Oatmeal Wheat Bread

I love bread but find most industrial grocery-bought breads too sweet. Here is a great savory alternative with ingredients you know and recognize, and not too many of them - simple bread with oatmeal.

When you are cooped up sheltering in place whether for a sickness or a pandemic, baking bread makes the house smell so good and you're around to tend to all the different rising. Few things can make you feel more comfortable stuck at home than baking bread.

3 cups white flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup rolled oats

1 Tbsp nutritional yeast

2 tsp active dry yeast

2 tsp salt

2 tsp sugar

1 Tbsp olive oil

1-1/2 cup very warm water (105F)

Mix together the flours, oats, yeasts, salt and sugar in a mixing bowl. I use a Kitchen Aid mixer with a dough hook, but you could also mix this manually with a wooden spoon - a great workout!

Turn on the mixer and add the oil. Then start adding the water in a slow stream to allow the mixer to incorporate it well into the dry ingredients (if you are doing this manually, the help of a friend would be welcome!). Eventually with the addition of the last of the water, the dough will come together as a ball. Continue needing the dough with the dough hook for five minutes, or on a clean floured surface if doing manually.

Add a dash of olive oil to the bowl and roll the dough ball around to oil all of its surface.

Cover with plastic wrap and place in a relatively warm spot. Allow to rise to double in size - this could take 1-2 hours.

Then gently knead the dough 20-30 times on a clean floured surface. Oil a large 6-cup loaf pan (I I also scatter a tad of coarse cornmeal on the bottom). Form the dough into a rectangle the size of the pan and place it in the pan. Cover very lightly with the plastic wrap and place back in that warmer spot.

Allow the dough to rise to at least double in size, well above the edge of the loaf pan.

Again this could take 1-2 hours. Meanwhile preheat the oven to 400F.

Bake bread for about 30 minutes, until the crust is nicely browned. The loaf should sound hollow when tapped. Allow to cool on a rack.

Do not put loaf in a plastic bag at least until fully at room temperature - otherwise you will lose the crust to moisture. Better yet, store in a paper bag.

Makes one loaf.

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