Tee - Iron rich foods (re: bread-baking)

[Guest guest]

Tee,

    I almost wrote about this to you last night and then thought, " Why would she

be interested in  THAT? " and deleted it.  Maybe I was mistaken...so, here goes!

 

    Since you've had experience making home-made bread in your bread machine,

you kinda already have gotten a taste (pun intended) of how economical it is to

make your own bread from cheap but healthy ingredients yourself.  I am 55 yrs.

" young " (LOL!) and have been baking bread at home for 30+ years.  I've never had

a bread machine; some of my

" goodies " have come out just wonderful and some have been flops--but it's been

so much fun to learn and experiment with over the years.  My family has enjoyed

the fruits of this labor of love and just RECENTLY (like yesterday), I have

learned something NEW that

amazed me about bread making.

 

     Someone on the vegetarian list mentioned (more than once) a " sourdough

bread " , and, mainly out of curiosity, I joined it.

 

     Let me backtrack a bit.  Years ago (about 30), my DH and I lived in Tulsa,

Oklahoma, as newlyweds.  He was in Seminary, and we moved to a small outlying

neighborhood populated by " river people " on the fringe of the city.  DH had a

small " student pastor " congregation there and we settled in, though we only

stayed a year and a half before he graduated and we moved back to his home state

of Illinois.

 

     While we lived in that neighborhood of " dear Rednecks " --they all just took

us in and we loved our time there--a sweet, elderly Cherokee woman gave me a jar

of bread " starter " . It was a sourdough culture that was over 100 years old. 

(I've since wondered if it came with some of her ancestors on the " Trail of

Tears " when the Cherokee people were made to march from the Carolinas to

Oklahoma.) 

 

     Anyway, I was at the time learning to bake home-made bread and this woman

explained how to add the " starter " to a regular bread recipe to get a wonderful

texture and flavor to my half-white/half whole wheat bread recipe.  I kept the

" starter " and " fed " it every time I made bread...and it traveled with me (and

later, with our young family) back to Illinois, then I carried it with me thru 3

other moves around that state. 

 

    At some point, I was baking bread less and less often...so, after a longer

than usual period of neglect, I thought the sourdough starter had " gone bad " ,

and I threw it out.  I wish now that I had not--it probably was still active,

just needing more frequent use.

 

    Anyway...about 6 months ago or so, I got the urge again to start using

sourdough " starter " in my bread-baking.  I read online somewhere how to get an

actual starter " going " by " capturing " the wild yeasts that are normally in the

air everywhere--including in my own kitchen.  That intrigued me, so I set out to

do it.

 

    It took a while to get started, but after about a week, I think, I knew I

had an active " wild yeast " culture in my bread starter.  I fed the starter and

used it--for bread (moderately successful), for biscuits (fair--not like the

flaky " southern " biscuits I REALLY craved--more like an English muffin,

actually), for corn-bread (something was off--the recipe or something...I just

didn't like that one at all), and also regular muffins (pretty good) and

waffles.  I found the sourdough is useful for many purposes and gives " bready "

foods a unique and tasty flavor--especially the waffles, which I make frequently

and freeze for handy " grab from the freezer and heat up " breakfast fare.

 

     Anyway, what I REALLY wished I could do was something I had read about (I

think it was on the Veg group site)--make bread WITHOUT buying " store " yeast,

using ONLY my " starter " for the yeast part of my bread-baking.  I saw on an

internet baking site how several people had achieved something that was, to me,

the " ideal " of bread:  a " San Francisco-style " sourdough round or oblong loaf of

bread.  It has a crunchy wonderful crust....a chewy, interesting " rustic "

texture, and this interesting flavor with a slight " tang " to it from the acids

in the sourdough culture.  The only time I had EVER experienced this kind of

bread was from a fancy (and expensive) bakery.  I had never dreamed that I could

actually BAKE such a bread myself.

 

     Well, last night, I DID!  I followed some instructions from online with a

few glitches, because I couldn't find the website right away and had to do the

recipe steps from memory.  I got a couple in the wrong sequence, but it still

turned out well.

