Bread: Yeast

I don't promote yeast bread consumption too much because I've seen it cause issues too many times.

However, after some healing has taken place, some people who really miss yeast bread like to re-include it in their diets.

We made both mistakes of including yeast bread too early, and suffered some minor, yet aggravating setbacks and then later added it back in successfully but too often.

Now, we have yeast bread only on special occasions and try to stick to flatbread the rest of the time.

The last experiment will be to add yeast bread back in once a week (as a weekend treat) and see how that goes.

One quick note about selenium supplements. I was reacting negatively (getting very *itchy) when I began supplementing selenium, so I stopped taking it but kept the bottle. I was completely convinced that though the bottle said 'gf', it must have still had trace amounts.

About a year later I was looking at the bottle, in puzzlement, once again... when I finally saw the very small words, "derived from yeast".

So, I went out and bought a bottle of 'yeast free' selenium. I took it 3 days per week for 3 weeks (same as the last bottle) and did not notice any negative symptoms.

So, when I make bread, I will eat one piece and not more... and I only eat it about twice a year. Yeast is just not good for me. Perhaps this is why I seem to naturally prefer flatbread (both taste-wise and texture-wise).

Nevertheless, because we still do enjoy the odd meal with 'regular' bread and I am a lazy cook, I lean toward the easiest, least time-consumptive, most forgiving recipes.

As usual, I have switched up ingredients many times and this yeast bread still comes out beautifully. It is like a very thick muffin batter which bread-makers of old (like me) find unsettling because we like to need to knead our dough. However, I must implore everyone to give in to the promotion of laziness that this recipe entails... A lot of elbow grease really is not required for a nice, whole-grain-like, loaf of bread (Actually, the texture reminds me a lot of the pumpernickel bread I used to make pre-gf).

As a matter of fact, every gf bread recipe that can be molded into the shape of bread, generally turns out to have a hard shell and crumbly interior (in my experience) whereas this 'batter bread' comes out every bit as good as a heavier multi-grain or gluten free yeast bread that is bought at the grocery store... but costs half the price!

As usual, with any muffin-type mix, you need one large bowl and one small. Mix the dry in the large, mix the wet in the small, dump the wet into the dry and pour into your baking container (in this case, a bread form - clear glass or gf stone is preferable).

If using a glass dish, do not grease it. Do give it a good stir. Unlike muffin mixes, I find that it's nicer if all the lumps are removed and it's nice and smooth. Other than that though, remember, carelessness and laziness are key to this recipe. :D

This mix takes 5 to 10 minutes to get together. The rest of the two hours is all 'wait time'. So, let it rise while you eat dinner. Cook it while you clean up and get ready for bed. Put it in the fridge to cool overnight. Cut it into slices, throw in a bag and throw into the freezer in the morning.

Green/Eco/Time Saving Hint: Bake four loaves at once. If you're going to turn that big oven on at all... make the very most of your energy consumption!

1 cup rice flour
1 cup quinoa flour (or buckwheat, or bean, or millet)
1/4 cup arrowroot
1/4 cup flax seed meal
3 teaspoons active dry yeast (store the jar in your fridge)
2 teaspoons sea salt
1 teaspoon guar gum

3 eggs (I have used gelled flax seed meal in place of egg during our egg-trial days.)
1 cup water (sometimes I'll exchange a bit with coconut milk but not necessarily as I'm often too cheap for that or just don't have the coconut milk on hand)
2 tablespoons honey (to feed the yeast)
2 tablespoons oil or fat
2 teaspoons vinegar

Place in warm oven to rise. Depending on your yeast, this can take from one hour to several hours. If you need bread in two hours, make sure you've got good, new yeast.

I have had some really old yeast in my fridge that I needed/wanted to use up, so I would make my batter before bed, place it in the warmed (but turned off oven) with the light on and leave it overnight.

Then in the morning, I just had to turn the oven to 350F for one hour and we'd have fresh bread for breakfast! There you go, I bet you've never had anyone promote old, stubborn yeast before! :D

I'll never throw anything out!
There's a use on this planet for everything!
I'll never be old and useless. I'll be old, slow and valuable in a different way!
:D

Now I'll need to get those fruit sauces posted... there's nothing like hot fruit sauce on fresh toast. It beats putting cold, sugar-full store-bought jams and jellies on your hot toast.... hands down!!

Waffles and Pancakes (DF; SF; V)

People really seem to miss this when they first go gluten and (in some cases) dairy free. I know that when we first started our journey, it took me *weeks* of trial and error before I got a decent recipe together. And that was using dairy. Several years later I realized that my family needed to be dairy free and I felt like I was starting all over again... Well, no worries... I like to share... :)

Once that was accomplished, waffles became our staple bread for a long time. After about a year or so we added in store-bought corn tortilla chips which has really given me a big break which is nice... but the waffles and pancakes are still big sellers on the brunch list in our house.

One place that I learned a lot about how to properly deal with eggs was at Baking 911.com . It's still one of my favourite places to brush up or renew my food physics knowledge: The Science Behind the Best Egg Whites and Some Egg Safety Too
(my title not theirs)

And so we begin:

I put my pan or waffle on to heat up to the proper temperature while I get everything else together.

Then I whip up the egg whites until they're fairly stiff. After that I quickly add in the cream of tartar and honey give them another quick whip for the honey to help the whites set and stay.

6 eggs whites
1 teaspoon cream of tartar (not absolutely necessary)
1 tablespoon honey

While the whites are whipping up (before I put the honey in them) I start dumping everything else into my food processor:

1 cup rice flour (I use white because I react to brown.)
1 cup other flour (I alternate between buckwheat and quinoa .)
1 cup nuts (I alternate nuts too.)
1 carrot (Not necessary but a nice nutritional boost.)

Give a spin to get the nuts finely chopped here. (I go over to the egg whites and add the honey while this spins.)

Then I come back to my food processor and finish mixing my batter by adding to the flour:

2 cups water (sometimes I put in some coconut milk in place of the water to add fat and nutrition.)
1/2 teaspoon sea salt

Next, I pour the batter from the food processor over the fluffy, almost stiff, egg whites, and fold it into the egg whites as quickly as I feel I can.

Bake in on a medium hot skillet or your favourite waffle iron.

Toppings and Variances:

For breakfast:
honey
maple syrup
fruit syrup
poached eggs for those who don't care for sweet stuff in the morning
stewed fruit
strawberries

There's not enough honey in these to make them sweet so you can top them with almost anything. So try a savoury waffle for dinner:

spaghetti sauce
chicken stew
beef stew
shredded beef (like a hot beef sandwich)
and more

The only limitation is a lack of imagination.