The Comfort of Bread

There's nothing that takes me back to my childhood faster than the smell of freshly baked bread. I recall my halcyon days of youth, the light steaming through the back window and onto the kitchen counter, lighting up small particles of flour in the air like tiny fireflies. I'd watch my mother in that light, hands and arms dusted in flour, kneading large batches of bread dough, enough to make four or five loaves at a time. I remember watching the dough rise, too, and wondering at the magic behind the yeast, water, and flour that made it so. Then the smell, oh the wonderful warm smell that would fill the kitchen as they baked.

Someone once said, "Cooking is art, baking is science, but bread is magic." Oh, how right they are.

My mother didn't always make bread. She didn't think she made good sandwich bread. At a young age, I'm sure I felt the same way as she did from time to time. But oh, I remember it was the best bread for toast, and even better for French toast, cut thickly and drenched in eggs for frying. Hot slabs of the stuff smothered in home made maple syrup. It was far better than store bought bread ever could be.

I've not always been successful making bread, and my lazy streak makes it a chore. My wife and I got a bread maker from her parents for Christmas one year, however, and I really enjoyed that. We wore it out and had to replace it after the first year or so. The unfortunate part is that my wife, and children, prefer the store bought "air bread" to the richer textures and crispy crusts of the bread I would make, even in the bread maker. So ended up eating more of the bread than they did.

Maybe that's part of why I'm shaped the way I am. Round.

My neighbor gave me some automatic bread maker recipes that she had come up with, and they work every time. I started using them more than the recipes that came with the bread maker. What I wanted to be able to make kept eluding me, though. I wanted to make a really good loaf of 100% whole wheat bread. Preferably in the bread maker (there's that lazy bit kicking in again). My neighbor's recipes included a killer half white / half wheat recipe, but try as I might, I've never been completely satisfied with any of the 100% whole wheat bread maker recipes I've found.

My family certainly has trouble with them. They're too dense and bitter for general sandwich use, and even I get tired of them after a while. So I've always been on a quest to find a really good whole wheat recipe. I thought I'd never find one, until two weeks ago when I discovered the Prepared Panty.

This is the most amazing recipe I've ever found for 100% whole wheat bread. I've contacted them about getting permission to reprint it here for you, but they've not gotten back to me. That’s okay. It’s worth clicking on the link. Trust me. The Prepared Panty website has so many cool things about it, even if you never make this bread, you should go check it out.

This recipe is life changing. I can't make it in my bread maker, but since I started using dough hooks with my hand mixer, it's made the process a lot less painful. It's the strangest recipe I've every found for bread. It takes at least two days to make, counting the rising time, and a good portion of the first rise happens in the refrigerator. How weird is that?

But oh, what bread it makes. Even my wife and children like this one. In fact, the other day after we'd run out of it, my wife said, "I was so disappointed to wake up, go to make breakfast, and not find any of your bread."

Considering this is coming from my "air bread only, please" wife, it really is life changing.

One thing this recipe uses is an ingredient called “dough conditioner.” I’d never heard of it before, and I’ve only picked some up just recently. At first, I added an extra tablespoon of wheat gluten. and it worked wonderfully. This last batch was made with the dough conditioner, but don’t know if made much difference. Some people swear by it but, even without it, this bread is heaven.

Chicken and Vegetable Stir-Fry

Stir-fried vegetables, served over rice or ramen noodles, is a staple for my family. They're simple, quick, tasty, and healthy. If I've got some chicken, pork, beef, or some other meat hanging around I'll throw that in, too. A favorite with me and the kids is to skip the meat and add firm tofu instead.

I'm so glad my kids like tofu!

The secrets of stir-frying, as I see them, are four fold:

1. Cut the meat (or tofu) and vegetables small enough to fit on a fork (or pick up with chopsticks), and thin enough to maximize the surface area.
2. Use high enough heat to cook the vegetables quickly, but maintain crispness.
3. Cook each ingredient only until it's done, and no more. You want each ingredient to be cooked to it's own perfection. This may involved cooking each ingredient separately, and then recombining them to heat through in the end.
4. In order to do points two and three effectively, you've got to keep the food moving in the pan. That's why it's called stir-frying, for heaven's sake!

One of the great advantages of a stir-fry is that you can use whatever you have on hand. You don't need to make a special trip for ingredients, unless you want to of course.

