Wholewheat Loaf with Rosemary, Shallot, Pinenuts and Raisins

I have been making our bread for the last 26 years, with the odd exception when we buy something for a treat, and now that I don't have to satisfy four different palates, or make sandwhiches for school each day, I have decided it's time to make some more fun breads for our lunches. Not that there's anything wrong with the Multigrain Bread I usually make, but sometimes a change is good.

I have made a sourdough starter, and make sourdough about once a week, but wanted something a bit more flavourful and rustic. This fit the bill...rosemary was a definite, due to my fresh rosemary bush. I had a few shallots, and about a tablespoon of pinenuts so those went in, as well raisins...just because!

This loaf has a chewy crust, soft crumb and is slightly spicy from the black pepper I added, and then there's the sweetness of the raisins...it made a lovely ham sandwhich, let me tell you. I'm sure the rest will be used for toast...yum.

Measure out your flavourings:

1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary
1 tablespoon toasted pinenuts
1 large shallot, minced
1/2 - 2/3 cup dark raisins
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons ground black pepper

In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine:

1 1/2 teaspoons dry yeast
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 cup warm water
1/2 cup warm milk

Leave until the yeast has dissolved and starts to foam and rise to the surface.

Add:

the prepared flavourings
1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 cup cornmeal
1 cup wholewheat flour

Mix on low speed with the dough hook until combined.

With the mixer running on low speed, continue to add:

1 1/2 - 1 3/4 cups all purpose flour

Add flour until a ball of dough forms around the dough hook.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured counter and continue to knead until it is smooth and elastic, adding small amounts of flour as needed to prevent the dough from sticking.

Form the dough into a ball, and cover with plastic wrap.

Leave to rest for 15 minutes.

After 15 minutes, gently knead the dough for another couple of minutes.

Form into a ball again, and place in a lightly greased bowl.

Cover with plastic wrap and set in a warm place to rise until doubled in size, about 1 1/2 hours.

Remove the dough from the bowl, punch down lightly and form into a ball for the final time.

This will be your loaf. Place on a parchment lined baking sheet.

Cover with a clean towel and leave to rise until almost doubled in size, about 45 minutes - 1 hour.

Heat the oven to 350F.

Brush the top of the loaf with water.

Slash the top with a sharp knife.

Bake for 45 minutes.

The loaf will be golden and crusty, and it should sound hollow when turned over and tapped on the bottom.

Remove from the tray onto a wire rack and leave to cool.





Serve this bread with soup, for breakfast as toast or use it to make sandwhiches for lunch.

• When making wholewheat bread I like to use no more than half of the flour as wholewheat. That being said, feel free to adjust the ratio to suit your taste.
• Flavourings can be played around with. Instead of raisins try dried cranberries, figs or dates. Omit the pinenuts or replace with walnuts or pecans. Green onion, red onion or chives can be used to replace the shallots. No rosemary? Use thyme, parsley, basil or oregano. Add grated or crumbled cheese if you wish.
• The sweetness of the dried fruit makes this loaf a perfect match for ham or turkey sandwhiches, toast or adding to a cheese board with blue cheese.
• For something more savoury, replace the raisins with chopped olives or sundried tomatoes. This will be a great partner for soup or pasta, as well as for making sandwhiches.
• The loaf can be shaped into a longer oval, or be placed into a loaf pan for a more traditional sandwhich loaf.

Fingerling Potato Hash with Sausage, Broccolini and Red Peppers

Once again I cooked too many potatoes, but that's not really a problem as using them up to make hash is always a popular meal in our house. It also lends itself to a good fridge cleanout, in this case 2 sausages and some green onions.

Hash is always best made with cold potatoes, so if you are planning on making it, cook them ahead of time and chill them well. They tend to stick less, crisp up more and absorb less oil this way, not to mention they're a lot easier to cut!

I added in broccolini as it is currently one of my favourite vegetables, and I had just bought some. And of course, I topped it all off with a soft poached egg...the yolk makes a lovely sauce for the potatoes.

Start off by cooking fingerling potatoes in lightly salted boiling water until just tender. Drain and cool completely.

Cut the broccolini into smaller lengths, and cook until just tender in lightly salted boiling water. Remove from the water and set aside until needed.

Reserve the water for poaching the eggs.

Thinly slice:

1 large sweet red pepper
the cooled potatoes

Set aside.

Slice 2 sausages into 1/2" pieces, and cook in some olive oil in a hot pan.

Start off with a medium low heat, allowing the fat from the sausages to release...this adds to the flavour and crispiness of the potatoes.

When the sausage is half cooked (still a bit pink in the middle), add the sliced potatoes.

Season with salt and pepper, and increase the heat. Continue to cook, stirring often, until the sausage is fully cooked and the potatoes start to brown.

At this point, add the sliced red peppers.

Season as needed, and continue to cook over a medium high heat for another couple of minutes, stirring often.

Add the broccolini, and start to poach your eggs while it heats through.

When the eggs are cooked to your liking, remove them from the water.

