Those of you in the U.S. are well into your Memorial Day preparations, but if you’re still stumped, well, you’ve got a problem there, haven’t you? I’m still away from home, but I’m going to celebrate Memorial Day vicariously through you, so get moving! I’ve dug into the archives to bring you a few ideas to give you a bit of a kick start, and I’m going to go in order of what you need to do early, as opposed to the actual meal plan. Ready? Set? Go!

You need some burger buns and maybe some hot dog rolls. This one comes from one of my previous posts on the Healthy Bread in 5 Minutes a Day baking book by Dr. Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe François, posted here. For the first time, I’m going to give you my adaptation (changes noted in red) of the the Soft Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread recipe that I used to make these burger buns a little lighter and healthier. But you have to start right now!

Soft Whole Wheat Sandwich Loaf (and Burger Buns)
(liberally adapted from Healthy Bread in 5 Minutes a Day)

Ingredients:

5 cups whole wheat flour (I substituted half of this with white whole wheat flour)
2-1/2 cups unbleached AP flour
1-1/2 Tbs yeast
1/4 cup vital wheat gluten
(1/4 cup flax seed meal)
1 Tbs. salt
2-1/2 cups lukewarm water (120ºF)
1/2 cup honey (I used agave nectar)
5 large eggs (I used an 8 oz carton of Egg Beaters, which approximates 4 eggs)
2/3 cup melted butter (I substituted canola oil or melted Smart Balance Light Spread)

Mix the dry ingredients together first, then add the liquid ingredients, using the paddle attachment of your mixer, or by hand, and allow to rise for 4 hours on countertop, loosely covered in a very large bowl or container, then refrigerate for several hours before using. (Overnight is best, but you don’t have time for that!) You’re not kneading this dough, so be prepared for it to be very soft and loose – more like a muffin batter than a bread dough.

Preheat the oven to 350ºF.

Sprinkle flour over the top of the chilled dough, and start pulling out roll-sized pieces (you may need or want the assistance of kitchen shears – I also suggest wearing latex or nitrile gloves, as this is going to be sticky!). I like to weigh mine out to about 4 oz. per roll, but you can make them smaller, if you’d like. Form the dough balls into rolls by stretching the edges out and tucking them under, until you get a nice, smooth ball. If you’re making hot dog rolls, give ‘em a bit of a stretch at this point, until they resemble fat logs. Place on a baking pan lined with parchment paper or silicone baking liner, cover loosely with plastic wrap, and allow to rest for about an hour.

Brush the tops of the rolls with water and sprinkle on sesame seeds, if desired. Bake for about 20 mins. or till golden brown.

Let’s move on to dessert. And when I say dessert, I can only mean one thing: Cheesecake! I’ve made several versions of cheesecake for this blog, and there’s something here for everyone – even if you or your guests are watching their weight for health reasons:

Here’s my classic Guilt-Free Cheesecake

For ease of serving, nothing beats Mini Coffee Chocolate Chip Cheesecakes or Mini Nutella Cheesecakes, which I adapted from Abby Dodge’s Desserts 4 Today.

For the grill, try this Coffee & Chipotle Crusted London Broil – you can adapt it to brisket or steaks, too!

For a refreshing side dish, you might like this Endive, Avocado, Tarragon & Grapefruit Salad recipe that I just picked up at CulinAire Cooking School in Washington, DC, while I attended the Eat Write Retreat conference.

I’m even reprising some of a Memorial Day post I wrote back in 2009. It’s every bit as appropriate today:

Popularly, we’ve all come to think of Memorial Day as the beginning of Summer – when you can bring out your white shoes and sundresses. And there’s nothing wrong with any of that. But I ask you, while you’re standing over your barbecue or puttering in your garden, to Stop. For just a moment. Look around you. Take in the day and your surroundings. Inhale deeply. And Remember.

Remember the men and women in uniform – both military and those we now refer to as “first responders” – who gave their lives in defense of our freedoms. Whatever we feel about war, these brave souls responded to their country’s call and made the ultimate sacrifice in our names. But for them, many of us would not have gardens to putter in or barbecues to stand over, or the food to put on those picnic tables. But for them, some of us wouldn’t even be here today, including me.

