I've been going through my "healthy food" recipes and thought some of you chefs out there might appreciate my specialty flax seed bread. It's a bread machine recipe, so it's easy! Flaxseed is very, very good for you.

A few notes:

This recipe is a great way to get some uber-nutritious ingredients in the daily diet. I use whole flaxseed in the dough, but I've used milled flax seed and it works just as wonderfully.

You'll also see sucanat as a substitute for sugar. I've found sucanat at my local grocery store (not WalMart) and it is available online. Sucanat is sugar made from the juices of the sugar cane. It is milder and less acrid than refined sugar. It also serves as a terrific replacement for sugar in coffee or tea. Since using sucanat in my coffee, I no longer have that annoying buzz or light-headedness that I got from the refined sugar. Sucanat is a direct replacement for refined sugar: that is, if a recipe calls for 2 tablespoons of refined sugar, you can use 2 tablespoons of sucanat as a substitute.

Here's the recipe. Be sure to make your measurements exact.


Mrs. Mecomber's Flax Seed Bread (for bread machines)

In your bread machine bucket, place the following ingredients in this order:
1 and 1/2 cups hot water
2 Tablespoons olive oil
2 Tablespoons flax seed (whole) or ground flaxseed
2 teaspoons salt
4 cups flour (I usually use 3 1/2 cups white flour with 1/2 cup wheat or graham flour)
2 Tablespoons refined sugar or sucanat

Now with your finger, make a small well in the flour mixture. In this little depression, add:

2 teaspoons bread machine yeast (the quick-rising kind).

I set my bread machine to "dough" setting (usually 1 and 1/2 hours). I knead it (only a little, just enough to make the shape of the loaf), rise it (on a lightly greased cookie sheet, covered with a cloth, for 30 to 60 minutes), and bake it (about 1/2 hour at 350) myself. You can bake it in the bread machine easily enough, though.

This bread is soft and luscious with soup, stew, and especially pasta and sauce. Manja! Manja!