Bran Muffins

 I made these muffins last week to use up a bag of oat bran that was taking up space in my freezer. 

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup plain non-fat yogurt

• 2/3 cup water

• 1/2 cup date sugar

• ⅓ cup unsweetened applesauce

• 1 tbs ground flaxseed

• ½ teaspoon vanilla extract

• 1 ½ cups bran (wheat and/or oat)

• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour

• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour (or substitute another whole grain flour)

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• 1 teaspoon baking powder

• ½ teaspoon salt

• ½ cup Craisins (or raisins or other dried fruit)

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Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

2. Combine wet ingredients (yogurt through vanilla extract). Combine dry ingredients (bran through salt). 

3. Combine the wet and dry ingredients. Add Craisins and mix until combined.

4. Fill muffin liners in muffin tin and bake 15 to 20 minutes. 

Let's Use Some Stuff Up

It's cool enough to cook with the oven today and tomorrow without it negatively impacting the temperature of my house, but next week is going to be hot, so I'm doing some cooking right now. I have been going through my pantry and have some things I want to use up. Plus snack food is super expensive right now (everything is super expensive right now, but processed foods are worse), so I might as well save a few dollars by making my own. Here is what I'm making:

Granola

Because I have more nuts and dried fruit than I know what to do with (I went with pistachios and craisins this time), plus half a jar of unrefined coconut oil whose days are numbered and a jar of honey that has already started to crystallize. This used up most of my old-fashioned rolled oats, but that's okay. I can get more. [Edited: 5/20/23: Sim said this is the best homemade granola she's ever tasted and tied for first place ever with the granola served at the hotel restaurant where we breakfasted in London. She ate a bunch as a snack when she got home from school yesterday and had two platefuls for breakfast this morning. This will definitely be a repeat recipe.]

Crackers

I have a variety of flours that could go into this, plus dried herbs. And the last time I made crackers, they all got eaten right away. I made this batch with 1 cup AP flour and 2 cups rye flour, and I seasoned them on top with onion & herb Mrs. Dash, sesame seeds, and sea salt. [Edited 5/20/23: These came out fine. We'll eat them. But next time I should use parchment paper because my silicone baking mats don't get hot enough to make the crackers really crispy. And maybe more salt (I used way less than the recipe dictated) and a different herb blend that doesn't have onion or garlic pieces in it because they're a bit bitter. These will be great with vegan snacking cheese though. Especially the cheddar pub cheese one.]

Rye Bread (Bread Machine Recipe)

I have so much rye flour from when we were in a pandemic and I was trying to make sourdough rye bread and I could only buy rye flour in bulk online. I try not to use the oven too much during hot weather because I want to limit how hard I'm making my air conditioner work, but I do have a bread machine that goes from ingredients to baked bread loaf in one little machine that doesn't heat up my house, so I'm going to try this recipe. Not today, but definitely soon. 

Mocha Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins

Because I have more ripe bananas than can comfortably fit in my freezer banana bag at the moment, and these muffins are delicious and freeze really well when there are leftovers.

Hot Cocoa Mix

I don't love this as hot cocoa, but when I use something along the lines of 1 part cocoa mix to 2 parts unsweetened soy milk, and blend it in my blender with about 16 oz of ice, it makes really fantastic frozen hot chocolate. I have some dry milk powder in my pantry that needs to be used up, so it's becoming (a scaled down, small amount of) frozen hot cocoa mix.

Healthy Zucchini Bread - Attempt #1

Three small loaves are in the oven right now, but I don't have high hopes.  I realized as soon as I set the timer that I'd forgotten the ground flaxseed meant to bind everything together.  I also made a lot of changes from the healthy carrot bread based on instinct and also what I had on hand, which is why I'm typing this up immediately, just in case it turns out okay and I want to refer back.  Here is what I did, and I will report back afterward about how it turned out:

Ingredients
2 cups grated zucchini (approximately -- I didn't even measure; I used the fine grater and did NOT drain the liquid)
3 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 tbs cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 heaping cups Medjool dates + 2 cups boiling water + a couple pineapple rings and a few tbs juice, all combined in blender
1 cup raisins (it just wasn't sweet enough without)
1 cup dry toasted walnuts
1/2 cup quick cooking oats
about 1 cup homemade date syrup (because it was in the fridge and I wanted to get rid of it)
1/2 cup Ezekiel 4:9 cinnamon raisin cereal (because the consistency at that point felt a little too runny, probably on account of the date syrup, and I didn't want to grind up more oats and also no one in the house eats this cereal anymore and it would be nice to get rid of it)

Directions
1) Combine dry ingredients minus the nuts and oats (and cereal and raisins).  Meaning combine the dry ingredients with a flour-like texture.

