Simple Things: Baking Bread

What is wrong with this image? Don't get technical on me, I'm talking about the knife-wielding toddler. I can assure you the phone (camera) was hastily put down to correct the situation.

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I'm still very new at baking bread at home. It's one of those 'simple' things that is so easy to do but I had a real block with bringing it through. I've been doing a lot of simple, homemade stuff for a few years now but this one, I never quite got to, until recently. Partly because I wasn't really eating much bread (living mostly gluten free) and having slipped back into eating a smaller amount of bread, I suppose I found the idea of baking it myself overwhelming. 

Anyway we have been enjoying going to a playgroup where bread making is the first activity of the day (such a beautiful way for the little ones to settle in) and I started to see that this was really something I could bring in to our days easily enough. It's not an everyday activity, and with not many mouths to feed, one morning of bread-making lasts us a few days. And then I feel like I need a few days to recover from the bread overload before I even think about doing it again. But we love it. And I love watching my little one playing in the garden, baking his bread, popping it in a sunny spot to rise. This is how they learn, isn't it?

The recipe I've been using the last few months is a simple one that was shared by our wonderful playgroup coordinator, so I'll share it here with you. I can assure you there is nothing complicated about this recipe and so many ways to vary it, change it up and add interesting extras for flavour and texture. I'm also eyeing off the amazing looking recipe in the My Darling Lemon Thyme cookbook, a gluten free sourdough. When I can master that, I think I might be in bread heaven. But first, the basics.

Bread

Ingredients

5 cups flour (whole wheat, spelt, white can be used or even a mix of flours, e.g. 3 cups whole wheat, 2 cups white)

1.5 tsp granulated yeast

2 tsp extra virgin olive oil

2 cups warm water

1 tsp sugar (optional)

1 tsp salt (optional)

Method

Dissolve sugar (if using) into warm water and stir in yeast. Let sit for 10 minutes or until frothy bubbles appear giving off a fermenting 'beer' smell.

Sift flour/s and salt (if using), mixing together. Make a well in the middle.

Add oil to the yeast liquid and pour into well in flour, stir.

Knead well (approx. 5 minutes).

Place bread dough in a bowl covered by a warm, damp tea towel and leave to rise in a warm spot (at least 1 hour).

After the dough has doubled in size, give it a second kneading (approx. 5 minutes) and transfer to a greased bread tin or shape into rolls. 

Let it rise a second time in a warm place (a sunny spot or a pre-warmed oven with heat turned off) until doubled in size again.

Bake in preheated oven at 180 degrees for about 40 minutes.

It's pretty simple. It's a really primal thing, for me, making bread at home. The slow, mindful kneading of the dough (with a sweet little song to hold the space for little one, and big one), the smell of freshly baked bread that fills the house, the simple pleasure of eating bread baked fresh with your own hands. It makes a house a home; it makes the everyday come to life. I am most definitely keeping this practice going. And on bread day, we eat a simple soup for dinner, just so we can eat a little more bread.

Do you make your own bread? 

A few of my favourite things, lately.

Some of these are from a while ago now and some are more recent.

A beautiful old door and flowers at the place we stayed at in Port Fairy recently.  Those flowers sum up how my stay here made me feel, when everything was turned upside down in my world.

Simple Natural Living: How To Make Your Own Natural Lip Balm
I don't have a lip balm recipe I'm happy with yet, and I make it so infrequently that I forget in-between what to do. So this is where I will go next time I'm making lip balm. Such simple ingredients, and so easy.

Schooling the World
I saw a link for this over on Owlet blog last year sometime, and I was completely blown away. It was a real eye opener, for me especially when thinking about what I saw on my travels in Nepal and Tibet a few years ago. I would love to write more about this one.

Tiger Iron Star
This is just my favourite thing on Etsy this week. I put it in my favourites and every time I see a little image of it, I just love it all over again. Tiger Iron is one of my favourite crystals to work with and this star shape just really appeals, for some reason.

{A Meaningful Garden} Sophie Isobel Asher
I love this meaningful garden series that Bec at Think Big Live Simply puts together. This piece from Sophie Isobel Asher is just beautiful.

Om Reiki
This is the place where I did my reiki I and II certificates and I could not recommend it highly enough. The founder, Jeremy, has such an amazing connection to energy and is such a great communicator. The two courses I've done with him have just been amazing.

