BREAD!!!

I love making bread. I haven't made some in a long time. I think since my 5 grain bread that ended up becoming freezer burnt because I ate it too infrequently. I use to make bread every like two weeks at one point in my life because I ate it just about every day. Then something changed, which is a point I will get to later on in this post.

I was craving a pb and j sang last week but found my freezer burnt bread and couldn't eat it until I made a new loaf of bread. I normally enjoy a pb and j on caraway rye bread, but I am out of rye flour. Me being the improviser that I am decided to use oats instead of rye. I use to make this particular recipe all the time but would add raisins, cinnamon, and a 10 grain cereal to the recipe. I miss that bread (note to self and you all that version shall be made sometime in the near future). I didn't want to make this a crazy version so I could have my sang and others on it in the future. I did add onion powder and caraway seeds to the recipe to make it more like a rye bread and because I really love caraway seeds and would add them to every bread I make if I could (well maybe not in my tomato herb bread that could taste weird).

Whole Wheat Oat Bread

1 1/2 cups plus 2 tablespoons simmering water
1 1/2 cups oats
1/4 cup molasses
1 1/2 cups bread flour
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 envelope active dry yeast
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon oil

Pour the hot water over 1 cup of the oats, add in the molasses and let it stand for 10 minutes.

Coarsely grind the 1/2 cup of oats in a food processor.

Measure out the bread and whole wheat flours and mix together.

Add the yeast to the oat/molasses mixture, stir and allow to stand for 5 minutes,

until the yeast starts to activate and bubble.

Add the oat flour, salt, and 1/2 cup of the wheat and bread flour. Mix that in,

and then add in a 1/2 cup more of the wheat and bread flour until a stiff dough starts to form.

Transfer to a floured board and

start to knead in the rest of the flour.

Shape into a ball, place the oil in a bowl and coat the dough ball with it.

Cover with plastic wrap and

allow to rise for 1 1/2 hours or until doubled in size.

Punch down the dough,

shape into a loaf or reshape the ball and place in a greased bread pan or on parchment paper with a dusting of cornmeal, and cut across the top of the loaf or an x if a ball.

Allow to rise another 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Bake for 15 minutes at 400 degrees, then lower the oven temperature to 350 degrees and bake for another 45 minutes or until the bottom of the loaf sounds hallow when tapped.

Take it out of the pan and place on a wire rack and let it cool.

Eat!! I would have taken a picture of the pb and j sang I made but I devoured it as soon as it was made. I used grape jelly and it was yum. Also, I just wanted to share, I bought a new tea at the end of the holiday season by celestial seasonings that is out of this world called Nutcracker Sweet. It reminds me of dunk a roo cookies. I am in love with this tea. And it paired well with the pb and j sang.

So I am not 100% sure I want to share this with everyone but it is something I have been needing to get off my mind for awhile. If you do not want to know me more you can feel free to stop reading now because my usual funny (or trying to be funny) self is going to end and my personal life is about to meet my blog, and hey how many people actually read my blog anyway so why not get a little deeper for once.

I have been wanting to make a sort of declaration about something for a while. Weight, body image issues, and eating disorders, mine in particular. I had decided when I started my blog to keep this sort of stuff out of it but in recent time I have come to a pretty enlightening realization that I want to share. I enjoy reading other blogs out there that focus on their recovery from eating disorders and wanted to leave it to them to "flood" the web with their personal stuff because once you put it out there you cannot take it back. I am ready to do just that.

Some of you may know I had an eating disorder. I am in the process of recovery. I have also come a very long way. Just recently I have come to terms with my body on a good level. I like it. Just the way it is. Six pack or no six pack (I'm at the no stage right now) but hey I am ok with that. I weighed myself the other day dreading what the scale was going to tell me. I was not liking how much weight I have put on. I kept injuring myself, preventing me from fully working out (something that I enjoy greatly and hated not being able to do fully) so I put on more weight a little too quickly that I just was hating. I now feel like that was Gods work saying hey you need to do this because it is the only way you will advance. Advance in both health issues and mentally. Back to the scale, I thought I had put on more weight than I was wanting to admit because jeans not fitting the way I want them too was really getting to me, low and behold it was only 5 extra pounds. Bringing me to a very healthy weight for my height and age. Something I can live with and not hate myself for being. Do you want me to share it with you? How about I start by telling you the weight I had to work up from... scary to say but I was at one point 98 pounds.  I am tearing up just putting that down here. I am now a healthy 125 pounds. Why my eating disorder even started I can't really say, all I know is that I kept restricting things from my diet and taking away things I love (even vegan/vegetarian foods) like bread. It became very bad. My body stopped digesting food properly because I had restricted so many things. Then my eyes were opened and my journey to recovery began. I started to bake vegan cookies and desserts, something I had deprived myself of for a very long time. I love the changes I have made to my diet and life. I had lost myself to a time and now I am back! It feels great to just be me instead of a shell. I now want to help others that are going through this scary time. Hence my returning to school to do this. I guess I needed to have all of this happen to me because God has a plan for my life and I needed time to understand that. Don't get me wrong I still have a way to go, in everything, but don't you see I am now on the right path, his path, the only path I wish to be on.

Thank you, Lord for making me just the way I am, for giving me wonderful people in my life who care for me and help me each and everyday, and for sticking with me. "During your times of trial and suffering, when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you." And Thank you family and friends. I love each and every one of you.