2) Combine the blended date/pineapple slurry you just made with the vanilla and grated zucchini (i.e., the wet ingredients).  This part should've also included 2 tbs ground flaxseed.  Then stir in the dry ingredients until fully incorporated.

3) Stir in the nuts, oats, cereal, and raisins.

4) Spray mini loaf pans (it's easier to get something this dense fully cooked without burning the edges by using smaller loaf pans) with Pam and fill each halfway with batter.  Bake in preheated oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes.  I just checked mine at the 30 minute point and put them in for another 10 because they aren't done in the middle.  They will probably end up baking for at least 50 minutes, but I'll keep checking them by stabbing them in the center with a toothpick to see if it comes out clean yet.

Okay, so I probably should've baked them at 375 instead of 350 and I probably should've used the amount of oats and nuts that are in the carrot cake recipe because, while the flavor of this bread was good and the sweetness seemed right, the texture was wrong and the centers of the loaves weren't fully cooked even after 50 minutes and even after the toothpick was seemingly coming out clean.  It's hard to make the texture good on a whole-grain, no oil bread.  It's edible and it will get eaten -- I put one sliced loaf in the fridge and the others in the freezer -- and Simran said she likes it better than the carrot cake bread and wants to eat it for breakfast tomorrow, but I think it was mostly because 1 tbs of cinnamon turned out to be a good amount.  Next time I make this, I will remember the flaxseed and increase the walnuts to 1.5 cups at least.  Rather than doubling the oats, I'll probably use the rest of that Ezekiel cereal we have and then add oats until I'm at 2 cups in total. 

Healthy Carrot Cake - First Attempt

I will completely forget what I did this time around if I don't write this down.  The cake (quick bread) is still cooling, so I don't know how it's turned out yet.  I will add that later, along with changes for second attempt. 

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1 tbs ground flaxseed
1/2 cup quick cooking oats (or pulse some old fashioned rolled oats through a food processor a little, which is what I do)
1 cup shredded carrots (about two carrots; I ran mine through my salad shooter)
1 cup Medjool dates, pitted and chopped
1 sparse cup golden raisins
2 canned pineapple rings + about 2 tbs juice (I have a feeling I should've used more juice to brighten the flavor but I was afraid of making the batter too runny)
1 cup walnut pieces, dry toasted in pan
1 cup boiling water
about 1/2 cup date syrup (because that's how much was currently in the fridge)

Directions

1) Boil 1 cup water (I just did this with a glass measuring cup in the microwave) and cover dates and raisins with it.  Let cool a bit.

2) Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.  Spray inside of two small loaf pans with Pam.

3) Mix flour, salt, baking soda and powder, spices, flaxseed, and oats together in a large bow.

4) Pour water with dates and raisins into blender, add pineapple with juice, and blend for just a few seconds.  I should still have chunks of fruit in it.

5) Add walnuts, carrots, and wet ingredients to dry ingredients and stir to incorporate.

6) Divide batter into loaf pans and bake for 25-30 minutes (I put them in for 25 minutes, at which point a toothpick came out clean but they still looked thin in the middle, so I let them sit in the oven with it off for about five more minutes, at which point I could smell them from outside the oven and they looked more done).  Let cool.

[Edited 5/18/2020: It's good.  It's pretty dense.  Tastes better (and sweeter) the next day.  I sliced it, put it in a sealed container, and stored it in the fridge, and it was better today than yesterday.  The fridge keeps it moist, which helps with the density.  Resembles the buttery, sugary carrot cake cookies I made a couple weeks ago by more than I'd dared to hope.  I wonder how this recipe would turn out if scooped into cookies on a cookie sheet instead of baked in loaf pans.  The only change I would definitely make for next time is changing the spice from 1 tsp cinnamon to 1.5 tsp and omitting the ginger and clove since those made it very closely resemble my pumpkin bread in aroma and flavor, which is fine but I want it to be different.  I'd also add 1 tsp vanilla.  I also wonder what would happen if I incorporated sourdough discard into the recipe.  Would it lighten it up?  It probably wouldn't hurt, but I'm not sure if/how much I would need to add other ingredients to correct the consistency.]

