Last spring, I volunteered to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the kids' table at a church potluck. Knowing that not all kids like the dark, nutty whole wheat bread I grew up on, I bought a loaf of plain country white at my local Trader Joe's. As I stood in line, waiting to pay for my purchases, I wanted to shout out to all the people standing around me, "The white bread isn't for me! I swear I don't eat this stuff!" I was sweating by the time the loaf was tucked into my handled brown paper bag.

Bread is one of those staples most households like to keep around. Over at UrbanMamas, they are having an interesting conversation about how you pick the sliced bread that you buy for your family. I thought it would be an fun question to bring over here. What guides your choices when it comes to the regular loaves you keep on your counter or in your fridge (we were always bread in fridge people in my family)? Do you read labels or have a regular brand? Do you feel the same sense of shame that I have when you buy white bread, or do you wave your white bread flag proudly? Do tell, inquiring minds would like to know.

Alright, full disclosure time: I made this rockin' buckwheat waffle from *cough* a mix *cough*. But the cinnamon-sugar apples? Totally my own.

I wanted to supplement the waffle with something from the fruit and veggie group, hence the apple addition. I rough-chopped and simmered the apple (an organic Gala) in a 1/4 cup of water until the pieces were soft, and then sprinkled it with a pinch each of nutmeg, cinnamon, granulated sugar and cloves, and them simmered for another minute or two. I drained the apples on a paper towel, lest the waffle get soggy.

Obviously, dear readers, I am in desperate need of a mix-less recipe for whole wheat or buckwheat waffles. Any suggestions?

Today's featured image is a gorgeous, half sliced loaf of homemade whole wheat sourdough bread. Being the sucker for bread that I am, this image makes me wish I could catapult myself through my computer screen and land next to this loaf. Sad that we haven't discovered a way to make that happen yet. If you want a little history on this particular loaf of bread, check out Jenn's blog entry about it. Apparently she's discovered a recipe that uses all whole wheat flour to excellent results.

If you want to see your picture featured here, head over to the Slashfood Flickr group, join us and add your pictures to our pool.

Like the Cranberry Bread I posted about last month, this recipe also comes from the back of a children's book. Appropriately, these cookies are from Cranberry Christmas, and they are indeed perfect for the holiday season. I did deviate from the recipe in a couple of places, choosing to use slivered almonds in place of walnuts and replace half the all-purpose flour with whole wheat pastry flour. The result is a cookie that is tart and sweet.

If your favorite cookie is the type that is gooey with chocolate or caramel, then these are not the cookies for you. But if you want a cookie that dips nicely in tea and would make a really satisfying afternoon snack, then I recommend baking a batch of these up. One last point in their favor is that they are really pretty and would make a nice addition to a dessert buffet.

Here is the second baked pasta dish I made over the weekend (you can find the first one here). This one is more traditional, being that it uses sauteed onions, garlic and peppers. I made this one especially for the omnivores in the crowd, although I used turkey sausage instead of pork to keep the amount of fat a little lower. Especially since it used three different kinds of cheese.

The thing to remember about recipes like these is that you should feel free to make them your own. If you don't like peppers, leave them out. If you've got a friend who is allergic to ricotta cheese, use cottage or farmer's cheese instead. Feel like using three different kinds of cheese is sort of excessive? Cut out the parmesan. It's a technique more than an exact recipe and you can bend and shape it to your tastes.

Speaking of pumpkin-based baked goods, another one of my favorite recipes for this time of year is for Whole Wheat Pumpkin Chocolate Chip muffin. It's true that you can make these puppies any time of year with canned pumpkin puree, and that's a good option for when you start craving them in March. But there's no better time of year than now to whip up a batch of these puppies with freshly roasted pumpkin. The recipe is after the jump.

