Two experimental dals

A few weeks ago, Jon and I went to an Indian neighborhood in Chicago for dinner and grocery shopping. (Also window shopping at some very posh sari boutiques!) In addition to a variety of other products, we ended up with 24 pounds of various beans. Hence, I am on a mission to eat more dal. With the weather getting cooler and cooler, this seems like a good time for it.

The first dal I wanted to try was "val dal," which are apparently skinned and split lablab beans. Helpful, I know. I had never seen it before, and I was intrigued because the beans are bigger than most beans that are split but looked like they would cook more quickly than whole beans. I decided to go rogue on the val dal and just make something up entirely. I always feel nervous about coming up with my own spice ratios for Indian-type dishes because I'm worried I'll do it wrong. But I decided that was kind of silly, so I just went for it. I used "Balti" curry powder from Penzey's, which is not as fragrant as a lot of curry powders and I think works well with root vegetables, along with whole mustard, fennel, and cumin seeds. I might not have used quite enough spice overall, but I thought the ratio worked well.

Another experiment I did was comparing cooking times of a bean I had never made, beets, and potatoes. I didn't think they would all magically have the same cooking time, but I put them in at the same time because I didn't know which ones would be done sooner. It turned out that the potatoes basically melted into the sauce by the time the beets and dal were ready. Now I know.

Oh, one more thing: The Indian cookbook I have calls for mustard oil for most of the dishes. I had never seen it in a store, so I've always used generic vegetable oil instead, but I found it in the grocery store last night and decided to use it today. As I returned the oil to the pantry, I noticed that it is labeled "for external use only." I didn't want to either poison us or waste perfectly good food, so I looked up "mustard oil external use only" on google, and it turns out that some people think it's not safe due to high levels of some kind of fatty acid. Apparently it's been a big controversy. I'm in the "it doesn't seem to have killed the Indians yet" camp, so I left the dal cooking.

The end result was pretty good. I think I will spice and salt it more heavily next time, but it was nice to experiment a little, and I really liked the beets in with the beans. I think it would be great with kale or mustard greens, and I would probably ease back a little on the mustard oil because it's more pungent than I thought it was based on smell. On the whole, though, it was a pretty successful experiment.

The second bean I played with was "urad dal," which is split black lentils. I made a pretty simple dish with the dal, tomatoes, kale, and just some ginger, turmeric, cumin, and coriander to spice it. I couldn't quite decide whether I wanted it to be soupy or dry, so it's somewhere in between. Once again, I probably could have spiced it a little more heavily. I have trouble knowing what the ratio should be of water/beans to spice when I'm cooking without a recipe. Jon loved this one. It was good comfort food for a chilly night.

Val dal with beets and potatoes

2 tbsp mustard oil

2 tsp balti seasoning or curry powder

1/2 tsp whole mustard seeds

1/2 tsp whole fennel seeds

1/2 tsp whole cumin seeds

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 onion, thinly sliced

1 tbsp ginger, minced

1 large beet, cut into small cubes

1 medium potato, cut into small cubes

1 cup val dal or other bean

3 cups water

Heat the mustard oil in a large saute pan over medium-high heat. Add the seasonings and stir to coat with oil. Add the onion and ginger and cook for a few minutes. Add the beet, potato, dal, and water. Cover, bring to a boil, and then reduce heat to a simmer. Simmer, stirring occasionally, until beets and beans are done to your liking. You may have to add more water during the simmering process.

We served this with curry powder basmati rice. It's very simple: melt 1 tbsp butter in a small saucepan. Add 1/2 tsp curry powder, stir to distribute, and then add 1 cup of rice and stir to coat with butter and curry powder. Add 2 cups water and 3/4 tsp salt. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to a simmer, and cook covered until rice is done.

Urad dal with tomatoes and kale

1 tbsp vegetable oil

1/2 medium onion, chopped

2 tbsp minced ginger

1/2 tsp turmeric

1 tsp salt

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground coriander

1/2 tsp whole cumin seeds

1 can whole tomatoes, including juice

1 cup urad dal

2 cups water

Heat the oil in a medium saute pan over medium heat. Add the onion and cook for about 5 minutes. Add spices and saute for about 30 seconds. Add tomatoes and juices, dal, and water. Raise heat to bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer. Simmer, stirring and breaking up tomatoes occasionally, until dal is cooked to your liking, 30-40 minutes. You may want to add more water while it cooks. I don't think I actually measured, so the amount in the recipe is just an estimate.

