Bread Success!!! Finally! And Recpie to share.

I finally found a bread machine recipe that WORKED. I am way excited, (if you had not caught on yet), this is my, ok I won't even try to count how many, attempts at making bread.


I guess I should start from the beginning. I once feel in love with a bread machine, that in the end I never used, and it finally founds it way to a garage sell. Well the tide turned and I found my way back to baking but decided I could do it myself, like by hand. Let's just say that I never quite got the hang of that. In fact to put it like my hubby did, The bread was only good in case a robber came into the home and we needed to defend ourselves. The poor robber might have ended up with a concussions.... now with that in mind I lost faith in my bread making skills.. for a VERY short period of time. One thing I can say about myself is that I am tenacious and when I have my mind set to make a change said change will be made. Bread not being purchased at the store any longer was my mission. Much to my families dislike there were many days there was NO bread in the house because I could not make it myself. Every now and again I would find bread that did not contain ingredients I could not pronounce and I would purchase them much to their pleasure but not often.


Then it happened I was "thrifting" which is my term for shopping at thrift stores, Goodwill's, and stores along those lines, when I found "it"! I bread machines!! Yeah baby! It was cheap and in working order and my quest to bake bread was renewed.


The issue from there was to find a whole wheat bread that the family would eat, that did not look to healthy and did not taste awful. Let's just say I failed a few times... Ok more than a few but I kept on going.

My first deal was finding flour that I felt was worth eating and after much searching I found my gold mine.


King Arthur Flour Company- 100% White Whole Wheat Flour

(I'll write about the flour in another post)

100% Whole Wheat Bread

The following recipe is one we worked out for the Zojirushi. It makes a firm, sweet loaf of golden bread. It shouldn't be hard adapting it to your own machine; all you need to know is what proportion of flour/liquid/yeast your machine functions best with. Take a look at the dough after it's kneaded for about 10 to 12 minutes or so; it should be smooth, not sticky (too little flour) or lumpy (too little liquid), forming a nice ball. If the dough looks good at this point, you're probably all set.

For 1 1/2 lb. bread machine



1 1/4 cups water (I used all Milk)



2 tablespoons olive or vegetable oil (I used Olive oil)



1/4 cup honey or maple syrup ( I used Agave Nectar)



3 to 3 1/2 cups King Arthur 100% White Whole Wheat or Traditional Whole Wheat Flour (I used 3 1/2 cups White whole wheat flour)



1/4 cup sunflower, sesame or flax seeds, or a combination (optional) ( I used 2 tab flax seed meal)



1 tablespoon vital wheat gluten (omitted as I did not have any on hand)



1 1/2 teaspoons salt



1 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast ( I used 2 tp)



Put all of the ingredients into the bread pan in the order listed. Program for basic white bread, and press Start.



I was beyond pleased to see this loaf in my bread machine. It is moist and soft, the texture is wonderful and all of my kids and hubby have eaten it and enjoyed. I feel great about feeding it to them and this will become our staple bread! Woooohoooo for not giving in! Success tastes so wonderful.

What's my plan?

I know that many people would like to know what is my plan of action. How do I plan to lose this weight, how much weight do I want to lose and HOW do I plan to do it?

Well to answer the first question I have have no time frame to lose the weight per say. I do know that an average of 1-2lbs a week is a good amount of weight to lose but I am not set on that number as I know it could less or more depending on my experiences.

I plan to start with my eating habits. My first goal is to eat foods as close to their natural state as possible. Whole foods, grains, fruits, meats, and vegetables.  Most importantly is that I understand that this is a PROCESS and JOURNEY. I know that I will fail, back track, and not do as well as I thought I would.

I will stun some folks with my food ideas but I am going to do what I think is best. I know for me my food journey has been a long one and I have experienced many food fads but at this point I am taking many different approaches and combining them as I see fit.

Exercise is the other key. With my busy schedule I am working on consistency. I would like to work at Monday-Friday every day for at least 30-45 minutes. I plan on doing that with my new Wii Fit Plus, Walk Away the Pounds and Yoga for right now. I am currently contemplating "The Biggest Loser" for the Wii or the EA Sports.  Both have received excellent reviews. I know that I need variety to keep myself motivated and engaged. In addition to variety I need something to do when there are extreme weather issues. Such as raining or 115 degrees.

Finally the total about of weight I would like to lose.. Well I would be happy at round about 140 lbs again. At this point that means I would need to lose about 73 lbs but because that amount looks HUGE I am working on losing enough weight to take me in to the next weight bracket. In this case that is to be single digits in the 200's so 209 lbs and under,  or 10lbs.