This week

This week was 14 kg of granola, 1 kg of dukkah, 2 kids with foot-and-mouths disease, 1 little sister at the European Rowing Championships, 1 enormous pile of weeds, 1 lazy Saturday morning breakfast, 1 morning in the clouds and countless of hours doing research on pricing, products, milling and bulk deliveries.

I keep playing around with recipes for our Saturday morning pancake breakfast.

This one was a hit: 1 tub (375gr) ricotta, 4 eggs, two tablespoons of (any) flour, 1 teaspoon of baking powder, pinch of salt, drip of vanilla paste, drops of maple syrup and enough almond meal to make a nice thick batter.

The green stuff is goats cheese with honey, lime juice and pistachios (all in the name of research)...

Foggy morning, walking in/on clouds
The granola business has taken off, I’m getting very nice feedback. This week I’ve introduced dukkah. Slowly roasted nuts and spices to spruce up many meals.
Or avocados...
Last weekend we visited friends on Tamborine Mountain. They just moved to their new home with a citrus grove and avocado orchard. We came home with a small bucket full of limes and avocados and they’re just about gone... Great to see the kids just spooning away.

This weekend I’m doing some much needed graden maintenance. Getting the fruit trees ready for winter and the garden beds ready to plant after a year of neglect.
Still managed to carry out a bucket of sweet potato, two wheelbarrows of pumpkins, a container of ginger and  enough capsicum and eggplants to cover three pizzas. I’m starting to look forward again to freshly grown peas, lettuce and carrots. And I’m upping the herb content for a business plan that is still simmering. The kids are playing outside with worms and grubs, the chooks are big fans of these games. Sander is under the house with a torch and plumbing supplies. Diverting grey water for more garden growth.

For a long, long week Alex had a bad case of foot-and-mouths disease, he was covered in weeping blisters. He looked absolutely hideous, feverish and miserable. David followed suit a couple off days later. Although miserable and sooky, he fared a lot better, the positives of antibody enriched breastmilk! Other then for essentials (books, nuts and school runs) we did not leave the house. They’re both back to their happy, energetic selfs. So am I.

Fancy porridge

After all those very hot days and nights, we getting a bit of a reprieve with overcast “colder” days. Those everywhere else on the world will laugh their socks of when I say we were all cold this morning, donning jumpers and socks. It was 20C degrees….
A nice warming bowl of porridge sounded like a great idea. I’ve been trialling some variations on the basic porridge, like the porridge buffet (link).

This new variation has become a favourite, I call it my fancy porridge. Recipe greatly depends on your pantry, with mine it looks like this:
- Whole rolled organic oats cooked in coconut milk/cream/oil and or whole milk (or any other milk you like to use, almond milk would be great)
- A couple of spoons of raw organic cocoa powder
- A handful of sunflower seeds
- A couple of spoons of chia seeds

Soak overnight if you’re organised, bring the lot slowly to a boil.
When cooked through add some fresh fruit, today we had blueberries on hand and threw in some dried cranberries for colour. A little drip of maple syrup to counterbalance the bitterness of the cocoa. To top it of I found some shaved almonds and coconut flakes in the fridge.

Any suggestions for other things to add to the mix?

Banana&Blueberry Oat Cakes

As promised the recipe for the oat cakes, based on a recipe from Linda at the Witches Kitchen (recipe link). They are a big hit in our house for breakfast.

Oats are full of goodies while the eggs add some great protein, a great way to start the day.

The recipe:
Mix a cup of rolled oats with a cup of milk/buttermilk/yoghurt or combination thereof.
Let the oats soak up the liquid for 10 minutes or overnight.

While the oats are soaking (or the next morning), mix together.
- 2 eggs
- 2 mashed bananas
- 2 spoons of blueberries (or sultana’s)
- a nice sprinkle of cinnamon
- 1 tsp on baking powder
-  1 spoon of flour (spelt, rye, wholemeal, coconut,… do your thing) If you’re doing the overnight soak I would include this to the oat mixture the night before.

In a medium hot frying pan, add a little ghee or oil then spoon in the batter, a table spoon per pancake will do. Fry both sides until set and golden.
Sweet enough, but a tiny bit of lime honey wouldn’t go astray…

Make sure you double the recipe to have some leftovers for lunch boxes or afternoon snacks!

And the comments from the test team?

Fritters, a love story

Little pancakes filled with veggies, good enough for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

I first came across them in on of Annabel Langbeins cookbooks: The Free Range Cook Book.
My favourite cookbook, my recipe is based on hers.

A good basic fritter recipe is:
175 plain (or whatever) flour
3 tsp baking powder
3 eggs
250ml soda or cold water
1 tsp salt

Combine, then rest the batter for 15minutes or put in the fridge for an overnight soak.
While the batter is resting grate your veggies and chop some herbs.