This is one of our other treasures, that yummy breat-freshening stuff you sometimes get at Indian restaurants. It has candy-coated fennel seeds and other stuff in it. Yum!

Weird corn salad

This next salad was based on the fact that corn was on sale and I love fresh corn. One can make all sorts of great corn salads that are more or less bean-y and more or less salsa-ish. I wanted to do something different. It ended up tasting good because all of the components were good but it is not all the way there yet.

3 ears corn (these were smallish)

1/2 lb eggplant

14 grape or cherry tomatoes quartered

15 mint leaves finely chopped.

1/2 lime

Cook the corn. Cut it off the cob and let cool.

Slice eggplant and salt. Let sit for about 20 minutes. Rinse and then dice. Fry in oil. Put between paper towels to remove oil and let cool.

When cool combine the ingredients and squeeze the lime over the top.

Lessons:

Ev suggested removing the eggplant. She did not think that its texture worked. She also suggested adding black beans and avocado and maybe some basil. This would end up as a take on the classic bean-y corn salad with mint and basil in place of cilantro and grape tomatoes instead of usual tomatoes. It would probably be pretty good (classics get that way for a reason).

I, however, want to go big. Ditch the tomatoes (too acidic). Roast (or grill) the diced eggplant. Juice the lime separately and add honey to it. Add some diced chicken. I still feel like it needs something else. Can you help me?

We have not tried either of these variations.

Boozy fruit, an experiment (part 1)

Last week I saw an article in the New York Times food section about preserving fruit with alcohol. Alcohol is antibacterial, so according to the article you can preserve fruit without having to sterilize cans like you do with making jams. In addition, it just sounded intriguing to me. The article suggests that you can serve the fruit and liqueur with ice cream, custard, in trifle, or other dessert options, you can make a drink out of them or garnish drinks with them, or even make muffins out of them if you don’t mind a little buzz in the morning. It seems this is a great idea for gifts at Christmas or throughout the year.

The basic idea seems to be 1 pound of fruit, 1/2 cup of sugar, booze (at least 40% alcohol by volume) to cover, and 4-12 weeks of macerating time. I stared at my liquor shelf and came up with three combinations I wanted to try: gin and cucumber, strawberry and tequila, and plum or apricot and kirschwasser, which is a cherry brandy.

I went to the store and bought a pound of cucumbers, a pound of strawberries, three plumcots and three plums. I also picked up more gin (I didn’t want to use the good stuff for this experiment) and some regular brandy because I didn’t have enough kirschwasser, and the corner liquor store didn’t have it. I didn’t have any quart-size jars, and each pound of fruit makes about a quart, so I just used two smaller jars for each batch. This also gave me the opportunity to experiment with flavorings.

Tequila and strawberries

I paired these two because strawberry margaritas exist and are tasty. I washed the strawberries, cut the stems off, cut large ones in half, and cut all the soft or bad spots off. I figured bad spots would not fare well sitting in a cabinet for months. I divided the strawberries into two jars and added some lime zest to one of them. I added 1/4 cup sugar to each jar and filled with tequila.

Brandy with plums and plumcots

I picked this pairing because one of the recipes was in this vein and I had some kirschwasser I never used. I wasn’t really sure which stone fruit to use, cherry, apricot, or plum, but plums and plumcots were on sale at the store, so I went with those. I washed the fruit and poked it all over with a needle as advised in one of the recipes I had seen. I put the three plums into one jar and the three plumcots into another. To the jar with the plums I added 1/2 a cinnamon stick, some fragments of a nutmeg I had cracked previously, and 1/4 tsp vanilla bean paste. To the jar with the plumcots I added 1/2 cinnamon stick and 1/4 tsp whole cardamom seeds. I added 1/4 cup sugar to each jar, divided the kirschwasser between them, and filled the jars the rest of the way with brandy. The plums didn’t fit in the jars very well, so I ended up cutting one of them in half in each jar for geometry’s sake. I am interested in seeing if this changes the taste or texture.

Gin and cucumbers

I paired these two because of my favorite drink, the Gordon’s cup. I was also a excited to have a reason to use juniper berries. I received some as a gift about a year ago and hadn’t figured out a use for them yet. Using my mandoline, I sliced two cucumbers into 1/4-inch thick slices. I divided them between two jars. Into one jar I also placed 2 tsp juniper berries. Into the other I added a little lime zest and 1 tsp coriander seeds. I sprinkled 1/4 cup sugar into each jar and covered with gin.