Sunday afternoon, I found myself in a building full of art. It was the first of two weekends in which artists' studios all over Philadelphia are open to the public for viewing and opportunities to meet the artists. It's a program called Philadelphia Open Studio Tour (POST). I went to check out my friend Wendy Wolf's studio. Her work is amazing, looking like organic textiles that have been translated onto paper. When I got there, we chatted for a few minutes about her work and life in general, but quickly the conversation turned to food.

She pointed me in the direction of the snacks she had made for her visitors and I was transfixed by the goodness of it all (it didn't hurt that I had also skipped lunch). The standout was the whole wheat pita with parmesan cheese chips that she had created. They were delicious and once I started to gush over them, she willingly confessed that they were something she had found in Gourmet four or five years ago and are very easy to make. So, if you need an easy gallery snack or something crunchy for a cocktail party, give these little crackers a try. The recipe is after the jump.

There's a group of freelancers and independent folks here in Philly who get together twice a month to work. Everyone brings their laptops and spends the day quietly focused on their own projects while in the company of one another. I volunteered to host this time around and threw in the added incentive of fresh muffins. I still have a dozen of the whole wheat zucchini ones I threw together earlier in the week (they've been hanging out in my freezer for the last couple of days) but since I had some bananas on their last legs, I decided to make another batch of muffins tonight.

I went off in search of a banana bread recipe that I could alter to work as muffins, vaguely remembering that Molly at Orangette had posted one that didn't use eggs and featured dark rum and coconut. I found it, and threw it together with only minor changes. I substituted whole wheat pastry flour for the regular unbleached (I do that with just about every baked good I make these days, and nothing seems worse for the alteration) and skipped the sprinkling of sugar on top (because I totally forgot). I also didn't measure the coconut because my measuring cup was wet and I didn't feel like pulling another one out, so I think I put more in that might have been called for, but they turned out gorgeously nonetheless.

The term "It's what's inside that counts" definitely applies to Krispy Kreme's latest offering, but I'm not referring to a fruit filling or a 'kreme' center. Instead, this particular doughnut is made with 100% whole wheat flour. Weighing in at only 180 calories each, the Whole Wheat Doughnut has a distinct caramel flavor and is similar in style to their "original glazed".

With an enormous number of consumers turning to low-carb dieting over the past few years, it isn't surprising that sales in the doughnut industry have taken a hit. Hoping to recapture some of the lost market by offering an alternative to the original, the Senior VP of Marketing for Krispy Kreme promises that this doughnut delivers the taste we expect, while offering the benefits of whole wheat to the health conscious consumer.

If this is a success, I imagine they may offer the choice of whole wheat in some of their other flavors as well, but no official word has been given on that yet. The doughnut is now available in participating Krispy Kreme stores throughout North America.

Happy Fat Tuesday, everyone.

The whole idea behind having pancakes on Fat Tuesday is to use up the butter, milk, eggs and other indulgent ingredients that you might having lying around the house so that you won't be tempted during Lent. But because everyone likes pancakes and not everyone observes lent, calling the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday "National Pancake Day" makes the tradition open to all - and I think that we can all agree that more pancakes are not a bad thing.

For my pancake day breakfast, I opted not to go with something decadent, but instead with something more wholesome so that I don't feel too bad about starting the day with a couple more pancakes (topped with maple syrup, of course), than I need.

A new study gives a good reason for young women to switch to whole grain bread and to generally increase the amount of whole grains in their diets. Conducted at the University of Leeds, the study showed that women who ate at least 30 grams of fiber each day cut their breast cancer risk by half.

The average fiber intake in the UK is 12 grams per day for adults and 15 g per day in the US. Since the results of the study suggest that benefits will not occur when women eat less than 20g per day, it is worth noting that there are a couple of easy ways to eat more fiber. A medium apple, for example, has 4g of fiber. An artichoke, cooked, has 4.5 grams. Beans vary in their fiber content, but tend to have around 16gper cup. 1/2 cup of corn has 5g. There are many other vegetables and fruits that provide low calorie ways to add fiber to the diet, as well.

