First Progress Report--Cutting Back on Sugar and Flour

Yay for me! There's progress to report in my first progress report!

I've had no--zero, zilch, nada--refined flour in the past month. Only whole grains. And I'm loving it. I may never go back to using refined flour at all. One hundred percent whole grain breads are definitely dense, but I'm learning to enjoy bread that way. And actually, I'm not baking bread very much at all. Mostly I make tortillas, and sometimes pitas.

I'm having fun playing around with different grains, too. I've had a jar of teff sitting in my freezer forever. I bought it once when I had a craving for Ethiopian food. I wanted to figure out how to make injera, the spongy flatbread that accompanies Ethiopian meals. Injera is a sourdough, but the only time I attempted to make it, it turned out much too sour. I never tried again, and in the back of my mind I formed the belief that teff is awful stuff. It isn't, however. In fact it's quite delicious. I've only made tortillas with it, but since it doesn't contain gluten it doesn't hold together well. The only time I got it to stick together well enough to make it into a burrito that I could pick up and hold was when I added some wheat gluten to the dough. But I don't mind that it falls apart--I just eat it with a knife and fork. Teff tortillas cook up into a beautiful dark cocoa color. They look so pretty stuffed full of beans, rice, sprouts, salsa, and sour cream--and they taste phenomenal too.

I've discovered that all my quickbread and cookie recipes turn out well made with whole wheat flour or rye. I haven't been baking too many sweets, but the things I've baked turned out great--like my favorite cranberry nut bars and the Moosewood Six-Minute Cake.

As far as sugar goes, I've cut way back. I'm using a little bit of honey in my tea, some brown sugar when I make oatmeal, and brown sugar the few times I've made quickbreads. I ran out of granulated sugar last month and decided I wasn't going to buy any more sweeteners until I used up everything I had in the house. Once everything's cleared out I think I'll stick to local honey, brown rice syrup, and maybe a little Rapadura.

I haven't started keeping track of the quantities I'm using, but I know I'm staying far below my quotas. Once I buy my next supply of flours and sweeteners, I'll start to track everything.