouse in NYC with a 24-pound perfectly-cooked prime (truly prime) rib. In HD. I want it.

Pizza (can never have enough.)

Yesterday, I made the starter doughs per the recipe in Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads. Today, I put them together and completed the dough. Froze 5 of the balls and let one sit in the fridge for tonight's dinner. This time, instead of making 2-3 ounce balls of dough, which makes like one pizza, I made 5.5-6 ounce balls of dough so I can have leftovers each time. Yay!

I also made fresh tomato sauce last night since I was almost out. Today, I also wrestled with my food processor to shred the mozzarella. I refuse to buy pre-shredded cheese because it's got other ingredients in it to keep it dry and separate, plus it's never made with whole milk cheese. And that is the difference between ok pizza and awesome pizza, I have decided. Put it all together and it's ready to go into the oven. Here it is on the pizza stone...

Out of the oven....I made the crust *slightly* thicker than usual, which made it so much easier to handle.

Ready for eating......mmmmmmmmmmmmmm.......in Italy, they serve it with raw prosciutto, so, what kind of wannabe Italian would I be if I didn't serve it the same way ;)

Adventures in Pizza

It's already really clear that I love pizza. But on this crazy Montignac thing that I am trying to follow, my normal homemade pizza is a bit out of the question unfortunately. So looking for other solutions, I first tried using a 100% whole wheat pita (I'll say that bread and cheese on this plan aren't supposed to go together, but I can't give up pizza completely, I just can't. So I am just seeing this as an improvement and I don't think a small pizza on some kind of whole wheat bread a couple times a month is gonna keep me from losing weight.)

Not too bad.... but not quite good enough either :(



Then I tried 100% whole wheat lavash bread. I cut the bread in half and pre-baked it for just about 1 minute in the oven on 500 degrees.


I added a bit of pepperoni b/c dammit, I wanted to. This was much better than the pita. For the pita I think I will stick to making chips! :) But I would try this pizza on the lavash bread again for sure.


I finally tried making whole wheat pizza crust from scratch using 100% whole wheat flour. Something did not turn out right :( The glutens in the flour wouldn't develop (does whole wheat flour even develop gluten?) and I couldn't stretch it. It tasted alright but the texture was more like a cracker than a chewy pizza crust :( I did put a bit of flaxseed meal in it to bump up the health factor but I don't know if that would make a difference. So that was disappointing - I didn't even photograph it ;)

Embarking on a new "Diet"

Let me preface with: I HATE diets. I hate diets because they mean deprivation. But what I am in favor of, especially more recently, is changing some of the things I eat in order to not only be a little healthier but just plain stop putting crap in my body. It's so scary how people just grab stuff that tastes good with no regard to the ingredient panel on the side. Forget the nutrition information, what about the ingredients? I maintain, if I can't pronounce it, why should I be eating it? Additionally, if it contains stuff I studied in high school chemistry, why should I be eating it?

It's like, someone asked me the other day why I refuse to eat yellow cheddar cheese.... and my response was, UH, BECAUSE MILK IS NOT ORANGE? How do they get it that color? They put food coloring in it LOL. Even if it's made from natural ingredients or vegetable extract or something, it's still completely unnecessary and purely cosmetic.

So with all this in mind, I purchased a used copy of Michel Montignac's "Eat Yourself Slim" - to make a long story short he focuses on good carbs and good fats and not calories or even really fat or portion control. Interesting idea, even if I am a bit skeptical since I almost eat that way anyway. But I thought, while I am working and making enough to afford this stuff, I might as well give it all a try, no? So I went to town in Fresh and Easy and Trader Joe's and bought all kinds of good stuff (not pictured, raw turbinado sugar):



Of course, I don't even know what I'm going to do with the flour. All that stuff in addition to the brown jasmine rice and Barilla's 51% whole grain spaghetti (which unlike other kinds actually tastes good, and as the whole point of this blog points out, I am picky ;)), drinking freshly-squeezed grapefruit juice, and a few other changes here and there, we will see what happens. If all a good attempt requires is a few little changes here and there, mainly to breakfast, how can I not try, right?!

The next step will be ridding my apartment of the crap I already have, mostly snack foods and white breads............... and potatoes....... i don't think i can give up potatoes :( I'm gonna go out with a bang tonight (post on that forthcoming), and start it all up tomorrow. We'll see what happens! If nothing else it'll give me interesting material to blog about I suppose :) Wish me luck!