Food as Comfort - Nutmeg Stewed Apples & Pears

Today I am only on day 4 of my November Master Cleanse - and I am not certain yet how long I will go with this one - perhaps 15 or more days. It is the detox season just before Solstice and Christmas and the perfect time of year to cleanse.

So, I am working at it here - of course by now, I have slipped into my usual cleanse routine of getting more organized, thinking about recipes and food! This is where my heart is so I can often be found puttering around the kitchen late at night conjuring up things to make. 

Right now with this cleanse I feel as if I am processing through an entire encyclopedia of old patterns and issues - and perhaps most of them have to do with food. I have been wondering if absolutely everything in our human existence revolves around food.

I know there are many who would say we respond to and revolve around sex - however, you can't have a healthy sexual attitude without being fed properly and developing at least to a minimum emotional level. And that requires food. 

Besides eating is sensual and a loving activity people can share and make part of any relationship. The first thing we do in life, besides breathing, is eat and seek out comfort after the ordeal of birth. So our food should provide not only nutrition but also comfort for us. 

With this in mind - the kids have been spending more time outside (cool sunny days) and working hard in the barn with all the animals and chores to be done. So I wanted to make a little treat for them today to warm them up when they came inside.  

I had to use up some organic Irish apples and pears - so I made them a stewed apple/pear dish with big chunks of fruit and a little nutmeg. I love the smell of warm apples in the house and the nutmeg is very warming as well. 

Late last night I had made a cinnamon banana bread with the older bananas - a slice of this in a bowl with the hot stewed apples over top was not turned down by anyone. It smelled and looked delicious!

April

Cinnamon banana bread with stewed apples & pears

You Can Make Anything With...The Basics

These past few days I have been thinking of making a cake, however I held off, mostly because we had so many other goodies to eat first. But, then again I caught myself thinking I needed to dig out my recipes in order to find something to make.

Today I could smell very ripe bananas in the kitchen (that sticky sweet banana smell) and knew something needed to be done with this bunch or I would lose them to compost. Of course, the most obvious choice is to make a banana bread.

So, I started to go and look up my recipes - but then stopped myself. This is simple, making ANY bread, any cake, any dessert can be a basic, simple start with just 3 or 4 ingredients, then we just add on from there to provide different tastes or textures. Right?

I mean, think about it - the basics for any cake or bread are; flour, water or milk, baking soda, salt, and then butter or oil, perhaps something sweet if needed. If we only put 2 cups of spelt flour, bread soda and salt into a mixing bowl - this could be the start of nearly anything!

Bananas in flour

Well, that is just what I did. I took 2 cups of spelt flour, 1 teaspoon of bread soda, some sea salt, 1 cup of goat's yoghurt/milk and a duck egg. This was my basic cake mixture to start off with. I wanted to make a banana bread, so to this I added 3 mashed bananas, 1 teaspoon cinnamon and nutmeg, a little more yogurt and kept stirring.

Then I looked around the kitchen to find something nice to put into the bread. I really like the taste of apricots and walnuts, a handful of these went in as well. By now, it was looking very much like a cake batter, smelled great and had enough flavour packed into it, so I just added a little date syrup to sweeten it.

I then poured this mixture into a loaf pan lined with unbleached parchment paper and put it into the oven at 180 degrees for nearly an hour. And voila! Here we have it....

Banana loaf cooling on rack

It was the nicest banana bread I have ever made and there is hardly a crumb left right now. It was fragrant, light, tasty and very moist. Perfect in every way, I have never had one turn out so well. I think it was because I completely followed my internal 'recipe', the same way I make my spelt bread. 

No measuring, no thinking, just intuitively listen and follow your heart - all the way home. 

Have a lovely day,

April 

Banana bread slices