 

     Anyway, here's the neat part I wanted to share with you:  The bread turned

out REALLY well--tasty, good texture, WONDERFUL flavor, great crust--and I used

very inexpensive ingredients:

 

      Flour (mine was unbleached " bread " flour, but regular unbleached would do

well.)

      Some milk (I used soy milk because I had some to use up.  It can also be

water,

water-and powdered milk, regular milk, skim milk, and so on.  My " main " recipe

for bread that I have always used (memorized, mostly) calls for milk, but if I

didn't have milk, water works okay, too.)

     Oil (I used actual EVOO, but normally, I go with " light " olive oil or maybe

canola oil.

Almost ANY oil will do--and even melted butter, although personally, I think

that's too rich!

     Salt (My bread could have used a little more than I put in.  Original

recipe is 2 teaspoons for the 2-loaf batch; I used 1 1/2 teaspoons. Next time, I

might add just a little more.)

     A " real " sweetener: Sugar, honey, molasses syrup, brown or natural

sugar--just helps get the yeasts " going " to use that.

    

     And, last, or rather FIRST of all: a cup of active sourdough starter, which

is just a live culture of yeasts that one keeps alive by " feeding " it every so

often with flour and water.

 

    What amazed me the most was that I had always believed that I needed to add

some " bought " yeast to a bread dough or it wouldn't rise properly with just the

sourdough yeasts.

That is not true!  I potentially never have to buy yeast ever again, although I

probably won't make sourdough bread EVERY time.  It IS my favorite kind of bread

and now I have found tons and tons of DIFFERENT recipes for uses for this stuff!

 

    Anyway--sorry to ramble so much here!  I just want to encourage you to dust

off your

baking bowls and pull out that flour and the other bread ingredients.  Even

without your

bread machine, you CAN make yourself and your family some GOOD bread!  When I

started baking bread (30-some years ago), I knew almost NOTHING about how to do

it;

I only knew I wanted to try it because a girlfriend of mine made bread all the

time and I so envied her her knowledge and skills...I gradually acquired some of

those same skills and knowledge--just by DOING it, over and over again, and by

asking questions of people I knew who did a lot of baking.  (Baking bread at

home is cheap--even when it doesn't turn out so great, you aren't " out " a lot of

expensive stuff!)

 

     I hope you try it!  If you ever want to talk " bread baking " , feel free to

e-mail me any time!

I am no " expert " , even after all those years...but I still love doing it and

love to share what little I do know with anyone who's interested!  GO for it!!!!

 

    Blessings and good wishes!

--Laura B., in Illinois

 

PS: If you are ever interested in starting a " starter " for sourdough, I'd be

glad to pass on that info, too! 

--L.

 

 

 

Re: Tee  -  Iron rich foods

    Posted by: " Tee " teer2008 teer2008

    Thu Apr 16, 2009 11:17 am ((PDT))

 

As a true GRIT, these I have and use.  I have started buying brown rice instead

of white, and my mother actually remembered! lol So these I do have.  I also

have the regular lentils (not the red - though I have had those and LOVE them). 

I keep pretty stocked up on the dried goods.  I have pinto's, kidney, black,

black eyed peas, split peas, lentils, brown rice, old fashioned oatmeal, grits,

cornmeal, and a slew of grits! LOL  I also have AP flour, and other basic baking

ingredients.  So even when I'm " out of food " , I'm not starving.   Being on

here has given me tons of ideas for the lentils and beans.  I have actually made

vegetarian sloppy joes before and the kid loved it! I didn't tell them it was

vegetarian until after they had seconds. lol I also dug out my old Indian

recipes cookbook and have been flipping through that for ideas as well. Believe

me the next free check we have I am tweaking my list again.  However it will be

at least

another 3 weeks before I can do anything.  In the meantime I'm going lean on

the meats (as I had been already just even more so now) and increasing the

stocked goodies.  We have recently had a small farm stand open up right up the

road (within walking distance) so I will check that one out, plus another one my

mother goes to for fresh real butter.  For fats I use primarily olive oil

already, a habit my mother picked up when we lived in Italy and I adopted in my

own life.  Since my bread machine died I have been trying my hand (not to

successfully) at homemade bread, now my sweet breads rock (per the boys), it's

the regular breads that aren't so hot. LOL

 

~Tee