[Edited 6/4/20: For my second attempt, I altered the spices as noted above, forgot the vanilla again, and had no date syrup so I steeped a sparse cup of golden raisins and a slightly heaping cup of dates in hot water and then continued from there as before.  Good amount of sweetness and consistency.  There might've been more pineapple juice this time; I didn't measure.  It was good though.  Only changes for next time are to remember the vanilla and maybe increase the cinnamon to 2 tsp because it's currently a very mild flavor.  Maybe add the ginger back in too.  I also have pecan pieces again, so I would replace maybe half the walnuts with pecans.]

Sourdough Bread Round

I had to look at a couple different sites to make this because I didn't have all the tools mentioned in the recipe and didn't want to buy them in case I decided none of this was worth the effort.  The bread turned out fantastically.  It took forever and was worth the effort.  I used a good portion of the bread last night to make the best grilled cheese sandwiches I've ever had.
 

Here is the recipe I used.  All my mixing bowls are metal, which it sounds like can be problematic for sourdough (?), so just to be safe, the dough did its 12 hour rise in the large glass bowl I normally keep fruit in on the counter.  I covered it with plastic wrap and left it in the oven off overnight because it seems a bit less cold than the countertop in winter.  I don't have a proofing basket (I had never even heard of it before -- no wonder my last attempt at sourdough went so poorly -- all of this sounded new), so I lined my metal colander with a tea towel and dusted it with flour and let the dough do its final 4 hour rise in that.  I don't have a dutch oven, so I followed this website's top suggestion and preheated my oven for an hour with the baking stone as the intended cooking surface.  I put the bread on a piece of parchment paper, set it on the hot baking stone, sprayed some water into the walls of the oven to create steam and put two ice cubes next to the dough to create more steam, and then covered the dough and ice cubes with my largest metal mixing bowl turned upside down over it for 30 minutes.  Then remove the bowl and bake for another 15 minutes, then remove bread (I used my pizza peel, as shown in the photo) and let bread cool for a hour.

Things to Bake

This post is for Patty.  Jackie said you might like recommendations of things to bake.  For her.  This is just a list of recipes I've made before and enjoyed eating.

Carrot Cake
I've never made carrot cake before, but Simran and I love carrot cake, so I'm planning to make this one next Friday.  The high number of positive reviews indicates it's probably a pretty reliable recipe, which is generally how I choose recipes.

Sourdough Bread
This is the recipe I'm currently using to make sourdough bread.  My starter is on day two of five, so I can't vouch for any of this yet personally, but I have high hopes. 

Outrageous Chocolate Chip Cookies
Simran and I made these yesterday.  They're my go-to chocolate chip cookie because 1) they are delicious, and 2) the inclusion of peanut butter and oats makes them feel easier on my sugar-sensitive body than more buttery, sugary cookies often do.  Note:  The recipe calls for old-fashioned rolled oats, but they are a better texture if you use quick cooking oats or run old-fashioned rolled oats through a food processor until they are a little bit chopped up (i.e., hit the "pulse" button like 4-6 times). 

Blueberry Muffins
One of my two favorite muffin recipes.

Mocha Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins 
My other favorite muffin recipe. 

Cinnamon Rolls 
The mistake I've made before on these (because I've made them many times) is lining my pan with aluminum foil, preventing the surface from getting hot enough to cook the rolls through.  Don't do that.  The part of the pan the rolls sits on needs to be very very hot so you don't end up with doughy rolls.  Also, it's better to err on the side of using too large a pan rather than too small, again so you don't end up with doughy rolls.  I also increase the icing by 50% because I'm an adult and no one can stop me.

Downeast Maine Pumpkin Bread
This is my favorite quick bread recipe.  You can replace up to half the oil with applesauce and replace up to half the all-purpose flour with whole wheat pastry flour (not normal whole wheat flour -- the pastry part is important for the right texture) if you want to make it a bit healthier without affecting the taste.

Buttermilk Cornbread
I grew up with Jiffy Mix cornbread, which was pretty dry and crumbly, at least at my house.  By contrast, this recipe is for a moist, cakey cornbread.  Good enough to eat plain, but if you put butter and honey on it (something I got from trying to recreate the experience of eating at Tippins, though in retrospect, I think they just used honey butter there), it's basically a dessert.

