Tuesday 14 August 2007

Bread and mayonnaise


I am a huge fan of low carb eating, not the in the way that I just eat animals fats and leave out all the carbs as suggested in various low carb diets. I try to keep in mind what fats are healthy and make sure I get more of them than the saturated fatty acids and I try to get more fibre into my diet by eating a lot of vegetables, like salads and stuff. My main failures maintaining this kind of eating step in when visiting or having been invited for a meal. Here bread comes into the picture and I used to be quite fanatic about my sandwiches when younger. Even when pregnant the only way I changed my eating was to add one sandwich more in the evening as I did not get any other cravings at all. The problem with my sandwiches usually is the mayonnaise it has to have on it, and having made my own mayonnaise for over a decade made it easy. Home made bread fresh from the oven with mayonnaise, lettuce, tomatoes, smoked ham and a touch of Dijon mayonnaise.

Carbs combined with the fat in the mayonnaise is no good for you eating in any way, not when having it for days or weeks or even years and as it turned out I who always used to be slender, even when pregnant, was suddenly weighing more than 30 kgs more than I should have weighed. Loosing all those kilos was no joyride even though as the low carb way made it a lot easier as it is a matter of choice, to choose what you eat, instead of limitations of the intake by reducing calories.

During the year even the mayonnaise turned healthier than it used to be in the original recipe I began from by adding cold processed linseed oil in order to get some more omega 3 fatty acids than we do not get enough of to balance our intake of saturated fats. The linseed oil itself tastes quite awful but adding a bit more of mustard than you should make the mayonnaise it reduces the tanginess of the linseed oil.

Anyway, back to my bread making, the more fibre and whole grain you have in the bread you eat the better it is supposed to be for you, and having baked my own sour dough bread for almost two decades now I still have not found an ideal recipe for bread. Normal bread yes, there are several favourites of mine, but no really tasty low carb one and to day has been spent with experimenting once again. Linseed, soy flour, wholegrain wheat, wholegrain buckwheat and just the smallest amount of fine durum wheat flour to make the dough manageable has been left over night to rise and baked in a hot oven to give it a nice crunchy crust. Now I just have to be patient and wait until it has cooled down enough to be tasted. How many carbs there are I have no idea, but as I do not eat that much bread anymore, it is more an exception instead of the rule it used to be I am not that worried about the carbs in it anyway.

Fresh home made bread will be a nice surprise for the home comers later in the afternoon though.

3 comments:

  1. how do they get the crust to be so crispy yet not hard at all?!?! I can't figure it out.

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  2. How do you they get the bread crust so crispy, thin, and not hard at all?! I think that's the secret, but I haven't been able to figure it out.

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  3. Well, two things I know you can do, first when beginning to bake your bread in the oven, have it on warmer heat for a short while to get a crunchier crust, then turn it down down for baking it. And when taking it out of the oven let the bread cool down on a rack without covering it with a baking cloth as the cloth gathers moisture on the breadsurface.
    But I still suspect a great deal has to do with the type of wheat grains you use, that the French wheat somehow is different from others. Or maybe the type of oven they use in their bakeries?

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