Whole Wheat for beginners

I've just finished researching how diet can effect hypothyroidism which is not at all what I want to talk about right now but I do want to pass along that I find it interesting that diets have such an impact on so many of our ailments. For example someone with a mild case of hypothyroidism would be prescribed a dosage of synthetic tyrosine. But this comes naturally in a plethora of good foods. But not only that, there is a substance found in other good foods called goitrogens that can inhibit an already sub par thyroid from doing it's job. If you happen to struggle with this click here for one of the many diet related sites about this.
Onto what I was going to write about... whole wheat. We all know by now that is is essential to throw out your white flour and start buying whole wheat. But many of you have also discovered that whole wheat is not so tasty and quite difficult to bake with. First let me recommend King Arthur's whole wheat flour, I like how finely ground it is - that helps when trying to make the switch. Whole wheat doesn't have a high gluten content and to adjust for this the prime strategy would be some fermentation (time aloud for gluten to develop) which is fun to do but admittedly quite a pain because it takes alot of time and pre-planning. So I would like to give you a couple recipes that can put whole wheat flour into your diet. I half both of these recipes since my family is currently only 2 adults and 1 two year old!

Whole Wheat Pancakes
1 cup ww flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 TBL honey
3 TBL oil
1 cup plain yogurt (lately I have been using half yogurt half water - you could use milk)
2 Large eggs
1/4 tsp salt

Mix up honey and oil, add the yogurt and egg then beat. Add the dry ingredients, you know the rest I'm sure ;)
Oh I did learn a trick in a cookbook recently that if you let the pancake batter sit for about 10 minutes before starting up the skillet then your pancakes will be fluffy, I have taken to do this and it really does work.
On another side note I frequently add stuff to this batter like bananas or course but also sweet potato and winter squash

Whole Wheat Pizza Dough
1 1/2 cup flour
2 cups ww flour
1 tsp salt
1 TBL olive oil
1 TBL yeast
1 1/2 cup warm water
1/2 TBL honey
Mix together the honey and water, sprinkle the yeast on the top - let rest for 10 minutes
Add oil and salt, then flour (I like to sprinkle in garlic (oh especially roasted garlic, though a little hard to cut up!) or rosemary or something, yum). Knead but I don't know how long like, a couple minutes. Let rise for an hour - roll out onto a pizza pan or a cookie sheet or whatever you can find ;) Put your toppings on (we usually put everything that is left in the fridge that needs to be eaten (vegetable things I mean!) Bake at 425 for 16 minutes.
Here is how funky this can get: last night we had some leftover sweet potato and leek casserole which I mashed up with the spaghetti sauce that we use for this recipe (Newmans Own is my fav oh and Francesco Rinaldi). Then I sauteed cilantro, leeks, garlic, and peppers. I steamed some spinach and threw all of that on top of the sauce. So weird but so good!