Flaxseeds show great potential to help prevent and to reduce all chronic diseases. I’ve been a believer in their many great properties since I discovered flaxseed bread during my apprenticeship in Germany, where there has always been plenty of folk wisdom about it’s gut-healing properties. I’ve always made them an essential part of all my bread recipes, both personally and with Dr. Kracker. But bread doesn’t have to be the only way to enjoy these super seeds. To get the freshest oil and enjoy the fullest nutty flavor, use an electric coffee grinder to crush a tablespoon or so, and add it to your smoothie, cereal, yogurt or oatmeal, or sprinkle on salads or casseroles just before serving. Nutritionally, there’s no difference between golden and brown flaxseeds. I use both, depending on the color of the food and the aesthetics.

Read more about the cancer-fighting potential of flaxseed lignans, but also the latest info on saturated fats, an interesting report on salt marketing by “ethically-challenged” food processors, and a few personal anecdotes by George Eckrich from his bread baking class at Whole Foods Market’s Bowery store in New York City. Here’s another quick outtake to whet your appetite:

What impressed me most about the class was the number of “baking virgins” (their term, not mine). No one had any baking experience. After the class, I discussed this phenomenon with the Whole Foods instructors. They told me their introductory classes, which include everything from basic knife skills to learning how to saute, are very well attended. Since lack of cooking skills and reduced time in the kitchen are two big impediments to dietary improvement, I’m relieved to see the new interest in cooking among so many young people.

I suggest you click over to Dr. Kracker’s website and sign up for George’s periodic newsletter for up-to-date info not only on flaxseed but a whole range of common sense health and diet issues.

Image courtesy of Jason Riedy. Thank you!

What Makes It A Wondergrain?

• It provides all 9 essential amino acids
• It is a complete protein
• It is gluten-free
• It is cholesterol-free
• It is usually grown organically
• It has high levels of B vitamins, iron, and phosphorus for energy production
• It promotes cardiovascular health through its magnesium content
• It protects the body from free-radical damage with high levels of antioxidants
• It is a good source of manganese, copper, vitamin E, and fiber
• It is perfect for vegetarians and vegans
• It tastes great on its own
• It cooks quicker than other whole grains (10-15 min.)

How To Cook Quinoa – Video Tutorials

Note: The outside of the seed is covered with saponins (a natural insect repellant) which have a bitter taste and need to be rinsed off before cooking. However, most commercially produced quinoa has already undergone a thorough washing process, so a quick rinse by us consumers should suffice.

Cooking Quinoa

1. Bring 2 cups of water to a rolling boil

2. Add 1 cup of rinsed quinoa, cover and reduce to a simmer

3. Cook undisturbed for 15 minutes; remove from heat and let sit covered for 5 minutes

4. Fluff up with a fork; eat as is, or mix with additional ingredients

Recipes

Quinoa and Pistachio Salad

1 cup quinoa
1 cup chicken or vegetable broth
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup orange juice
1/3 cup cilantro, chopped
1/4 cup olive oil
3 Tblsp fresh lemon juice
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cayenne
2 garlic cloves, chopped
3/4 cup roasted red pepper, chopped
12 olives, pitted and chopped
1/2 cup pistachios, chopped


1. Put quinoa, broth, water and orange juice in a large sauce pan and bring to a boil; cover, reduce heat and simmer 12 minutes.

2. Place everything from cilantro through garlic in a food processor and run until smooth.

3. Gently combine all ingredients, reserving a few sprinkles of pistachios for garnish.


Breakfast Porridge

2 cups cooked quinoa
1 cup milk (or almond, rice, or coconut milk)
1/2 cup raisins
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup shredded coconut
1 apple, chopped
1 cup almonds, chopped
Optional: honey or agave nectar for sweetening


Combine cooked quinoa and milk in a sauce pan and bring to a simmer; add raisins and cinnamon, cover and simmer for 5-10 minutes until the quinoa is hot; add all other ingredients, stir and serve.


Look at these beautiful images of recipes using our wondergrain:






Unfortunately, quinoa is NOT sold everywhere. Most health food specialty stores should carry it, but you may have to order it online. Browse this widget for high-quality product and a selection of excellent cook books:

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Full disclosure of Chef Keem’s affiliation: I am a Rouxbe Cooking School affiliate partner. Rouxbe is the world’s first-ever online cooking school. I partnered with Rouxbe to help you improve you cooking skills. As part of their affiliate program, I have the power to give you a free, full-access, no-videos-barred, 14-day pass to their site. All you have to do is go to the ROUXBE Online Cooking School and redeem the 14-day Gift Membership. After the trial, you can join for as little as $15 per month; however, there is no obligation. It’s awesome! Check it out.

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It is not always easy pulling recipes from history’s deep closet. I have looked at old baking books and researched the web. With this recipe, we will bake whole grain crackers that would meet his approval.

