100 Calorie Whole Wheat Sandwich Rolls

• 2c Warm Water
• 2T Yeast
• 2T Thrive Sugar (brown or white, or honey)
• 3c Thrive Whole Wheat Flour
• 2T Thrive Butter Powder
• 2t Thrive Salt
• 1T Thrive Whole Egg Powder + 1T Water (egg wash)

In a large bowl (or stand mixed fitted with a dough hook) combine water, yeast and sugar. Mix gently and allow to rest for 5 minutes or until the surface is bubbly. Add in the flour, butter powder and salt and mix to bring the dough together, then knead for 5 minutes. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place for 1 hour. Knead the dough for an additional 2 minutes, then separate into 16 equal pieces. Knead each piece slightly, roll into a smooth ball, then flatten gently into the shape of a hamburger bun. Place onto a greased cookie sheet and repeat, spacing the rolls about 2″ apart. Brush with your prepared egg wash and let rise for 30-45 minutes or until the rolls have doubled in size. Bake in preheated 350 degree oven for 30 minutes. Allow to cool completely and store in a sealed plastic bag. Store at room temperature for up to one week or in the freezer for up to 3 months.

** I get emails from quite a few people that say they’ve always wanted to learn to make their own bread but just don’t know where to start. Would a video be helpful? I’d be willing to hire my husband to put together a short video of my bread making skills if you would find it useful

Whole Wheat Pancakes

• 1.5c Thrive Whole Wheat Flour
• 3T Thrive Instant Milk
• 3T Thrive Butter Powder
• 1T Thrive Whole Egg Powder
• 1T Thrive White or Brown Sugar
• 3t Thrive Baking Powder
• 1t Thrive Salt
• 1/2c Thrive FD Blueberries (optional)
• 1.75c Water

Combine the dry ingredients and stir well. Store in a jar or zip top bag. To prepare, add water and stir until well combined. Cook in a greased skillet over medium-high heat. Makes 12 pancakes.

So what do you do when your yeast turns sour? You make sourdough. What if you don’t want sourdough? You pour about 95% of the yeast down the drain, add a little warm water and fresh flour back into your yeast growing container, and grow out the yeast again. I had to do that three times before the sour smell went away, and then I made this!

Wild Yeast Bread

• 1c warm water
• 1/2c wild yeast starter
• 2T butter or olive oil
• 2c Thrive Whole Wheat Flour
• 1t Thrive Salt
• Up to 3c additional flour (see notes below)

Start by mixing the water and yeast starter together. The water should be warm but not too warm or you’ll kill the yeast. Think baby bath water, or about 90-95 degrees if you’ve got a food thermometer around. Add the butter and 2 cups of flour, and mix until well combined. Add the salt, mix well, then start kneading in the additional flour. If you’ve never made bread by hand before, you’re in for a good arm workout! Here’s my method: mound about a cup or a cup and a half of flour on your clean kitchen counter top. Make a well in the middle of it and put the batter into the well. Rub some flour on your hands to prevent the dough from sticking to them too much, and just start kneading the bread. Here is an excellent video to teach you perfect kneading technique.

After kneading the bread for about 10 minutes (yes, you really have to do it that long) put it in a glass bowl, rub the surface of the dough with a bit of oil or butter to prevent it from drying out, cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a towel, and let it rest and rise. Wild yeast takes a LONG TIME to rise – I mean a really long time. When I made this loaf of bread, I left it to rest and rise around 9am, and it had doubled in size by 5pm. If your kitchen is warm, this process should take 3-6 hours. If it’s cold, plan on 8-10. If you want to speed up the process, you can put it into a cold oven with only the light turned on – the light bulb will warm the air inside just enough to help the yeast.

