busy eyes
dreaming in circles
achieve nothing.

OR

dreaming in circles,
my sleeping eyes
achieved nothing.

its vibrating leaves
renouncing winter’s breeze,
the evergreen shivers.

#HearthHill #winter #haiku

Mykl’s 110% Whole Graham Bread+

this (along with my cornbread and Ambiguous Biscuits) is the quick bread recipe I’ve returned to, over and over again, for 30 years. scratch cooking so easy, i can mix it even before the coffee brews.

ingredients:

• 2 cups - whole wheat flour
• 1/8-1/4 cup - wheat germ, wheat bran and/or oat bran (optional)
• 4 teaspoons - baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon - salt
• 1-2 eggs, beaten
• 1/4 cup - grapeseed/canola oil (or equivalent)
• 1/4-1/2 cup - honey and/or molasses (or equivalent sweetener)
• 1½ cups - milk

instructions:

• combine dry. combine wet. fold quickly together, just until flour is moistened.
• spray with cooking oil, or grease: your desired baking dish(es), muffin tin(s), cookie sheet(s), or griddle.
• bake in preheated oven at 400℉ for 25 minutes (approximately) — more or less, for a thicker or thin, bigger or smaller, bread.
• as with a cake, check for doneness by sticking a thick needle or a thin knife into the center; if that pulls out with batter clinging to it, put the bread back in the oven for a little longer.

endless variations:

i wrote down this recipe  when i was 18 years old, and haven’t made it the same way twice, ever since. i substitute and add ingredients all the time, depending on what’s in the cupboard and what’s in my head.

• ingredients make a difference. i use natural or organic ingredients whenever i can. using the locally grown stone ground wheat flour i sometimes find at Price’s Market transforms this into a gourmet wonder. buy local eggs, milk, honey or butter, whenever you can. you’ll taste the difference.
• substitute plain yogurt for some or all of the milk.
• substitute fruit juice for some or all of the milk. since most juice is sweet, reduce or eliminate the other sweetener.
• sprinkle a mixture of cinnamon and sugar on top, before baking.  
• put an icing on top, after baking and cooling. the texture of this bread is similar to cake, but without as much sugar. (young Nick, free to choose any sweet he wanted, asked for this as his birthday “cake”, for years.)
• mix chocolate chips into the batter. i use Ghirardelli’s 60% cacao bittersweet chips. (or take a good bittersweet or dark chocolate bar, and break it into chunks and chips with a heavy knife.)
• mix in chunks or slices of fruit. or nuts.
• cook like you would hotcakes, on a griddle or frying pan. if you grease the cook surface with butter, you won’t be tempted to slather on thrice as much at the breakfast table. try my Blackberry Chocolate Revelation. NOTE: hotcakes should be served and eaten fresh off the griddle! never keep hotcakes warm in the oven, until you have cooked enough for everyone to be served simultaneously; they go flabby. if you’ve all gotta be served at once, go to a diner! or see the next bullet point.
• if you need to cook a whole bunch of hotcakes at once, grease some cookie sheets, ladle the batter into pancake or cookie-sized portions thereon, and bake in the oven at 400℉ until cooked through. (this will only take several minutes, because they are so thin.) if you put the cookie sheets near the bottom of the oven, and/or preheat the cookie sheets, the hotcakes will brown on one side more like they do on a griddle.
• for dinner, try savory hotcakes. fold into the batter things you might put in an omelet, like grated cheese, diced tomatoes, peppers, onions.
• do it all! mixing a double batch (or more) is no more work than a single batch. so, have hotcakes for breakfast. store some batter in the frig, in an airtight container, to make more hotcakes for breakfast or dinner the next day. bake the remaining batter as bread and/or muffins (with whichever variations you like). i bake my bread in glass Pyrex-type dishes, because i can pop a lid on it (after it cools), and easily store it for a few days, or freeze some of it.
• if you bake the bread thinner (pour the batter in a bigger casserole dish, or split into multiple bread pans), later when you want a quick breakfast or snack, it will thaw and/or reheat more quickly.
• of course, you could just make the bread or muffins that this recipe originally called for! but feel free to experiment. if you discover a delicious variation, please share on my Facebook wall, or tweet me.

this is quick and easy cooking from scratch. go to it!

winter shuffles its boots on the mat, and day barely winks at the night.

sometimes i feel like a long cold winter is coming, and i haven’t cut enough wood for the fire.

drowning a cold is the best remedy i know of.

on the first day of noteworthy symptoms, i drink a gallon of water, avoid stress or exertion, then sleep as much as my body will permit. (if available, i also take 1000% the RDA of vitamin-C, preferably a natural supplement.)

on Friday morning, Thursday’s throat tiger was was little more than a pussy cat.

if i’m smart, i walk wide of stress and great exertion for a couple more days, and stay hydrated. (i also assume that i remain contagious.) but i’m feeling fine.

whereas, on those occasions that i ignore the early symptoms, i’m usually sick for days, and the illness often grows nastier.