Add the green onions to the hash, and cook for another minute. You will need:

6 green onions, thinly sliced





Taste and adjust seasoning one more time. Serve the hash in a bowl, topped with the poached egg. Bon appetit!

• I used fingerling potatoes, but any potato that is more waxy than starchy can be used. If you have boiled or roasted too many, save the leftovers and make a hash! This is a great meal for breakfast, lunch or dinner.
• Sweet potatoes can also be used to make hash.
• The egg is optional; grated cheese can be used as well or instead of the egg.
• The choice of vegetables depends on you and what you have available. I have used onions, leeks, corn, grape tomatoes, zucchini, sundried tomatoes, olives and mushrooms, to name a few.
• I used a roasted red pepper and asiago sausage...breakfast sausage is a good choice if you are making this for breakfast; spicy sausage such as chorizo adds a lot of flavour. Other meats such as bacon, ham, pulled pork can also be used.
• The soft boiled egg provides sauce in the form of the runny yolk, but other sauces such as barbecue, tomato, salsa or hollandaise can be used.

Ancho Chili Chocolate Syrup for Mochas

 

I made this spiced chocolate syrup to use for mochas; neither of us is a fan of the overly sweet syrups that are available to buy. By making the syrup yourself, it is easy to control the sweetness...in our case just a hint.

My original plan was to make cocoa as it was cold outside yesterday, but then I found the espresso machine in one of the unpacked boxes downstairs. I decided that mochas were the order of the day, and it progressed from there.

I had half a bag of chocolate tea in the cupboard. I had purchased it at the local farmers market, and it was basically cocoa nibs and shells that imparted their flavour once steeped.. I decided to use this as the base of my syrup. I'm definitely more of a coffee person!

In a spice grinder, combine:

1/3 cup chocolate tea
1/3 cup cocoa nibs
1/2 cinnamon stick
1/8 teaspoon ancho chili powder

Grind until fine.

Place the ground mixture into a heavy bottomed saucepan, and add:

1/3 cup sugar

Whisk to combine.

Stir in:

2/3 cup cold water

Slowly bring to a boil, stirring to make sure that the sugar dissolves.

Boil for 30 seconds. Remove from the heat and leave for about 2 hours to steep.






The mixture will be grainy at this stage; if that is okay with you, ignore the next step. If you are not a fan of the texture, however, proceed as follows:

Add 1/3 cup water and bring to a boil again. Stir in 1/2 teaspoon vanilla.

Remove from the heat and strain through a fine strainer ( a tea strainer works well), pressing gently but firmly on the solids to extract as much of the liquid as you can.

You will have a very rich, chocolatey syrup with a hint of sugar and spice.

This is a thin syrup as it has less sugar than a traditional sugar syrup does. It makes up for that with flavour!





Store the syrup in the fridge, tightly covered for up to a week. Use it to flavour coffee or hot chocolate. Enjoy!

To make a large mocha, use:

 2 tablespoons of syrup...

... for each shot of espresso ...

... and top with steamed milk...

• The syrup as I made it only has a hint of sweetness, and a lovely, deep bittersweet chocolate flavour. If you prefer a sweeter syrup for your coffee, double the amount of sugar.
• If you do not have chocolate tea, either double the amount of cocoa nibs, or use 2 tablespoons cocoa instead of the tea.
• Dark chocolate can be exchanged for the cocoa nibs...chips, shavings or finely chopped. Dark chocolate will keep the bittersweet intensity of the cocoa nibs; semi sweet chocolate will cut the bitterness a bit.
• Instead of adding the final 1/3 cup of water, considering adding rum or brandy.
• Use the syrup in coffee, hot chocolate, cocktails or drizzle it over ice cream.

Baked Apples stuffed with Goat Cheese and Caramelized Shallot

Most people don't often think of using a fruit as a side dish served alongside roasted meat, but I love to use apples or pears in this way. I often quarter the apples, drizzle them with olive oil, honey and cumin and roast them....sticky, sweet and delicious! Perfect with pork or game...

Last night I went a different route with some of the apples I have...it's the start of apple season here and I have gone slightly overboard buying fresh apples! Time to use some of them, as well as the last of the goat cheese.

This is a take on the sweet baked apples we ate for dessert when we were younger. These were filled with raisins, sugar and cinnamon and baked. I took this idea, combined it with the applesauce traditionally served with roast pork, and came up with these savoury, but still sweet, baked apples.

The apples soften and turn into a sweet applesauce inside the skin, filled with soft, tart goat cheese and caramelized onion. A perfect accompaniment to the pistachio crusted pork tenderloin I made (see the post Pistachio Crusted Pork Tenderloin with Sweet and Sour Applesauce ).

In a bit of olive oil, cook until softened and caramelized:

2 large shallots, thinly sliced

When the shallots are done, remove from the heat and stir in:

1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

Set aside to cool.

Cut the bottoms of 2 firm, equal sized apples so that they sit flat in the baking dish.

Without cutting through the bottom of the apples, remove the core, creating a pocket to stuff.








By this time the shallots should be cool enough to continue making the filling. Heat the oven to 350F and have an ovenproof baking dish ready.