We are free and we are safe. Remember. And say Thank You. Even if it’s just a moment to yourself.

Have a beautiful, safe, and delicious day!

We’ve been big pizza-eaters around here, lately, so the timing for this assignment couldn’t have been better!

To review, Michelle over at Big Black Dog, organized a group to bake from the book by Dr. Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe François, Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day.

Our assignment was to make a batch of the Whole Wheat Olive Oil Bread and make several things, including pizza!

This one’s oven-baked, as we don’t have an outdoor gas grill, just at the moment. Actually, it’s been a couple of years since we’ve had one. Sucks. I’ve always wanted to try grilling pizza, and it will happen, someday. But I digress.

This dough was pretty easy to work with, although I’m now in the habit of wearing disposable gloves when I do so. The instructions say to roll it out using flour to keep it from sticking, but I prefer good old corn meal for that purpose. Corn meal doesn’t get absorbed by the dough, therefore making it easier to move the dough disk around, and gives a nice, crispy bottom crust – a texture I’m fond of.

I baked this directly on the stone, loading it up with mozzarella cheese, raw spinach, and sliced tomatoes. I sprinkled some salt, pepper and garlic powder over the spinach leaves before placing the tomatoes, thereby getting both the spinach and tomatoes seasoned, without burning. The spinach cooks nicely, picking up moisture from both the cheese beneath it, and the tomatoes above it. Lastly, I sprinkled a little extra virgin olive oil on the top.

I’ll definitely make this again, trying to get the crust a bit thinner. If you’re not used to whole wheat pizza crust, the taste will kind of throw you off, initially. But after the first couple of bites – especially with delicious toppings – your palate will become accustomed pretty quickly.

I’ve been a slug with my challenges, lately, but I’m going to try to pick it up and not fall too far behind. To review, Michelle over at Big Black Dog, organized a group to bake from the book by Dr. Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe François, Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day.

I’m late with this one, but I couldn’t resist this last assignment: Making a full batch of the Master Whole Wheat Bread, and making a Moon & Stars loaf and Cinnamon Raisin Bagels!

That’s my Moon & Stars Bread up top, there. Yes, I know. It looks pregnant. I have no idea why. It shaped up very pretty and smooth, but when it rose during the resting period and then again in the oven, it developed that peculiar notch-looking indentation near the top and then kind of bulged out a “tummy.” Oh, well. It tasted really good – MJ rated it “two thumbs up”!

Then I moved on to the bagels. While I haven’t been actively participating in the group over the last couple of months, I have been monitoring the conversations. I have to admit to being a little fearful when approaching the boiling stage. Would they fall apart? Would they become terribly misshapen?

Taking no chances, I boiled the bagels in a large stockpot, two at a time. I sprinkled whole wheat flour on the greased baking sheet. In the future, I think I’ll try the traditional corn meal, instead.

Not bad for a first effort. They taste very good, but were still a tad on the dense side.

Oh, and a side-note: Don’t try to recycle the boiling water by cooking pasta in it. Not pretty.

To review, Michelle over at Big Black Dog, organized a group to bake from the book by Dr. Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe François, Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day.

I’m a day late and quite probably more than a dollar short, to get this post up with our assigned Red Beet Buns in honor of Valentine’s Day. And yes, I skipped the Chocolate Espresso Bread – I just couldn’t do another sweet after MJ said to me: “You’ve been baking sweets since November!” Not exactly part of our healthy diet plan.

And even though I hate beets, when presented with a couple of free ones from my friend’s CSA box, it was obvious that the fates conspired to force me to make the assigned Red Beet Buns. So I made a quarter recipe and decided to at least get a little creative with the shaping, in line with the theme. So I pulled out my hearts and roses mini-bundt pans and squooshed the dough into each of the little compartments.

Although the dough rose quite nicely in the container after mixing, I was a bit disappointed in the lack of rise in the finished, baked product.

