Binkies and Briefcases

“Who will help me grind the wheat?” said the Little Red Hen…

Yes, I grind my own wheat now.

Wait! Come back.

I promise not to turn into a hippy who refuses to wear deodorant. I just want to share my new honey whole wheat bread recipe.

In September, my mom gave me a wheat grinder for my birthday because I had been hinting that I wanted one. Then my brother-in-law gave me a few different kinds of wheat berries for Christmas. Last weekend I finally broke out the WonderMill for the first time. I am addicted to all things carbohydrate and it is impossible for me to give up bread, but I figure if I want to get serious about my weight loss, at least I can make healthier bread options available at home. I like this recipe because there is no white flour or white sugar or preservatives in it (besides a little salt). I found a very similar whole wheat bread recipe on Life Blessons. I modified it a little bit to work with the kind of yeast and oil I had in the pantry. You do need to own a bread machine for this recipe. (Or I guess you could try replacing step 2 by kneading the dough for 30 minutes by hand and letting it sit, covered for 1 hour before transfering it to the loaf pan.)

Honey Whole Wheat Bread

Ingredients:

1/2 cup lukewarm water + 1/4 cup hot water for yeast (100-115 degrees F)
1/4 cup milk
1 egg
1½ tablespoons vegetable oil (Next time I’m going to try melted coconut oil or even just melted butter)
1½ tablespoons honey + 1/4 ts for proofing yeast
1½ teaspoons salt
3 cups of freshly ground flour, sifted (I used hard white wheat berries ground on the “pastry” setting in my WonderMill. I threw away the hard pieces that were left after I sifted the flour. You could also save them to add to the bread for texture or feed them to pets-anyone have chickens?- or put them on cereal or whatever.)
1 pack of active dry yeast

Directions:

1. In a small bowl, proof 1 packet of dry yeast in 1/4 cup of hot water. Add 1/4 tsp of honey and stir to dissolve and activate yeast.

2. Add the remaining ingredients to the bread machine in the order listed, saving the proofed yeast mixture for last.

3. Set the bread machine to “dough” and let it do its thing. I did have to scrape it down a few times during the first few minutes. It will take about an hour and a half to go through the dough cycle.

4. Remove the dough from the machine and transfer it to a greased loaf pan. Shape into a loaf and let it sit, covered, for one hour.

5. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 20 minutes. (I like to put a metal baking pan with about an inch of water in the oven as it preheats. It creates a steamy environment for the bread and helps it not to dry out. I remove the water dish as I am putting the bread in the oven.)

This recipe makes 1 loaf.

I like it for breakfast with real butter and honey.

How’s that for diet food?

If you are in the market for a bread machine, this is the one I use.

I’m joining the Spring Recipe link-up.

You have waited so patiently for the pictures of the house. I’m sorry it is taking so long! We actually do have most of our rooms ready now, but they are very hard to photograph. Our friend Chad visited us this week and was kind enough to let us borrow his wide-angle lens for these pictures.

Are you ready? I have three spaces to show you today. Welcome to the tour!

The Foyer

This is our front door. The dining room is to the left in this picture and the office is to the right. (We ordered new office furniture, but it won’t be delivered until February. Right now it is just a pile of boxes and a small desk from Ikea.)

All of our paint colors are from the historic line at Lowes, but color matched at Sherwin Williams. The foyer color is 6005-1B Oatlands Subtle Taupe.

All of the light fixtures in the house, with the exception of the pendant lights above the kitchen island, are from Lowes.

The Dining Room

This room is crazy hard to photograph because light always hits it at a weird angle no matter what time of day. It’s painted 6001-1B Cliveden Gray Morning. 

This room is a total hodgepodge of things we’ve collected over the years. The gossip bench came from an antique store in Reedville, VA, where we have family. I recovered it with fabric that Pottery Barn sells by the yard. The table is a hand-me-down from my dad & step-mom. The rug was purchased 5 years ago from JCPenny. The painting is from a flea market in Tampa, and the quote between the windows is something I made myself. I custom ordered vinyl letters from Say It On the Wall and put them on a scrap piece of 1×12 inch board I painted. It’s a prayer my Mommom would say with her pre-school class before they ate. She loved it so much she would always have us say it too when we came over for dinner.

“Thank you, God, for happy hearts, for rain and sunny weather. Thank you, God, for this our food and that we are together.”

The Powder Room  

This is our guest bath and is not anywhere near the front of the house like the other rooms I’m showing you today, but it is also really hard to photograph and I wanted to snap some pictures before Chad left and took his fancy lens with him. 🙂

This room is painted the same color as the dining room.

The his and hers towels in the frames are hand painted and were gifted to me by my aunt (the one who lives in Reedville). If I remember the story correctly, they were originally a wedding present given to my grandmother.

The hardwood throughout the first level is Mohawk Rockford Solid hardwood 3.25? planks in Red Oak Chocolate. I love the look of it, but we have learned since moving in that it is a MAJOR pain in the rear end to keep dark hardwood clean.

That’s all I’ve got for today. As soon as I can get Chad back here or get my very own wide angle lens, I’ll share more. Promise.