Moist Chocolate and Zucchini Loaf
I've made this one a couple of times now, and my only change is to reduce the sugar and add some cranberries, just for something extra nice. This recipe is has become my go-to recipe for a chocolate zucchini cake kind of thing. It is very yummy.

Homemade: Fresh Basil Pesto

I originally wrote this post as a guest post over on Red Parka Diaries about a year ago. Since it's that time of year again, and I'm looking at basil plants with a limited lifespan left, I thought I'd share it here. One of my all time favourite things to make is fresh, homemade basil pesto. Yum.

For some reason, whenever I grow basil [every year], I'm always cautious to use it up too soon, so I end up being overly sparing with it. And then, of course, the plants go to flower, the season comes to a close and I have all this basil that didn't get used. It's like clockwork. The best way I know of to use up excess basil is to harvest it in big chunks and make pesto. It's super easy, it tastes delicious and you can adjust the ingredients so that it's perfectly to your liking [hello too much parmesan]. Here's what I do.

Ingredients:

fresh basil - a good handful, torn or chopped

garlic - 1/2 clove, crushed

pine nuts, lightly toasted - 1/4 to 1/2 cup, more or less

sea salt

cracked black pepper

parmesan cheese, finely grated - 1/4 to 1/2 cup, more or less

olive oil - 1/4 cup, more or less

optional: fresh lemon juice

You may note that I'm a bit vague with the quantities in this list. That's because I don't tend to use set quantities, rather, I just start out with however much basil I have, and make it to a consistency and flavour that I like. You can taste it and adjust as you need to along the way. 

Method:

I use a mortar and pestle for making pesto. You could use a food processor, but I prefer the rustic, homemade appeal of using brute force. So pop your basil leaves into the bowl, along with the garlic, pine nuts and some salt and pepper to taste, and bash away. You want it to form a paste, and you can either leave it more chunky or keep on bashing it til it's a bit smoother, your call. Next add your parmesan and give that a good stir through. Then pour in some olive oil and stir to get your paste nice and smooth. At this stage, you'll want to have a taste and see what you think - is there enough parmesan added? Is the balance of flavours about right, or is it too heavy on the basil? Is it too dry, in which case you'll need more oil? So many variables, but I find that it changes every time I make it, and it's very easy to adjust ingredients on the go. 

So basically, make whatever adjustments you think it needs, and you're done. Homemade basil pesto! Something to note, if you intend to store it for a day or two you'll need extra oil, and make sure that when you put it in a jar, the top is covered in oil. You can also add a dash of lemon juice to help stabilise the colours if you're making it a bit ahead of eating time. This gives it a nice fresh lift too.

Three of my favourite ways to eat fresh homemade basil pesto:

1. stirred through cooked pasta with extra pine nuts and parmesan for good measure.

2. as a dip, along with crackers, a sharp cheese and a chilled white wine [you could substitute pine nuts for cashews if you're planning on serving it this way].

3. as a base on homemade pizza - fresh basil pesto on Turkish bread, topped with roasted sweet potato, spinach, feta and topped with more cheese of your choice. 

I honestly think that fresh homemade basil pesto is one of life's loveliest treats. And it's so easy! I hope you've enjoyed seeing how I do it.

What's your favourite way to use up lots of basil?

Homemade: [Sugar-Free] Banana and Date Loaf

Requested a little while ago now, and here it is. And I say sugar-free since there is no added sugar, the sweetness comes from the bananas and dates, which is more than enough. Obviously there is sugar in the bananas and dates.

Banana bread is made very regularly in this house. Mainly because we buy up bananas and then they ripen too quickly, before we've been able to eat them [at least, this is what happens in summer]. You can pop the in the freezer when they're over-ripe too, and pull them out to bake with when you want them. Great for 40 degree days when they're well over-ripe and it's too hot to put the oven on.

Anyway, this is a super easy loaf to bake. It's the simple banana bread recipe that I use to make baby teething rusks [see this post here], but with dates added. You could add anything you like - walnuts, cranberries, raisins, whatever you have on hand. But dates are a bit of a classic. It makes a low-lying loaf, not too large, and is truly best eaten fresh. And warm, with a good slather of butter. Mmmm.