Gingerbread Cookies
This is probably my all-time favorite cookie.  I also used this recipe to make the walls and roof of a gingerbread house, which turned out much better than anticipated.  I increase the spices and sometimes add cream cheese frosting in place of royal icing, but I have never written down my exact changes so I would advise making these according to the original recipe.

French Bread
I'm going to be making this bread this week for making po'boy sandwiches.  It's just a basic baguette and great for a variety of sandwiches.  I haven't bought eggs in ages, so I'm planning to try out aquafaba (which apparently just means the cooking liquid from chickpeas or the liquid from a can of chickpeas) in place of egg wash.  I've also made this without egg wash at all and it's fine, but I did miss the golden sheen a finishing egg wash adds to the crust.

Cheddar Bay Biscuits
A rip off of the biscuits from Red Lobster.  I made these because Sameer wanted to try them but had no other reason to visit a Red Lobster.

Cheese Herb Rolls
If you eat these warm from the oven with a pat of butter, they are the best thing ever.  They are good later, but they are EXCEPTIONAL warm from the oven.  

Pretzel Bread
I'm making pretzel rolls this week to use as sandwich and burger buns.

Scones
I usually omit the raisins and add Craisins and white chocolate chips.  Some people have feelings about whether you use salted or unsalted butter (salted yields a cakier scone, while unsalted is flakier) but I've had both turn out fine and use whatever I have.  It helps to freeze the butter and then grate it or food process it, or cut it into a tiny cubes and then freeze it for at least fifteen minutes before adding it to the dough.  It keeps it from melting while you mix, which is important for the right texture, like with puff pastry. 

Chocolate Cake
My go-to chocolate cake. 

Black Magic Cake
A rich, mocha sort of cake that I personally like even better than my go-to chocolate cake.

French Macarons
If you want to try something really labor intensive and a bit temperamental, these are great.  I rarely make them because they take an enormous amount of sifting and whipping and sitting.  The only reason I even bother making them is because they are better than any macarons I've ever had from elsewhere, which had a lot less flavor probably because they were older than mine.  Some people say you should let the flavors meld for a day before eating them, but I have found this to be a lie.  They are good as fresh as possible.  Like tiny clouds made of almonds and sugar.  Before making them for the first time, I also watched a video on YouTube to see what the egg whites should look like and how to pipe the batter and what the cookies should look like before they go in the oven (they should have a little bit of a sheen to them from sitting out for a few minutes -- I don't remember which video I watched, but there are tons of videos on making macarons, some from professional chefs) because there is a bit of technique involved.  I also totally use a food scale so I can measure by weight for these instead of volume.  Not sure how vital that is because I've never done it without.

Banana-Oatmeal Muffins -- 1st Attempt

This is my first recorded attempt at no-sugar, no-oil, vegan, 100% whole grain banana muffins.  I recall doing something of this sort last year in bread loaf form, but I can't find written evidence, so I don't know what recipe I used.  I just remember the flavor was good but it turned out a bit too wet from all the banana and didn't cook all the way through, which is why I'm making muffins this time.  It's also why I wanted to include rolled oats -- it seemed like they might hold things together as they hydrate and make the bread chewier and less dense.  If they still sort of fall apart, I'm going to try adding 1/4 cup wheat bran next time.  If they need to be sweeter, I think I'll have to add chopped dates or raw date syrup because they are significantly sweeter than bananas.  If they are too dry, I'll just add more bananas (or date syrup).  I tasted the batter before baking, and it seemed to have a slightly bitter aftertaste.  I think next time I'll reduce the baking powder to 1 tsp (and remember the baking soda).

I used this recipe from Saveur for an idea of dry measurements, but it was still kind of a crap shoot since I'm not using sugar or butter or eggs.

They just came out of the oven and are weirdly lumpy, though I'm not sure if that's because of the rolled oats or the lack of baking soda.  I'll post a verdict and outline plans for my second attempt after they're cool enough to taste.

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tbs baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda (which I just realized I forgot to include in the muffin batter -- I'm guessing this will make them denser than they would have been otherwise...?)
1/4 tsp salt
5 large bananas (why five?  because I had six overripe bananas on my kitchen counter, and one appeared to have gone bad)
2 tbs flaxseed meal
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup chopped walnuts

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Line muffin tins with muffin cups.

2. Use a standing mixer (or very forceful arm) to beat bananas into mostly-liquid form.  Add flaxseed meal and vanilla.

3. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.  Add to wet ingredients and stir until just incorporated.

