So a couple of days ago i shared my bread recipe. I would like to at this point say yes, the cup of water definitely can be cut down to about 1/4 a cup. If you don't want to cut it down so much for fear of it being too dry, then when you are finished letting it rise, about 2 hours to double, then liberally apply bread flour to the counter when you are going to shape it, you will need the extra flour to work into the dough. Then you are going to want to let it rise again in the pans for about 30 minutes before cooking at 350 for about 50 minutes or so. I like the bread. It is much lighter than the regular wheat bread i have been making. It could use some salt though, maybe a couple of teaspoons worth. Be careful though since the salt kills the yeast, so make sure to add it after you have added your flour, while it is mixing.
Happy Baking :)
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Monday, March 23, 2009
Sprouted Whole Wheat!
OK! So, i have been trying to lose weight for about 3 months now. And i have lost about 10 lbs. not so great, considering i keep fluctuating up 2 lbs and back down 2 lbs. So this week i am up the 2 lbs and maybe next week i will be down the 2 lbs. I can't seem to break through the barrier. I have never been able to lose weight before when I am nursing, so the fact that i lost 10 lbs is a huge feat for me! I should be so pleased, i know, but i am not. All i can see is the 35 lbs i still need to lose and that i am not getting any closer to my goal and i am very discouraged!
So what does that have to do with Sprouted wheat you ask? Well in an effort to become more healthy and to live a Heather life, i decided to try and eat more naturally. And in doing so I came upon a blog that was totally cool. It talked about eating More "whole foods" not processed prepackaged foods. And how making things from scratch was better for you. So i thought, yeah that makes total sense! So about 2 months ago i started making soup stock and soups from scratch. Then i got a Bosch mixer and started making breads from scratch. And i have been playing with the bread recipes a bit, since they are VERY dense and use bread flour as well as wheat flour.
Then i kept hearing about this book called "Nourishing Traditions" by Sally Fallon. And how she talks about Lacto fermented foods and how eating More naturally is so much better for you. She even talks about how pure saturated fats, from grass fed animal sources is really healthy for you. It is an excellent read and i would recommend it to anyone! She also talks about sprouting your grains and beans before you eat them. How soaking them gets rid of the acids that are in the grains preventing them from allowing the nutrients in the grains to truly be accessed. So i decided to soak my wheat for 24 hours and then to make bread from it. IT sounded like an easy plausible idea, but when i went to grind the wheat, i found it didn't grind so well because it was so wet and squishy. I also realized that the recipe called for 1 cup of water, which was fine before. But when the grains were already soaked and full of water, it was too much water for the bread and it looked like soup. So i had to modify the recipe and add a bit more of the dry ingredients to get the dough to form a bit better. So here is the recipe i used.
4 cups soaked and drained wheat grains sprouted
1 cup bread flour
1 1/2 cups oats
1 tsp yeast
1 cup warm water
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup of butter
I will try and see if this turns out OK, if it doesn't i will start again and omit the cup of water and instead do 1/4 a cup of water for the yeast to rise in.
I also decided to use my soaked wheat to make pancakes. These turned out a bit mushy in the middle, but they were still good.
3 cups of soaked wheat with a bit of the water still in the cup
1 tsp. baking soda
3 ripe bananas
1 tbsp vanilla extract
Then i cooked them up and the girls put cinnamon sugar on them. They were super yummy and very filling.
So i feel like i am on my way to making better healthier meals for my family. As soon as i get some raw yogurt I am going to start making my own Youghart and Keifer and doing more lacto fermented vegetables and fruit! Now i am off to make some homemade jam :)
So what does that have to do with Sprouted wheat you ask? Well in an effort to become more healthy and to live a Heather life, i decided to try and eat more naturally. And in doing so I came upon a blog that was totally cool. It talked about eating More "whole foods" not processed prepackaged foods. And how making things from scratch was better for you. So i thought, yeah that makes total sense! So about 2 months ago i started making soup stock and soups from scratch. Then i got a Bosch mixer and started making breads from scratch. And i have been playing with the bread recipes a bit, since they are VERY dense and use bread flour as well as wheat flour.
Then i kept hearing about this book called "Nourishing Traditions" by Sally Fallon. And how she talks about Lacto fermented foods and how eating More naturally is so much better for you. She even talks about how pure saturated fats, from grass fed animal sources is really healthy for you. It is an excellent read and i would recommend it to anyone! She also talks about sprouting your grains and beans before you eat them. How soaking them gets rid of the acids that are in the grains preventing them from allowing the nutrients in the grains to truly be accessed. So i decided to soak my wheat for 24 hours and then to make bread from it. IT sounded like an easy plausible idea, but when i went to grind the wheat, i found it didn't grind so well because it was so wet and squishy. I also realized that the recipe called for 1 cup of water, which was fine before. But when the grains were already soaked and full of water, it was too much water for the bread and it looked like soup. So i had to modify the recipe and add a bit more of the dry ingredients to get the dough to form a bit better. So here is the recipe i used.
