You knew it was just a matter of time before I started baking bread again. While yesterday wrapped up our 2nd week of Phase I of South Beach, the two things I missed the most were bread and fruit. I am still going to be doing a lower carb meal plan, but I will definitely be having fruit and whole grain bread!
Tony and I didn’t get around to fixing breakfast until almost noon yesterday (baking bread was way more important than breakfast!).
Rosemary Flax Baguette (printer friendly version here)
Makes 8 loaves of bread. Each loaf: 582 calories, 19 fat, 87 carbs, 6.6 fiber and 14.4 protein) adapted from Healthy Bread in Five Minutes – I left out wheat germ because I didn’t have any, and not sure if the flax seed I have is exactly what the original recipe called for.
Ingredients
1/2 | cup ground flaxseed |
3 | cups whole wheat flour |
4 | cups all-purpose flour |
1 1/2 | tablespoons yeast (2 packages) |
1 | tablespoon kosher salt |
1/4 | cup vital wheat gluten |
3 1/2 | cups lukewarm water |
1/2 | cup olive oil |
3 | tablespoons fresh rosemary, divided |
1 | egg white |
1 | teaspoon water |
1 | teaspoon course sea salt |
Directions
- Mix together the flaxseed, flour, yeast, salt and vital wheat gluten. Put in a big bowl or lidded container.
- Add the water, olive oil and 2 tablespoons of chopped rosemary. Wet your hands and mix well to make sure all the flour is incorporated.
- Cover loosely, and let sit for 2 hours. This can be refrigerated at this point and used within 10 days.
- On baking day, dust the surface of the refrigerated dough with flour and cut off a 1/2 pound piece – about the size of a large orange.
- Dust the piece with a bit more flour and elongate the ball into a baguette shape. Allow to rest 40 minutes if from the refrigerator, 20 minutes if already room temperature.
- Heat oven to 450 degrees – putting a baking stone on the middle rack and a metal broiler plate on the bottom.
- I use parchment paper to transfer my dough to the baking stone. Add 1 cup of water to the empty broiler pan and quickly shut the oven.
- Mix 1 egg white with 1 teaspoon of water. Brush the bread evenly. Bake for 15 minutes. Remove the parchment paper and let the bread cook 10 more minutes directly on the baking stone.
- Cool before slices (if you can wait!)
Later in the afternoon Hannah and I met my Mom at Goodwill. They already have their Christmas stuff out, and there were so many snowmen things! I ALMOST bought this, but I put it back.
I hardly took any pictures around dinner time! Too busy chatting with my Momma. We opened a bottle of this wine – this is one red that Tony and I agree is delicious. It’s not too bad, about $18 a bottle.
I made a classic pot roast – baked it in my dutch oven for 3 hours at 225 degrees. I used this recipe. I made two cheese polenta on the side and green beans. It may not look like much, but this was delicious – how bad can gravy be?
After dinner I had to separate all my grocery store meat loot – I even tried to marinate one of the chicken packages with olive oil, garlic and rosemary – not sure if it will work out, so I only did one package. I now have 14 chicken breast halves (each weighs about 9 ounces!) 4.5 pounds of Italian sausage, and 4 pounds of ground sirloin.
And now the moment you have all been waiting for (ha!) Weigh-in-Monday. Two weeks ago I was 169. Today I am:
For a loss of -1.2. While I thought it would have been more – I cheated. I did have wine on occasion and I know I still don’t drink enough water. So I am just going to keep on keeping on. Come back tomorrow for my recipe for Chickpea and Lentil Stew – its simmering as I type this and will be my lunch served over brown rice.
I need your help! My friend Mara is in the running for Next Food Network Star on Foodbuzz – she’s made it to round 7! She had to make a video making a recipe. She made maple bacon cupcakes people! If you have a chance to vote for her, I would appreciate it!
Reminder: This Sunday, November 21, is a Chicagoland lunch meet up – we are meeting at Big Bowl in Schaumburg, Illinois at 12:30. Send me an email if you would like to join me, my sister, Mara and Christina (and I think Mel?). Should be fun before all the craziness of the holidays 😀
Off to put my food together for the day – make it a great day!
The bread looks outstanding and I so would have purchased the cute snowman dish…
Mmmm, that bread looks wonderful! I love rosemary bread.
Mara’s video was too cute! And how clever – she can enter BSI: Bacon, too! (And now I know where I want my BFF to drag me the next time I go to Portland. ;-9 )
Is it possible you didnt eat enough? I thought you practically starved yourself and you were a workout fiend!!
ohh….really waiting for that recipe…I tried lentil soup for the first time last year (one of Roni’s recipes), and I LOVE IT!!! Chickpeas are another favorite of mine…so…
congrats on the weight loss….
Congrats on the loss, If I was around all that food you cook and bake…. I don’t think I could be reporting a loss!
