Bread, cooking, and learning a language

The past few months I've been taking a class a woman at our church offered on whole grain cooking. She's a nutritionist and would do a short presentation followed by a demonstration of a recipe. Then we could sample everything from a buffet of foods she had prepped relating to the evening's theme and have a time of question and answer. This was really fantastic for a number of reasons:

1) I was able to have a chance to get to know some people since the class was reoccurring and most people were able to attend regularly.

2) It was all in German, so I was able to learn and beef up my cooking vocabulary. Unless you cook with somebody, it's not really a set of terms I use in everyday conversation, so hadn't really had a chance to develop. Her presentations were on nutrition, a topic I had a lot of exposure to back in my Boston job. She didn't present anything new to me, but rather in new German vocab, so I learned that way. I was a copious note/vocab taker in my little notebook each class!

3) It was a very back-door type of approach to learning German cooking. I tend to avoid cooking 'typical German' dishes as they're really very fatty and carb laden. Too much cream sauce, fatty cuts of pork, white flour/white potatoes, etc. I just can't handle that on a regular basis. Stefan adores that stuff, so it's a tug of war. Thankfully this class offered healthier versions of certain things.

4) There was always plenty of leftovers for us to take a plate home with us. This allowed me to give Stefan tangible examples of things we could try at home. There were usually 5-7 things to try each night and while 1 or 2 things usually didn't make the cut, most things did. He was amazed at what he liked. I never told him what things were until after he'd tasted and rated an item - ha! I'll be doing more of that in the future.

5) Our instructor, Ruth, also leads fasting retreats that are a week long. Sadly the upcoming series of dates don't work with Stefan's vacation schedule and our plans, but she's a great resource for us to learn more about fasting healthily and as a spiritual discipline. Fasting is such a good way to clean out your system and start fresh. So many good things about fasting. This was a total bonus. GERMAN READERS can learn more about fasting retreats here.

6) I've gotten to the point where I made my own bread. I've always been scared of bread because it involves yeast, rising, waiting (ie planning) hours on end, etc. She gave us a starter for a sourdough and so I HAD to do it. Stefan had tried the bread I brought home and said if I made bread like hers he'd quit buying brötchen (bread rolls for German breakfasts and dinners). BONUS INCENTIVE because I hate the stupid brötchen fiasco in our house. We always run out at inopportune times, he won't eat the packaged kind, I personally don't like committing to a whole brötchen, and the ones that are supposedly whole grain are actually not AND they run 30-70 cents each. That adds up!! I hate the stupid bakery brötchen, regardless of how they taste! (Stefan hates it when I say "stupid bread" because that's what I call it when it creates a kitchen crisis.)

So I made the sourdough bread with spelt and rye flours, my starter, and lots of sunflower seeds and chopped walnuts. I don't have bread pans (whoops, because I never make bread! I usually just make muffins!) so I had to use my two cake pans. The recipe made a LOT of dough! I'm going to have to halve it in the future...or something.

Here's how it came out (bad picture, i know).
These pans are not the greatest for this project.
BUT the bread was heavenly tasting!!!

I'll be making this on a regular basis now. It's so seriously vollkorn (whole grain) that a few thick slices are really filling! Power bread! I cannot believe how tasty this bread is. Stefan LOVES it and we haven't bought brötchen since I made it on Monday morning. I'll make some more this weekend. Yesssssssss!