4 cups soaked and drained wheat grains sprouted
1 cup bread flour
1 1/2 cups oats
1 tsp yeast
1 cup warm water
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup of butter
I will try and see if this turns out OK, if it doesn't i will start again and omit the cup of water and instead do 1/4 a cup of water for the yeast to rise in.
I also decided to use my soaked wheat to make pancakes. These turned out a bit mushy in the middle, but they were still good.
3 cups of soaked wheat with a bit of the water still in the cup
1 tsp. baking soda
3 ripe bananas
1 tbsp vanilla extract
Then i cooked them up and the girls put cinnamon sugar on them. They were super yummy and very filling.
So i feel like i am on my way to making better healthier meals for my family. As soon as i get some raw yogurt I am going to start making my own Youghart and Keifer and doing more lacto fermented vegetables and fruit! Now i am off to make some homemade jam :)
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
A New Blog!
I found this new blog in one of the newsletters I receive. And I LOVE IT!! It had a great article about the healing powers of the Lord. Not just in physical ways, but also in emotional and how we see ourselves and in every aspect of our lives. The article I am referring to is Called "So Pretty" By Merrilee Browne Boyack
February 02, 2009
Over the years, I have sung that song from “West Side Story”—“I feel pretty, oh so pretty!” and have laughed. I felt anything BUT pretty. I have spent my entire lifetime feeling unattractive.
To be truthful, I was somewhat taught that I was not pretty. I could share a litany of comments from various people in my life: “You’ll never be beautiful so work on your personality.” “Your friend is pretty and you are smart. That’s just the way it is.” And one of my personal favorites when I was considering serving a mission as a young adult: “You’re not ugly enough to go on a mission.” Ugly? Enough? Uh, OK . . . . .
So you can imagine how I felt when I was diagnosed with breast cancer and told that I had to have a mastectomy. You’ve GOT to be kidding me. Wasn’t I ugly enough? The thought of losing my hair, which I felt was my one saving grace, hit me. I shall never forget the day when I was on my prayer/walk and I realized that by the end of the month I would be bald. Bald. Ugly. Could I survive all this emotionally?
On that day I prayed to Heavenly Father and asked for a gift. I asked for the gift of healing of my feelings about my appearance. Now don’t worry, I’d been praying for complete healing for a while. But I knew this was not something I could survive very well emotionally on my own. And I was tired of feeling ugly for 50 years of my life. I wanted healing. And I knew the only way to get it was to get it from God. So I asked.
Now a strange thing began to happen. Day after day I felt prettier. I know that is very strange and hard to explain. It just did. I began to notice things about myself that I liked and were attractive.
And then came the day to face the mirror after my surgery. The bandages were off. And you know what, it was OK. It was different, but it was OK. I knew that I would have reconstruction eventually and it was fine. And look at my wonderful body! It was a miracle!
Next came the day when my hair was going. It was really falling out and I called my son and asked if he would come buzz it off. Sweet Brennan came home on his lunch hour. I buzzed his hair, and then he buzzed mine. As he was buzzing it, he commented, “It’s not every day you get to buzz off your mother’s hair!” All too true. When it was done, we took pictures and he said I now looked like one of the Boyack brothers (we have four sons who have had many “buzzes” in their lifetimes). I then went in the shower and shaved it all off to the skin.
And then came the time to face the mirror. And an amazing thing happened. I looked in that mirror and saw beauty. My eyes that I had always hated were shining. My skin was glowing. I had a good head! And a big smile. I realized that I was truly beautiful. Positively gorgeous.
I told my husband that I have felt more beautiful in the last two months than I have ever felt in my life. He laughed and said it must have been the hair!
But I know that something deeper has happened. God has healed my feelings about my appearance. I have finally been able to see myself as He sees me—a marvelous work of art. And the voices that I have carried in my head for decades have been completely silenced. It was a gift from Him –pure and simple.
I have learned a deep lesson. God creates beauty. It is that simple. And when He created me, He created a lovely, pretty, down-right-CUTE daughter. I have also realized that every single one of us is beautiful. Yeah, yeah, we have inner beauty. But I have discovered that every single one of us in all our shapes and sizes and ages and conditions, are truly beautiful on the outside. That was something I had not understood until now.
God creates beauty. God created me. And He did a good job.