Some ideas for variations:
- Herb Fritters: add a couple of tablespoons with pesto to the batter
- Corn Fritters: add 500gr corn and a little chopped up mozzarella
- Spring onion Fritters: finely chopped spring onions
- Zucchini Fritters: grate 2 medium zucchini’s, squeeze out the moisture, add some chopped mint and feta.
- Clean-out-your-fridge Fritters: grate your veggies and leftover bits of cheese
- A walk-through-the garden Fritters: chopped up silverbeet/kale/spinach, fresh herbs,… and a little goats cheese.
- Or any other combination you think up

In a frying pan, on medium heat, add a little oil or ghee then ladle in a spoonfuls of batter, turn when bubbles appear, they’re finished when they bounce back when pressed gently.

Serve with fried bacon, smoked salmon, or to go with that big smoked trout you got at your local fishmonger. They look very pretty on a bed of rocket leaves.

Make them smaller to serve as a little appetiser, served with smoked salmon, sour cream and dill.

If you like these, you might also want to try pakora’s (recipe link)

Breakfast Challenge

Over the last couple of years our eating habits have changed drastically, for the better I say.
Meals are made from scratch, bread is home baked, veggies and fruit come straight out of the garden or from the farmers markets and we’ve seriously cut back on processed foods and sugar.
We all feel better for it, took many little steps to get we’re we are now. I don’t think I would’ve managed in one giant step, the different jobs need to build into routines, before something new should be added. Going too fast is just setting yourself up for failure, it becomes to much and you give up.

Currently we’re looking at our grain intake. We’re big bread eaters or I must say, were, it’s such a Dutch habit. But it wasn’t doing it for me any more, despite the beautiful home baked sourdough bread, it was just too much grains and carbs in our diet and not enough of the rest to balance itself out.

For lunch I’ve gotten into the habit of eating dinner leftovers or soups. Making big pots, then canning or freezing in portion sizes makes soup very doable. But not so practical for lunch boxes. The kids do get a big container of veggies and fruit with them for recess every day, the box always comes back empty. But for the lunchbox a simple sandwich is still easiest and a lot less messy, they don’t give themselves much time to sit down and eat anyway. I’ve been told by my eldest that the lunch break is for running and playing with friends.

Dinner time has been sorted for years, good balanced meals with salads on the side.
So what needed to change was breakfast, a good start of the day goes a long way.
A challenge of eating less bread and more protein, fruit and veggies.
We’ve been going for a couple of weeks and I must say it isn’t as hard as I thought, variation is key. While we’re still trying out new things, the kids nominate days for the favourites so they can become part of the routine.

What does work so far:
- Banana&Blueberry Oat cakes, (a huge hit, I’ll post the recipe later)
- Fresh fruit with home made yoghurt and nutty granola (yoghurt link) (granola link), or use dry oats preferably soaked in the yoghurt overnight. Adding some chia and puffed quinoa for extra substance.
- Bacon, eggs, spinach and mushrooms, with a little goats cheese as a bonus.
- Porridge with fresh fruit, I do still find the carb content to high though, maybe we should add some chia, coconut chips, seeds and chopped nuts. Coconut cream instead of milk? (recipe link for fancy porridge)
- Veggie fritters (recipe link)
- Sourdough pancakes with fruit (recipe link)

I’m getting heaps of good ideas at The Witches Kitchen. Linda did a Breakfast Challenge for a whole year, every week a different recipe to inspire you to ditch the heavily processed commercial breakfast cereals and to eat some real food instead. (click here for the link)
Or for those reading Dutch, be sure to try this link as well

Trying out recipes can be so much fun, what do you think of these Blueberry Bolo Levedo’s (top photo)? Pretty as a button served hot for a lazy Sunday morning breakfast. Sourdough egg enriched bread, filled with cottage cheese and blueberries. A nice protein rich, tangy treat (recipe link).
Next time I’ll try a savoury filling, this would also make the perfect base for the Indonesian Bakpao.

What is your favourite breakfast? Can you eat it every day?

Witches Kitchen: Fermenting - Pancakes

Weekends always include a batch of pancakes, easily whisked up and always a big hit with the kids.
Flour, eggs, milk, and a little salt. Mix and you're ready to start baking them.

But if you know you'll be baking pancakes the next morning, why not try this:
The evening before mix your flour with a little water and yoghurt/whey/sourdough starter/buttermilk,
stir through and make sure the flour is wet. Put a plate on top of the mixing bowl and leave on the kitchen bench.
The next morning, heat up your frying pan(s), add a little salt, eggs and milk to the mixing bowl and mix until it becomes a smooth pancake batter.
Fry up your pancakes like you would normally do, preferably in a little ghee or coconut oil.
(extra time needed for this soaking option is 30 seconds)

But before you take out the plain flour out of the pantry, do you have any other flours you could use?

I make up an ever changing mixture which might include parts of brown rice flour, buckwheat flour, wholemeal spelt flour, plain flour, wholemeal flour.
The idea is to take a break from all the bakers and rye flour we have during the week in our sourdough bread.
If you whisk these flours up in the morning, the pancakes will be dense and rough. But soaked these will work just as well as plain flour. Other then the slightly acid taste you won't notice the difference.

Just add fruit

and maybe some of that “you’re nuts butter”...