by MelDabbles on March 29, 2010
I am pleased to introduce to you a new feature here at MelDabbles: It’s Easy Being Green, penned by my friend Gretchen! While I try very hard to be environmentally-conscious, it can be overwhelming given just how much goes into it. Gretchen is a busy mom who works full time, but she has found small ways to integrate eco-friendliness into her family’s lifestyle. On It’s Easy Being Green, she will share with you some of her favorite ways to increase the “green” factor in your life. Below is Gretchen’s introductory post. I hope that you will comment with ideas you would like to see covered.
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The other day I bought a card to send to my sister which pretty much sums up how I approach living a green and sustainable life – along with global warming and what to make for dinner, you’ve been on my mind. I mean, let’s face it, this is the only planet Earth we are getting and if we don’t take care of it, I hate to think of the consequences for my child, grandchildren or great-grandchildren. But, we’re all busy. We have jobs to do, dinners to plan, diapers to change, laundry to fold and sometimes it can just seem like making the extra effort to be environmentally aware is beyond our capacity. What I hope to share with you in this particular “column” is that you can do good and save the Earth a little at a time. Every small effort helps. Buy a reusable water bottle and stop using (plastic) bottled water. Opt for the environmentally friendly laundry detergent and keep some chemicals out of our water. Small changes, over time, can lead to big results.
Did you know that according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, if every U.S. household replaced just one regular incandescent light bulb with a compact fluorescent light bulb, it would prevent 90 billion pounds of greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, the equivalent of taking 7.5 million cars off the road. I don’t know about you, but I love my car. I don’t want to stop driving it. So, I’m happy to swap out a few light bulbs in order to feel better about driving my car. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says that by replacing just 1 regular light bulb with 1 compact fluorescent light bulb, Americans would save enough energy to light more than 2.5 million homes for a year. That is a lot of homes! I wonder if my husband would get off our backs about occasionally forgetting and leaving on lights we aren’t using if I could say, “Oh yeah, well I just created enough energy to light 2.5 million houses for a whole year.” I’m like Superwoman (or just a gal who can change a light bulb…) In a future musing, I’ll discuss my own personal CFL strategy. Sometimes, the CFLs you use give you the odd feeling that instead of walking into your study, you just wandered into Wal Mart. Who wants to feel like their house is Wal Mart? I sure don’t! We’ll look at what types of CFLs are out there and I’ll share my own, unscientific strategy for where and how I use them in our home (hint: not everywhere!).
I hope my occasional musings will inspire you to consider how you can best make some positive and painless changes of your own to save our planet. I promise, we won’t be discussing how to grow and weave our own organic flax clothing that we dye by using roots we dig in the forest. I won’t make you put solar panels on your roof (although there are some great federal tax credits available right now should you choose to do so!) or give up your car. We’ll look at easy ways that you and I can both make an impact on the world we are passing along to our children while also keeping in mind that we are still raising said children and some days that takes all the energy you have, plus some!
Have a topic or an idea you’d like me to explore and discuss? Leave a comment below and I’ll seriously consider it.
by MelDabbles on March 22, 2010
I am excited that this will be the first official “From Scratch” entry on MelDabbles.com! I have lots of other recipes that are already up that fall into this category, but this is the first one written expressly for showing you how incredibly easy it is to make certain foods from scratch.
I first set out to make bread on a whim. I was so tired of reading the labels of bread on the shelves at the grocery store and seeing how full of who-knows-what they were. I was also rather annoyed with paying $5 per loaf of bakery bread that did not even taste very good. So while at the store one day, I purchased some active dry yeast packets and some whole wheat flour. At home, I looked around online until I found this recipe, which looked easy enough for a beginner like me to make. I borrowed a mixer from my neighbor to save time, made it rather easily, and had some delicious bread to enjoy (and give to my very generous with her mixer neighbor). Over the last year and a half, I have tweaked the recipe to use only whole wheat flour, some additional grains, etc. I had written so many notes on my original printout that I had to toss it…
My version of this bread is made entirely with either whole wheat flour or a mixture of whole wheat and white whole wheat flours, and other whole grains. It is the perfect bread for sandwiches and toast, and I recently used an experimental batch that was too much on the bland side to eat plan in the Blueberry-Almond French Toast Bake.
