Rosemary Sea Salt Bread -

I am always thinking up new ways to freshen old recipes especially when it comes to adding something very simple that will make a huge difference. We all love our bread around here and there have been endless recipes tried out making it better all the time.

One of my favourite for this time of the year is Rosemary Seasalt Bread. Perhaps I like it so much because it goes with nearly everything - any kind of meal you might cook, this herby bread is tasty and versatile. 

But, it also packs a punch as far as wholesome goodness is concerned as well. This past week I have been giving some thought to flu season, colds and winter bugs in general as they are so common this time of year - one food to always include in your cooking would be herbs to help strengthen your body.

It is no secret how much I love and use herbs - the vast majority of the ones used in my cooking are from my own garden. Planted, raised, grown and then dried by hand. These taste the best in cooking and baking adding superior flavour and freshness.

With this in mind I started making a Rosemary bread which by itself tastes great - I follow my usual recipe for baking spelt bread - which means to not measure anything, just start adding the ingredients! But, when I adding the simplest sea salt over top - the taste is outstanding!

To make this bread, I might use about 4 cups of organic whole grain spelt flour, 1 teaspoon baking soda, 2 teaspoons dried rosemary (or fresh if you have it), 1/2 cup ground linseeds, 1 teaspoon dried oregano, pinch salt, water. This is all mixed up into a thick batter until it resembles a bread mixture and then spooned into a lined loaf pan.

Once the loaf pan is filled I sprinkle more rosemary over top together with coarse sea salt such as Celtic sea salt. I might press this into the bread dough a little bit to get it to stick as well. Then this is baked in a hot oven for about 50 minutes until done...

This is one of the simplest and tastiest breads that I have ever made and I can't wait until Solstice to try some out with a piece of smoked fish... Yumm!

April

Rosemary Sea Salt Bread 

Creamed Coconut Macaroons - Sugar Free!

I am always trying to improve on a recipe - and when I think of some ingredient that will make an already good recipe taste great, I can't wait to try it out. These past few days I have been waiting until my cleanse was finished so I could play around with some ideas I had for my macaroons.

We are people who enjoy coconut but probably don't eat that much of it. Maybe that's why we still really like it - it's a treat to find it added to a dish or in a cake or cookie. My husband grew up eating coconut macaroons and would name them as one of his favorite treats.

As for me, my available treats would have been far more traditional with fruit cakes, pies and oaty squares being the usual fare. In our house now, we just want to eat well, try new things and improve on the old ones... so with this in mind I have been working on the macaroon.

I like a chewy cookie, it's not a biscuit - it also needs to be sweet but not overly and distinctive without being overwhelming. This type of cookie lends itself to this situation because it can easily be made the way your family likes it.

This morning I made some Creamed Coconut Macaroons using the following recipe;

Creamed Coconut Macaroons

1 ¼ cups whole spelt flour

½ cup ground almonds

1 ½ cups desiccated coconut

1/2 cup grated creamed coconut

1 cup goat’s milk

¼ cup maple syrup or apple concentrate

½ teaspoon ground nutmeg (optional)

1/8 teaspoon salt

Turn your oven on to 180°C and prepare a large flat baking sheet. You can butter and flour it or cover with parchment paper. 

In a deep mixing bowl, measure out the flour, desiccated coconut, grated coconut, ground almonds, nutmeg and salt. Sift together until well mixed. Then pour in the maple syrup and milk – continue stirring until mixture is thick and sticks together well.

Using a wooden spoon, drop medium sized amounts onto the baking sheet until you have used up all the batter and these are evenly spaced. If making smaller ones you can space them closer together. 

Bake in the hot oven for 14 -16 minutes until golden brown on the outside. These are spicy and chewy, great as a snack anytime....

Enjoy!

April

Creamed Coconut Macaroons

Refining Our Tastes...

Yesterday was the second day off the Master Cleanse for us, so we are still getting back to eating regular meals and filling up on good food. When I came into the kitchen to get lunch ready there was a already a plan in place as the children were asking for sushi. 

This is one of our favorite  meals or snacks that takes little time to prepare and is very versatile, it also travels fairly well for small kids. Of course, we don't make this with raw fish - but nearly anything else goes when it comes to sushi in our house.

Usually we make sushi rolls with guacamole, tuna, cucumber and grated carrot. However, yesterday everyone was in the mood for other flavours, so I rooted around to see what we had on hand. I found local crab meat and locally hot smoked tuna -- when mixed together this was a very nice combination.

For the meal I made a vegetable stir-fry and then realized that -- with virtually no processed foods remaining in the house, we did not have a mayonnaise or sauce for dipping. This brought me back to the drawing board and cooking/creating something from scratch.

I have tried my hand at making mayonnaise several times, with some success. However, for small children, I did not necessarily want to use raw duck eggs as part of a recipe. Thus, the sauce needed to be cooked so this was moving into new territory for me.

In the end, I separated the egg yolk and cooked it together with some water, spelt flour and butter. Then added in mustard and spices, vinegar and kept stirring until it was thickening up. After taking it off the stove I pureed it and slowly added some oil. 

To be honest, I thought that it was lovely and smelled nice, but it looked more like hollandaise sauce then mayo, at least not the white stuff you will find in the shops. The one thing I was certain of was that the children would not eat it - but they were the ones who surprised me. Everyone loved it and I don't think there was much left over!

Now, I just want to play around with the recipe a bit more to get it where I really like it and then find a way to preserve it for a couple weeks at a time or perhaps even longer. I mean, we can buy something off of a shelf and it has a date indicating that it can last for quite awhile - how do they do that with such highly perishable food items?

The only method is to use chemical additives, stabilizers or preservatives and so forth. When not using these, perhaps the best way to enjoy mayonnaise sauce is freshly made. The wonderful thing here is it was very quick to put together with just making it up as I went from a vague idea of what should be found in a white sauce that I wanted to become a mayonnaise. 

Perhaps, this is the simplicity of all cooking and preparing meals - they can be tasty, wholesome and easy to assemble and we have somehow been stupified into thinking otherwise. Clever marketing, yes?

Have a great day,

April

Sushi roller, sheet of nori seaweed and lunch!