Here's what my daughter and I made together a couple of Sunday's ago:

Chicken and Vegetable Stir-Fry

Ingredients

2 boneless chicken breasts
2 tbsp cornstarch
1/2 yellow onion, chopped (I prefer using green onions, but we didn't have any on hand).
1 cup baby carrots, cut into thin strips (With full sized carrots, cut into thin slices on a bias. This makes pretty ovals that are easy to handle with chopsticks.)
Two stalks of celery, chopped
1 can (6 oz.?) of sliced water chestnuts
1 green pepper, rough chopped
1/4 cup sherry
1/4 cup low sodium soy sauce
3/4 cup water
1 cube chicken bouillon
1/2 tsp ground ginger (fresh is better)
2 cloves garlic, minced
Peanut oil

Rinse the chicken and cut into 1" pieces. Toss with 1 tbsp of the cornstarch to coat, and set aside. Cut the vegetables and set aside in individual dishes (My family washes and reuses plastic sour cream tubs for this).

Heat the water, and dissolve the bouillon cube in it. If you've got some chicken or vegetable stock on hand, that would be better.

Heat a wok or large non-stick frying pan on medium high heat. Add about one tbsp of peanut oil to coat the bottom of the pan. Because we are going to cook each ingredient separately, you may need to add more oil from time to time. Just try not to overdo it.

Add the onions and garlic, and cook until the onions just start to get a bit brown. Remove from pan and set aside.

Reduce heat to medium and add chicken to the pan. You may need to add more oil. Add the chicken/cornstarch mixture to the pan and cook until it's no longer pink inside, and the outside is just a nice golden color. Remove from pan. Make sure you put it in a clean bowl, not the one you mixed it up in. We don't want to risk getting salmonella, here.

Cook the other vegetables, one at a time, removing them after they have been cooked through, but still a bit crispy. It's better to undercook them than overcook them.

De-glaze the pan by adding the sherry. When it quits bubbling quite so hard (showing that the alcohol has been evaporated), return all the ingredients to the pan and gently stir together.

Now that the bouillon or stock is cooled, mix the bouillon with the soy sauce, ginger, and remaining tbsp of cornstarch. Add the mixture to the pan. Cook, while stirring, until the sauce is thick and bubbly. Add salt or soy sauce to taste.

Serve over cooked rice or noodles in individual bowls, and enjoy!

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Cooking and Kids

I always enjoy it when my kids express interest in cooking. I love passing on the things I've learned about cooking and the kitchen to them. I think it may be part of the desire to "leave a legacy."

The actual act of cooking with them isn't always the most fun thing, though. At the very least it's instructional. I might be the only one learning something, but you never know.

At the best of times, the kids learn something about cooking. At the worst of times, they learn a few 'new words' from Daddy. Some of those words I have to repent for.

Actually, my kids have heard me swear enough times that I don't think I have any new words left. They know them all already. That doesn't mean it doesn't bother them. I still have to listen to the lecture from my oldest daughter about how I shouldn't swear, and how it makes her uncomfortable when I do. Normally I'd get upset with my children lecturing me. The problem is she's right, and we both know it. I've got a long way to go on that front.

Bad language aside, I think teaching kids to cook is important. I can think of very few life skills that are as important as learning how to get around in the kitchen. Not everyone needs to be a master chef but, knowing how to make a quick meal can come in mighty handy. It certainly helped me while I was dating (girls love a man who can cook) but, that's another story.

A few weeks ago my 12 year old daughter wanted to learn to cook a stir-fry. She was in charge of family home evening that week, and wanted to use chopsticks as part of an object lesson. Jumping at the chance to combine food with faith (or anything else for that matter), I heartily agreed to teach her.

First, I taught her my rice recipe, and then went on to talk about the principles behind stir-frying, as I see them. She's already pretty good with a knife so she prepped, or finished prepping, quite a few of the vegetables. She's still at the stage where she likes to eat meat, but doesn't want to touch it (It's gross, Dad!), so I prepped the chicken.

Unfortunately, I have a tough time teaching in the kitchen. I always end up doing more than I should while I'm demonstrating things. I think I ended up preparing and cooking the various ingredients a bit more than she did. In addition to my bad language, that's another thing I need to work on.

In spite of all that, I think she did a very good job. It was certainly tasty and her object lesson for Family Home Evening went over very well. Her basic premise was that it takes practice to use chopsticks. The more we use them, the better we get. She showed us that faith is the same way. We need to practice exercising our faith if we want it to grow stronger, and work more efficiently for us.

It's times like these that make cooking with my kids worth every bad word I struggle not to use.