Ingredients

About 60g butter, melted

1 egg, lightly beaten

2 ripe bananas, mashed

1 cup self raising flour*

1 tsp cinnamon

handful of dates, chopped

How To Make

Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius. Grease or line a loaf tin.

Mix together the melted butter [let it cool a bit first] and the egg, then combine with mashed banana.

Add the flour and cinnamon, mix until all blended in. 

Stir in the dates.

Pour/scrape into prepared loaf tin and bake for about 40 minutes.

Allow to cool a little in tin, but not too long, as it's best eaten warm.

How easy is that? Sit down, have a cup of tea, a chunk of banana and date loaf and put your feet up. Thank me later.

What else would you add to this loaf? Any other suggestions? I'd love to hear [and try a few new flavours..].

* We use gluten free flour in our baking.

Homemade: Plum Jam

I had totally forgotten that this place we've moved back to has a plum tree. And even in the first month or so that we were back here, it hadn't dawned on me that there would soon be plums. But as November progressed, I watched and saw the little green plums being formed on the tree. I have a wonderful view of it from our sunny afternoon sitting spot where we read books. And I kept thinking to myself, I must get out there with the camera and capture some images of the plums turning from green to red. And it still never occurred to me that I could make plum jam. And I didn't really get any good images either.

Once the plums started ripening, and I started harvesting lots and lots of plums, it became a matter of urgency to make the jam before they got too ripe. I'm new at this jam-making business, and I've had a few attempts with the plums now [with varying success], but I'm hooked. I love that those delicious plums won't go to waste now, as so many of them have been turned into jam that can be eaten for months to come. Actually I think I've made more jam than we're likely to eat in a year. I could give it away, and probably will, but I want to be sure of the quality of my work before I go handing it out. Obviously mum gets a jar regardless.

So we have plum jam. We've been eating scones and pikelets and we had to make jam drops [my favourite biscuits]. I am yet to master the art of jam making, but I'd like to think I'm learning more with each attempt. The first attempt was a total fail, it was too set and we could barely get it out of the jars. The second attempt was much better, it is spreadable but still a little on the too-set side of things. The third attempt is cooling in jars as I type, and I'm concerned that I've over-corrected and it's now too runny. Time will tell. Fingers crossed it sets well as it cools. I think I need a lot more practice at this jam making caper. 

Here's the recipe I followed. 

Plum Jam

Ingredients:

900g plums [prepared weight]

150ml water

900g granulated sugar

Method:

Put plums into a heavy based saucepan. Add water and bring to the boil. Lower heat, and simmer gently for 30-40 minutes. The fruit should be soft. 

Tip in the sugar and stir over a very low heat until sugar has completely dissolved.

Raise the heat [gently] and bring back to a rolling boil, then rapidly boil for 10 minutes.

Remove from heat, skim off any excess scum from the top and allow to settle for a few minutes. Pour into hot sterilised jars and seal.

Making jam is one of those things that connects me to my grandmother, and her mother. I'm learning how to do something that was common knowledge a few generations ago. And it's one more thing I can make from scratch, instead of buying as a processed product at the supermarket. 

Have you made jam? Are you a pro? Or a novice like me?

Homemade: Apple and Cranberry Muffins

It's high time for another recipe post. Which actually means that in my flat out days of mothering an 8 month old, I made these muffins and managed to snap some photos of them. So my blogging secret is out - if I have a photo, a blog post happens. If I don't, it doesn't. So much for forward planning..

Anyway, they are very yummy muffins. I've reached a point in my baking evolution where I can make muffins without a recipe - vary this, add that, hold back some of this, add a little more of that. And produce something reasonable. And all while watching the clock waiting for a sleeping babe to wake. Motherhood is certainly increasing my efficiency at life. These are super easy, and of course, you can vary them to suit yourself.

I used a 6-hole muffin tray for large muffins, but you could use a 12-hole muffin tray for smaller muffins. And of course, no added sugar. There's more than enough sweetness in the apples and cranberries without adding processed sugar. 

Ingredients:

3 apples, chopped into chunks

1/4 cup olive oil

1 egg, lightly beaten

3/4 cup milk

1 1/2 cups self raising flour*

1/3 cup almond meal

cinnamon to taste

handful of dried cranberries

Method:

Heat oven to 180 degrees celsius. Grease muffin tray.

