Clean Eating Whole Wheat Bread Variations, Pizza Crust, Crescent Rolls, Pita Breads and more!

Whole Wheat/Whole Grain EASY Homemade BREAD!!!

Things to do with your favorite refrigerated whole grain bread dough:

Thanks to my mom and my grandma's love of home cooking & baking, I've been making homemade bread since I was a child.  All of my kids learned to make bread around age 5 when they first started learning to read.  We'd do a unit study on the story of "The Little Red Hen" and I'd print out my Grandma's bread recipe in easy to read print... and they'd make bread.  The kneading was always the favorite part.  The first few times.  Then, it got tedious.
Years and Years later, I found this magical book:
Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day: 100 New Recipes Featuring Whole Grains, Fruits, Vegetables, and Gluten-Free Ingredients

I found them online, too and I got lost in their blog for about an hour:) 

You can use the whole wheat dough(s) fromt his book, or use your own favorite whole wheat recipes.  We've also used this recipe with good results, but the 'new' way is much faster since there is no kneading and you can make a bunch to use throughout the week!

Here are the results of my experiments (click for detailed instructions):

Crescent Rolls

Pita Bread

Dinner Rolls/Breads

Top with a light spray/brush of water/EVOO and sprinkle with nuts/seeds or seasonings of your choice!



Mini muffin pans make for super quick fun dinner rolls!  Top with grated Parmesan Cheese or sprinkle with garlic...

 



A small baguette/Breadstick for dipping and The "Moon" shaped loaf (shaped by hand from refrigerated dough, then sliced on the rounded side like so):

Pizza!

We had a pizza baking day with our new pizza stone... and boy, did that make a difference!  I'm sure its not as good as the more expensive ones, but for us, a $13.00 stone was about the same price as a large pizza... and we only had to buy it once!  Actually, with 6-7 people here, we may buy another one later, so we can cook more than one pizza at a time.  We LOVE our pizza!!  I can't wait to try it with bread!

We made it by baking the crust first AND by baking the crust WITH the toppings.  We decided that The boys like theirs baked with the toppings, and a slightly thinner crust, whereas the girls and I liked our with the cruist baked most of the way first.  It just came out a little crispier in my opnion.

Favorite toppings?  Homemade marinara sauce, baby leaf spinach, cooked, chopped chicken breast with rotisserie chicken seasonings, feta cheese, half grape/cherry tomatoes, shredded skim mozzerella or parmesan, pizza seasonings, mushrooms, green peppers, red bell peppers, lean ground turkey... and on and on and on!