The recipe:
3 cups of warm water (Between 105 and 115 degrees is apparently best)
2/3 cup honey, divided (I use local)
2 0.25 oz packets of active dry yeast
3 cups white whole wheat flour*
3 cups whole wheat flour, divided*
1 cup whole grain blend (I use Bob’s Red Mill 10-grain blend, found in the cereal aisle)
4 Tablespoons unsweetened applesauce
1 Tablespoon kosher salt
6 Tablespoons vital wheat gluten**
[Note that I generally use a stand mixer to do this bread, but only a powerful one will be able to mix and knead all of this flour. I will also note how to make it by hand, which is not at all difficult, it just requires some effort (and burns calories!) and takes a little longer.]
In the mixer bowl, combine the warm water, yeast, 1/3 cup of honey, and 3 cups of the white whole wheat flour – I use a paddle attachment for this process. Let this sit for about 30 minutes. The mixture will bubble up and rise – if it does not do this, your yeast may be old or your water temperature may be off, so you will need to start over. Next, set the mixer on stir and add the remaining 1/3 of honey, salt, applesauce, whole grain blend, and about 1.5 cups of the whole wheat flour and combine well. Slowly add the remaining whole wheat flour, a little at a time (1/3 cup or so), until the dough starts to come together – switch to the dough hook when the mixture starts getting too dense for the paddle attachment. With the dough hook on stir or a low level, slowly add in more whole wheat flour until the dough begins to pull away from the sides of the bowl. You may not use all of the remaining flour, or you may actually need more than the additional 3 cups. Just keep adding in small increments until the dough does not stick to the sides of the bowl. Next, set the mixer to a medium-low level (I use 4 generally) and let the dough hook knead the dough for about 10 minutes. Once the dough is kneaded, place the dough in an oiled bowl, cover with a damp dishtowel, and let it rise in a warm place for about an hour. I use the oven with the oven light on for this process. Once the dough has risen, punch it down, and divide it into 3 or 4 loaves, depending on how big you would like them. Spray your loaf pans with nonstick spray and drop your loaves in, pushing down and spreading out the dough to fill the pans evenly. Cover again with a damp towel, and let rise again for approximately one hour. Once the dough has completed its second rise, bake in a preheated 350 degree oven until the bread is golden and an internal temp registers between 190 and 200 degrees. If you do not have a food thermometer, pop out on of the loaves from the pan and tap the bottom. If it sounds hollow, the bread is done. If it sounds like a dense thud, bake for a few minutes longer. I use medium sizes loaf pans and get three loaves out of this recipe and I have to bake them for about 35 minutes. Once the bread has baked, remove from the loaf pans and cool on wire racks.
If making this bread by hand: you can use a large bowl and a wooden spoon. I recommend a bowl with a rubberized bottom, it will help grip the counter as you mix. However, you can use any bowl and set it on top of a dish towel or silicone trivet/potholder/etc for the same kind of grip. I will mix in the flour until my spoon will not go any longer and then switch to my hands. Sometimes I will add flour until the dough is not sticky any longer and then dump the whole thing out onto my (clean) counter or baking mat and incorporate the remaining flour and knead the dough at the same time. Sometimes I knead directly in the bowl – these are the days I am so lazy I don’t feel like getting my mixer out OR cleaning my counters. :) Either way, make sure you knead well – air bubbles in bread are no fun. Also, kneading helps develop the gluten, and even though there is vital wheat gluten in this bread, you still need to help it along since it is made of whole wheat and will therefore not rise as much.
My absolute favorite way to eat this is fresh out of the oven, with a little butter and some honey. Jam would be good too.
Notes:
- Some find the 2/3 cup of honey too sweet. I usually use 1/3 cup when I bake with whole wheat flour only, but I find the white whole wheat added to the mix needs some additional honey. That is just my taste. I believe cane sugar or even agave would probably work here, though you may need to play around with the amounts.
- I have only ever made this bread in loaf pans because it is such a good sandwich bread. However, I am sure a freeform loaf would be delicious as well, not to mention crustier.
- I like using the whole grain mix for added texture, but it is not a necessity. I am sure you could also use rolled oats, seeds, and a variety of other items in here.
- The recipe can be halved if you just want one loaf.
- Sometimes I use mini loaf pans and make my three year old his own loaf of bread for breakfast and sandwiches. He loves the miniature size!
* You can use any mixture of these two types of whole wheat flour or even go with one for the entire thing.
**Vital wheat gluten helps with the rise and crumb when using whole grain flours. The general rule of thumb is 1 Tablespoon of vital wheat gluten for every cup of whole wheat flour.
Suggestions and comments always welcome! Enjoy 
