Mouthwatering Whole-Grain Oat Bread

I've been trying to come up with some variations on my whole-grain bread recipe to give us a little variety. This is the most recent variation. I'm keeping it here so I can refer back and make it again - it was soo delicious!! The texture was amazing, stuck together nicely with no crumbs. It stored really well - still delicious 4 days after I made it. My new favorite!

Whole-Grain Oat Bread

Printable Recipe

*Makes 3 loaves

INGREDIENTS:

3 Cups hot water, microwave on high 2-3 min or until quite warm ( >110° F)
1/3 Cup oil
1/3 Cup sugar 
1 Tbsp. salt (put in first before adding yeast)
5+ Cups freshly ground oat flour (I ground oat groats, but you can also use oatmeal ground in a blender for a few minutes)
1-½ Cups gluten flour*

1/4 Cup ground flax seed

2 Tbsp. yeast on top of flour

DIRECTIONS:

Combine above ingredients in Bosch mixer with dough hook and mix. Add more oat flour until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. Then mix for an additional six minutes. Divide dough into 3 loaves (the dough will still be VERY sticky - so sticky that you won't be able to form your loaves without putting oil on your hands). Put dough in oiled pans. Let rise until double or until the bread fills the pans. While bread is rising, preheat the oven to 400 degrees. When the bread has risen, bake it at 400 deg. for 5 minutes. Then turn down the heat to 350 degrees and continue baking for 25 min or until done.

*NOTE on the gluten flour: I use Bob's Red Mill Vital Wheat Gluten Flour that I buy at WinCo foods in their bulk bins - or you can get a 25 lb. bag of it there if you order it. I think you can also get it at Walmart in smaller quantities - like 22 oz. pkgs. You only use a little bit in each batch so it lasts a long time. It allows you to make the bread with whole-grain flour and still have it light and fluffy and stick together. This really is not an optional ingredient - you can try to leave it out, but you will end up with denser bread, that is crumbly, doesn't have as long of a shelf life and really is not as enjoyable to eat. Another option (if you're looking for one) is to use a good quality, high gluten white flour instead of some of the whole-wheat flour (experiment with how much - maybe 2 cups or more to get it to a good stick-together consistency). I'd rather spend a little more for the gluten flour because you can use less of it (which means more whole-grain flour which is better for you) and still have a great textured, tasty bread.

Recipe Source: healthyfamilycookin.blogspot.com

For lunch I made scones out of the dough from one loaf. To make them fry a small piece of dough on both sides in a frying pan with oil and spread honey on top -mmmmh! They were the best tasting scones I've ever had!

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Sunshine Squash - My Favorite Squash!

Sunshine Squash has got to be the best squash that I've ever tasted! It's time to order your seed's for next year's garden - be sure to order these! They are so sweet and flavorful that you don't need butter or salt. They are the perfect size - just right for 4-6 servings. The texture is perfect, smooth, melt in your mouth. Not stringy like a lot of squash. They're easy to grow - we've grown them for 3 years now with relative ease. They store well. We ate our last one last year in March or April. We still have one or two left this year and they are still firm as can be. If you don't like squash, try these - they are easy to learn to like! Make sure you read up on the health benefits so you know how good they are for you. They have lots of vitamins and fiber that are good for your heart and help fight against cancer. We order our seeds from stokes seeds, but park seed also has them. Enjoy!

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No-Sugar Apple or Peach Puffy Oven Pancakes

I've have a thus-far unstated new year's resolution. Since goals are usually more effective when you tell someone about them, I'm going to tell you. I want to eat less sugar. And I want to feed my family less sugary treats. That's very nonspecific I know, but that's the goal.

So here was my attempt at it this morning. My family loves this recipe - it's one of those recipes that our son asks for for his birthday breakfast every year (it's that good!). I modified it this morning to be a no-sugar breakfast by substituting agave for the brown sugar. It turned out delicious - if I hadn't told them they wouldn't have even guessed the difference.

Apple or Peach Puffy Oven Pancake
2 Tbsp. butter
2 large eggs
½ C. Wonder flour
½ C. Milk
¼ tsp. salt

Heat oven to 400 F. Melt butter in pie plate 9x1-1/4”, in oven; brush margarine on side of pie plate. Beat eggs slightly in medium bowl with wire whisk or hand beater. Beat in remaining ingredients just until mixed (do not over beat). Sprinkle 1 Tbsp. agave nectar (original recipe called for 2 Tbsp. packed brown sugar) and ¼ tsp. cinnamon evenly over melted butter in pie plate. Arrange 1 C. thinly sliced peeled baking apple (1 med) or sliced peaches over sugar (I usually use canned apples or peaches). Pour batter over apple. Bake 30 to 35 min. Immediately loosen edge of pancake and turn upside down onto heatproof serving plate. Serves 2.

To make Gluten Free, just use gluten free wonder flour: see chef brad's website for recipe.

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Homemade Whole-Grain Bagels

I've been wanting to make some whole-grain Bagels for a while and today I finally did! It's really not as hard as it sounds. First I made this bread recipe for the dough (it's whole-grain and we like it!)

Then I rolled the dough out into 19 balls (I wished I had done 18 later because they didn't fit nicely on my parchment paper like I wanted them to).

Meanwhile I boiled a big pot full of water (at least a gallon) with 1/3 C. Karo Syrup in it. While that was starting to boil I formed the balls into bagels - sticking my thumb in the middle of the ball and rolling it around until it formed a bagel-shape. Then I put those on parchment paper to rise for about 10 minutes. (Here's a sneak preview to our beautiful newly sanded down cabinets in the kitchen - more pics to come when we finish the tile!!)
When the water was boiling good I put 3 bagels in at a time for 30 seconds on each side. This boiling process gives the bagels their bagel-like texture.

Remove the bagels from the water with a slotted spatula. Before cooking, I brushed the bagels with an egg wash (1 egg and 2 Tbsp. water) to make them shiny. I cooked the bagels on parchment paper on a pizza stone at 400 F for 20 minutes. Mmmh! They were good! And really not all that hard! Hope you enjoy!

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