In a small bowl, combine:

the cooled shallots
1/4 cup soft goat cheese
1 teaspoon honey

Taste and adjust seasoning if needed.

Stuff the apple cavities with the filling, mounding it up slightly.

Place the apples into the baking dish.

Bake until the top of the filling is golden and crisp, and the apples are soft when pressed on the sides. The sides might start to split a little as well.

If the top of the filling starts to get too dark, loosely cover the apples with a piece of foil.

My apples took about 1 hour to bake.




To serve lift the apples carefully out of the baking dish, and serve alongside your roast meat, in my case, pork. To eat, scoop the filling and apple out of the skin and you have a sweet and savoury applesauce!

•  To make the cavity in the apple the easiest way is to cut a circle in the top of the apple and then use a small spoon or melon baller to remove the core. You can also use an apple corer, but you are more likely to go right through the bottom of the apple. If this happens, cut a small piece of the core off and use it as a plug. You can also wrap the apple in foil to catch any leaks that may happen during baking.
• Pears can be used in the same way. Use a melon baller to scoop the core out from the bottom of the pear, creating a cavity. Use a small piece of the core to create a plug for the filling, and wrap the pear in foil to prevent any leaks.
• The filling was too much for my 2 apples, but spread on sourdough bread, along with some slices of leftover pork, it make a very tasty grilled sandwhich for lunch today!
• The filling can be altered in so many ways...onions instead of shallots; cream cheese, Cambozola, Brie or Boursin instead of goat cheese; rosemary or sage instead of thyme; add in nuts or dried fruit if you wish.
• Wrap the apples in prosciutto or bacon, securing with a toothpick, before baking.
• If you are a pastry fan, wrap the apples in phyllo or puff pastry and chill well before baking. Bake for the first 10 minutes at 400F, then turn the heat down and bake until the pastry is crisp, golden and the apple is soft. Cover with foil if the pastry or filling is becoming too dark.
• Add some apple juice, apple cider or white wine to the bottom of the baking dish halfway through baking. This will be a great addition to your gravy, as well as adding extra moisture to the apples.
• Fruits are always a good choice to serve alongside pork, venison or duck.

Plum, Cardamom and Pistachio Shortbread Bars

When we picked the plums from our tree this summer, I used half to make jam, and froze the rest, waiting for the right time to use them. I needed something for two events this weekend, so I decided to make a bar with the plums, something with a shortbread base and a crumble topping (I have a weakness for crumble toppings!)

After a lot of thought I came up with this: a pistachio and cardamom shortbread base and crumble topping, with a rich, sweet plum jam filling.

Judging by how much of the trimmings my husband has eaten (almost all of them) I think the combination worked.

First make the plum filling. It takes a while, but can be made a day or two ahead.

In a wide heavy bottomed pan, combine:

8 cups pitted and halved plums
3 cups white sugar
1 cup apple juice
1 cup water
1 teaspoon vanilla





Heat slowly until the sugar has dissolved. Increase the heat until the mixture comes to a boil, and continue to cook, stirring often, until the plums start to break down and the mixture thickens. Continue to cook, lowering the heat a bit and continuing to stir often to avoid scorching.

When the mixture has a jammy consistency, and a trail forms in it when a small amount is placed on a plate, the filling is ready. Remove from the heat and set aside until needed. A thicker plum filling will allow the bars to hold their shape better when cut.

Turn the oven on to 350F. Line a 9" X 13" pan with foil, and lightly grease it.

To make the shortbread, place the following in a food processor:

2 cups flour
2 cups shelled pistachios

Process until the nuts are finely ground.

Place the ground nuts and flour in a bowl, along with:

2 cups flour
3/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
pinch ground white pepper

In a mixer, with the paddle attachment, mix until light and fluffy:

12 ounces soft butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Add half the dry ingredients, and mix on a low speed until combined.

Continue mixing on low while slowly adding the remaining dry ingredients slowly until it is all added.

The mixture will be crumbly.

Remove 3 cups of the crumble and set aside.

Add to the crumble in the mixing bowl:

2 ounces soft butter

Continue mixing until a dough starts to form.

Press the dough over the bottom of the prepared pan.

Place into the oven and bake until golden, 15 - 17 minutes.

Spread the plum filling evenly over the baked crust.

Sprinkle the reserved crumble over the top of the plum filling.

Bake until the crumble topping is golden and the plum filling is bubbling, about 30 minutes.








Allow the bar to cool completely before cutting...refrigerating it will make cutting easier. Serve as is with coffee, or as a dessert with vanilla ice cream.

• The secret of the plum filling is to make sure that as much of the liquid as possible is gone. This will create a thicker jam and a less messy bar...easier to cut and easier to eat.
• Purchased jam can be used if you like, this will save time.
• Fresh or frozen plums can be used to make the filling.
• Any type of nut can be used instead of pistachios. Try almonds, pecans, walnuts or hazelnuts.
• Cardamom can be replaced with other spices such as cinnamon or ground ginger (fresh ginger can also be used if you like).