How To Make Graham Crackers The Old-Fashioned Way

Preferment: Biga

2 cups whole wheat flour
1/3 teaspoon dry yeast
1 cup water

Mix and let sit for 12 hours at room temperature, ideally 65-70 degrees

Soaker

1/8 cup ground flaxseed
1/8 cup whole flaxseed
1/4 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup sunflower seeds
2 Tblsp canola oil
1 Tblsp molasses
2 Tblsp honey or agave nectar
1 Tblsp salt

Cover with 1 cup of boiling water and stir.

This should be prepared at least 30 minutes before you start to mix the dough so that it will be cool enough and not kill the yeast. It can sit for several hours, if you prefer.

Main Dough

Biga
Soaker
2 teaspoons dry yeast
3 1/2 cups whole wheat flour plus 1/2 cup for the kneading
1 cup water

• Mix all the above and knead intensely for 8 to 10 minutes
• The dough should be stiff and dry
• Let rise in a covered bowl for 45 minutes

Rolling out the dough

• Remove the dough from the bowl, being careful not to fold it, which could create too much strength. We want the dough relaxed.
• Divide it into 4 pieces. Gently extend one piece into a rectangle by hand, making certain that the work surface is well floured.
• With a rolling pin, roll it into a larger rectangle. Use flour to keep the surface dry. I like to flip it over to make certain that the bottom doesn’t stick.
• When you have the dough as thin as you like (we try for 2 millimeters in the bakery), use a knife or pizza cutter to make rectangles. Carefully transfer these to a sheet pan.
• To decorate the surface with additional seeds, brush or spray the surface of the graham crackers with water and sprinkle with flaxseeds, sunflower seeds and rolled oats. Use the brush to push the seeds gently into the dough so that they stay in place.
• Let rise in a warm place (I use the top of the oven, with the sheets on a dish so that the bottoms don’t heat up excessively). Let rise for 45 minutes and during this “proofing” time, cover with plastic or brush/spray the surface with more water to ensure that the crackers don’t dry out.
• Bake at 325 degrees for 50 to 55 minutes. Do not let the crackers become too dark. If your oven bakes unevenly (and most ovens do), switch the pans around during the baking: front to back or top to bottom. The graham crackers are finished when the surface is no longer soft. You want them crisp, not hard!

Dr. Graham’s legacy of the graham cracker tells the story of a kernel of enduring nutritional truth that was sidetracked by religious belief and later hijacked by the sweet tooth. Dr. Sylvester Graham wasn’t really a doctor, nor was he an ordained minister, as far as I can tell. But it was more about the message in those days (as it may still be now) and whether the message attracted a following. Graham was convinced that lust and masturbation were caused by poor dietary choices: too much meat, refined flour and inadequate fiber. Raw food was high on his recommended list, but without California, Florida or Central and South America providing abundant fresh produce, I’m not certain how fulfilling a plant-based diet was in the 1830’s.

Dr. Graham advocated healthy living to suppress the carnal urges and to purify the mind and spirit. Healthy living meant no meat, raising the ire of butchers; no refined flour, making him unpopular with bakers; and no alcohol, angering the brewers and saloon keepers. But people signed up!

Since he had little support from the bakers, Graham instructed his followers to bake healthy bread at home. His recipe specified unsifted flour that contained all the bran and the germ. This flour would have come from the first grind at the mill and thus contained many particles of varied size, which is to say that it was very gritty to the feel and baked into a very coarse texture.

During my apprenticeship in Germany, I was able to find graham bread in the health food stores, and I indulged in its hearty flavor and texture to vary my otherwise daily rye bread fix. Graham flour is hard to find these days, although our miller, Keith Giusto at Central Milling, designates our custom ground spelt flour as graham flour.

The honey graham crackers of today compare in no way to Dr. Graham’s original recipe!

As with many things, the graham cracker underwent many changes, and it only became a mass market success when it was sweetened up with sugar and honey and when vegetable oil or other fats (pig lard was a preferred fat in baking until 50 years ago or so) were added to make a more tender, cookie-like cracker. A sweeter cracker always works to broaden the appeal, and I freely admit I loved them as a child. And somewhere along the way, yeast disappeared from the recipe. Chemical leavening took over as sugar content increased (yeast does not like a sugar rich environment) and sped up the entire baking process. Once again, it is clear that faster food means nutritionally less healthy food.

The above recipe recreates the cracker as Dr. Graham and other bakers most likely baked. I love a hearty crust, and this type of cracker, like all Dr. Kracker flavors, is a tribute to the richness of flavor that develops in the bread’s crust. I’ve added some oats, sunflower seeds and golden flaxseeds for fun and additional fiber and flavor. Good luck recreating this lost treasure from our past!

