Whole Wheat Seed Bread

My idea of the closest thing to heaven is fresh baked bread, sharp cheese and a glass of red wine. Luckily baking bread on the boat has been a pleasant go to on cool days along the ICW, a success when I served it at a sundowner in Cuba and a quick way to please my captain. I wanted to share my new favourite bread recipe that is full of flavour, easy to make and delicious. BTW the recipe isn’t long I am just wordy. As with any new task it may take some time, but if you are accustom to making bread you can whip this up in no time.  

Whole Wheat Seed Bread

Makes Two Loaves

Combine all the seeds in a small bowl

1 tablespoon caraway seeds 

1 tablespoon fennel seeds

1 tablespoon flax seeds

1 tablespoon poppy seeds

1 tablespoon quick cooking rolled oats

1 tablespoon raw pumpkin seeds

1 tablespoon raw sunflower seeds

1 tablespoon sesame seeds

Ok, so you don’t have all these or you have something else, its all good, use what you have. 

Set aside 2 tablespoons of the mixture to top the bread

Scald milk add the quinoa and oats

1 1/4 cups milk

1/4 cup quinoa or bulgur

1/4 cup quick cooking rolled oats

Let stand, until your yeast is ready and it is room temp

Combine the water, honey. Sprinkle the yeast over top and let stand 10 minutes. Stir the yeast until dissolved

1/4 cup warm water

1/4 teaspoon honey or sugar

2 1/4 teaspoon active dry yeast

Transfer the milk mixture to a large bowl, add yeast mixture and seeds minus 2 tablespoons for topping. 

Add:

1 beaten egg

2 cups whole wheat flour

1/4 cup coconut oil, really any oil will do or butter I just like coconut oil 

1/4 cup molasses, I love the flavour of molasses in bread and tend to be generous in my measure but honey or sugar will work as well

1/4 cup strong coffee or bland old tasting water

Now beat the heck out of this. If you have an inverter plug in your mixer turn on your

favourite 70’s song and whip it good, whip it real good. 

Add: 

2 cups plus of all purpose flour until a soft dough forms and you can turn it unto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic. 

The trick to good bread is breaking down the gluten. You cannot screw up bread. The more you beat, bang, knead bread the better it will be. When my children were young I would wash there little hands, pull up a chair and let them rip, bang and tear to their hearts content. Now when I’m home I would put it in my mixer and go make a bed. On the boat I knead and knead a lot. 

Place the dough in a greased bowl, again I use coconut oil, cover with parchment or greased waxed paper and a clean tea towel and let rest about an hour until doubled in bulk. 

When it has doubled punch dough down and knead for about one minute. Divide into 2 portions. Shape each portion into 8” rounds. Place onto a greased cookie sheet. Cover with your parchment and let stand about 30 minutes or until almost doubled. 

Whisk:

1 egg 

1 tsp water 

If you don’t want to waste an egg I have used milk. Brush over loaves. Score the top of the bread with a sharp knife and sprinkle with remaining seeds. 

Bake 350 F 30 minutes until brown and hollow sounding. Cool on a wire rack. 

In the propane oven on the boat I find I can’t put both loaves in at once so I use 2 sheets and cook them separately. Also, after playing around I find bread bakes better placed high in my oven.  

This recipe came originally from Company’s Coming Breads and I have tweaked it to my own preferences. 

Banana Creek Anchorage

Banana Creek anchorage was just a little gem of an anchorage. I don’t know if it was the beautiful sunny warm weather, the dolphins herding mullet off our port side, manatees snorting, or the entertainment from watching the rowing club/school train. 

Little Currents Baby Sister 

I think this is the first swing bridge since leaving Little Current

I wish I had thought to grab my camera sooner but I was so fascinated, the dolphins would swim in a semi circle closer and closer to shore herding fish into a tight area, then you would see a scurry of fish jumping as the dolphins had their dinner. Repeating this process again and again.  

Titusville Watching The Launch A Comedy Of Errors

We had been on the hook for eight days so it was time to fill the tanks, enjoy hot showers, fetch fresh milk and work on a couple of land jobs that needed our attention, so we scooted into Titusville (Marc insists on dropping the u). I always rate marinas on how clean the bathroom is and if there’s copious amounts of hot water. Marc’s rates marinas by the dockage and how close a marine store can be found. Titusville Municipal Marina was a great little marina. 

Titusville Marina

Our plan was to complete our tasks and head back to the ICW the following day. So we scrubbed the boat, scrubbed ourselves, scrubbed the clothes and where planning our route when we met Nicky & Marc of the sailing vessel Arial from New Brunswick. Marc told us that there was to be a launch at Cape Canaveral on Tuesday the 6th 06:18. 

Watching a NASA launch definitely changed things. We decided that on the next day we would head to the Cape Canaveral lock to anchor and get a close up view. Woo who, so excited. The next day we woke to grey skies, gusting winds and white caps. Our planned anchorage and birds eye view was out. 

Our View Of Cape Canaveral 

I Ran The Bridge!