Once your dough has doubled in size, you’re going to turn it out onto a floured counter and knead it again, this time for just a minute or two. Flatten it out into a rectangle, roll it up tightly from the bottom until you have a log, then tuck the ends under slightly. Put the shaped loaf into a greased loaf pan and brush the top with a bit of oil or melted butter. Now you get to wait while the loaf rises – again. I put mine back in the oven with the light on and went to bed. In the morning, the loaf had risen nicely and was ready for baking.

I put my loaf in a 350 degree oven for roughly 45 minutes. If you use 100% whole wheat flour, you’ll find that it might need as long as 75 minutes to bake. You’ll know it’s done when the top is browned and it sounds hollow if you tap on it. Cool it on a wire rack before slicing.

A few tips that might help:

Add roughly 1/4c warm water and 1/3c whole wheat flour. Stir to make a "shaggy mess".

Be patient – remember that wild yeast takes time to do it’s thing. I’d suggest starting your dough before you go to bed, allowing it to rise overnight, then shape it in the morning. Hopefully it will be ready for the oven around dinner time.

If you aren’t seeing bubbles in your starter, it might be because you’ve added too much water. The initial starter should look like a “shaggy mess”, not soup.

Some starters do better with whole wheat flour – mine certainly did!

Only use glass or ceramic for your starter container – not metal or plastic as the chemicals may interfere with yeast growth.

If your yeast is producing more starter than you can use, give some to your friends and neighbors! Or put it in the fridge. Feed it equal amounts of flour and water every few days, always bringing it to the “shaggy mess” stage.

For a little extra “insurance” spread a bit of starter on a piece of wax paper, allow it to dry, and stash it in your freezer. Now you’ll always have a backup in case something happens to your original – like you drop the glass or get bugs in it or something. It would be sad to lose a good yeast!

Happy baking!! Be sure to share your experiences in wild yeast catching and baking

Also on my list is this little project: how to make bread without using commercial yeast.

There is an idea floating around out there that commercial yeast is to blame for a variety of health problems including acid reflux, skin rashes, allergies, intestinal problems and joint pain. I haven’t done enough of my own research to have a strong opinion one way or another, but I am all for anything that makes me less dependent on the grocery store to provide healthy food for my family.

Bubbles on the surface of the flour/water mix indicate active yeast!

Wild yeast is everywhere – its in the air, on our fruits and vegetables, in the garden and on probably every surface in your home. The idea is to catch some of this wild yeast and grow it into something that can be used to make bread. When you set out to grow wild yeast, there are two common ways to catch it:

Sourdough Method: The most common method is to combine one cup of flour and one cup of water in a glass or ceramic bowl on your kitchen counter. Mix well, cover with a cheesecloth to keep dust and flies out, and just let it sit. Feed it each day with equal amounts of flour and water, and within a few days you’ll notice that the mixture has bubbles on the surface. Congratulations – that is wild yeast! Once you’ve caught some wild yeast, you’ll start to notice that there is a liquid layer on the top of the flour mixture each morning. Pour this liquid off before feeding the yeast to keep it healthy.

Sweet Yeast Method: The second method is to catch the yeast off of fruits or vegetables. This is the method that I used. I soaked about a quarter cup of organic raisins in a small glass of water with two tablespoons of organic sugar. I covered my glass with cheesecloth and let it sit on the counter for two days. On the morning of the third day, I removed the raisins and transferred the water to a two quart glass jar. I added half a cup of wheat flour, stirred it well, and recovered it. Within two hours, there were bubbles! I continued to feed my yeast equal amounts of flour and water for five more days, always carefully pouring off the dark water layer first.

Thin layer of waste liquid on top of the starter - pour this layer off each day before feeding your yeast.

With the sweet yeast method, you could use something other than raisins. Apple peels, organic grapes, raspberries or even citrus peels are said to be just as effective. I would suggest that organic fruits would be your best bet as pesticides can alter living organisms like yeast. With either method, you can feed your yeast as little as 1/4c of flour and water a day, or as much as 1 cup each. How much you feed it depends on how much bread you bake for your family. Both yeasts can be stored in the refrigerator to slow their growth, and once refrigerated they will only need to be fed weekly. Once you catch yeast and have a good batch of “starter” going, you can keep it alive forever! Back in the olden days, starter was shared among friends and family for years and years, and everyone knew who had the best starter in town.