There was a good amount of undissolved sugar at the bottom of all the jars, so I shook them around. After an hour or so of shaking every once in a while, the sugar had all dissolved.

All the fruits I used are less dense than alcohol. The plums were wedged into the jars pretty well, so they were completely submerged, but the strawberries and cucumber slices were poking up. I didn’t think that was a good idea, and I didn’t want to spend the next month rotating the jars so all the fruit would be submerged regularly, so I searched my house for ways to hold them down. I ended up putting the two halves of my tea ball into two of the jars, the top of one of our cocktail shakers into another, and an empty sample-sized glass jam jar with no label into the last one. These were just tall enough to push down the fruit so it wouldn’t be exposed to air. I hope none of them are alcohol-soluble. My life isn't very exciting; my quest to submerge fruit made me feel like MacGyver.

Tea ball to the rescue!

Having dissolved the sugar and submerged the fruit, I rinsed the jars so they wouldn’t leave sticky rings and placed them in a corner of a cabinet, the closest thing I have to a cool, dry place in my Houston apartment. Unless I get too antsy, I plan on trying them in around six weeks, which will be November 9th-ish. I’m excited. I’ll let you know how they are and what I decide to do with them. At that point, if they’re good, I can make more batches that will be ready just in time for Christmas.

Mustard that means it

Sorry, no picture. But it just looks like grainy mustard, so you're not missing much. I've been meaning to try making my own mustard for a while, and last week I finally got around to it. I got this method from Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. This mustard is very potent. It will put hair on your chest and back while simultaneously clearing out your sinuses. I plan on experimenting in the future with trying to tame it. I might try adding some honey or sugar to it, or I might just try decreasing the amount of mustard seeds while leaving the wet ingredients the same. Or maybe replacing some of the vinegar with water. I'll keep you updated. This is good mustard, mind you. It's just that sometimes you don't really want a kick in the throat with your veggie burger. It made a very exciting celery remoulade, and it was great stirred into a potato-kale skillet. It's also an excellent topping for homemade veggie burgers. Once I perfect my mustard technique, I think it would be a nice gift for people. I might experiment with replacing some of the beer with whiskey or another spirit for even more character. Then there are all the add-ins you can do: garlic, caramelized onion, cranberry, etc. I'm looking forward to it. The only thing is that this makes more mustard than I usually go through in a year, so I'll have to make smaller recipes and/or figure out a way to work more mustard into my diet. (Or give samples to my friends.)

Mustard
Makes about 1 1/2 cups.
1/4 cup whole yellow mustard seeds
1/4 cup whole black mustard seeds
1/2 cup St. Arnold's Christmas Ale or other good beer
1/2 cup malt vinegar
Pinch of salt (I might increase to 1/4 or 1/2 tsp next time)

Combine all ingredients in a glass jar and seal tightly for two days. Puree in blender until desired consistency is reached. (You won't be able to get smooth mustard this way, but you can control how grainy it is.)

Inspiration pizza

A couple weeks ago, we got home late and hungry with very little food in the house. (We were even out of parmesan-the horror!) I felt like a Chopped! contestant. We had a beer pizza crust in the fridge from a couple days before. There were also some green beans that needed to be used. I marinated them in a mixture of lemon and tangerine juice with some black pepper, smoked paprika, and chopped garlic while I rolled out the pizza dough and assembled the rest of the ingredients. I spread some extra-virgin olive oil on the dough, followed that with a hearty helping of jarred pesto. I dotted the top with sun-dried tomatoes and layered the green beans on top. I wasn't sure that the feta would be good on the pizza, so I only put it on half of it. I put it in the oven at 375 and cooked it for about 12 minutes. I sprinkled on some pine nuts and then cooked it for another few minutes. It wasn't bad at all. If I decide to make green bean pizza in the future, I will chop them smaller, but other than that it pretty much worked. The leftover green bean marinade was a nice drizzle for the top. I was impressed by my kitchen ingenuity.
I'm thinking about doing a Chopped-style weird ingredient challenge every once in a while. My idea is that Jon and I each come up with two ingredients and then we each make a dish that has all four. It's dorky, but we don't have TV or internet at home, so how else are we supposed to entertain ourselves? If these challenges ever materialize, I'll post them here.