For a very complete look at both Sylvester Graham and Harvey Kellogg check out this free article:
“Porn Flakes: Kellogg, Graham and the Crusade for Moral Fiber” by Carrie McLaren

“Since March is National Nutrition Month, I thought it would be appropriate to look at how the average American workday — the way most of us spend the majority of our waking hours — affects our physical activity. It used to be that work was the source of our exercise, but that’s certainly not true for most of us today.”

George likes to quote Michael Pollan (“Food Rules”): “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” – from his bestselling book “Omnivore’s Dilemma”, concluding that “if we all followed this simple directive (with a corollary of “cook frequently”) we’d be in good shape”.

“In just 3 or 4 generations, we as a nation have exchanged shovels and tools for power tools, desks, telephones, and keyboards. We have fully entered an era in which little activity is demanded from our lives. Being paid for physical work has for the most part changed to paying to work out.”

Taking a closer look at his own years as an artisan baker and comparing his dad’s CEO lifestyle with his mom’s busy homemaker’s days, George finds inspiration and wisdom for his common-sense approach to eating and activity habits.

“Mom never needed to ‘work out’ in any modern sense of the word; she was in a constant state of activity, except for the single hour in the afternoon when she laid down for a refreshing nap. A life full of work and activity has kept her trim her entire life.”

As the manager of this blog for George Eckrich I can testify to a definite positive impact of George’s teachings in my life. And I’m a German meat and potatoes hard head! So, mosey on over to Dr. Kracker’s web site and read the full newsletter here: “Recreating our Activity and Exercise Culture”

Dough rest is the amount of time that bread dough ferments after being mixed and before being shaped into loaves. Many bread recipes require only a single resting period. The more preferment and the amount of yeast generally determine the length and number of dough rests. The best breads use less yeast and have longer resting periods, some even overnight, in order to maximize the flavor that ultimately characterizes the bread. This is the stage where your signature as a baker is developed, and the richest and fullest flavors come from the longest fermentation.

Punch and Fold Method for Making Bread Dough

I like to call this technique “stretch and fold” since artisan bakers want to preserve the gases and bubbles rather than punching them out of the bread dough. The stretch and fold organizes the gluten and improves its ability to capture fermentation’s gases. Check out our video explaining this technique, since it is much easier to understand when you see it.

Proof Times and Bread Dough Rise

How long a bread dough rises or proofs will depend on a variety of factors. The amount of yeast in the recipe, the temperature of the dough and the ambient temperature all can increase or decrease the speed. As a young home baker, waiting for the bread dough to rise always challenged my youthful impatience. As the slow food movement has showed us, good food takes time, so follow the directions of the recipe, and know that cooler temperatures require more patience, and warmer temperatures will speed up the process.

Bread Dough Baking Temperatures

Bakers like very hot temperatures to guarantee oven spring and toothy crusts. After my apprenticeship in Germany, I found books for the home bakers specified too low of temperatures for bread doughs. I prefer to preheat my oven and start my baking at 500. After 10 or 12 minutes, I bring the temperature down to 375 to 425 to finish the bake. I use a baking stone in my home oven, and I sometimes brush bread with some water before baking. Unfortunately, there is no way that a home oven can generate steam like a commercial oven. The steam prolongs the oven spring and maximizes the volume of the bread dough and the color and the crispness of the crust. But don’t despair. What you can’t achieve in the crust, you can still guarantee in the crumb by the judicious use of preferments!

Baking Odds and Ends

Salt Rising Bread Dough

When I first read about salt rising bread, I wondered how the salt could make the bread rise, since salt restrains the yeast and thus slows the rise. Later, I learned that salt rising referred to a place to let the dough or starter rise. Rock salt makes good insulation, and home bakers would heat up a bowl filled with salt and then incubate the starter on top of this warm container of salt. The salt radiated heat and allowed the starter to develop faster and created unique flavors because of the warmer temperatures. Making salt rising bread dough is not as difficult as constantly feeding a sourdough, and a heating pad will work just as well as a bed of rock salt.

When I bake at home, mixing and kneading are one and the same. I use a large bowl and a very heavy duty spatula or dough scraper to fold the dough onto itself. This is very wet or tacky dough that defies any hand mixing. I aim for 100 strokes, give or take a few. I rely on the organic acids that form during the fermentation to finish the gluten development and to achieve the structure of the bread. I only touch the dough with my hands to stretch and fold it, at least until I shape it or place it on the baking sheet. What I have sacrificed in the physical joy of baking, I have gained with much better bread results.