I thought that this was such a beautiful story! I know that through my life I have felt unattractive in the same way. I beat myself up for it everyday. My weight that i gain when i get pregnant. I have a hard time seeing past it. But this really hit a cord with me, that it doesn't matter. God created me the way He wanted me, not the way I wanted me. And I need to be happy with the way I am. Now I do still believe I need to treat the Temple He has given me as Holy and take better care of myself. But it doesn't matter that I am not a size 6. I am the way He wants me. There were so many great stories and devotionals on this blog! I just had to share it!
http://deseretbook.com/time-out/blog
February 02, 2009
Over the years, I have sung that song from “West Side Story”—“I feel pretty, oh so pretty!” and have laughed. I felt anything BUT pretty. I have spent my entire lifetime feeling unattractive.
To be truthful, I was somewhat taught that I was not pretty. I could share a litany of comments from various people in my life: “You’ll never be beautiful so work on your personality.” “Your friend is pretty and you are smart. That’s just the way it is.” And one of my personal favorites when I was considering serving a mission as a young adult: “You’re not ugly enough to go on a mission.” Ugly? Enough? Uh, OK . . . . .
So you can imagine how I felt when I was diagnosed with breast cancer and told that I had to have a mastectomy. You’ve GOT to be kidding me. Wasn’t I ugly enough? The thought of losing my hair, which I felt was my one saving grace, hit me. I shall never forget the day when I was on my prayer/walk and I realized that by the end of the month I would be bald. Bald. Ugly. Could I survive all this emotionally?
On that day I prayed to Heavenly Father and asked for a gift. I asked for the gift of healing of my feelings about my appearance. Now don’t worry, I’d been praying for complete healing for a while. But I knew this was not something I could survive very well emotionally on my own. And I was tired of feeling ugly for 50 years of my life. I wanted healing. And I knew the only way to get it was to get it from God. So I asked.
Now a strange thing began to happen. Day after day I felt prettier. I know that is very strange and hard to explain. It just did. I began to notice things about myself that I liked and were attractive.
And then came the day to face the mirror after my surgery. The bandages were off. And you know what, it was OK. It was different, but it was OK. I knew that I would have reconstruction eventually and it was fine. And look at my wonderful body! It was a miracle!
Next came the day when my hair was going. It was really falling out and I called my son and asked if he would come buzz it off. Sweet Brennan came home on his lunch hour. I buzzed his hair, and then he buzzed mine. As he was buzzing it, he commented, “It’s not every day you get to buzz off your mother’s hair!” All too true. When it was done, we took pictures and he said I now looked like one of the Boyack brothers (we have four sons who have had many “buzzes” in their lifetimes). I then went in the shower and shaved it all off to the skin.
And then came the time to face the mirror. And an amazing thing happened. I looked in that mirror and saw beauty. My eyes that I had always hated were shining. My skin was glowing. I had a good head! And a big smile. I realized that I was truly beautiful. Positively gorgeous.
I told my husband that I have felt more beautiful in the last two months than I have ever felt in my life. He laughed and said it must have been the hair!
But I know that something deeper has happened. God has healed my feelings about my appearance. I have finally been able to see myself as He sees me—a marvelous work of art. And the voices that I have carried in my head for decades have been completely silenced. It was a gift from Him –pure and simple.
I have learned a deep lesson. God creates beauty. It is that simple. And when He created me, He created a lovely, pretty, down-right-CUTE daughter. I have also realized that every single one of us is beautiful. Yeah, yeah, we have inner beauty. But I have discovered that every single one of us in all our shapes and sizes and ages and conditions, are truly beautiful on the outside. That was something I had not understood until now.
God creates beauty. God created me. And He did a good job.
I thought that this was such a beautiful story! I know that through my life I have felt unattractive in the same way. I beat myself up for it everyday. My weight that i gain when i get pregnant. I have a hard time seeing past it. But this really hit a cord with me, that it doesn't matter. God created me the way He wanted me, not the way I wanted me. And I need to be happy with the way I am. Now I do still believe I need to treat the Temple He has given me as Holy and take better care of myself. But it doesn't matter that I am not a size 6. I am the way He wants me. There were so many great stories and devotionals on this blog! I just had to share it!
http://deseretbook.com/time-out/blog
Saturday, March 7, 2009
My Photography!
I have been working very hard the last few weeks to learn how to use my camera better. I have been reading and reading, but more importantly i have been practising and practising. So I took my kids out and started practising with them. Dolling them all up and taking a million and a half pictures!
These are of my Angels!
SAY WHAT????
I Don't know about that Mommy!
My Angel!
My little Funny Face!
My little Chubby Cheeks!
My World!
My relaxed Diva!
I love this one, it truly captures her radiant spirit.
I love this one too! The softness of her face, with a touch of mystery! LOL!
Sweet Smile!
Cutie Rosie!
So Shy!
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