4.  Fold in rolled oats and walnuts.  Scoop into muffin cups and bake for 20-25 minutes.

[Edited 1/20/2015: These were surprisingly not bad.  The flavor was pretty good, obviously not as sweet as most muffins, but I will easily finish off the batch.  The texture was better than I've had with oil-free baking; I think the oatmeal helped a lot.  Next time I'm going to use six bananas for the added moisture plus sweetener, remember to include the baking soda, and reduce the baking powder to 2 tsp.  I don't think the kind of nuts used matters that much, but I do think their inclusion is vital to the semblance of normal texture.]

Flax & Pumpkin Seed Corn Bread

This comes from Whole Foods' recipe site. 

 

Ingredients: 

• 1/2 cup flaxseed
• 1 3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
• 1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon powdered gluten-free egg replacer (such as Ener-G)
• 1/4 cup warm water
• 1 cup unsweetened soy milk
• 1/4 cup high oleic safflower oil or canola oil
• 1 tablespoon pure maple syrup (use more for a sweeter flavor)
• 1/3 cup roasted pumpkin seeds

Directions: 

Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray an 8-inch loaf pan with olive or canola oil spray.

In a mini-food processor or coffee grinder, process flaxseed until finely ground, 10 to 20 seconds.

In a large bowl, combine ground flaxseed, flour, cornmeal, baking powder and salt. In a small bowl, combine egg replacer with warm water, stirring with a whisk. Stir in soy milk, oil and maple syrup. Make a well in dry ingredients and add liquid ingredients. Stir until just combined. Stir in pumpkin seeds.

Pour batter into prepared loaf pan. Bake for 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the loaf comes out clean. Cool in the pan on a rack for 5 minutes, then turn it out of the pan and continue cooling on the rack.

Sourdough Rye

In honor of the new year, I've been looking for some new healthy recipes to try.  One problem I regularly run into is finding a 100% whole grain bread that doesn't ruin every sandwich or meal it comes into contact with, or require some kind of butter to make it palatable and un-dry.  I found this recipe from Mark Bittman, whom I trust, on how to make a really time-consuming, no-knead, whole-grain sourdough.  I just finished assembling the sourdough starter and look forward to making it into bread sometime next week.  (It seems the trick to omitting sugar and honey from your bread is giving your yeast the better part of a week to feed off the flour and do its rising.)  I love both rye and sourdough, so I'm looking forward to seeing how this turns out.

Ingredients

For the sourdough starter:

• 2 2/3 cups rye flour, Pinch instant yeast

For the dough:

• Sourdough starter
• 2 cups rye flour
• 2 cups whole-wheat or white flour
• 1 tablespoon kosher salt
• 1 1/2 cups cracked rye or rye flour

Directions

1. To make the starter: In a tall, narrow, nonmetal container (a tall, narrow bowl is fine), mix 2/3 cup rye flour with 1/2 cup water, along with the tiniest pinch of instant yeast — less than 1/16 teaspoon. Cover and let sit for about 24 hours, then add the same amount of both flour and water (no more yeast). Repeat twice more, at 24-hour intervals; 24 hours after the fourth addition, you have your starter. (From now on, keep it in the refrigerator; you don’t need to proceed with the recipe for a day or two if you don’t want to. Before making the dough, take a ladleful — 1/2 to 3/4 cup — of the starter and put it in a container; stir in 1/2 cup rye flour and a scant 1/2 cup water, mix well, cover and refrigerate for future use. This starter will keep for a couple of weeks. If you don’t use it during that time and you wish to keep it alive, add 1/2 cup each flour and water every week or so and stir; you can discard a portion of it if it becomes too voluminous.)  

2.  To make the dough: Combine the remaining starter in a big bowl with the rye flour, the whole-wheat or white flour and 2 1/4 cups water.  

3.  Mix well, cover with plastic wrap and let sit overnight, up to 12 hours.  

4.  The next morning, the dough should be bubbly and lovely. Add the salt, the cracked rye and 1 cup water — it will be more of a thick batter than a dough and should be pretty much pourable.  

5.  Pour and scrape it into two 8-by-4-inch nonstick loaf pans. The batter should come to within an inch of the top, no higher.  

6.  Cover (an improvised dome is better than plastic wrap; the dough will stick to whatever it touches) and let rest until it reaches the rim of the pans, about 2 to 3 hours, usually. Preheat the oven to 325 and bake until a skewer comes out almost clean; the internal temperature will measure between 190 and 200. This will take about 1 1/2 hours or a little longer.  

