Investment Cooking Newsletter Volume 1 Issue 5

This newsletter is for cooks who are interested in learning how to do investment cooking. Creating healthy home cooked meals in less time using whole foods. The newsletter is filled with articles, delicious recipes, product specials, and more.

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In This Issue:

In the Kitchen

Investing in Your Health: Our Daily Bread

Recipe: Whole Wheat Bread

Recommended Resources

In the Kitchen

Welcome to all of our new subscribers! I hope you will find this newsletter to be a blessing to you and your family as you work to feed your family wonderful foods everyday!

The seasons are changing! It’s starting to cool down and spending time in the kitchen is a lot more appealing these days. Do you have plans for a big investment cooking day? I do! Next month I will give you a detailed report on what we are cooking next week.  I promise it will include lots of delicious and nutritious foods to make getting dinner on the table ever so easy.

One of the benefits to living in Arizona is that our harvesting season is just about to begin. I will be getting our first order of produce from our CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) the end of October and I am looking forward to reporting on that to you as well.

The temperatures are finally cooling down and working in the garden is a nice change of pace. Our own fruit trees are looking good this year. We are hoping for a “bumper” crop of tangelos and lemons this winter. I’m looking into ways to preserve some of these fresh fruits. We are also getting our small garden (4’ x 8’) ready for planting by the end of this month. We intend to plant a salad garden with lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, broccoli and carrots. Last year our lettuce did wonderfully and we were able to have fresh salads for about 3 months from our own garden!

Now let’s talk about warming your kitchen with some homemade bread!

Investing in Your Health: Whole Grain Breads

Man has eaten some form of bread since he was forced out of the Garden of Eden. Genesis 3:19 says, “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” The Bible mentions bread specifically 330 times. It is a vital part of our diet. Then why do so many people seem to have trouble when they eat bread? Why do all of the fad diets tell us we should stop eating bread and that gluten-free diets are healthiest? Could it be that the bread that is found in most homes today is not the nutrient dense food of our ancestors? We as a civilization have taken a wonderful food, removed all of its nutritional value and then called it bad. Let us go back to our ancestors and find how they created a life sustaining food instead of a health hazard for their daily sustenance.

The flour used to make breads was not a refined and processed flour that we see today instead the whole grain was ground into fine flour that was then made into bread. There are many grains that are easily available to us to make bread today as in yesteryear. The most popular, of course, is wheat. The best wheat for bread is hard winter wheat. You can also make wonderful bread from spelt and Kamut. For more variety you can replace 1/3 to ¼ the total amount of flour with other grains such as barley, oats, or rye.

Whole grain breads are a great way to add nutrition to your diet. They are delicious, inexpensive and are packed in vitamins. Whole wheat flour (especially when freshly ground) contains the following nutrients: thiamine (B-1), riboflavin (B-2), niacin (B-3), pyridoxine (B-6), choline, folic acid, pantothenic acid, vitamin E, chromium, manganese, selenium, zinc, iron, cobalt, calcium, sodium, potassium, magnesium, phosphorus, molybdenum, copper and fiber. When wheat flour is refined and turned into white flour the loss of these nutrients is between 16-89% depending on the nutrient.

To get the most nutrition possible for your time and money you need to grind your grain fresh or find a store that will grind it fresh for you. Within 72 hours of being milled grains lose much of their nutrients and start going rancid. Always store flours in the refrigerator or freeze and use them within 2-3 months. Bring the flour to room temperature before using for the best results.

We are blessed in that we don’t have to get out a stone to grind our grain. There are appliances now to help us in our work. I highly recommend investing in a grain mill and a bread making/kneading machine if at all possible. It takes me around 30 minutes to prepare enough bread to feed our family of 6 for a week using these tools.  This is investment cooking at its best!

You can get a Bosch machine and your choice of grain mills online from Kitchen and Home Gadgets. The Bosch kitchen machine is listed under Kitchen & Cooking; Food Processors; Bosch. Use the search engine to find the grain mills. They are having a red tag sale and I saw that the Bosch is on sale for 25% off.

I buy my grain from a co-op in Tucson that ships the grain to me in 25 lb or 50 lb bags depending on the type of grain. Their website is Shop Natural. The cost is a lot cheaper than getting it from the bulk bins at Sprouts or Whole Foods. I pay just over $1/pound including shipping for my grains. One recipe that produces 4-5 loaves of bread needs about 3 ½ pounds of grain. I have bought buckets from a restaurant supply store to put the grain in for easier storage. Whole grains can be kept for at least a year if they are kept dry and at room temperature or below.

Making my own whole grain bread costs me less than $2 a loaf. At the health stores around here the same bread costs between $3-4 per loaf. Besides when there is bread on the table the rest of our food goes a lot further which saves money as well.

With a little practice you can invest some time in preparing homemade bread and reap great health for your whole family.

Recipes:

Our Daily Bread

Makes 5 Loaves

16 cups whole wheat flour -- freshly ground; 10-12 cups whole wheat berries

2 tablespoons yeast

1/2 cup vital wheat gluten

1/8 teaspoon Vitamin C granules

2 cups kefir

4 cups warm water

1/2 cup virgin coconut oil

1/2 cup honey

1 1/2 tablespoons sea salt

2 tablespoons butter

Place 9 cups of flour into mixer bowl with kneading arm. Add dry yeast, vital wheat gluten, and Vitamin C. Pulse to mix well.

Add kefir and water and mix for 1 minute. Turn off mixer, cover and let sponge for 15 minutes for lighter bread.

Add oil, honey and salt. Turn mixer on and quickly add remaining flour, 1 cup at a time, until dough form a ball and cleans the side of the bowl. The amount of flour needed may vary. Knead 7-10 minutes. (If kneading by hand, knead for 12-15 minutes until dough is smooth and elastic.)

Oil hands and counter. Divide dough into equal portions. Shape into loaves and place in greased pans. (4" x 8 1/2" pans work best)

Let rise until almost double in bulk, approximately 20-30 minutes.

Bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes.

Rub butter on tops of loaves.

Remove from pans and let cool on a rack on their sides.

Slice bread and Enjoy! Keep in the freezer not the refrigerator for best results.

Alternative:

You can freeze this dough to have on hand for fresh baked bread on another day as well. Just grease the inside of a gallon freezer bad and add the dough. When you are ready to use it take it out and let it thaw, then shape, let it rise and bake.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES:

Yeast Breads by Sue Gregg

This is a great cookbook with lots of techniques explained and diagrams to show you how to make wonderful breads.

Set For Life by Jane Merrill & Karen Sunderland

Although I do not agree with all of the premises these authors make in their book, their bread section is outstanding! They give several wonderful recipes for whole grain bread and rolls.

Thank you for reading another issue of the Investment Cooking Newsletter. I hope it has provided you with some great food for thought. If you have any questions or comments please feel free to email me at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.

-- John 6:35

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