Plan number two, stay in Titusville for the extra day, and watch the launch from here. Titusville is sort of parallel to Cape Canaveral and easy to see with the naked eye. Nicky and Marc had rented a car and asked if we wanted to join them at a popular viewing sight. Of course, be ready to leave by 05:30. We are ex military, 05:30 easy, peasy. I check the batteries on the cameras, Marc charges up the go pro, we gather coffee mugs and paraphernalia, lay out our clothes, prepare the coffee so we just have to flip on the burner in the am. We were so prepared it would have made any boy scout master proud. Marc asks “are you going to set an alarm?” I respond yes, Marc decides to set one too which creates a lively but funny conversation about how I never sleep in, and how his confidence in my ability to wake is such a fleeting characteristic that he consistently complains about it.

People Taking Pictures Of People Taking Pictures 

Waiting For Launch

 I SLEPT IN! Marc’s alarm doesn’t go off, my alarm doesn’t go off. It’s 06:05 and the launch is at 06:18. We quickly try to dress, I ask Marc to take a camera and head to a viewing area a ten minute jog away.  Out he goes, I scramble minutes later to catch up, grab my camera and leave. The next hour becomes a comedy of errors with me forgetting the memory chip for my camera, me getting lost, Marc and I not finding each other and Marc’s desperate search for a restroom culminating into a scrubbed launch. I hope we do better for the rescheduled friday morning launch.  

The Launch Was A Scrub But The Morning Was Amazing 

Marc Manatee Watching 

Fort Matanzas

Fort Matanzas New Years Day

Marc & I had a fun New Year's Day waiting out some cold weather, relaxing, hiking, exploring and catching up on wifi. It wasn’t a planned stop but it turned into a perfect little anchorage. The only down side was the steady strong current of 2-3 knots. With our dingy presently only equipped with paddles we were at the mercy of the current for our excursion to Fort Matanzas

Hey I’m no historian but it seems that there was a long fight between the Spanish & French over Florida, come on, go figure beautiful weather, a perfect base for pillaging fleets heading back to Europe and worse yet those devoutly Catholic Spanish against those French Protestants (this was a shocker for me to) hmm. So, the French have Fort Caroline (1565), and the Spanish have founded St Augustine (yet to be explored by DevOcean due to inclement weather). It seems as the story goes, that the French are not happy and set sail to take St Augustine from the Spanish, but a nasty hurricane carries the French ships further south somewhere between what is now Daytona and Cape Canaveral most of the french ships are destroyed. At the same time the sneaky Spanish go back to Fort Caroline and with the French soldiers gone capture les colonie. Those hurricane,  ship wrecked French were hardy men and about 150 of them trudged to get back to Fort Caroline but those sneaky spanish heard and persuaded them to surrender. Sadly, exhausted and without weapons they did and were promptly slaughtered by the Spanish. Two weeks later the same events accrued, and in all nearly 250 were killed. From this time on the inlet was known as Matanzas the spanish word for “slaughter” (This may explain my french husbands nervousness around the spanish tourists in the crowd). 

So the French, the Spanish, the British? (We all remember Sir Francis Drake 1586?)  England repeatedly harassed this spanish colony, (Gov James Oglethorpe 1740.) So, to prevent the English from forcing St Augustine to surrender to the British The Spanish built fort Matanzas. And it worked for many years until after the French & Indian war 1763 they just gave Florida to Britain then in 1784 after to American revolution it was returned to the Spanish. Years later, in 1819 Spain transferred Florida to the United States.

Sister Creek 29 Dec Pine Island East 30 Dec Fort Matanzas 31 Dec 2014

Coming out of Jacksonville Landing on the St Johns River put us right back into the commercial river way and the land of barges and industrial traffic. I hadn't seen this since the river system last year 

Back in the barge traffic

We snuck off the St Johns River at Sisters Creek and enjoyed a quiet night on a free dock. We caught up with and shared dock tales with the S/V Cat Manana that was at El Milagro Marina in Isla Mujeres, and crossed with the mass exodus the same time we did. It was an interesting evening listening to the knowledge of the couple that had been cruising for 20 years along with the excitement of a young couple that just bought their first sailboat and were learning the ins and outs, dos and don’ts, engine failure and heart palpitations that we all experience. 

Sisters Creek

Pine Island East

The next day we headed for pine island east an anchorage that would put us in a good distance from St Augustine where we had reservations on a mooring ball for New Years Eve. It turned into a dull, dank, wet day on the ICW, but we spotted our first dolphins of the season and dolphins can always cheer me up. That night on the hook at Pine Island East the weather stayed nasty and wasn't supposed to change until the 1st Jan so we decided not to waste a day at a mooring in bad weather and headed off to Fort Matanzas for a quiet New Years just the two of us 

 Don't look for me, I am inside sewing or at least thats my excuse to stay warm 

Jacksonville Landing

Jacksonville City Landing was a wonderful long over due stop, we enjoyed a beautiful Christmas tree, live music and a cold margarita. How soon we forgot the scrubbing and scrapping. The sunset was stunning and people watching perfect 

Marc Took Me For A Great Run, Up One Bridge Down The Next 

 Our View From The Bank Of America Dinner 

Foggy, Foggy Morning, Late Morning, Early Afternoon Sorta

After a fantastic sleep on the hook, I jumped out of bed at 06:30 to take a morning sunrise (07:33) picture, but the fog has rolled in and though I can see the sun trying to pop thru it seems to be getting thicker and thicker. The fog finally lifted and we could pull anchor at 11:37. Off to the free city docks in Jacksonville City.

06:35

07:00

09:00

10:00

After The Fog There Is A Rainbow Who Knew?