7.  Remove loaves from the pans and cool on a rack. Wrap in plastic and let sit for a day before slicing, if you can manage that; the texture is definitely better the next day.

No-Oil No-Dairy 100% Whole Grain Rolls

There seems to be limited variety when you're looking for a 100% whole grain roll recipe that doesn't involve any kind of oil.  It basically boils down to 1) flour, 2) water, 3) yeast, 4) some kind of sweetener to feed the yeast.  Then I saw another recipe on The Red Kitchen that sounded more promising, partly because it didn't ask me to do weird things with kneading or not kneading and would let me just use the bread machine like I always do.

I'm making so many crazy changes right out of the gate that I have no idea how it will turn out.  I wouldn't normally mess with a recipe I haven't even tried yet, but I'm trying to make this bread Esselstyn compliant.  I'm basically reducing calories from fat and sugar -- and probably making it quite a bit blander and possibly messing up the texture -- by switching the amounts of the soy milk and the water, as well as the amounts of honey (agave nectar or maple syrup would make this vegan, but I want to use my fancy orange blossom honey on this) and unsweetened applesauce.  I don't have quick cooking oats, so I figure I'll just prepare some old-fashioned rolled oats and see how that goes instead.  The crazy changed-up version I'm using this week is below.

Ingredients

• 1 cup water
• 3 tbs soy milk
• 4 tbs unsweetened applesauce
• 1 tbs honey (or agave nectar or maple syrup to make vegan)
• 3 cups whole wheat flour
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp active dry yeast
• 1/2 serving of prepared oatmeal

Directions

1. Put everything in the bread machine according to manufacturer instructions and set to "dough."  

2. After the first rise, pull out the dough and roll it into small balls, a la dinner rolls, on a baking sheet.  Cover and let rise until doubled, about 30 minutes.  

3. Bake in a preheated oven at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.  Place rolls on a rack to cool.

[Edited 9/18/2013:  These actually turned out fine.  The texture was soft and chewy, though the flavor was as bland as any other 100% whole wheat recipe I've tried -- I think this is just how such things taste.  I only liked them with butter or something on them, but Simran gobbled them up dry.  They did get a lot drier and tougher by the next day though, so these are a same-day sort of roll.]

French Bread

This is one of the best breads I've ever made.  I found the recipe on AllRecipes when trying to make baguettes.  It's best eaten the day it's baked.  You can omit the egg yolk wash at the end to make it vegan.  The crust isn't as golden and pretty, but it doesn't affect the flavor much.

Ingredients
1 cup water
2 1/2 cups bread flour
1 tbs white sugar
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp bread machine yeast
1 egg yolk
1 tbs water

Directions

1. Place 1 cup water, bread flour, sugar, salt and yeast into bread machine pan in the order recommended by manufacturer. Select Dough cycle, and press Start.
2. When the cycle has completed, place dough in a greased bowl, turning to coat all sides. Cover, and let rise in a warm place for about 30 minutes, or until doubled in bulk. Dough is ready if indentation remains when touched.
3. Punch down dough. On a lightly floured surface, roll into a 16x12 inch rectangle. Cut dough in half, creating two 8x12 inch rectangles. Roll up each half of dough tightly, beginning at 12 inch side, pounding out any air bubbles as you go. Roll gently back and forth to taper end. Place 3 inches apart on a greased cookie sheet. Make deep diagonal slashes across loaves every 2 inches, or make one lengthwise slash on each loaf. Cover, and let rise in a warm place for 30 to 40 minutes, or until doubled in bulk.
4. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Mix egg yolk with 1 tablespoon water; brush over tops of loaves.
5. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in the preheated oven, or until golden brown.

Cheddar Bay Biscuits

Sameer and I never go to Red Lobster since we're both vegetarian and the smell of fish disgusts him, but he found a post somewhere on the internet about how great those Cheddar Bay Biscuits are, so we made some at home.  The recipe I use is the one from AllRecipes.com, modified with reviewer suggestions.  They aren't as good once they cool, so I don't recommend making these far in advance.  They're really good hot though.

