First off, I meant to say, "I MADE THE BULGUR WHEAT BREAD"! I have no idea how I ended up sounding like a three year old. Secondly, the recipe was incredibly easy. I especially like its lightness & soft texture, and, as I said before, the fact that it was not overly sweet. BULGUR WHEAT LOAF Grainlady from CF/ Pillsbury 3/4 c. water 1/2 c. bulgur wheat 2-1/4 to 2-1/2 cups Pillsbury's BEST All-Purpose or Unbleached Flour 2 T. brown sugar 1 to 1-1/2 t. salt (I only used 3/4 tsp.) 1 pkg. active dry yeast 1 c. water heated to 120°-130°F 1/4 c. oil 1 c. Pillsbury's BEST Whole Wheat Flour 2 t. water 1 egg white 1 t. bulgur wheat Grease cookie sheet. Bring 3/4 c. water to a boil in small saucepan. Remove from heat; stir in 1/2 c. bulgur. Let stand 20-25 minutes or until water is absorbed. Lightly spoon flour into measuring cup; level off. In large bowl, combine 1 cup all-purpose flour, brown sugar, salt, yeast, 1 cup hot water and oil; beat at low speed until moistened. Beat 3 minutes at medium speed. By hand, stir in bulgur mixture, whole wheat flour and additional 1 cup all-purpose flour to form a stiff dough. (At this point, I let the mixture rest for 20 minutes before kneading.) On floured surface, knead in 1/4-1/2 cup all-purpose flour until dough is elastic, about 5 minutes. Place in greased bowl; turn greased side up. Cover loosely with greased plastic wrap and cloth towel. Let rise in a warm place (80-85°F) until light and doubled in size, about 45 minutes. Punch down dough several times to remove all air bubbles. Shape into round loaf. Place on greased cookie sheet. Cover; let rise in warm place until light and ALMOST doubled in size, about 30 minutes. Heat oven to 375°F. Uncover dough. With very sharp knife, cut a 1/2-inch deep slash across top of loaf. Cut another at a right angle, making a cross. In small bowl, beat 2 t. water and egg white until blended. Brush over top of loaf; sprinkle with 1 teaspoon bulgur, if desired I omitted the sprinkling of bulgur). Bake at 375°F for 25-35 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from cookie sheet; cool on wire rack. One loaf = 17 slices. My notes: I always reduce the salt content of breads because my husband is on a salt restricted diet. To add a bit more flavor because of the lower salt, I added 4 tbsp. dry buttermilk powder. I let the dough rest (autolyse) for 20 mins. before kneading. Grainlady had a personal note about forming a tall loaf, so I made sure to keep the dough ball high & round rather than flat. I put the shaped dough on parchment paper on a wooden peal and then baked the bread directly on a preheated baking stone. I removed the parchment about ten minutes before the bread was done.

I agree, we are doing prayer requests far too regularly over on the conversations side, I wish we had fewer of them, but I'm glad they are there. I'm also happy that things went so well with you, and that you have your own personal nurse! Enjoy the bread, and every minute with your daughter, I'll keep you in my prayers. I too would love to know how your recover goes, I'm hoping it's quick and complete. Annie

My sister used a DAK years ago and loved it, and then several garage sale/thrift store bread makers that were disappointing after the DAK went to appliance "heaven", until she finally found a Zojirushi (V-20) at a garage sale - which she loves. She lives in a retirement community in Texas and at Christmas she puts the Zo to work making not only bread (usually around 20-loaves), but she also makes jam in it to give to her neighbors for Christmas. I taught her how to make consecutive loaves so it doesn't take as long to make each loaf. The first Zo (S-15) had the bucket in it and had a 4-cup flour capacity. I have friends who have used one of those for over 20-years and make at least one loaf of 100% whole wheat bread in it each week. They had to replace one small part on it in all that time. The V-20 had a 5-cup flour capacity and a horizontal loaf, so we were able to make 1-1/2# and 2# loaves, instead of just 1# loaves. And for those of us who used the V-20 for making dough (that was my first bread machine), we could use recipes that had much more flour than the 5-cup capacity AS LONG AS we only used it for mixing/kneading, and took the dough out of the machine as soon as kneading was complete and let it raise outside of the bread machine. It was a real workhorse in the kitchen when it came to making bread dough. For many years Zo's were one of the only bread machines that was capable of making 100% whole wheat bread, and I made loaf-after-loaf of 100% whole wheat bread once or twice a week for years in my first Zo. My second Zo was an X-20, and both still run today. When King Arthur Flour started selling the Zo V-20, they used them for mixing dough in their test kitchens because they did a better job than a stand mixer. In their catalog (catalogue) they showed a side-by-side picture of a loaf of 100% whole wheat bread mixed in a stand mixer, and one where the dough was mixed in the Zo bread machine (baked in a loaf pan), and the bread machine mixed loaf (using the same recipe as made in the stand mixer) was about 1-inch taller than the one made with the stand mixer. The Zo just did a good job of kneading because of the two paddles. Stand mixers tend to aerate the dough. I've taught a lot of Bread Machine Classes over the last 15-years, and I still do mentoring for the Extension Office one-on-one when they get someone who has a new bread machine and needs some help with it. In those classes each person brings their own bread machine, and I've seen a lot of junk machines. It's no wonder so many of them die of loneliness unused on a shelf someplace, or are donated to a thrift store. -Grainlady

