Warm Up With Homemade Wheat Bread

There were three things on my mind last Monday morning.  It was cold and as happens every single year, our 1970s heater died over the summer.  Therefore, three things were swimming through my head. 

I must find a way to warm up this house.

Mmmmm.  Homemade bread would be a nice way to do the trick.

AND chili!   I must have homemade bread and chili!

I have to say from the start that I don't know a darn thing about making homemade bread.  I have never, as far as I can remember, EVER attempted making my own bread.  I do remember my mom making it when I was a kid.  I remember the wonderful aroma of baking bread and what I deemed as intensive labor when she punched the bread down and kneaded it, but I also remember how warm the house was from a day of baking.  I didn't remember the hours spent waiting for the bread to rise and how cold the oven was during those times.  I either conveniently forgot that or she was baking a whole lot of bread.

So homemade bread it was to be!  I dug out this incredibly old book called Country Wisdom & Know-how, Everything You Need to Know to Live Off the Land.  Who knows where this book came from but it tells you how to do everything.  I mean everything.  You can use this book to learn how to make your own cheese or to build your own barn for your horse. 

Basic Mixed-Grain Bread Recipe:

1 package dry yeast

2 cups lukewarm water

2 tbsp honey or sugar

1-1/2 cups any combination of grains, nuts, whatever you want.  I used sunflower seeds and oatmeal.

1 tbsp salt

2 cups whole wheat flour

3 cups white flour

• Proof the yeast with the water and sugar.


• Stir in your combination of grains, salt, whole wheat flour, and 2 cups white flour.


• Turn out onto floured surface and knead in the rest of the white flour.  I used my Kitchen Aide to knead.  I don't know if this was the correct thing to do or not.


• Let rise in a greased bowl, covered, until it doubles in size.   This is where I made my first mistake.  I did not have the patience to let it rise to double its size because I wanted to turn on the oven!  Plus it is supposed to rise in a warm spot and I had no warm spot.


• Punch down, shape into 2 loaves and place in greased bread pans.  I like the punching down part.  That was fun.


• Let rise until doubled.  Again, I barely let it rise an hour because I was anxious to get the oven on.  By the way, how long does it usually take for bread to rise?  I don't know what the usual is.


• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.


• Bake for an hour.  Finally, I get to bake something! 

The bread smelled great, tasted great, but was somewhat dense, probably because I did not let it rise enouph.  Not too bad for my first time. 



Chili was the perfect match and the house was finally warm.



Now, 2 days later I am still eating bread for every meal.  Breakfast is bread with peanut butter. 

Lunch today was bread with pecorino, brie, fresh mozarella, and a sliced pear.  



This was so good.  I am obsessed with cheese.  It is the one thing I just cannot give up.  Dr. Oz himself could come knocking at my door, telling me cheese was going to kill me, and I would STILL continue eating it.  How can anyone live without cheese?  This will be lunch for the rest of the week.  Thankfully, my obsession with exercise, or perhaps the fact that I eat healthfully most of the time, has kept my cholesterol and blood pressure low.  Reason enough for me to continue eating cheese.  

My Maroon-Breasted Conure, Scruffy, also had a cheese, bread and pear lunch.





Supper tonight will be italian sausage, collard greens, and guess what? Bread!  (Picture Pending)  Scruffy will have some of that also.

Do you have a favorite bread recipe or favorite cold weather recipe?