Spelt is often called the biblical wheat. And many people who have a wheat allergy and avoid eating wheat (which is not the same as Celiac disease) find spelt does not affect them in a negative manner. In fact, spelt is an early variety of wheat and underwent a spontaneous mutation. Technically speaking, spelt is hulled wheat, which means that the extra hull has to be milled off before the wheat can be milled into flour. Spelt bread is not easy to bake, and the same mutation that lost the hull changed the balance of the gluten proteins to create a grain and flour that was preferred by bakers. This is wheat as most of us know it. Since proteins are the usual culprits in allergies, I would assume that the mutation that improved the bake-ability of the wheat also made it more difficult to digest. Because of the difficulties of baking, spelt almost disappeared from the agricultural scene, but fortunately has made a strong return. Dr. Kracker uses spelt flour extensively to bake its flatbreads. To bake with spelt, try using the biga for best results. The weaker spelt proteins like the extra organic acids developed with the preferment.

What Is Durum Wheat?

Durum is yet another variety of wheat that is known for its large kernels and high protein content. Most all of the durum wheat in the US is milled into semolina flour, the basis of pasta and macaroni. When added to bread, semolina flour imparts a rich yellow color and a buttery flavor. Most all recipes combine semolina with regular bread flour for the best results.

What Is Kamut?

Kamut is one of the durum wheats and is known for its sweeter flavor (it is amber rather than red wheat) and the large size of its kernels. Kamut is the Egyptian word for wheat, and the initial seeds were carried to the US as a curiosity from Egypt. Today, most all of the kamut in the US is grown in Montana. Like spelt, Kamut does not have ideal baking characteristics, but can be combined with wheat flour. I like to cook Kamut—or spelt for that matter— as a rice substitute or together with rice, and Kamut can be precooked and added to the dough. The large plump kernels make for a fantastically chewy texture.

All-Purpose Or Bread Flour?

Bread flour for the home baker is milled from hard winter wheat. If you want to bake with preferments and use long fermentation, always look for bread flour. All-purpose flour is milled from softer wheat varieties which have less protein and whose protein is better suited for cakes and cookies. You would not want the tough, chewy texture of sourdough bread to characterize your cookies! Flour is labeled specifically for bread baking or all-purpose baking.

Wheat can be planted in the fall and harvested in the spring or can be planted in the spring for a fall harvest.

The first are hard winter wheat varieties. These are mostly grown in the Western plains states. The wheat is planted in the early fall. The seeds germinate and the wheat grows until the cold weather forces the plant into dormancy. In the best years, a light snow cover can protect the young plants and provide sufficient moisture for the crop to rocket out of dormancy in the spring. Harvest begins in Texas as early as June. The winter wheats are considered to have the best protein characteristics for artisan baking.

Spring wheat is grown throughout the Midwest and is most often high protein wheat. High protein flour has special applications in the pan bread and pizza bakeries, and should not be used for home baking.

Red wheat or white wheat?

Most home bakers never realized that they have an option. In the last 10 years, hard white wheat has been widely introduced to professional bakers. Just as there are several colors of corn such as blue, red, yellow and white, to name the obvious, wheat can be hard red wheat or white, depending on the color of the bran layer.

White whole wheat flour has gained in popularity as consumers and bakers have noticed a sweeter flavor in the white wheat in contrast to the slightly bitter flavor of the red wheat.

Traditionally, whole grain recipes call for honey or sugar to mellow this bitter flavor. But with white wheat, there is no need to add any sweetener to the recipe. If you are looking to bake whole grain, King Arthur sells a 5-lb bag of white wheat, and you can be certain that it is whole grain and will have the same excellent baking characteristics of hard red winter wheat.

Dried yeast has almost completely replaced fresh or cake yeast for the home baker. Years ago, dried yeast required re-hydrating before mixing, and the home baker had to take great care to use the correct temperature of water so as not to kill the yeast. These days, most dried yeast does not have to be hydrated, and it is best to follow the directions on the package. Frankly, even when the package says to mix directly into the flour and water, I always make a small poolish or slurry to dissolve the yeast and to make certain that the yeast is active. I make this slurry first thing while I am organizing the kitchen and all my ingredients, and this mix is generally ready to go after 10 or 15 minutes.

Salt

Salt works in two ways in the dough. Salt imparts an important flavor, and without it, bread is very bland. Secondly and more importantly, salt lends strength to the gluten and reinforces its elasticity and extensibility. Unsalted dough exhibits little strength, tears easily and is most likely to collapse when going in the oven.

Is there a big difference between kosher and regular salt? The answer is no, except that the bigger grains of kosher salt mean that a tablespoon of Kosher salt will weigh less than a tablespoon of regular, more fine grained table salt. Bakers always weigh their salt, and a dough should have 2 percent salt based on flour weight. Teaspoons and tablespoons are very imprecise measurements, but most recipes seem to function. If your bread is too bland or too salty, be certain to make changes in your measurements, adding or decreasing the salt in small increments.

Regarding sea salt, Himalayan salt or regular salt, many people want to believe that the quality of the salt makes a difference in the flavor of the final bread. In all the blind taste tests that I have heard about, no taster has been able to identify breads made with a particular salt. But if you have a favorite salt, by all means use it!