1. Homemade is something made or prepared at home. It's just about that simple. It doesn't necessarily have to come from 100% whole foods or foods you produce or grow yourself. For instance, homemade chicken noodle soup... You COULD raise the chicken and make your own noodles, but the ingredients could also be purchased, or a combination of those choices - much like your lasagna. They are still MADE at home. I used to make homemade clothes. Clothes purchased from a store are called ready-made. I didn't produce the fabric or the notions to make homemade clothes, but it IS possible to do so. I knit homemade sweaters, but I don't raise sheep or cotton, and don't spin yarn, but it's possible to do so. 2. Prepared - ready-to-eat or ready-to-use. These can be foods YOU make, or commercially prepared. Your homemade lasagne can be frozen and used later, so it's a homemade prepared food. When you pull it out of the freezer, thaw, and reheat, it's a prepared food. Purchase lasagna in the freezer case - that's a prepared food. 3. Scratch - Scratch is actually a reference to something you haphazardly toss together, kinda like making vegetable soup when you really don't follow a recipe. Let's scratch together some breakfast... Others would say scratch is when you measure all the ingredients used in the recipe, but you didn't necessarily produce all the ingredients. 4. Convenience - Some of the preparation is already measured or mixed. I believe Bisquick was the original commercial "convenience" food (the dry ingredients and fat were all mix together and all you had to add was the wet ingredients). I make a wholegrain version of Bisquick, which includes freshly milled spelt, cornmeal and wheat; oatmeal (I flake my own grains), etc... and I consider this a "convenience" food, although I make it from scratch (measured and mixed all the ingredients). You can also make it from scratch using commercial ingredients (shortening, flour, baking powder, etc... Once I've got the mixture together, stored in the freezer, I can quickly make it into any number of things from biscuits to casseroles or desserts, just by using Bisquick Recipes. 5. I like simple preparation, simple food (we use whole and raw foods a lot - produced at home AND purchased. We're not self-sufficient by any means. The least amount of processing is my preference, but that doesn't mean I make everything. It's about choices, not about what's right or wrong. I choose one method or food, you choose another - for whatever reasons. Cooking isn't all or nothing - all scratch, all convenience, but combinations of those... I purchase anything I want, I just stay within my $50/week budget. I buy grain instead of bread. You purchase whole wheat bread, I took it to the next step to control the ingredients even more and make bread at home. I mill my own flour because that's the only way I'm assured the freshest flour possible and all the nutrients FROM wholegrain flour. It's about nutrition first for me. It's also cheaper to mill your own flour at home - especially if you're like me and make ALL your baked goods at home. I use a wide variety of grains/seeds/beans as the basis of our diet. I started milling my own flour and baking everything to eliminate trans-fats, chemical ingredients and artifical colors. Living in the middle of wheat country, I occasionally get free wheat from cousins or friends, and that's really cost effective. Why not just purchase whole wheat flour...? Much of the commercial whole wheat flour is nothing more than white flour with some of the bran raked back into it to make it "brown" AND you pay more for it. By law, in some cases, the wheat germ must be removed in order to give the whole wheat flour longer shelf life. Once the bran on wheat is cracked, the bran oil quickly oxidizes from exposure to oxygen. Even if you were to be able to purchase whole wheat flour milled from 100% of the grain, the nutrients quickly degrade and the germ oil goes rancid (rancid oils do not have to SMELL rancid to BE rancid - if they smell rancid, they've been rancid a l-o-n-g time). What you get with all commercial whole wheat flour is "old" flour, degraded oil and nutrients because you have no idea when it was milled or what conditions it was stored and warehoused under. 6. I try to stick to whole foods and raw foods as much as possible, but I'm not a complete throw-back to a by-gone era. I'm not that ambitious (LOL). You couldn't pay me to gut and pick a chicken, nor would I like to to raise them, but I did all that when I was growing up. Whole foods are easy to prepare, usually cheaper (because they are less processed), more filling and have more fiber than processed foods. 7. I've made lots of peanut butter in a food processor from purchased roasted peanuts. It's one of those easy things people just don't realize they can do at home, but unless you grow your own peanuts, peanut butter is probably less expensive than buying peanuts. 