Bread and Books

This post is basically a summary of my Mothers Day on Sunday.

I've had a bread recipe out for about 2 weeks, but just haven't had the time to make it. So I figured on Mothers Day my hubbie could take care of the kiddies for a while and I made bread. I used another Canadian Living magazine recipe (Oct '09) for Multigrain Loaves. It uses a mix of multigrain and white bread flours, molasses and sunflower seeds (both inside and a topping). It is delicious. There's something relaxing, at least for me, about kneading bread dough for a good 15 minutes. It forces me to stay in one place and I build up a nice rhythm.



My husband doesn't usually remember to do gift shopping ahead of time, but it is kind of nice, because he usually takes the boys to the bookstore for a few hours and I get an added gift of some peace and quiet. So he took the boys out and I made bread, actually got to have an extended, uninterrupted shower and knitted.

I was quite impressed with my Mothers Day gifts, so I thought I'd share:




Three Cups of Tea, One man's mission to promote Peace one school at a time by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. (Top Left)

I read both of Khaled Hosseini's books The Kite Runner and a Thousand Splendid Suns while my husband was in Afghanistan and have wanted to read more books based in Afghanistan. I had heard good reviews of this book and it was on my "To Read list", although I don't remember sharing this with hubbie. He is too clever, isn't he?

Next up are three cookbooks, can I ever have too many??

Saha by Greg and Lucy Malouf(Top Right) is a chef's journey through Lebanon and Syria. This cookbook has beautiful photography and has great dishes as well as stories of the author's culinary adventures through their travels. I love cuisine from this part of the world and it is the only book I now have dedicated to it.

Curry by Jody Vassallo and awesome photography by Deidre Rooney (Bottom left). The photos in this book are modern and really show off the spicy colour of the food. I love curry and this book incorporates curry recipes from around the world.

The last book, Easy Everyday Indian by Das Sreedharan (bottom right) is another Indian cookbook for my collection. It has some different recipes to my other books and has a lovely little section on ingredients. I'm quite familiar with the ingredients in Indian recipes, but it can be quite intimidating if you're not used to cooking this cuisine.

So I hope to be cooking and sharing from these books soon.

Whole Wheat Honey Oatmeal Rolls

My house smells so good right now. I've just baked a batch of rolls and they turned out perfectly.

I used the Whole Wheat Honey Oat Loaf recipe from my October 2009 copy of Canadian Living magazine. You'll see the instructions to make rolls below the main recipe.

Nothing tastes better than bread right out of the oven, so give it a try sometime. Bread-making is really not that difficult, you just need fresh yeast, some time for rising and the ability to give your dough a good beating (kneading). Although there are some good no-knead recipes out there too and for those lucky enough to have a bread machine, it's even easier.

Muffins & Bread

I've been busy baking this week after a weekend of sewing.

I made Apple Bran Muffins for a nice breakfast treat and Irish Soda Bread with a triticale twist.

The muffin recipe can be found here.

They were so yummy that they were gone in one day. I thought I'd get an extra day out of them, but my family had other ideas. I have two packages of wheat bran, so I needed to use some up and with apples being in season here, it was a logical choice. The muffins were really moist, not dry and chewy like bran products can sometimes be. The molasses is something I don't use often, so I'll have to make more or find another recipe to use up the rest.

As you can see in the photo, the outside is slightly burnt, I needed to go out and hubby didn't hear the oven beep in time. But it actually gave the outside a lovely crispy texture and the inside was still really moist.



The next recipe is one I make often, but I mix it up a little every time. Soda Bread is an easy bread using baking soda instead of yeast for leavening. I find recipes for this bread everywhere and have incorporated various ingredients like caraway seed, different flours, raisins and in this case oats and wheat germ.
I also used triticale flour. Triticale is a hybrid of wheat and rye. I read about this grain in a health food book and ordered the flour to try it out.
I've made a casserole bread, which was good and homemade pasta, which was not so good, from this flour. There are more recipes at the Bob's Red Mill website.

An interesting fact I picked up is that the cross was traditionally made on the bread as a means to ward away the devil. So with that here is the recipe.

Irish Soda Bread

1 1/4 cups unbleached flour
1 cup triticale (or wholewheat or other flour)
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup wheat germ
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1 1/3 cups buttermilk

1. Preheat oven to 425 F (220 C)
2. Combine dry ingedients.
3. Using a pastry cutter, cut butter into dry ingredients until and a coarse meal forms.
4. Add buttermilk, stir quickly and turn out onto a floured surface. Knead gently and form into a round. Place loaf on a parchment-lined baking sheet.
5. Dust surface with flour and cut a shallow X into the centre. Bake for 30 minutes.

Makes 1 round loaf.