Your bread looks gorgeous! and is making me wish I had some right now. (And congrats on the weight loss)
Mmmm, bread.
Congrats on the weigh in! 1.2 lbs is great!
great job on the weigh in! 🙂
man your bread always looks perfect! YUM!
Congrats Biz! Progress is progress, no matter how fast! Especially this time of year. Goodness, it is all I can do to keep from gaining weight right now. You’re an inspiration!
I’m 98% sure that I will be there this Sunday… I’m ironing out the details, and may have another blogger with me from Milwaukee. I promise I will shoot you an email as soon as I know!
Cool – thanks Mel! 😀
great job on the loss! and good luck to your friend mara, that’s so exciting!
I love to marinate chicken tenders in garlib, rosemary and balsamic vinagar and then grilling – yummy 🙂
Your bread seriously looks good – makes me wanna bake some 🙂
Those first two weeks on the beach are killer, but you did it! Enjoy bread and fruit again 🙂
Jen
Congrats on the weight loss! Love that you guys are meeting up – fun! I’ll be visiting Chicago in December – brr. 🙂
Progress, not perfection 🙂 At least that is what I tell myself.
Flax meal is the same as ground flax seed.
You can use that in any recipe. If you just have flax seeds, you can process those if you wanted to make flax meal to add into recipes if you want the health benefits, but you don’t want the seeds in them.
I think the weight loss is awesome! Can’t wait for our blogger meet up this weekend!
Thanks Jenn! Looks like we are up to 8 for our meet up possibly!
I think that’s a GREAT loss! Good job, Biz!
And that bread……..mmmmmmm…………….you kill me with the bread……
Huzzah for the weight loss, and being back to bread! Every little bit of weight helps!
Helen is cracking me up about Tony – which Disney character wanted to be a “real” boy? We ARE real, Tony! 😉
I laughed when I saw what bread you made for your first bread since starting South Beach – of course no ordinary bread would do for my friend Biz! Love it. 🙂
Congrats on the loss – doing great!
Thanks for the link back! I really appreciate it!!! I’m so nervous about this one!
Yay for weight loss! Congratulations, Biz! A couple cheats aren’t a bad thing. It’s what keeps balance in your diet & weight loss efforts and prevents getting totally off-track or binging later on down the road.
Sadly, my scale has gone totally in the other direction these past two months. I may have to consider this South Beach schtick. Although I missed pizza Friday, your meals still totally look delicious. I would totally hire you to be my personal chef, Hannah to be my personal organizer & Tony to be my personal smart ass, if you lived closer 🙂
Love this comment Tina! 😀
LOL…I had to laugh at Helen’s comment about Tony thinking that we’re not real. I’m real aren’t I??? 😀
Way to go on the weight loss. I know we all want more gone on the scale, but slow and steady does win the race! You’re doing great!
See, I told you I never, ever stopped wanting carbs while I did the first two weeks of South Beach. I was so glad to eat a banana! And a whole grain English Muffin! Have you thought about challenging yourself to no alcohol? I did it one year for Lent and lost 11 pounds. How sad is that? It’s just that alcohol, even a little wine, slows metabolism. I always do so much better with weight loss when I cut the booze.
Is Tony going to share his weight loss with us? He probably won’t because he doesn’t think we’re “real” or “friends” but I’d like to know how he’s doing since he’s the one under doctor’s orders!!
I am toying with the idea of letting go of the wine. . . we’ll see! 😀
Tony, are you going to report on how your two weeks were??!!
The bread looks luscious. Yum – and I am like the others – love, love, love bread.
I think you did awesome on your loss – you did lose and it wasn’t a gain – so I say BRAVO!
We just received a food sealer from my mil and I am little bit scared to try it – but I will get around to it because I love buying large packages of meat [on sale] but hate, hate, hate freezer burn.
I bet your chicken is da’bomb!
Hey, perspective… If you loose that every two weeks for a year, you are about 140.
I would like to participate in the Chicago meet up, but not this time… one day I will show up
Welcome back, bread! Life is definitely better with bread in it! Congrats on your weight loss!
Here ya go. Take 1/4 cup of your sea salt and put it in a ziploc bag with sprig of rosemary for a week.. Throw out the sprig, after the week, and you have made Rosemary infused Sea Salt… It really sucks in the flavor, without the tree taste on your bread !!
Thanks for the tip Allan! 😀
Wow that bread looks good. I love bread. Bread and chocolate are my downfall. While I’m not doing South Beach, I am cutting back on bread.
So that means I can only eat it if I bake it (which I haven’t had time to do) or I can eat Ezekial. I think I might be trying that bread for Thanksgiving. I have the book.
The bread looks delicious! And congrats on the loss! 🙂 Great way to start the week!
Have a great week!