Ready to give it a try? Decide if you want sourdough or sweet yeast, and get started! A couple important things to know: yeast only likes wood, glass or ceramic. It does not like metal, plastic or silicone. Be sure that you begin with a squeaky clean bowl or jar, and keep it our of the sun and at least two feet away from any house plants (so you don’t catch something undesirable growing on them). Stir your mix with a wooden spoon only. Your starter might take off quickly, or take a while to come around. The temperature of your kitchen will play a large roll in how quickly your yeast grows – cold kitchen = sluggish yeast, warm kitchen = yeast party time. A few things to watch out for: your starter can smell sweet, sour, or even very sour. If it smells like mold, or develops mold on the surface, you’ve caught something you don’t want. Throw it out, clean the jar well, and start over.

Get yourself a jar, some flour and some water and go for it! Be sure to take pictures along the way and I’ll share them with other readers. Oh – and be sure to give your new yeast “pet” a name! We’ve decided to call ours Bubbles. I’ll be back in a few days to show you what to do with your starter to turn it into delicious, hot homemade bread

Pancake Sausage Muffins

• 2c Thrive 10 Grain Pancake Mix
• 1/2c Thrive Sausage Crumbles
• 1/3c Thrive Brown Sugar
• 1/4c Thrive Whole Egg Powder
• 1-1/3c Water

Preheat your oven to 350 and grease a muffin tin well (or use cupcake liners). Combine all ingredients and allow to rest for 10 minutes. After resting, add additional water if needed to thin batter. Fill muffin tins 2/3 full and bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown. Serve hot – delicious when topped with jam or syrup!

Feel free to take a few liberties with this recipe – you could add garlic and parmesan, a few tablespoons of Thrive FD Spinach or Onions, a handful of Thrive FD Cheddar, or a little bit of Tomato Powder with a sprinkling of Italian seasonings. If I had some leftover cooked breakfast sausage, I would add that. Yum

• 2c Cottage Cheese or 1 recipe Homemade Ricotta Cheese
• 2T Thrive Whole Egg Powder
• 1.5c Thrive Whole Wheat Flour
• 1/4t Thrive Salt
• A few tablespoons of milk or water as needed to thin batter
• Butter, for pan frying

Heat skillet with about a tablespoon of butter in it over medium. While skillet is warming, combine first four ingredients. Slowly add water or milk to thin out the batter – you

want it to be just slightly thicker than pancake batter. Once the skillet is heated, carefully pour the batter into small 3″ rounds. Cook on each side until deep brown. Be sure to add more butter between batches – this will ensure a nice crisp crust on the outside of your cheese patties. Serve hot!

That’s why we prepare.

In the car on the way home on my last day of work, I started thinking about what I needed to do to ensure that we could make it through the next few weeks or months. As soon as I got home, I checked our checking and savings accounts, counted the money in the “rainy day” bucket, and put together a budget for for the month of August. I took a pantry inventory, including Thrive foods, to see how long we could go without a trip to the grocery store. I looked through the rather large stack of clothes that my daughter has outgrown, and started listing them on eBay. A few larger items that had been collecting dust in the garage were sold quickly on craigslist, and that money was added to the rainy day bucket as well. We’ve had to pinch pennies before, and I have a plan. Here are a few key points in this plan:

• The grocery budget is the easiest place to save money. I can’t cut the utility bill, reduce the mortgage, or cut back on car insurance. But I can cut our grocery bill – a lot. Our food storage pantry exists for a reason, and this is the season we’ve prepared for. So for now, we’re making our own bread (and bagels!), drinking Thrive milk, and going without luxury items (unless I can get them free with a coupon). We’ll break out the ice cream maker on occasion for a special treat, use up the veggies that have been hanging out in the depths of the deep freezer for a while, and be extra careful that nothing goes to waste. I’ll be sure that the meals we eat are extra nutritious by adding more Thrive veggies, fruits and whole grains.
• We will drive as little as possible. A little bit of planning will help us to combine car trips, and we’ll do our best to stay home several days a week.
• We’ll dust off our library cards. The entertainment budget is going to be at zero for a while, and that’s all the more reason to enjoy a few good books and check out the local library’s DVD collection.
• We will not eat out. Feeling deprived won’t help either, so to prevent that we will make pizza, chicken nuggets, cheeseburgers, fries, chocolate chip cookies and other goodies from scratch. They’ll be a lot healthier and save us quite a bit of money.
• I will use the gifts that God has give me to make extra money. I’m not an artist by any means – my daughter is more than happy to announce that all I can draw is a smiley face – but I do have an eye for photography. I started a small photography business when my daughter was a baby, but didn’t do much to gain new clientele when we moved to Colorado four years ago. I’ve started advertising locally and hope to build some business here, which will allow me to boost our family income.

I haven’t decided yet if I will look for another full time job, or try to rely on my photography skills to provide the extra income we need. I’ve been working 60+ hours a week for the last year, and this past week off has reminded me how much I missed being a stay at home mom and wife. I love being able to spend extra time with our daughter, teaching her valuable homemaking skills and enjoying mommy bonding time. I love being able to keep our home clean and running well for my husband. He has picked up a lot of my slack over the past months, taking over laundry duty amongst many other chores, and I’m sure he’s ready for a break.

One thing is for sure – the self reliance skills I have learned over the last couple of years will be employed well to take our family through this time of uncertainty, and the Thrive foods in our pantry take a lot of stress out of making ends meet.

• 1c Thrive FD Ground Beef
• 1c Thrive FD Shredded Cheddar
• 1/3c Thrive Tomato Powder
• 1/3c Thrive FD Tomato Dices
• 1/3c Thrive Sour Cream Powder
• 1c Water
• Chips, crackers, celery sticks, carrots, etc. for dipping.

Preheat oven to 350 and grease a casserole dish. In a medium bowl, combine all ingredients and mix well. Pour into casserole dish and bake, uncovered, for 30 minutes or until beef is tender and dip is creamy. Serve hot!

• 2c Thrive Oats
• 1/2c Thrive Macaroon Cookie Mix
• 1/2c Thrive 6 Grain Pancake Mix
• 1/2c Thrive Brown Sugar
• 2T Thrive Butter Powder
• 1/3c Mini Chocolate Chips
• 2/3c Water

Preheat oven to 350 and grease a large cookie sheet. Combine all ingredients and mix until a soft dough forms (add more water if too dry). Drop by heaping tablespoonful onto greased cookie sheet, flatten gently with your fingers, and bake at 350 degrees for 15-18 minutes or until edges slightly brown. Allow to cool for several minutes before removing from cookie sheet.

In a small food processor, combine the following:

• 1/4c Thrive Tomato Dices
• 1/4c Thrive Red Bell Peppers
• 2T Thrive FD Corn
• 2T Thrive FD Mozzarella
• 2T Thrive FD Peas
• 1T Thrive Carrot Dices
• 1T Thrive FD Onions
• 1 clove garlic

Pulse until everything is reduced to a fine powder. Empty powder into a medium sized bowl and add:

• 1c Thrive Sour Cream Powder
• 1c Thrive FD Spinach
• 1/4c Parmesan Cheese
• 2t Thrive Chicken Bouillon
• 1/2t Pepper (I used white pepper)
• 1/2t Paprika
• 1c Water

Stir well, cover and refrigerate for at least an hour. Taste and the adjust seasonings to your liking – I ended up adding a little bit of cumin for some zip.