Boots and Bread

I am not at all psyched about this continuous May theme of rainy/sleety weather, but I am, however, completely smitten with rubber boots. I can't believe I have held off on owning a pair of rubber boots in my adult life. I remember good old duck shoes as a child, but I think it's possible that I never owned a full on pair of rubber boots. Until now! Flynn inherited a great pair of "Dairy Farmer" boots (available at any Walmart or IFA) and has been wearing them nonstop this spring. Mud, water, rocks, sand, gutters--these are Flynn's constant playmates so the boots have come in awfully handy for him and have saved me countless laundry hours. He pretty much wakes up, has breakfast, puts on the boots and heads out the door-usually with footed pajamas squeezed down inside the boots. It's a pretty good deal if you ask me. Cleo has a more stylish pink argyle pair and wears hers with equal gusto. I found myself jealous of them wading in a large gutter puddle the other day and decided it was high time I added some boots to my shoe arsenal. I now own a pair of adult sized dairy boots and I couldn't be happier! And funny enough, when we were in Spring City this week checking on the bees, Jaren added a pair to his collection and went wading around in the stream with the kids with impunity. This family is now a boot clad one so bring it on Mother Nature!

And what better thing to do on a cold spring evening then to slice into some warm bread? I promised a second installment on bread making so here goes.....

As I said in the previous post, learning to make your own bread from scratch is really surprisingly easy and it will make you feel like a million bucks in the self sufficiency and nutrition categories, and make you ooze pioneer-esque vigor. And your home will smell better than a new car. Bread making is alchemy, really. By introducing yeast, a living organism, to basic ingredients of flour, warm water, and salt, you transform ordinary gooey paste into a smooth, elastic, air pocket filled, dough that transforms once again when baked into the luscious life giving thing we call bread. It's cheap, it's filling, and it is the ultimate accompaniment to so many meals, or sometimes IS my meal of choice as long as there is lots of butter to be had!

I have a few whole wheat bread recipes that I like, but my go-to recipe below is the one that is the easiest, has minimal ingredients, and seems pretty much to be fail proof. The only ingredient you might wonder about is gluten. Vital wheat gluten is a great additive to use in bread making because it adds extra protein to your dough which provides the yeast with more oomph to make your bread rise. It also ups the protein content of the bread which is a nutritional plus. Glluten is available on the baking aisle of pretty much any grocery store. The only other ingredient worth mentioning is time...this recipe kinda requires you to be home, or near home, for a block of about 2 1/2-3 hours.

When I bake bread, I grind my wheat fresh from whole wheat berries because the nutrition from fresh whole wheat is much better than packaged, but that said, whole wheat from the store is just fine and is a serious step up on the nutritional ladder from Wonder Bread or all purpose flour. King Arthur brand is my favorite. (But if anyone wants to learn about grinding wheat and what it entails, ask away! I'd be happy to help.) Lastly, I'm sure the kneading portion of this recipe could be done easily with a Kitchenaid stand mixer but try it at least a few times by hand-it really helps to learn to "feel" the bread change from mush to smooth dough and it is also the perfect space of time to listen to great music or space out with your thoughts.

BASIC NO FRILLS WHEAT BREAD-Makes 3 standard size loaves

3 cups warm water

1 T yeast

1 T gluten

1/3 c. canola oil

1/3 c honey

1 T salt

7 1/2 c. whole wheat flour

In a large bowl mix the water and yeast. Add gluten, oil, honey, and salt and about half of the flour. It starts to get difficult to mix when about 6 c. are in so I usually dump it out onto my counter at some point and start kneading and adding the remaining flour. Set a timer and knead for 7-10 minutes. To my untrained mind, there really is no right way to knead. My technique is just to push down with the dough with both hands and then rotate a 1/4 turn and on and on. I sometimes throw in a flip the dough over move or two. I seriously don't think it is possible to ruin bread by kneading it "wrong" so I say find your own way! You will know you are done when the dough forms a soft, smooth and basically unsticky ball. (If your bread dough is ever cracky and crumbly you've probably added too much flour and the bread will be a little brick like but still taste pretty good!)

Grease the mixing bowl with cooking spray and put the dough ball back in covered with plastic wrap and let rise for 45-and hour or until the dough has doubled in size.

Grease 3 loaf pans with cooking spray. Punch the dough down to "deflate" all that good rising you've just witnessed, and divide dough into 3 equal chunks. I do this by cutting with a knife or dough scraper straight through the dough. Shape each dough piece into a little log shape that roughly fits the length of your loaf pan and set down in the pan. Cover with plastic wrap and let the loaves rise again 45-hour.

Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes. (My oven runs hot so I usually bake mine at 325 for 25 and they come out nicely cooked.) Cool for a couple minutes in the pans and then take them out of the pans and let cool on a cooling rack or else the bottom of the loaves get soggy from steam.

Treat yourself and your family and try this bread stat! Bon appetito!