Whole Wheat Bread

Last week I received a request. The person who wrote to me told me that she had had a bread machine on her counter for years but never used it. She had tried the mixes in the past but it just didn’t do anything for her. 

True confession time – I had never used anything but bread machine mixes in the past also. I have a friend who does not have a lot of confidence in her cooking/baking. I told her that I was thinking of using my bread machine but didn’t know if they still sold the mixes.  She told me that she had never used a mix but had used the recipes in the instruction book.  HUH???? There were recipes in the instruction book? Amazingly, my husband still had the instruction book filed with other appliance instruction books and I looked at it. Those have been the recipes I have been making along with some recipes from Pinterest.

The reader who wrote to me asked for high fiber/low sugar recipes. Today, I am going to share a whole wheat bread recipe that I made on Sunday. I really liked it and while I am sure it could be higher in fiber it is a good starting point. 

BEFORE YOU START – MAKE SURE YOU CAN MAKE A 1 LB. LOAF OF BREAD IN YOUR BREAD MAKER. The bread machine that I have can make a 1 lb. or a 1 1/2 lb. loaf.  I make the smaller loaf all the time because there are only two of us and the bread does not have any preservatives. (It gets stale fast. )

Whole Wheat Bread  (small loaf – 1 pound)

1 cup of water

1 tablespoon margarine or butter, softened

2 1/3 cup whole wheat flour

2 tbs brown sugar

1 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp of regular dry yeast          OR        1 1/4 tsp of bread machine or quick acting yeast

Place the ingredients in the machine bread pan IN THE ORDER LISTED.

Now, the next part depends on your bread maker. You need to look and see which is the correct setting for whole wheat bread. By the way, if you have lost the instruction book for your bread maker, you can look on line and probably download it. While Silent Sam found the book before our move, it has not been found in our new house. I downloaded the book from the manufacturer’s web site. 



I have to tell you what happened when I made this recipe. I had not made a whole wheat recipe before. I put the ingredients in the machine, plugged it in and made my selection for type of bread and hit start. NOTHING HAPPENED. I could see that the time for baking showed on the screen but nothing else.  I was upset and thought that my bread machine was not working.  Then I noticed that the time seemed to be going down but there wasn’t any noise from the machine.  I don’t know why (maybe laziness) I decided to just let it go and see what happened. I walked away.  Every once in a while, I would hear something from the machine.  I then checked it after an hour or so.  The machine was cold and but the  dough  had risen. I then had the brilliant idea to check and see what the timing description for the whole wheat cycle looked like. OH! It seems that whole wheat recipes start with a 1/2 hour rest cycle. There is another 1/2 hour rest cycle during the process. Well, isn’t that special.  You might want to check before you think your machine has broken. (I was so upset – I had just started using it and then it broke?  NO!!!) 

Despite the glitches in the prep, the loaf was very good. I would also say that I think that it lasted better than other loaves we have made. I made it Sunday evening and we had it with dinner on Monday and Tuesday and it was fine. 

I went to Calorie Count to get the nutrition facts.  This is based on the loaf having 6 servings.

Nutrition Facts

Serving Size 95 g

Amount Per Serving

Calories 208

Calories from Fat 22

% Daily Value^*

Total Fat 2.4g  4%

Cholesterol 0mg  0%

Sodium 413mg     17%

Potassium 77mg  2%

Total Carbohydrates 40.4g    13%

Dietary Fiber  1.5g      6%

Sugars    3.0g

Protein  5.4g

Vitamin A 2%                    •   Vitamin C 0%

Calcium 1%                        •      Iron 14%

Nutrition Grade A-

* Based on a 2000 calorie diet

Good points

• Low in saturated fat
• No cholesterol
• High in selenium
• High in thiamin

I hope this recipe inspires you to use your bread machine.  It is so easy and the bread is so tasty.  The best part for us is that I make a small quantity that has a short shelf life.

Thanks for reading.

I’m Baaack!

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Okay, thank you for still reading this after I have been gone for so long.  Wow!  What  a time we have had. 

I’m sorry that it seemed like I abandoned this spot.  I haven’t; it is just sometimes life becomes complicated.  So, what has been happening?  Well,  Silent Sam worked for a company for 35 years and that suddenly closed one night.  Yep, we found out at 2 a.m. that he was out of a job.  As you can imagine, this was not good news and it led to a lot of transitions. His new full time job was looking for a job.  After eight months, he found a position in a different city.  We decided that we would take it slow.  He got an apartment by his new office and  came home on weekends.  I stayed in our home and started cleaning up and cleaning out.  We had been in the house for 31 years and there was a lot to clear out. 

(Which is a great thing to do, by the way.  I am a huge fan of cleaning out.  It is freeing.  The worst part is that you have to find somewhere to get rid of everything.. Anyway, we conquered that and got rid of lots of stuff.)

