How To: Baking Bread Zero Waste

There are very few food products that I use that have any packaging at all thanks to the great bulk offerings at my local store. However, the eggs I buy come in a recyclable package, also my oils: olive oil and others, also recyclable. The one thing that I buy often that was not was organic bread! The stores around me do not offer bulk or loaf organic bread and I have to admit that I purchase it at more than five dollars a loaf sometimes!! UNTIL NOW. Last night I made my first two loaves of organic whole wheat bread ever. They were amazing. Gorgeous and even more delicious than I could have imagined with a dense and moist inside and crunchy crust. I was really afraid of making bread, and I have no idea why now, it was SO simple. I am now more afraid of making bread because I could literally eat the entire loaf in one day it is that good! I had it last night with organic quinoa, corn, and white bean veggie burgers with a cucumber yogurt sauce, and this morning for breakfast as the perfect vessel for sauteed kale, a mashed avocado, sauteed mushrooms, and a sunny side up egg (props to my man). The recipe is at the bottom of this post!

Whole wheat dough:

• 3 1/4 cups organic whole wheat bread flour
• 2 1/2 cups organic white flour
• 2 teaspoons active dry yeast
• 1 tablespoon sea salt
• 2 3/4 cups warm water (the recipe I used calls for 3, but I found it was reallly watery)

1) Mix flour and stir in yeast and salt
2) Add 3/4 of the water and mix with a wooden spoon or pastry scraper
3) Pour in the remaining water in one or two more batches, mixing between each one
4) Turn the dough onto a clean, floured surface to knead until the gluten has developed and it is stretches and moves as a single mass
5) Rest the ball in a lightly floured bowl and dust the top with flour and cover with a clean cloth to rest somewhere warm without a draft for one hour
6) Find two pans (I used a glass loaf pan for one and a cookie sheet with the other) and butter the surface that the bread will touch (in the loaf pan this means the top because it will rise in the oven)
7) Divide the dough in two balls and put one into the loaf pan (shape the ball to a snake that will fit the loaf pan) and cover both again and let sit for one hour
8) Dust the two loaves liberally with whole wheat flour and make diagonal cuts on the top with a sharp knife (I used a serrated one)
9) Preheat oven to 475 degrees F, once the oven has reached temperature, spray it with a little bit of water out of a spray bottle, or like me, wet your hands and gently splash the oven
10) Put the loaves in the oven and bake for 30 minutes
11) Let cool completely and enjoy with butter or plain or whatever you want… YUM.