Probably had something to do with all the squooshing I did to ensure that that the baked “buns” would acquire the detail from the forms. Although smaller than I’d hoped for, they did bake through properly.

I sliced the roses and left the hearts whole and toasted them for Valentine’s Day breakfast, which (to me) improved the flavor, and filled them with vegetable cream cheese. The indentations in the heart-shaped ones lent themselves particularly well for filling!

Okay, they didn’t taste beet-y, and although they were a hit with MJ, I probably won’t be making these again because, well, because, you know, beets.

Please visit our current Bread Braid and see what others have been doing with our latest assignment!

I came home late from work the other night, and even though the temptation was great to order in pizza or take out Chinese, I resisted. I had just baked these light and fluffy burger rolls with the Soft Whole Wheat Bread dough recipe from Healthy Bread in 5 Minutes a Day, and was really eager to try them. So, in the interest of time – I was so hungry I could have chewed the arm off the couch – I grabbed some ground beef and some of my favorite cheats, and had supper on the table in literally, fifteen minutes! That’s less time than you can get a pizza – or even decide on your toppings!

This quickie meal blends the gentle heat of a favorite chili, the fun of a Sloppy Joe, and the goodness of whole wheat. By the way, this would make a great addition to your Super Bowl menu, too! Ready? Start your stopwatches:

Black Bean Chili Sloppy Joes

Ingredients:

2 Tbs corn oil
1 lb lean ground beef
1 16 oz jar Oxford Falls® Fried Green Tomato Salsa (or any tomatillo-based salsa)
1 15.5 oz can black beans (drained and rinsed)
1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes
8 whole wheat or whole grain hamburger buns (toasted, if you like)

Preparation:

Heat the oil in a large frying pan over medium-high heat. Brown the ground beef. Add the jar of tomatillo salsa, stir, bring up to a simmer. Add the black beans and the diced tomatoes, including its liquid. Allow to simmer until most of the liquid has cooked off, about 5 minutes.

Serve over sliced burger buns. Serves 8.

Told you it was a cheat. A tasty, even pretty healthy cheat, at that. Want to make it even healthier? Change out the ground beef for ground turkey, or even ground chicken.

And those burger buns? They sprang from this edition of the HBin5 Challenge:

To review, Michelle over at Big Black Dog, organized a group to bake from the book by Dr. Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe François, Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day.

The current challenge is to bake 3 different things using the Soft Whole Wheat Bread Recipe: a loaf of bread, hamburger or hotdog rolls, and Apple Strudel Bread.

First, the straight-up sandwich loaf:

This is actually the second loaf I made. The first one was made with the original recipe from HBin5, and was a great hit. So much so, that the loaf was eaten before I could photograph it! This is an excellent sandwich loaf – soft, tight texture, and holds together, even sliced very thin. But I couldn’t help but wonder if I couldn’t make it even healthier for my borderline-diabetic husband.

In this version, I substituted light agave nectar for the honey as the sweetener, and substituted an 8 ounce carton of Egg Beaters (roughly the equivalent of 4 eggs) for the 5 eggs called for in the recipe. I also added 1/4 cup of flax seed meal, and to lighten it up a bit more, substituted white whole wheat flour for half of the whole wheat flour. While MJ detected only the slightest difference in taste from the original, it wasn’t anything pronounced, and I was instructed, “Don’t lose this recipe!” The highest praise.

Next up, were the burger buns you met at the top of this post. I used my kitchen scale to make these buns all the same size. They baked up soft, beautifully textured, yet sturdy. Delicious!

Last, but not least, is the Apple Strudel Bread. The same whole wheat bread dough is rolled out and rolled up with chopped apple, walnut, and (in mine) dried blueberries instead of raisins, all mixed with raw sugar and cinnamon. Yum.

This was perfect for the Jewish holiday, Tu B’Shevat, essentially our Arbor Day. As the 3 of you regular readers should know by now, a Jewish holiday doesn’t exist that doesn’t have certain food traditions attached to it and this is no exception. Traditionally, foods that contain tree fruit and nuts are served on Tu B’Shevat, and the apples and walnuts in this, definitely qualify.