Veganized Banana Bran Bread

My first experiment with veganization was a resounding success! I have never veganized an already-vegetarian recipe before, but one of my goals this month was to try some simple substitutions, and this one worked very well. About two weeks ago I made the standard recipe for Jeanne Lemlin's banana bran bread from Vegetarian Classics. It was a great bread. It is less sweet than standard banana bread, and the bran gives it a nice chewiness. Both aspects make it more breakfasty and less desserty than normal banana bread. As written, the recipe contains eggs and melted butter. I made it as written first to make sure it was a good recipe before I started messing with things. In the vegan version, which I made last week, I used flax seeds mixed with water in place of the eggs and vegetable oil in place of the butter. I was worried that my naive substitutions would mess up the chemistry completely, but when it came out of the oven, it was great. I didn't have a piece of the first batch to compare it to, but it didn't seem to suffer at all from being veganized. Hooray! I look forward to using the flax-egg substitution in the future. Flax has a lot of fiber and omega-3's and is much lower in calories than eggs, so it is a good healthy alternative.

Veganized Banana Bran Bread
You can probably substitute whole wheat pastry flour for the all-purpose flour with no problems. I was out, so I didn't.

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup wheat bran
2/3 cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp nutmeg, optional
1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts
2 tbsp ground flax seed mixed with 6 tbsp water
2-3 mashed ripe bananas
6 tbsp vegetable or nut oil

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Use shortening or oil to greast a 9x5-inch loaf pan. In a large bowl, combine the dry ingredients and mix. In a medium bowl mix together the flax mixture, bananas, and oil. Scrape into the flour mixture and stir just to combine. Pour into the prepared pan.
Bake for 50 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the center of the loaf comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes before removing from the pan. If you have superhuman self-control, cool completely before slicing.

Experimental Indian night

Last week, we had my old roommate over for an evening of culinary experimentation and playing a card game called Rook. We would like to make "Cook and Rook" a regular occurrence. Jon made peppers stuffed with Indian-spiced lentils and rice, and I tried dosas for the first time. Dosas are thin Indian pancakes made with a batter that uses soaked (instead of cooked) rice and urid dal (split black lentils). You let it ferment for a while and then spread it as thinly as possible and cook it like a crepe. I used Mark Bittman's recipe, but I think I'm going to browse around and look for other ones. I had trouble getting it thin enough, even after adding a lot more water than Bittman suggested. But it was fun to try a new, very different food, especially since it is fermented. I like fermenting things. The filling for the dosas was amazing: potatoes, onions, and spinach spiced with garlic, ginger, turmeric, smoked paprika, cumin, and coriander. The smoked paprika isn't particularly Indian, but it added a lot to the dish.
I enjoyed our experimental night. Usually I am opposed to cooking a new dish for company, let alone something as different (for me) as dosas, but since it was billed as experimental, I wasn't worried about it falling flat. I will probably try dosas again in the not too distant future, and if they work out better, I'll put the recipe up here.

Blueberry-thyme frozen yogurt that is almost awesome

The new HEB had blueberries at an amazing 97 cents a pint last week, so we bought three of them. I had been wanting to try to make frozen yogurt, and I thought blueberry would be a good flavor for that. I didn't want to use any sugar, so I decided to add an herb flavor to make it a little more sophisticated. A quick taste test on the balcony showed that thyme was the right herb for blueberries.
I think I've gotten a little cocky lately. Most of my recent culinary experiments have been smashing successes (chickpea flour crackers, red pepper-tangelo sherbet, eggplant basil, oversalted kasha stirred into scrambled eggs, etc.), so I decided I didn't need no stinkin' recipe or any guidelines for making frozen yogurt. I made up a recipe, using just a tiny bit of sugar, and froze it. Unfortunately, it didn't freeze very well in my little ice cream maker, so I had to put it in the freezer for a while, take it out and crank it, etc. After eating dinner, we dug into the yogurt, and it was great. It was pleasantly tart, the blueberry flavor was rich, and the periodic bursts of thyme flavor were lovely. Next time I might steep the thyme in simple syrup to increase both the sweetness and the thymey-ness, but overall it was very nice. After we ate our dessert, we froze the rest like we usually do.
Unfortunately yesterday when I got it out to have some, it was as hard as a rock. I'm sure it would have softened in time, but I had to leave again before it was soft enough to eat. I was able to scrape a few spoonfuls off the top, and they were quite tasty, but I couldn't get very much. I have some theories on what went wrong and how I might fix it next time.

1) I didn't use much added sugar or fat, which lower the freezing point, so the mixture is too much like ice. To fix this I can add more sugar and maybe some cream next time, or use thicker yogurt, which has more fat and less water.
2) The way I froze it, taking it in and out of the freezer, didn't incorporate enough air into the mixture, so it froze too solidly. To fix this, I can make sure the freezer isn't too full and the little cannister that's supposed to go in there gets cold enough. I can also try to whirl it in the food processor and see if that breaks it up and adds some more air.