In a bowl, combine olive oil, egg and milk and mix together. Add flour, almond meal and cinnamon and give it a quick stir [it doesn't have to be all combined]. Add chopped apples and dried cranberries and stir it all together. Just enough so there's no dry flour left, you don't want to over mix it. 

Spoon it into the prepared muffin tray and bake for 20-25 minutes, give or take. Closer to 20 minutes for 12 small muffins, closer to 25 minutes for 6 large muffins.

Cool in the muffin tin. Or don't cool them, just eat them warm.

The only problem with making 6 large muffins rather than 12 small muffins is that they disappear too quickly. And the chunkier you leave your apples, the chunkier the muffins are. I like to call it the rustic look. But you can always chop your apples smaller if you have the time/patience/inclination.

* I use gluten free flour.

Homemade: Easy Sweet Biscuits

I thought I'd share with you the recipe for our homemade biscuits. We make these a lot. As in, I don't buy biscuits, and this is about the only thing I make [regularly] that has added sugar [ok so the the odd chocolate muffin also happens..]. They are definitely my go-to treat for when I'm craving something sweet. Warning though, these are dangerous. Fresh out of the oven they are so good it's highly possible to eat a large portion of the batch without realising it and then have a mega sugar high. Followed by a mega sugar crash. You have been warned.

This recipe is adapted from the Cheap and Easy Biscuits recipe in the book Down to Earth [clearly a favourite of mine]. This is the base recipe, and from here you can make whatever biscuit you like - jam drops [my favourite], choc chip, peanut butter, plain and sprinkled with icing sugar, whatever you fancy. We get four batches of biscuits out of this basic mix, so we wrap them separately and put them in the freezer. It's so easy to have yummy homemade biscuits when you only have to defrost the dough, roll them into balls and bake them. Too easy really.

Ingredients:

250g butter, softened

1/4 to 1/2 cup sugar [depending how sweet you like it]

1 x 395g can sweetened condensed milk

4-5 cups of self raising flour*

Method:

Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius. Line trays with baking paper [I re-use my baking paper when I make these].

Cream together the butter and sugar, and add the sweetened condensed milk. Stir in the flour. The final amount of flour depends on how thick the mixture is looking [how much sugar you use also impacts]. If I add too much flour and it's looking to thick, I add a dash of milk to moisten it up again.
Add any bits to the dough like chop chips. Shape the dough into little balls and flatten onto baking trays. For jam drops, make a little hole in the centre of each biscuit and fill with jam. For plain biscuits, flatten with a fork for a pretty look.
Bake for 8-10 minutes, depending on your oven and how crunchy you like your biscuits.
Remove from oven and eat them [or let them cool and store them].

We get about 15-20 biscuits per batch depending on how big we make them. Also, when using dough that has been frozen, I find that it gets a bit dry so I usually work it in a bowl with a little milk to bring it back to a good consistency. Since we started making these, some months ago, we have not made any other kind of biscuit. I probably need to branch out and at least keep my hand in with some other recipes, but seriously, this are just so easy and good, you can't blame me for getting a bit stuck on them.

What's your go-to sweet treat that you make?

* We use gluten-free flour.

Homemade: Sugar-Free Banana Rusk for Baby

We've hit that point. William baby is 6 months old and looking for things to eat. And wanting to chew on everything in sight. So instead of giving him cardboard [which gets accidentally eaten], I thought it best to give him something to gnaw on that he can actually eat.

I googled and found a few recipes for banana teething rusks, but they all contained added sugar. Which I thought was a bit - not so good. Because apart from natural sugars in fruit, I don't want my little getting too much of a liking for sugary stuff. Anyway the recipes I did find were essentially banana bread, sliced and baked a second time. So I decided to try our usual banana bread recipe, which has no added sugar, and see how it worked out.  

I have to say, so far it's working out pretty good. William is happy enough to gnaw away on them, and they soften up in the process, so he actually gets to eat little bits of it. At some point it gets thrown somewhere dirty, and then it goes into the chook bucket. No waste in this house! It's only moderately messy [compared to say, a banana on it's own] and I can pretend it's biscotti and eat a slice too. Win.

So here's the recipe [and for banana bread, just stop after the first bake, it's good].

