whole wheat pizza dough

(this recipe uses a bread maker and is approximately a medium, or 1.5 pound, loaf)

put ingredients into bread maker in the following order:
1 c lukewarm water


1 T honey
1 t salt
2 T olive oil
1 c whole wheat white flour


1.5 c whole wheat flour

1 t yeast

use the "dough" option on your bread maker. once the dough is done, spread it out on a greased pan of your choice. cook for 10 minutes at 425 degrees. remove and add toppings. cook for another 15-20 minutes.

enjoy!

(you can use any combination of flour for this recipe. i would not recommend all whole wheat flour, but you can use all whole wheat white flour. you can also try whole wheat pastry flour.)

Favorite Oatmeal Cookies

From fellow Gi8ers Scott and Kristin...

1/2 c. mashed avocado (1 small or 1/2 of a large avocado)

2 c.  brown sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp. vanilla

1 tsp. salt

2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. baking powder

2 1/4 c. whole wheat flour

2 c. old-fashioned oats

Cream avocado and sugar. Add eggs and vanilla, mix well. Add salt, soda, powder, and flour. Mix. Stir in oats. Roll into 2 inch balls. Bake for 10 minutes at 350 degrees.After taking them out of the oven, flatten using the bottom of a glass or something flat. Let cool.  Store in an air-tight container.

Makes 26-ish cookies. For calorie counters, they are 136 calories each.

ENJOY!

Avocado Chicken Salad

From fellow Gi8er Laura...

1/2 cup (or however much you want) shredded chicken breast
1 whole ripe avocado
1/4 cup onion, chopped
1/4 cup bell pepper, chopped
1/4 cup greek yogurt
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/8 tsp cayenne
whole wheat bread or whole wheat pita

Mix it all together, adding more seasoning and greek yogurt to taste, spread on bread or stuff inside a pita. I like to add a layer of spinach and tomato on my sandwich. It is SO YUMMY. Way better and way healthier than regular chicken salad!! I got this recipe from tastykitchen.com (the original called for mayo, but I subbed it out for greek yogurt, you can use plain yogurt if greek is too strong). Enjoy!

homemade whole wheat bread

This recipe comes from fellow GI8er, Nan...

2 cups of water

1/4 cup shortening

1/4 cup sugar

4 tsp salt

Boil 2 cups of water in microwave for 4 minutes, pour over shortening, sugar and salt,  Dissolve the ingredients in your warm water--by stirring until shortening is melted.  (I do this in my Kitchen Aid on speed 3.)  

In separate bowl, put 1 cup very warm water (100º), 3 tsp sugar (helps yeast rise, especially for whole wheat heavy bread), and 2 TBSP GOOD (I only use SAF) yeast---stir and let stand for 15 minutes.

1 cup COLD water

1/2 cup dry milk

While yeast is rising, put cold water in your kitchen aid bowl with other ingredients as well as 1/2 cup dry milk (cannery dry milk dissolves easiest, you can dissolve the dry milk in the COLD water) and stir on low til milk mixes in.

When yeast fully rises, pour it in with all the other ingredients and mix.

Put in 2 TBSP Vital Wheat Gluten (this is essential when making WHOLE WHEAT bread). Add up to 10 Cups freshly ground whole wheat flour (or you can used store bought--but freshly ground works better as wheat tends to get 'heavy' as it sits and settles.) I put in 5 right away and then slowly add each cup until the dough pulls away from the side.  Let mix for 5 minutes.  If any dough sticks to the sides during this 5 minutes, add small amounts of flour until it does not.  

Let rise in greased bowl covered with a dish towel.

Divide into 3 loafs (I use a scale so they are all even)

Spray bread pans (instead of using shortening and flour)

Let rise again

Bake @ 400 for 21 minutes on middle oven rack.

Spray cooking spray on tops of loaves. Cool on rack.

ENJOY!

This really is simple, I just put in lots of details so that everyone could be successful even if they are not regular bread bakers. I put in the ingredients into Myfitnesspal and it comes out to 98 calories a slice!