Have any of you had this problem, or do you know more about frozen dessert science than I do? Any tips would be welcome.

Blueberry-thyme frozen yogurt
1 1/3 cups fresh blueberries, rinsed
2 tbsp fresh thyme leaves, thick stems removed
1 tsp sugar
About 1 cup plain yogurt

Puree blueberry, thyme, and sugar. Pour into 2-cup measuring cup and add enough yogurt to equal 2 cups total. Mix thoroughly. Freeze in ice cream maker according to manufacturer's instructions.

Asian-inspired watermelon rind slaw

I am kind of obsessed with the three R's: reduce, reuse, recycle. I make wallets out of plastic bags I've fused together using an iron. I recycle as much as I can. I use old coffee cans for pencil holders and wear my clothes for as long as possible before replacing them. In the kitchen, I work vigilantly to keep produce from going bad in the fridge, I eat the cores of apples, I candy citrus peels to make a delicious snack, and I compost anything I can't use. At the office, I have also become the composter. People sometimes bring me their compost, and at office barbecues, I collect the compostable waste and take it to a neighborhood garden near me. This story begins with a math department barbecue. Someone brought a huge, delicious watermelon. By the end, I had over five pounds of watermelon rind. I took it home, but instead of composting it, I decided I might try to make something of it. I love the idea of making something good from what is essentially trash. That's where most people would have put it, at least.

Of course, I have heard of watermelon rind pickles, although I've never had one. I looked at a bunch of recipes online and decided they weren't really up my alley. They all seemed excessively sweet and soft, when I was looking for something crunchy and sour. Watermelon rind has a lot of melony-ness, but it isn't sweet at all, so there's no reason it should be made into a really sweet pickle. My first attempt was not very successful. I just cut the raw rind into 1-inch cubes, salted and then rinsed it, and put it in vinegar with some dill and mustard seeds. (We use a similar method for making refrigerator cucumber pickles.) They were way too hard and aggressively sour. I also tried a modified version of a recipe I had found online where the rind is cooked in vinegar and sugar with some spices for about 45 minutes. It worked better, although now I'd like it crunchier. I am still working on a good watermelon rind pickle recipe. Stay tuned.

My kitchen in the middle of pickle and slaw making: two batches of differently-spiced pickles, some slaw in the making, and a bag of watermelon rinds

While I was lamenting the too-crunchiness of my original pickles and thought about how really hard vegetables, like carrots, are sometimes much easier to eat when shredded. Thus began the quest for a watermelon rind slaw. My first attempt was by no means a failure. It was very simple: watermelon rind, apple cider vinegar, just a touch of sugar, a little shredded carrot, and some mint. Not bad, not stunning. The shredded watermelon rind was very easy to eat, and it was pleasantly crunchy and mild. I can definitely see it standing in as a substitute for cabbage or even celery or cucumber. (When I experimented with adding celery seeds to the slaw, it tasted eerily like actual celery.) I was unsatisfied, however, with the slaw. It was kind of boring. It would have worked at a picnic as a side to barbecued things, but only because it was crunchy and cold.

The first slaw

This afternoon I was browsing through Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian looking for inventive slaw recipes that might be easily adapted to watermelon rind. I came across his Korean chive and lettuce salad. Basically, it's a bunch of chives with a soy sauce and sesame oil dressing mixed in with lettuce. In the variations, he suggests using shiso instead of the chives. I have never seen or tasted shiso, but apparently it's a Japanese herb that is a little basil-y, a little minty, and a little cinnamony. I decided to try the recipe with watermelon rind and assorted herbs from my garden.

Friends, I was not disappointed. I used some purple globe basil, which has very small leaves and has gone to flower already. I used the flowers as well as the leaves and stems. I also threw in some Thai basil, which has a pleasant anise flavor, and some chives. It was good. Really good. Jon, who has been very patient with me for keeping over six pounds (there was a second watermelon) of rind in the fridge even though it was already full, has been pretty skeptical of the whole project. He was underwhelmed by the original watermelon-carrot slaw, but he recognized the genius of this one immediately. It is crunchy, floral, and complex. While we were eating it and marveling at how awesome it was, I had the brilliant idea of making it into spring rolls. So we did. The sauce is quite strong, so it's like you have already put the dipping sauce in the spring roll. We loved it. We spent dozens of minutes talking about how great it was, and by extension how awesome I am.