The benefits of eating more fiber could be overridden by other factors, including weight, but a generally healthy lifestyle that includes the recommended amount of fiber should decrease the risk enough to make dietary changes worth the effort for young women.

In our quest for a great set of Thanksgiving recipes, we've already seen the recipes from a lot of our favorite bloggers. First, we tackled the turkey and stuffing and then we moved on to the side dishes. Today, we're looking at some great ideas for breads to serve along with the meal. Carbs may be filling, but you need something to soak up all that extra gravy, right?

• First, we have some Pumpkin Thyme Dinner Rolls from Wednesday Chef, which have a lot of flavor and a lovely color from the pumpkin.
• Nothing goes better with gravy than real Southern Biscuits from Andrea's Kitchen with White Lily flour. If you can't find white Lily, try this recipe instead, as it uses all purpose.
• This is a great time to try your hand at the ever-popular no-knead bread (recipe in the comments)
• Cornbread is a classic Thanksgiving option with a great texture. Many prefer skillet cornbread, as Meathenge does, but sweet cornbread, is a popular option, too.
• Culinary in the Desert's Roasted Garlic and Fresh Rosemary Cloverleaf Rolls (pictured) are delicious even without a feast to accompany them.
• Popovers, like Orangette's, are light, quick-cooking and very impressive when served. They're good for sopping up gravy and juices, but are also fantastic with jam in the morning.
• Parker House Rolls are the gold standard of dinner rolls and will be a favorite with everyone at the table. Take the advice from Humble Pie and keep some butter on hand when serving.
• If you prefer to have a whole grain bread for dinner, try a loaf of Maple Whole-wheat Bread, which Seriously Good said had a "nutty sweetness" and certainly looks seriously good.

Whole grains and baked goods? Where can we sign up? At this point, any regular reader of Slashfood is aware that it's good to eat whole grains and that, despite that fact, most people don't get enough of them. As I like to bake, I can definitely say that baked goods might be part of the problem. Most recipes - and definitely most of the good ones - don't call for whole grain flours. You can substitute, of course, but the result isn't quite the same. King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking is a book full of recipes - over 500 pages of them - for baked goods that are designed specifically for working with whole grain flours.

The book has plenty of tips, step-by-step guides and other useful tidbits that make other books from King Arthur worth reading and make it easy to transition to whole grain baking. Many of the recipes use a combination of whole grain and white flours because the blends make sure that you get the best possible textures while still incorporating grains. The recipes include 100% whole wheat pie crust, cakes, tarts, pastries, cookies and a variety of savory dishes, as well.

In most cases, we look at finished products as Food Porn -- a colorful salad, a steaming soup, a steak with herb butter melting over the edges. In the case of food blog 101 Cookbooks, I suppose the first picture of the finished pizza topped with potatoes, cheese, and herbs in Heidi Swanson's post about pizza made of white whole wheat pizza dough is the natural pick.

However, I was totally drawn to the photo of the white whole wheat pizza dough -- perfect pillows of softly "buff"-colored dough flecked with herbs, resting, definitely qualify as "raw" porn. Heidi goes on to say that with this pizza dough, she got close to something she was looking for: "chewy, soft, and unstructured."

More on white whole wheat:
The definition of "white whole wheat"
Sara Lee's hot dog and hamburger buns made with white whole wheat

The sales of White Whole Wheat Flour have increased dramatically this year over previous years and as consumer interest has grown, so have supplies. More grocery stores, large and small, now carry the flour. While the product is not new, having been available for more than a decade, its sale is no longer limited to specialty stores and it is far more widely available than ever before. This increased availability means that more people are exposed to it but many are still unfamiliar with the product.

White whole wheat flour is made from a naturally occurring albino variety of wheat. The wheat does not have the tannins or phenolic acid that are found in the outer bran of ordinary red wheat, so not only does it lack the color, but it does not any of the slightly bitter taste that is often associated with whole wheat flour. The flavor is mild and sweet, very similar to that out plain or all-purpose flour, though it does have a hint of the nuttiness of whole wheat.