A MESSAGE FROM PEGGY
Glorious March! The first month of Spring. It’s been a hard winter across the country so I know you’re as excited as I am about warmer weather just around the corner.
We’ve been extra busy at To Your Health so far this year and timetables for a couple of new offerings, unfortunately, have had to be pushed back. We had hoped to offer sprouted quinoa and oats by March 1, but will have to postpone our offerings until mid–April. However, we have successfully sprouted both new products so as soon as we’ve gotten logistics and packaging completed, we’ll place them for sale on our web site. Thank you for your patience.
Maria Lamb has provided a great story about her speed skating races. Be sure to read about her continued Olympian adventures and successes. We’re also featuring a bakery in The Dalles, Oregon that has recently transitioned to offering all sprouted breads using To Your Health sprouted flours and have seen sales increase steadily.
I’ve included a French bread recipe I baked in my recent bread class. The recipe measurements are listed in grams and volume. Measuring ingredients by grams using a kitchen scale has made all the difference for me to be able to achieve beautiful yeasted breads on a consistent basis. Hope you’ll give it a try.
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Organic 2 Go
Headin’ West on Interstate 84 through Oregon along the Columbia River and feeling hungry take Exit 85 thru town to Court Street; turn right and pick up a loaf of organic sprouted TYH wheat bread or a yummy bar, muffin or cookie.
Organic 2 Go started using sprouted grain flour in November 2010, but with shipping cost plus an unknown market, didn’t go 100% sprouted until February 2011. The store ordered a pallet of multiple grains to grind fresh daily for their customer’s fresh bakery items or home use.
Organic 2 Go is a small store in The Dalles, OR committed to supplying their customers with local and sustainably grown fruits, vegetables, meats, dairy items and sprouted grains. Also baking and selling sprouted baked goods weekly at a Farmer's Market held in their local medical center and also at the Bistro located on a different campus. The Bistro featured a veggie sandwich on their sprouted bread at the last Farmer’s Market.
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I had a great time training and preparing for races with my teammates in Calgary, the skating and training all went really well leading up to races and I was so excited for the competition. I wish I could say that the races themselves were just as good as the training, but it didn’t quite turn out that way. On the first day of competition my 3000m started out well, but half way through the race I ran into some trouble with my pair and had to stop skating momentarily to let her cross over into the inner lane. Having to pause and coast part way through a race and then get back up to speed is a very difficult thing to do, and I was never able to get the time I lost back. While I felt it could have been a very good race, a tactical mistake cost me more time than I could make up, and as a result I did not qualify for the final (and my favorite) event, the 5000m. So, I tried to set it aside and put everything I had into the 1500m the next day, and I had a flat out terrible race. I won’t pretend that I wasn’t disappointed, frustrated and terribly upset. But as my coach wisely told me, I had done my best, and that was all anyone could ever do. Now, it was time to refocus and get ready for the Salt Lake City World Cup in 4 days.
So, I flew home, took a day off from skating, and tried to get myself motivated for the 5000m World Cup race at my home track. I decided I wanted only one thing, to finish, see the clock, and be happy with my race. As much as I desperately wanted to have a really good race, I was tired, sore, and just not really sure that I could do. I tried not to let myself think about how I felt, but to focus on what I needed to do to skate well. On the morning of the race, the gun went off and somehow everything just came together. The skating just flowed, the lap times were dead on, and somehow, my tired, exhausted body seemed to have found a reserve of energy I didn’t know it had. I tried not to let myself think what a good race I was having, but to stay completely focused on the race itself. I crossed the line, saw the clock, and broke into an ecstatic smile! 7:10.83, a 24 second season best time, almost a personal best, good for 8th place and by far my best race of the season! It was a truly wonderful comeback from the week before, I could not have asked for more.