Ingredients

About 60g butter, melted

1 egg

2 medium bananas, mashed

1 cup self-raising flour*

1 tsp cinnamon

How to Make

Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius. Grease or line a loaf tin. 

Mix together the melted butter [allow it to cool slightly first], the egg and the bananas. 

Add the flour and cinnamon, mix until all blended in.

Pour into prepared tin and bake for about 40 minutes.

~for banana bread only, stop here and eat it~

Reduce the oven temperature to 150 degrees celsius. You may need to leave the door open for a few minutes for the temperature to drop.

Cut the loaf into slices and place on a lined baking tray. If the slices are too wide, cut them in half lengthwise.

Return to the oven and bake for 45-60 minutes. Keep an eye on them past the 45 minute mark. There is a fine line between hard baked and black and crispy. You want hard baked.

Cool and enjoy. 

These are fine stored in an airtight container for about 3 days. I'm sure you can freeze them, but I haven't tried yet. Do keep an eye on your little one while they chew on them. They could bite a piece off, especially if they've got teeth already. 

Do you have any other suggestions for good [vegetarian] baby chew things? I'd love to hear. I'd really, really love to hear!

*We use gluten-free flour.

Homemade: Tomato and Chickpea Soup

I love soup. Especially in winter, when it warms you to the core. And soups are generally so very easy to make. This one is no exception, all you need is a few simple ingredients and you're good to go. And honestly, it tastes better the day after being made. Next time I will make double the quantity and freeze some. 

Ingredients

1-2 tbsp olive oil

1 onion, chopped

1-2 cloves garlic, minced

pinch dried chilli flakes

440g can chickpeas, drained and rinsed

1 litre vegetable stock

handful of green beans, chopped

400g can tomatoes, diced

oregano, dried, to taste

pinch of sugar

sea salt and cracked black pepper, to taste

How to Make

Gently cook onion and garlic in olive oil over a low heat until soft. Add chickpeas and chilli flakes and cook for a minute or two. Add stock and bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer. Add green beans, tomatoes, oregano, sugar and season to taste. Stir well and simmer, covered, for about 15 minutes or until beans are cooked to your liking. Serve with crusty bread.

Serves 2 for a main meal.

Homemade: Roast Sweet Potato and Feta Muffins

There are two foods in this world that I find most agreeable, and in combination work even better than they do alone: roast sweet potato and feta cheese. Feed me anything with those two ingredients and I'll be a happy woman. My standard go-to meal is these two mixed with a short pasta, basil pesto, pine nuts and something green [think spinach leaves or broccoli]. But from time to time you need to mix it up a bit, right? So, muffins it is. 

I can't take the credit for making this lot. My wonderful husband did the baking, while I was stationed on the couch with a sleeping baby in my arms. We work as a tag team these days, whoever is baby-free does what needs to be done. And I have to add that the muffins were made with bucket loads of love. Here's how he did it.

Ingredients
2 cups self raising flour*
1 tsp baking powder
1 cup milk
2 eggs
feta cheese, diced, to taste
roast sweet potato, diced, to taste
rosemary, to taste

How to Make
Sift flour and baking powder into a bowl. Add the milk and eggs and mix to form the batter. Then add cubed feta cheese, roast sweet potato and chopped rosemary. Mix all together, spoon into a greased 12 cup muffin tray and bake 180 degrees celsius for about 20 minutes. Test they are cooked with a skewer if you're not sure.

Eat warm with butter!
Or eat for breakfast the next day, cut in half and grill cheese on the cut side. Seriously good.

* We used gluten free self raising flour.

  

Homemade: Sugar-Free Apple Crumble, of sorts

Lately I've been making an effort to avoid using sugar in my cooking, or at the very least, use it in small quantities. I guess over the past 12 months we have cut a lot of processed foods out of our diet, and this has automatically meant cutting sugars out of our diet. But the result is, we're noticing the natural sweetness of foods so much more than we used to. I think we don't appreciate the natural sweetness of fruits and vegetables when we add sugar to recipes. Anyway I've reached a point where I can't stand the extra sweetness when sugar has been added, and I'm loving the sugar-free treats. I should point out that what I'm not eating in sugar added to recipes, I'm making up for with my chocolate addiction.