After six months, Silent Sam loved his new job and we put the house up for sale.  It sold right away and there we were without a new house.  So we put everything into storage and lived for a month or so in Silent Sam’s apartment.  We did finally find a new house and then moved (again!) to our new home.  Two weeks later, I went back to our previous town and had my knee replaced.  Between the hospital and rehab, I was gone about 3 weeks. 

And if that sounds like we had a lot going on, there was one other INCREDIBLE  thing that happened.  The day before my knee surgery, our daughter gave birth to our first grandchild.  Yes, our perfect grandson was born.  He is a day older than my knee. 



So many highs and lows in a small of time! 

So, recovery has been going well and I am working to get back to you.  I have started cooking again so I hope to be sharing new recipes with you soon.  I know I have talked about this before but I am back using my bread machine.  Be honest, how many of you just thought, “I have one of those somewhere.” Yes, I think there was a time when everyone had to have a bread machine.  When I was cleaning out, I found mine.  Actually, had you asked me, I would have said that I got rid of it years ago.  Wrong again!  There it was and I started using it.  The machine that I have makes a small loaf that is great for the two of us.  (Which is a good thing because if you have ever made bread this way, you know that it doesn’t last long.) 

It feels great to be back!  Thanks for your support!


I also thought that this new start should have a new look.  What do you think?

Cookbook Special

I know, I haven't been here for a long time.  Life has been full of changes and that has influenced my blogging.

I will be back soon.

BUT -

I received notice of a cookbook special today and I wanted to share it with you.

This cookbook is available today through Amazon in the ebook (Kindle) format for $0.99.  Yes, you read that right, 99 cents. (a hard copy is $17.09)   

If you are interested, here is a link to the book.   

If you don't have an e Reader, you can download a Kindle app and put it on your computer.  The app is free and you can then have the cookbook on your computer to look up recipes.  

Have a great day!

Life Changes

Our house is up for sale.  We have been in our house for 31 years and now we are moving to a new city and will have to re-establish our lives.

It is exciting and daunting.

Right now I feel like I am living in a museum.  Some of the furniture has been removed and other pieces re-arranged to make the house look as large as possible.  My comfortable chair is not where it has been so I cannot sit in it and watch the television.  I find myself just getting into bed earlier than usual and watching television or reading just so I have a comfortable place to be.


Nothing feels quite right and it is stressful.  Trying to clean out all those years of stuff and thinking of moving what is left to a new place is, at times, overwhelming.  We have more stuff to throw away than will fit in our garbage cans every week.  Amvets has started stopping every Monday whether we call them or not.  Our first showing was last night and the dog threw up 10 minutes before the people came to the house.

All of this reminds me of when we first started our journey with diabetes.  That first diagnosis throws your world off kilter.  You wonder if life will ever be the same and you worry that it will be worse than before and much more difficult.

Well, it will be more difficult but it will be the same or sometimes better.  I think we forget that often times big change brings some wonderful new things into our lives.  There is no doubt that the disease is hard to deal with but maybe you will find new things in changing your lifestyle that make it better than before.  You may find that by going for that walk that you dread as exercise actually becomes a beautiful daily walk that clears your head and gives you a nodding acquaintance with some new people.

I find that instead of thinking of what I am losing, I need to concentrate the wonder of all the changes and the great things the future will bring. That is what needs to happen with diabetes too.  While you may feel that you are losing, you need to concentrate on all the wonderful things that life brings.

Thanks for reading!

Diabetes and Frostbite

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The look on the face of the man above is about how I feel during the winter. I am not a fan of being cold (or for that matter hot) and I think of winter as kind of thing one just lives through.

While I was doing some research the other day, I was reading about frostbite. Frostbite is one of those things that they talk about on the news when it is so bitterly cold.

Did you know that people with diabetes are more susceptible to frostbite? The article I was reading did not go into specifics as to why this would be true but I imagine it is because of reduced feeling in the feet of some people with diabetes. Also, people with peripheral neuropathy would have decreased circulation which would also cause the hands and feet to have a harder time warding off frostbite.

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What can you do to avoid frostbite? The easy answer is to stay inside when it is bitterly cold. But that doesn't work for most people. You need to limit your time outside and dress in layers. Areas of the body most susceptible to frostbite are the hands, fingers, feet, toes, ears, and your nose. Make sure that you cover those areas when you are outside in the bitter cold. Keep them protected from the elements. Make sure that your clothing is not restrictive - as in not so tight that it obstructs blood flow. (If you are diabetic you should not be wearing tight shoes or socks at any time of the year.)