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- ½ cup fresh snow pea pods, trimmed
- 8 slices TYH sprouted whole wheat bread
with oats
- 3 ounces soft goat cheese (chevre)
- ½ cup raw sunflower seeds
- ½ of a medium cucumber, peeled
and thinly sliced
- 1 medium tomato, thinly sliced
- 1 avocado mashed, lightly salt and
pepper to taste
In a saucepan cook the pea pods in lightly salted boiling water for 2 minutes. Drain; rinse with cold water. Drain again. Cut on angle for sandwich.
Place raw sunflower seeds on baking sheet drizzle with olive oil,place in 425 degree oven till roasted–about 5–8 minutes (watch closely they burn quickly). Spread one side of bread slice with goat cheese. The other side with mashed avocado.
Sprinkle the bread slices with the roasted sunflower seeds, gently pressing nuts into the cheese/avocado. Top with cucumber, tomato, and pea pods. Sprinkle lightly with salt. Top with remaining bread slices. Makes 4 servings. (Leave off the cheese for vegan)
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Simple Guide To Bake Your French Bread
Makes 2 pounds of dough. Great for baguettes. Recipe by Emily Buehler in folk school baking class. I measure by grams and make fabulous baguettes every time!
Poolish:
Sprouted Wheat Flour – 193g or 1 ¾ cups
Water – 193g + 6 tablespoons or 1 ¼ cups
Yeast – pinch or ¼ teaspoon
Dough:
Sprouted Wheat Flour – 387g or 2 ½ cups
Poolish – all
Water – 213g or 1 cup
Yeast – 3g or ¾ teaspoon
Salt – 12g or 2 teaspoons
- Mix poolish the night before (it rises for 12-14 hours in 70 degree room). Cover well with
plastic wrap.
- Mix dough (using glass, ceramic,
or stainless bowl) .
1. Weigh out water separately
2. Weigh flour, measure yeast and mix into flour
3. Add poolish and most of water; rest of water depends on dough stickiness. (lean toward sticky). Blend ingredients enough to get all of flour incorporated.
- Let dough sit for 30 minutes (this is called autoleasing). Cover dough with plastic wrap to prevent drying.
- Remove dough from bowl onto floured counter or kneading board. Pat down to pop bubbles. Sprinkle salt onto dough.
- Knead dough until strong but flexible (Windowpane test is a good indicator. See baking tips for this month). This will take 12–15 minutes by hand.
- Oil your cleaned bowl and place dough (turn to coat both sides) into it. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise until poofy (about 1 hour for 75 degree dough).
- (Optional step) Place dough on kneading board and punch down . Fold 4 times (don’t knead) and place back in bowl for 2nd rise (about 1–1 ½ hours).
- Preheat oven to 500 degrees. For best baking results let oven preheat for 1 hour, especially if you've placed a baking stone (pizza stone) in oven.
- (Optional step) Divide dough in half and pre-shape into baguettes. Cover and let them rest until relaxed (about 15–20 minutes).
- Shape dough (final tightening of dough into baguette shape).
- Place baguettes onto parchment lined baking sheet. Cover and rise somewhere warm until full of gas (about 45 mintues).
- Score (cut) the dough and steam it by wetting the surface (I use a spray bottle of water).
- Quickly put dough into oven and turn temperature to 460 degrees.
- Bake 20-25 minutes. DO NOT open oven door for first 15 minutes.
- At 20 minutes test for doneness by inserting a thermometer into center of bread. Should read 190 – 206 degrees.
- Remove bread from oven. Immediately transfer to a cooling rack and let cool before slicing.
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- Our Daily Meds by: Melody Peterson – How the Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves into Slick Marketing Machines and Hooked the Nation on Prescription Drugs – Need I say more? Informative and scary. A must read to be informed on the meds you may be taking or considering to treat a current illness or condition.
- Culture Making, Recovering Our Creative Calling by: Andy Crouch – My next book to read. Highly recommended by a good friend. Can’t wait to check it out.
- Why We Get Fat and What to Do About It by: Gary Taubes – This is Gary’s layman version of his prior book Good Calories, Bad Calories. A quick read and great information that bursts the mythical thermodynamics bubble theory of calories in/calories out where human bodies are concerned. I devoured this book in a Sunday afternoon.
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