homemade:: croutons

This time of year we have salads every day - our garden is brimming with greens and we love that. And for variety and flavor, I like home made croutons.

We don't eat a lot of bread, but we do like having a good loaf of sourdough or home made grain bread for toast, sandwiches and ... croutons! We usually go through half the loaf before it is getting stale. Perfect for croutons. We like the seasoned super flavorful crunchy big croutons, and this recipe is just that.


Croutons fall into the category of recipe that is ever changing, not exact, always flexible. You like less seasoning, your bread has more moisture this batch, you have certain herbs on hand, etc. Just tweak it and find just how you like it.


::ingredients::

2 cups cubed few day old bread
1/4 - 1/2 cup good extra virgin olive oil (depending on how dry the bread is)
1 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
a few cloves of very finely minced fresh garlic
Seasoning mix:: Use what you have/what you like.

Here is what I most often use::
Up to 1/4 cup of dried herbs. Mine usually includes garlic powder, onion powder, thyme, rosemary, oregano, parsley, basil. I also love a pinch of yellow curry powder , Spanish paprika, or a few crushed red pepper flakes if I want some spice. I use some of our own dried herbs from the garden, and also love the garlic & herb blend we find in bulk at our local Italian Deli.

Cut about 2 cups of few day old bread into cubes. We like 1"+ chunks, you can do smaller if you like. The better the bread, the better the croutons. We like using sourdough, rye, baguette, focaccia. GF bread works great too.


Put the bread in a large bowl. Mix the olive oil and freshly minced garlic in a small bowl. Pour over the bread and toss quickly - keep stirring and tossing until all the bread is coated. If it seems dry, add a little more. Don't skimp on the oil - these are not the break your teeth dry cardboard croutons - good olive oil saturation really helps keep them crunchy but yet easy to eat, and it needs to be moist enough for the herbs to adhere to. Working quickly sprinkle the salt, pepper and herb mixture in, tossing as you go.

Spread onto a pan and toast at 400ºF for 10-20 minutes. Once again, it depends on how dry/stale your bread was. Turn and stir gently at least once. When the croutons are crunchy remove them from the oven. Let cool and store in air tight container.

panzanella.

This is the time of year when we are plucking ripe tomatoes from the vine just about every day, but we are not yet in buckets-full for sauces or canning. There is nothing better than a sliced tomato, warm from the garden, with just a sprinkling of sea salt and a grind of pepper. I often stand at the counter after coming in from the garden, sampling the tomatoes (I love to grow new varieties every year).

As the early weeks go on, I make tomato salads, add tomatoes to dinner, toss together small batches of salsa, and of course start to make panzanella. A Panzenella uses good stale bread, which just soaks up the flavors and cuts the acidity of the tomatoes. It is a perfect summer salad.


To make the 'croutons':
I use bread that is hard - usually a French baguette, or a nice Italian rustic loaf. Slice the bread, lightly coat in olive oil, sprinkle with sea salt and toast in a toaster oven for 5 or so minutes. When out of the toaster, cut into cubes (if you don't have a toaster oven, a regular oven set to 350ºF is fine). If you can cut your bread into cubes from the start - go for it. I find that baguettes in particular can be hard to cut when stale, and the toasting with olive oil makes them crispy, but easier to cut.

ingredients::
2 large or 3-4 medium slicing tomatoes, cubed
1 small mild onion, very thinly sliced
1 clove of garlic, finely minced
3 cups of croutons
3-4 Tbsp good balsamic vinegar
5 Tbsp olive oil
Sea salt & pepper to taste
10-15 basil leaves - depending on how big/variety of basil you have, sliced
a few sprigs of parsley, chopped

Make your croutons. While they are in the toaster, cut your tomatoes, garlic and onions and put into a large bowl, sprinkle with a pinch of salt to get the tomato juices going. Add the balsamic and olive oil. When the croutons are out of the toaster and have cooled, toss them in with the bowl of ingredients. Make sure you toss/stir for a few minutes, to be sure that the croutons are evenly coated in the tomato/oil/vinegar mix. Season lightly with salt and pepper. Let sit for about 10 minutes, stirring here and there. Add the parsley and basil and stir. Taste, and add more salt & pepper to taste. Serve immediately!

Other good additions to a panzanella:: sliced cucumber or peppers.

This is not an exact recipe - depending on how big or how juicy your tomatoes are you can tweak how much vinegar/oil you add to get your bread to soak it up nicely. It should soak in fully, but not have a lot of standing liquid. If your tomatoes are small or more meaty than juicy, just add an extra one!

banana bread.

While I haven't had a recipe or post up for a bit, we have been busy in the kitchen. I have been experimenting with some new bread recipes. We have been soaking/sprouting/drying wheat berries and making our own (malt) flour and learning to use it. I also have found a new local source for wheat (hard red winter) and so have been testing how it works with both the standard and soaked loaf breads to get a feel for its chemistry. We have had a few flops, but have had some really great tasty bread too. I have also been testing a different wheat grinder to see the difference in a finer flour! In between all of the bread baking we have also been making some other goodies.

Today I had a sick boy, so we were home and pretty quiet. I decided to make a loaf of whole wheat banana bread. It is sooo good. I like it because it uses 100% whole wheat pastry flour, but the flavor doesn't overshadow the bananas at all and it is a nice moist bread. It also isn't too sweet, but is rich with flavor. It made the house smell amazing, too!