Check out the other participants in the HBin5 Bread Braid to see what everyone else came up with!

Come back Tuesday for my first sponsored giveaway! Here’s your hint: Whether you’re a man or a woman, gourmet cook or home cook, you need this, and I’m betting most of you don’t have one!

Here it is, Recipe Monday, and timing being what it is, it’s also reveal day for the December HBin5 recipe.

To review, Michelle over at Big Black Dog, organized a new bread baking group, baking from the new book by Dr. Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe François, Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day. We’ll be starting to bake from the book officially next month, but till then, Dr. Jeff provided us with a special recipe to play with in December.

This month’s recipe is Whole Grain Challah with Cranberries and Orange Zest, and it ain’t your mama’s challah. Or mine, for that matter. For starters, the flour used is primarily whole wheat, and there’s much less egg. Honey is used as the sweetener and there’s dried fruit and orange zest. Very festive!

Being out of regular whole wheat flour, I used white whole wheat, and my fat of choice was canola oil (which is what I use in my regular challahs). Instead of Craisins, I used a mixture of dried fruit packaged as “Antioxidant Fruit Blend”, containing dried cherries, cranberries, plums, and raisins. I also used flax seed meal instead of the wheat germ, and used demerara sugar as my topping. Otherwise, I made the dough exactly as in the recipe.

Conclusion? Well, frankly, I think I need to make this again to be sure.

In all honesty, I think my dough “aged-out.” That is, the recipe says that it should be baked within 5 days, or you should freeze it. I had good intentions, really I did. It was the cookies! I blame the cookies!

I didn’t freeze the dough, and I didn’t bake it until 8 days later. I didn’t get the rise I was looking for, except in those little ones I made in my mini-bundt pan, just for fun. And the flavor is pretty strong. MJ said it tastes almost rye-like, and I agree.

On the other hand, this dough was a pleasure to work with, and although a bit softer and stickier than “normal” bread dough, it was much easier to shape than last month’s Pumpkin Brioche. As I said, I will make this again and bake it within the proper amount of time, to see if I get a better rise and milder flavor. I want it at its best.

Want the recipe? Click here to get all the instructions and try it yourself!

If you’d like to join in and try baking healthy breads in a whole new way, click here to visit Big Black Dog and learn about our monthly “Bread Braid”.

One of my Twitter buddies, Michelle over at Big Black Dog, has been waxing poetic about the new book by Dr. Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe François, Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day. Their previous book, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, introduced a different way to bake bread that, in the long run, saves a lot of the time and effort in the process of baking bread at home. AB in 5 (for short) became a sensation and still enjoys enormous popularity. Heck, I bought a copy of it, myself.

HB in 5 (see how I picked up the lingo?) is dedicated to making healthier breads, using multigrains, fruits, and even vegetables, and using the same methods and principles that made the first book such a phenomenon.

So when Michelle put out the word that she was putting together an internet group with the idea of baking its way through Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day, I was intrigued and decided to join in.

Although we won’t officially begin our “Bread Braid” until January, we’ve been assigned a bread that’s perfect for autumn to get started, a Pumpkin Pie Brioche. If you don’t already own HB in 5, click here to get the recipe, and join in!

This is my first experience with this type of bread baking, i.e., mixing a wet dough that is never kneaded, is stored in the fridge, and that you basically just scoop out, let rest, and bake. And even though the dough is supposed to be “wet”, I think this particular recipe was even wetter because of the addition of the pumpkin.

I was really unprepared for just how wet and sticky it really was. So the first loaf I made was pretty fugly. Actually, the second loaf was only a little better. I also decided to break in the little mini-brioche molds I bought about 5 years ago, but never had the guts to use. If you decide to make this, keep the bench flour close and keep your hands well-floured at all times.

Without further ado, I bring you my lumpy Pumpkin Pie Brioche and mini-brioches! Looks are deceiving, though. It tastes delicious!

If you’d like to join in and try baking healthy breads in a whole new way, click here to visit Big Black Dog and learn about our monthly “Bread Braid”.