A few years ago I started reading more about food, starting with The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. If you want the shortest possible version of Pollan's answer to the question what we humans should eat to be maximally healthy, it's "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." But at the end of the article, he gives you nine rules of thumb for eating better, which he eventually expanded into the 83 rules in the illustrated edition of Food Rules.
After reading Pollan and others, I started looking at what's in the packaged foods you were eating and didn't like what I saw. All of them broke most of the rules, including #7: "Avoid food products containing ingredients that a third-grader cannot pronounce." So I resolved to start making more of your food at home, including the sandwich bread and the muffins Brad and Cass bring for lunch every day.
This does not sit all that well with Dylan, who was out of the house by the time I was enlightened and had to endure years of peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches on store-bought white bread in his school lunches. But personal growth can occur throughout the life cycle and, in this case, better late than never. Anyway, it's hard to take too much criticism on this point from someone who when he was younger insisted on eating bologna sandwiches that I could only make thin enough for his liking by stepping on them.
Adapted from Cook's Country #58, Aug/Sept 2014
Version 1.5 skips the step of mixing the dry ingredients and wet ingredients in separate bowls and then combining them, so now you only have to clean one bowl. This recipe works with 100% all-purpose flour; pretty much any combination of all-purpose and whole-wheat flour; and even a 50-50 blend of all-purpose and brown rice flours (which is what's pictured above). If you want to try it with 100% gluten-free flour blend, you'll have to whisk in ¼ teaspoon xanthan gum in step 3.
2 large eggs (~57 grams each still in the shell)
57 grams (4 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted
53 grams (¼ cup) neutral oil, such as sunflower or canola
1 teaspoon (5 grams) vanilla extract
240 grams (1 cup) buttermilk or plain kefir; or ½ cup (120 grams) plain Greek or regular yogurt + ½ cup (118 grams) water
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
Coarse sugar (like turbinado) for sprinkling, optional
1. Place a rack in the center of the oven; heat to 400 degrees. Spray a 12-cup muffin tin with nonstick cooking spray.
2. Crack the eggs into a large bowl and break up with a whisk. Add the sugar, butter, oil, and vanilla. Whisk for 30 seconds. Whisk in the buttermilk.
4. Add the flour(s). Using a silicone spatula, stir gently until almost combined. Add the blueberries and stir until just combined. Don't overmix.
5. Scoop the batter into the muffin tin. A rounded #16 disher (¼ cup) works well for this job. There should be about 85 grams of batter in each well, which will be filled about ¾ full. Sprinkle each muffin with some coarse sugar, if desired.
6. Bake until the muffins are golden brown and a tester inserted into the center of one of the muffins comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached, about 18 minutes. Cool for no more than 5 minutes in the tin, then turn out onto a cooling rack. Makes 12 muffins.
Adapted from Whole Grain Breads by Machine or Hand (1998) by Beatrice Ojakangas
I started out making this bread every week but it was aggressively wheat-y and I got tired of making it every weekend. So I asked for a bread machine for Christmas and started experimenting with a few recipes. This one, from a book I found at the Friends of the Library book sale for $2, has been Cassie's favorite because it's soft like store-bought bread (even when I do sneak in some flax seeds). The original recipe calls for bread flour but you can get away with all-purpose flour if you use King Arthur, which has a higher protein content than other all-purpose flours. You can find general instructions for making this bread by hand here.
50 grams (½ cup) rolled oats
42 grams (3 tablespoons) butter, cut into pieces
315 grams (1⅓ cups) boiling water
250 grams (2 cups) bread flour or King Arthur all-purpose flour (see note)
170 grams (1½ cups) white whole wheat flour
35 grams (3 tablespoons) sugar
25 grams (3 tablespoons) buttermilk powder
20 grams (2 tablespoons) golden flax seeds, optional
1½ teaspoons salt
1½ teaspoons instant yeast
1. Put a kettle of water on to boil. While the water is heating up, weigh the oats and butter into the bread machine pan. When the water is ready, pour it into the pan. Let the mixture stand until it is just lukewarm, 15 to 20 minutes.
2. Add the remaining ingredients to the pan in the order listed. Set the machine for a 1.5-pound loaf, "Basic" cycle, and "Medium" color, and press "Start."
3. The first kneading cycle lasts 10 minutes (on my machine). Near the end of that time, check the dough. If it feels a little sticky and there's a slight smear of dough under the knead blade(s), the dough is fine. If the dough is very sticky and clinging to the sides of the pan, add 1 tablespoon of flour. Allow the flour to be mixed in completely before making any more adjustments. If the dough is dry and very firm and the machine appears to be laboring, add 1 teaspoon of lukewarm water. Allow the water to be mixed in completely before making any more adjustments. The dough is just right when it is smooth and soft, and the bottom of the pan is clean.
4. Once the dough is just right, you should be able to forget about it and let the machine do all the work, except that I usually set a kitchen timer for about 8 minutes shy of the machine's full baking cycle. Otherwise, it gets overdone. When the timer sounds, turn the machine off and unplug the power cord. Remove the bread pan, turn it upside down, and shake gently until the loaf comes out. Transfer the loaf to a rack to cool completely. Store the bread cut side down on a piece of foil. Makes one 1¾-pound loaf.
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