::whole wheat banana bread::

1/3 cup softened butter
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar/muscavado
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 eggs
1/4 cup yogurt (I used home made vanilla yogurt)
1 1/2 cups mashed ripe bananas (about 3 bananas)

1 3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 tsp. sea salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder

In one bowl cream the butter, honey and brown sugar together, and then add the vanilla, eggs, bananas and yogurt. Mix to incorporate. The bananas should be a little chunky, but not big pieces (using a fork to smush helps).

In a second bowl mix the dry ingredients together and stir a little to mix.

Mix the wet into the dry a bit at a time stirring to incorporate. Don't over mix.

Spoon into a buttered bread loaf pan and put into a pre-heated 350ºF oven. Bake 40-50 minutes, until done. Pop out of the pan onto a rack to cool. So good served with fresh butter.


ingredient tip::
Bananas are at the top of my list to buy organic. Commercially grown bananas not only are grown in not very environment/worker/wildlife friendly ways, but the end product exposes us to a cocktail of chemicals as well. No thank you. Look for fair-trade organic bananas at your local coop or Whole Foods/Wild Oats type of store!

oatmeal wheat bread.

We usually bake a loaf of bread once a week or so. When we have time, we do the longer proofing sourdough or 24-hour type of bread. When we are busy, we rely on our bread machine. The boys love to help with bread - they measure, pour, scoop and peek as often as possible during the rising stages.

This recipe is a bread machine recipe that we made this week. It is a slightly nutty tasting sweet loaf, which is good as both a breakfast and a lunch bread. The boys love it toasted with fresh butter and honey, or at lunch as a panini with peanut butter and honey. My husband likes it toasted with nutella!

ingredients::
1 1/4 c room temp milk (you can also use water)
2 Tbsp butter, room temp
2 Tbsp honey (or agave)
1 tsp ground sea salt
3 cups of flour (I use whole wheat)
1/2 c rolled oats
1 Tbsp brown sugar
1 Tbsp ground flax
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 Tbsp vital wheat gluten (you don't need this if you use white bread flour...only with whole wheat)
2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast

directions::
Add the ingredients to your bread machine in the order it recommends. Since I use whole wheat flour, I use the whole wheat setting, of course. It makes a 1 1/2 lb loaf. I like the medium crust setting.

sunflower millet bread.

A blog I read posted about this basic bread recipe today. Since I was planning on baking bread today but was running a bit behind on everything, I thought this would be good to try.

I tried out a new flour today with this loaf. I used Great River Organic Milling 100% Organic Sunflower Millet Flour - which has stone-ground wheat, stone-ground corn, hulled millet, ground sunflower seeds and ground flaxseed. WOW. It is a rich, nutty bread with a lot of flavor! So good!

1/1/1/1/1 bread::

1 c of warm water
1 Tbsp oil
1 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp instant yeast

... and enough flour to make a workable, kneadable dough

Add ingredients into a mixer in order and use a dough hook to mix well - or use your knead cycle on your bread machine. When it starts looking pliable, take it out and knead by hand a bit.

Form a ball and put it into an oiled bowl. Cover and leave in a warm place until dough is doubled in size (It was about 1.5 - 2 hours for me today). You will know it is ready when it has doubled in size and you can poke your finger into the dough and it will leave an impression.

At this point punch dough down and re-form into a ball. Let it rise again, about half as much time as the first rise.

When ready, punch it down again, and gently form a long loaf and place on a cookie sheet or cooking stone. Let rise one last time - about the same amount of time as your second rise, or until dough looks ready to go.

Brush the top of the loaf with a mix of egg white and water, and make a few slashes along the top.

Place in an oven preheated to 350ºF and bake for about 45 minutes.


ingredient tip::
I used a sunflower millet flour today - great flavor and good for you. Sunflower seeds are an excellent source of vitamin E. They are also a very good source of vitamin B1, manganese, magnesium, copper, selenium, phosphorous, vitamin B5 and folate.

sourdough.

Mmmm. Sourdough.Turned out great. This is the first of 3 small loaves we baked on Sunday.

bread making experiments.

We have been experimenting with different grains for our breadmaking. With our grain mill we can grind anything, so we have been trying out different techniques such as soaking, sprouting, drying, and grinding with many different types of grains.


We have been sprouting a grain mix (organic wheat, rye, barley, triticale, oats, kamut, quinoa, sesame, millet and amaranth) and soaking spelt berries this week. Today the sprouted grains were all ready, so we drained well, placed on a cookie sheet, and dried them out. After a few hours in the oven, they were ready to mill into flour.


We baked bread from that freshly ground flour today. It is a little hard and I have to say I don't think I like the flavor of spelt much - a bit strong for me. We will have some of a terrific sourdough starter in the next few days here, and I also have some groats and chestnut flour to try out. Can't wait!

*Note: Click here for a little info about why sprouting grains for bread is good!

“The process of germination not only produces Vitamin C, but also changes the composition of grain and seeds in numerous beneficial ways. Sprouting increases Vitamin B content, especially B2, B5, and B6. Carotene increases dramatically – sometimes eightfold. Even more important, sprouting neutralizes phytic acid, a substance present in the bran of all grains that inhibits absorption of calcium, magnesium, iron, copper and zinc; sprouting also neutralizes enzyme inhibitors present in all seeds. These inhibitors can neutralize our own precious enzymes in the digestive tract. Complex sugars responsible for intestinal gas are broken down during sprouting, and a portion of the starch in grain is transformed into sugar. Sprouting inactivates aflatoxins, potent carcinogens found in grains. Finally, numerous enzymes that help digestion are produced during the germination process.” (excerpt from Nourishing Traditions, by Sally Fallon).