8. We don't use mayo, but I make a "sorta mayo" from drained kefir curd when I need to hold tuna salad or something together. You can do the same thing with yogurt. I also make salad dressing because I try to avoid soy products of any kind, as well as high-fructose corn syrup, which are in almost everything. I make 6-8 cups of kefir each week, but I don't make cheese. I've made cheese (just for the experience of the process), and for the small amount of cheese we use, it's more cost effective to purchase it. I've never used or needed ricotta cheese, but I'd probably drain kefir and use it. I buy mustard, catsup, don't use canned veggies, purchase frozen fruit/veggies when necessary, make freezer jam, but use very little of foods that have empty calories or lots of sugar. I have a flaker mill, so I flake my own grains. I occasionally purchase old-fashioned oats, but make my own cracked grains, so I make my own Scotch (steel-cut) oats. I also mill my own cereals - cream-of-wheat, cream-of-rice... 9. If I don't - or can't - grow an herb/spice, I purchase it, but I grow the majority of what I use. I buy vanilla. I grow many herbs indoors - they are an easy-to-use, high-in-nutrition, fresh vegetable source in the winter. It's also a nice hobby. Garlic is easy to grow, as are onions. 10. The fats I use I purchase - butter, coconut oil, and a small amount of olive oil. I'd make butter if I had a good source for raw dairy products, but I don't. Gas to go get raw milk/cream is more expensive than buying butter at the store. Kansas law - you have to purchase it at the point of origin - the farm it's produced from. 11. We don't use a lot of pasta, but I make most of the pasta we consume and use freshly-milled durum flour. Pasta is cheap and easy to make. I have a pasta machine which makes the work quick, consistant, and accurate. For instance, I only need to make egg noodles once or twice a year because I make so many at once. I make a large batch, dehydrate them, and vacuum-seal them with a FoodSaver and the jar attachment in canning jars. Fresh spaghetti only takes a few minutes to make. Freeze the extra. Cleaning the pasta machine is what takes all the time (LOL). 12. We also consume a rather spartan amount of food compared to most people. We follow the old Basic-4, and I'm a stickler for serving sizes. Because we use whole foods, I'm sure we feel fuller consuming less food because it's less processed and higher in nutrition. "Hunger" is often a sign of malnutrition (need for nutrients), not lack of food. We also enjoy going out to eat. We just don't do it as often as many people do. We also like "junk" food, we just don't waste food dollars on it. If we want hamburgers and French fries, they can be easily made at home. I make the multi-grain burger buns. I bake the fries, rather than deep frying. Here's the old Basic-4 we follow: Bread/Cereal Group: 4 servings Fruits & Vegetables: 4 or more servings Meat/Meat Alternative: 2 servings Dairy or Dairy Alternative: 2 servings 13. Snacks are fresh, frozen, and dehydrated fruits; dehydrated zucchini replaces potato chips. We like nuts, air-popped popcorn, homemade granola... 14. Home canning is an example of something I DON'T do (although I have canned and have taught canning classes). It's more expensive to do home canning than it is to purchase those 3 jars of pickled beets and one jar of dill pickles I use a year. Most of the food from our garden gets eaten quickly, while fresh, or preserved in the freezer or dehydrated. Dried tomato powder quickly replaces tomato sauce or tomato paste. 15. Over the years I've invested in "tools". I won $500 in a low-glycemic recipe contest and bought some of them with the winnings. Just like having good tools for ANY job - building tools or for gardening - good tools makes work easier, more consistant, or more efficient. I've chosen kitchen tools for that same reason. Most have quickly paid for themselves because I use them all the time. I mill flour 1-3 times a week. I have "tools" you probably don't have, but you may also have "tools" I DON'T have. I don't have a jumbo stand mixer. I've never needed one. I use a mandoline, but it's a quick way to make slices for dehydrating very thin and all the same thickness, you may not have one. I have several mills because one mill doesn't do everything. BTW - We have a Neuton battery-powered mower, but also designed our small yard to be very low-maintanance with less than 25% in grass. We water with rain water from our 1000-gallons in the rain barrels around the house. I don't like the emotionally charged, guilt-ridden "green". It's such a catch word these days so that companies can charge you more, or make you feel guilty for making a different choice. I've always prefered a simpler way to get the same results. Usually those ways are also going to save money, even though you may have to invest money up front before you see the savings. Rain water is free, but the containers, hoses and diverters cost money. We saved more than they cost after 2 summers. I cook in solar ovens. Yes, they cost, but so does cooking with electricity or gas. After enough time, the solar ovens have paid for themselves over and over again. It's all about choices. Not about what's right or wrong. -Grainlady