Wholewheat wonders

I made a New Year's resolution to eat more healthily. So I decided to start including whole grains into my baking and cooking because they are full of fiber and are complex carbs.

My friends at Bob's Red Mill in Oregon grind just about every kind of grain imaginable. I mentioned before how much I like their oats which I found at Target. I thought I'd begin my whole grain experiments starting w/ the wholewheat flour from Bob's Red Mill. It is organically grown and certified.

I wanted to start with something simple before tackling wholewheat bread, so I pulled out the cookbooks and started perusing them (one of my fav past-times is reading my cookbooks, btw). I settled on the wholewheat pizza dough from The New Basics Cookbook by Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins.

Wholewheat flour often needs to be combined w/ white flour in order for the dough to be pliable. I also discovered that the wholewheat flour should be added slowly because it may not all be needed before the correct dough forms.

Here is the recipe w/ some slight modifications to make it easier to understand and to ensure success w/ the yeast. (I hope I don't go to copywright jail)

1c. warm water (105 to 110 degrees F)
1 package of active dry yeast
1 1/2c. unbleached all purpose flour
1c. wholewheat flour
2T olive oil
1/2t. salt

Put water in a mixing bowl and sprinkle the yeast over it. Gently combine. Let stand for a minute or two. Add all purpose flour and mix w/ a wooden spoon. Add oil and salt and then add the wholewheat flour gradually until the dough holds its shape.

Put dough on a floured surface and kneed for five minutes until it is smooth and elastic. Sprinkle with flour as needed if the dough becomes sticky while kneeding.

Put dough in an oiled bowl, cover w/ a cloth or plastic wrap and let rise until it double s in size (about 1 hour). Then take the dough and divide into two parts. Roll into balls and let sit covered for another 20 minutes. The dough is now ready to be rolled out into pizza crust.

For baking pizza, I like to put the oven on 500 degrees and bake for 15 minutes or until done. This worked perfectly for this crust and the goat cheese/rainbow chard pizza I made a few days ago.

The wholewheat crust has a nice nutty taste and it is GOOD FOR YOU!