Where amazing happens

I know that is a very long buildup to a recipe. And I feel a little bad because really, the watermelon rind is completely replaceable. Cabbage would be perfectly acceptable here. Probably carrots would too. Or celery or cucumber or any other crunchy vegetable. The herbs and dressing are what make this such a good dish, not the watermelon rind. The melony-ness is definitely overwhelmed by the other flavors, but darn it, it's free! Assuming you like watermelon (and I don't see how you couldn't), the rind is completely a bonus vegetable. I am still working on other good ways to use it, but I am very, very happy with this recipe. It's extremely likely that the dinner guests we are having tomorrow night will be eating it. Without further ado, here it is.

Slaw in a bowl

Asian-inspired watermelon rind slaw (based loosely on Bittman's recipe for Korean chive and lettuce salad):

About 1/2 pound watermelon rind, peel removed, grated with a food processor, about 2 cups
About 1/2 cup assorted fresh herbs, minced (I used purple globe basil and its flowers, Thai basil, and chives)
1 tbsp toasted sesame oil
2 tsp soy sauce
2 tsp rice wine vinegar
juice of 1/4 lime
1 tsp sugar
A tiny, tiny bit of Srirachi sauce, or more if you have a higher tolerance for heat than I do (trust me, you do)
1 tsp fresh ginger, minced or grated
2 tsp toasted sesame seeds

Wring out the watermelon rind with your hands over the sink. It's wetter than it lets on. Put it in a bowl. Add the herbs and toss. Mix together the oil, soy sauce, vinegar, lime juice, sugar, Srirachi, ginger, and sesame seeds. Pour over the rind and herbs. Marvel at your (or my) inventiveness. If you want to make it into spring rolls, just get a spring roll wrapper ready and put some filling in. You don't need a dipping sauce or any other ingredients.

1st bread machine loaf

My mom let me have her old bread machine when I went back to Dallas last weekend. Yesterday it was time for the first batch of bread. Jon and I both thought the onion dill rye bread sounded easy and good, so I decided to make that. I bought bread flour and rye flour at the store, read and reread the bread machine instructions and recipe, and finally assembled the bread. Since it was 8:30 by that time and I was not going to stay up until after midnight for the bread, I put it on a delay so it would be ready at 8 this morning. I didn't sleep all that well because I was so excited about the bread, and around 7:40 I could smell the bread. When I went to the kitchen to peek in, I was a little surprised by how short the loaf was. And when it was done cooking and I took it out, it was clear that it hadn't risen nearly as much as it should have. It is pretty dense, although definitely not inedible. I am disappointed in the rise, but now I can have fun figuring out how to make the next one better.

Here are some theories I have, from most to least likely:
1) Maybe the yeast isn't fresh enough. It says best by January 2009, and it also says to use it within four months of opening. I probably bought it in 2006 or 2007, so clearly it is expired on two counts. However, it appeared healthy when I proofed it in some warm water this morning. Proposed solution: buy new yeast. Alternate proposed solution: increase the amount of yeast since it doesn't appear to be completely dead and may just be a bit less effective. I might try the alternate solution first so I don't have to buy new yeast.
2) Maybe the yeast didn't stay dry long enough. If the yeast touches the water too soon, it will start to bubble and give off gas before it's supposed to, and it won't get trapped in the gluten and make my bread big and strong. Even though I carefully put the yeast on top of the dry ingredients, which were on top of the water, maybe the delay was too long and the yeast got wet. Proposed solution: don't use the delay setting.
3) I used the whole wheat setting, which has an extra rise cycle in it. The recipe didn't come from the bread machine manual, and while the rye is a whole grain, it also white bread flour. Maybe the second rise isn't good for that recipe. I don't know whether having the second rise for whole wheat bread is standard. Proposed solution: use the white bread setting.
4) Maybe the room was too humid. I hope this is not the case because I don't want to have to modify all my recipes for humidity. I will only entertain this option if the first three fail. Proposed solution: Decrease water slightly.
5) The bread machine hasn't been used in at least five years, so maybe it isn't calibrated right or had trouble adjusting to being used again. Proposed solution: make more bread?

The scientist in me wants to try each solution separately and then combine them if results look promising, but the person in me who doesn't want to waste a lot of ingredients on inferior bread wants to try all the solutions at once to give herself the best chance of success.

The bread is tasty, especially toasted with butter. Then again, what isn't?