If you think you have frostbite, it is time to go see your doctor or the ER and have it checked. One of the important things is that if you have an area that you think might be frostbite make sure you don't thaw it and then re-freeze it. That is particularly bad. Also, if you think you have an area that has frostbite, warm that area slowly. You can soak it in warm water but not hot water.

Mostly, I hope you live somewhere that is not as awfully cold as it has been here. If you do live somewhere warm, how come I am not visiting you?

Thanks for reading!

Do You Have FONK?

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Do you have trouble being realistic in areas of your life? I do.

Take my emails. I always seem to have emails that I have not opened but I am sure I will. The subject line has led me to believe that there is something interesting there. For example, I have kept an unopened email for the last three days that has a subject line of something like “100 things to do this winter”. I almost opened it and then thought about whether or not I needed 100 things to do this winter. After all, I am in the middle of cleaning out our house and getting ready to move. Do I have time for 100 things to do? I can name 100 things I need to do within the walls of my house.

So, why did it take me three days to delete that email?

Have you heard about FOMO – the Fear Of Missing Out? That is when you have a terrible time deciding what to do because there are options and you are worried that by choosing one thing that you will miss out on another. A quick Google search of “FOMO” brings up over a million entries in 0.37 seconds. Yea, it is a thing.

I think my problem is not as much FOMO as FONK. Yes, that’s right, I suffer from FONK. (This is completely different from funk. Which I don’t’ have – at least not right now.) What is FONK? The Fear Of Not Knowing. I don’t worry about choosing between things. I just like to know about things. I like to know what the new movies are about but I never go to the movies. I like to know about the activities around town but I generally don’t participate. I just like knowing what is going on. Because of this, I keep magazines and emails when I shouldn’t. 

 So which do you think is worse FOMO or FONK? Even though I asked the question, I don’t know if one is worse than the other. Being human, I think that FOMO must be worse than FONK because I don’t have it.

I think that having FONK has led to clutter whether it is in my email box or in my home. Several years ago, I started using an app called “unroll.me” The purpose of this app is to help clean out your email inbox. You decide if you want to see an email in your inbox, if you want it “rolled up” (put into a once a day email) or if you want to unsubscribe to that email sender. I have gotten more ruthless over time but I still get some emails that I should hit the unsubscribe button. I look at my daily rollup and think that I should unsubscribe from most of those emails. While I can easily do it, I still haven’t.
 

I also go through spurts of feeling that I should be reading certain magazines. And then they sit and I never read them. Since we are moving, I have been letting my magazine subscriptions lapse but why did I wait? 

Wondering how this applies to diabetes? Well, they say that reducing clutter will help you lose weight. Reducing my FONK tendencies might help me with my perpetual goal of weight loss.

 I think it is time to let go of some of my FONK tendencies. Are you afflicted with either FOMO or FONK?

Thanks for reading!

Happy New Year!

Let me be the millionth person to wish you a Happy New Year! I wish you a year filled with wonderful surprises and lots of wish fulfillment.

Did you make resolutions for this new year? Have you started them yet? Have you broken them yet? I have so many things that I would like to change! It would take a notebook to keep track of them. Do you find it easy to make a list of changes you would like to implement?

While I am by no means an expert on making personal changes, I have read widely on the subject. As a result, I have some suggestions.

1.  Start with one change. Do not try and change more than one behaviors at a time.That is a recipe for disappointment. If you have a list of things that you want to change, make the list but plan to start each one a month apart. So, let's say you want to start going to the gym and you want to lose weight. So maybe you start going to the gym in January and plan to start changing your eating habits in February.Don't try and be a juggler with your changes - those balls will fall down.

2.  Look at the changes and make them measurable  Don't just say, "I am going to start going to the gym".  Instead say, "I am going to the gym on Monday, Wednesday and Friday for 30 minutes." That way you know when and for how long it will take you to meet your desired change.

3.  Plan for problems  Maybe once a month you have to go to a meeting at the normal time you would go to the gym. Think about how you will adjust your schedule for occurrences that will crop up.Will you go at a different time of day or will you go on a different day? If you have a plan in mind for when you will have to adjust, it will help you when the time comes.

4.  Find a way to enjoy whatever you are going to do. If it is going to the gym, do something that will be more fun for you. Maybe you need a kickboxing class. Maybe running on the treadmill and listening to books on tape is better for you. Think about what you like and incorporate it into your whatever you decide that you have to change.

5.  If you have a big change that you want to make, break it down into pieces. Then you can see how to accomplish the change and see yourself moving toward the goal.

6.  Tell someone about your goal. Supposedly this will help you keep to it. I am not a fan of this. I think that I will stop whether or not I have told someone. You know if that would motivate you so if it would, tell someone. (or everyone)

Overall, just think of the little engine that could.  I think I can. I think I can.

Thanks for reading!