One of my go-to recipes is sugar-free banana bread, using this recipe I found over on Mother Down Under, with some minor modifications. But I've been searching for the ultimate sugar-free apple and cinnamon type of recipe. I didn't really mind what the end food was, as long as it contained apple and cinnamon. I finally thought I'd try the banana bread recipe, but substitute apples for the bananas. It turned out pretty amazing! Not in a bread kind of way, but when I first took it out of the oven, it was more like apple crumble [made me want to smother it in ice-cream] and was best served in a bowl. I let the rest of it [that I didn't eat straight out of the oven] cool in the tin and then it became more slice-like, but still quite crumbly. Anyway all that aside, it tasted divine. And there's no added sugar. Here's what I did.

Sugar-Free Apple Crumble, of sorts

Ingredients

4 tablespoons butter [approx]

1 egg

5 medium apples, peeled and chopped

1 cup self raising flour*

cinnamon, to taste

handful of seeds and sultanas mix

Method

Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius. Grease and line a loaf tin.

Melt the butter. Allow it to cool slightly, then add the egg to the butter and mix it in.

In a bowl, combine the chopped apple and the butter and egg mix. Sift in the flour, then sprinkle over the cinnamon [I use a lot of cinnamon]. Add the seeds and sultanas mix, and stir everything together. It will be chunky but you want to make sure all the flour has been mixed in with the liquid parts.

Pour the mixture into the loaf tin, and squish it down quite well. 

Bake for about 40 minutes.

And that's it. The combination of butter and flour makes a crumbly crust on the top of the loaf, and the centre is soft and moist. The sweetness of the apples is enough without any added sugar. Best to eat it warm. If you're feeling kind, save some to share with your loved ones. Otherwise, best to just eat it all if you can.

* I use gluten free flours in all my cooking.

Homemade: Potato, Leek & Cannellini Bean Soup

I grew lots of different vegetables in my garden this summer, including potatoes and leeks, so this soup was always going to happen. What I've really enjoyed about growing a wide range of my own produce, is getting a feel for what foods are best in which season. You know, when we shop at the supermarket all the time, and fresh produce is always available [I use the word 'fresh' lightly], you can tend to lose touch with the seasonality of food and the rhythms of nature that go with eating seasonally. Anyway it wasn't planned, I just realised early on that I had leeks growing, and I had potatoes growing, and they would probably be ready for harvest around the same time. I guess that's why we have potato and leek soup!

Being a non-meat eater, I'm always keen to round out my meals with a bit of extra protein, so my version of this soup is modified to include cannellini beans. That, and because there was a tin of them in the cupboard at the time. And they're white. And it's always nice to take an idea for a recipe and modify it to suit yourself. Unless that recipe is for a Donna Hay cake or other sweet treat, in which case, don't mess with it. Anyway, here's what I did.

Potato, Leek & Cannellini Bean Soup

Ingredients:

1-2 tablespoons butter

2 leeks, thinly sliced

4 large potatoes, cut into small cubes

1 to 1.5 litre/s vegetable stock [more if you like your soup a bit thinner]

dash of nutmeg [optional]

1 tin cannellini beans, rinsed

1/4 cup parmesan cheese, finely grated

splash of milk

salt and pepper to season

Method:

1. Heat the butter in a large pan over a low-medium heat. Add the leeks and cook gently for about 20 minutes. You want them to be soft, not browned.

2. Add the potato, stock and nutmeg and bring to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer for about 10 minutes, or until your potatoes are almost cooked. 

3. Add the cannellini beans, and cook for another few minutes until they're heated through.

4. Remove the soup from heat, then blend, either in batches in a blender or food processor or with one of those hand held blender things [which I dream of owning].

5. Return the blended soup to the pan, and reheat over low heat. Stir in parmesan cheese and milk and season to taste with salt and pepper. And you're good to go.

Notes:
I'm not convinced on adding the parmesan. It did make it quite rich. But then I kinda liked that too. You could also add pouring cream at the end instead of the parmesan and milk. Or you could not blend it up and leave it chunky.

This makes a pretty thick soup. It's strange because I tend to think of this as more of a winter soup, yet I'm making it in late summer. I guess it's really an autumn/fall soup. It feels like autumn here already so it fits. I love seasonal eating!