Ingredients
4 cups baking mix (e.g., Bisquick, or make your own Easy Biscuit Mixture like I do)
3 oz Cheddar cheese, finely shredded
1 1/3 cups buttermilk (plain water or watered down yogurt also work in a pinch)
1/2 cup melted butter
2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp Old Bay Seasoning
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp dried parsley
1/2 tsp chives (dried or fresh chopped -- optional, but I like them and use them when they're on hand)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. In a mixing bowl, combine the baking mix and one half of the garlic powder, onion powder, Old Bay Seasoning, and parsley. Then add the cheese and buttermilk. Mix until dough is firm. Using a small scoop, place dough on the prepared pan.
3. Bake at 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) for 10 to 12 minutes, or until golden brown.
4. Combine the melted butter and remaining garlic powder, onion powder, Old Bay, parsley, and salt. Brush over baked biscuits immediately upon removing from oven.  Sprinkle with chopped chives if desired.  Best served warm from the oven.

Buttermilk Cornbread

I love this cornbread (recipe from AllRecipes), especially served with butter and honey on top.  It calls for buttermilk, but unless I have some on hand for another recipe, I just use plain yogurt thinned with milk and it turns out about the same.

Ingredients
1/2 cup butter
2/3 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk (alternately, use about half a cup plain yogurt thinned with another half cup of milk)
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 cup cornmeal
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease an 8 inch square pan.
2. Melt butter in large skillet. Remove from heat and stir in sugar. Quickly add eggs and beat until well blended. Combine buttermilk with baking soda and stir into mixture in pan. Stir in cornmeal, flour, and salt until well blended and few lumps remain. Pour batter into the prepared pan.
3. Bake in the preheated oven for 30 to 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

100% Whole Wheat Buns

This is my first attempt at baking anything with 100% whole wheat flour.  I found this recipe on Food.com that has positive reviews, so I'm using it.  I'm also being fancy and making an egg substitute to try to cut out as much of the unhealthy stuff in this bread as possible (by Caldwell Esselstyn standards, this essentially means no oil, salt, or animal products).  I'm not daring enough to take it further than that and leave out, say, the canola oil just yet, and I'm not sure the salt can go at all.

Ingredients

1 cup water
2 tablespoons canola oil
1 egg (I'll be substituting 1 tbs flax seed meal whisked with 3 tbs water -- just allow the mixture to sit for 5 minutes before using it.)
3 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
1/4 cup vital wheat gluten
1/4 cup honey
1 teaspoon salt 

1 tablespoon active dry yeast

Directions

1. Place all ingredients in your bread machine in the order dictated by the user manual.

2. Set to "dough" cycle.

3. Turn out dough onto a lightly floured surface.  Divide into 8-10 pieces and shape into hamburger or hot dog buns.

4. Place on greased cookie sheets, cover, and let rise for 30-40 minutes.

5. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

6. Bake buns in oven for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown.

7. Allow to cool on wire racks.

[Edited 2/27/13: These turned out great.  I made 8 hamburger buns, cooked them for 12 minutes, and did not grease the baking sheet (in my experience, this just tends to make breads brown too quickly on the bottom, and they don't stick to the sheet anyway).  The flax seed meal egg substitute worked perfectly.  I will definitely be making these again, and I will definitely try using flax seed meal and water instead of beaten eggs in breads again -- particularly anything wheaty or like a muffin or quick bread.]

Cheese Herb Rolls

This is my favorite fresh bread.  The original recipe is from AllRecipes.com, but I've made adjustments on my version below to make it into rolls instead of a loaf of bread.

Ingredients
1 1/4 cups warm water (110 degrees F / 45 degrees C)
3 cups bread flour
2 tbs dry milk powder
2 tbs white sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 tbs butter, softened
3 tbs grated Parmesan cheese
1 1/2 tsp dried marjoram
1 1/2 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tbs active dry yeast

Directions

1. Put ingredients in bread machine in order dictated by machine (for mine this means wet ingredients, with dry on top of that, with dry yeast in a little concave on top of that).  Set to "dough."  [If you aren't using a bread machine, put yeast, warm water, and sugar together to "bloom" for about 10 minutes.  Mix the remaining ingredients in a bowl.  Then mix these wet ingredients with the remaining ingredients and knead for about 5 minutes.  Cover and leave dough in a warm place to rise for about 45 minutes.] 

2. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface.  Punch down dough and knead a few more times, roll dough into 8-12 balls, put them on a baking sheet, cover them, and let them rise another 30-45 minutes, until doubled (or close to it).

3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Bake rolls in oven for 15-20 minutes, until just starting to turn golden brown.  Make sure to eat at least one while they're still hot (they're amazingly good hot with butter melting on them).  Serve with butter.