Golden days...

My needles are flying again. This Annabel pullover seems to be magically growing.  The Blue Faced Leicester yarn is amazingly soft and comes in lovely shades. The Gold reminds me of the golden wheat fields down the lane and my favourite Elan Valley. The pattern is so simple that I can knit on the go. I don't want to put it down, and find any excuse not to. 

Maybe it's because I had a bit of a brain freeze with the Cobblestone Pullover...My fault, not the pattern (it's an easy one too). I just had a minor wobbly when it came to the wrap and turn. Or maybe because the Icelandic lopi yarn, which I love as well, isn't quite as soft as this. This seems like a dream to work with. 

This will be the second Annabel sweater that I've knitted. I made the last one with linen yarn. I've decided to make it a few inches longer than the pattern. I cast off the body but left the yarn attached so that I could try it on. It's still a little shorter than I want, and as it's a boxy pullover I've decided to increase it at the sides to fit snuggly over the top of my hips and prevent it riding up at the back. That's the plan anyway, I'll put the notes on ravelry if I manage to do it.

I feel guilty knitting in the daytime when there's lots of work to do. But the bread is rising in the pantry and the washing spinning in the machine and and I have to do something while I'm waiting don't I? Just a couple more rows... I told, you...I can't put it down...

Reading: I'm still in the cotton fields with A Painted House: John Grisham
knitting: Annabel Pullover: Carrie Bostock Hoge
My ravelry page
My spelt bread recipe, made without the seeds this time

The bread is ready now...decisions, decisions...More knitting or freshly baked bread with my favourite Oxford Marmalade...

...maybe a bit of both...


I'm joining Ginny and  Nicole,
...are you coming too?
dx

In my kitchen :: vintage finds, re-claimed wood shelves and making the first spelt bread

When we first saw the house there was an old wooden bench fitted in the store room. It was covered in powder coated treasures and had a big old rusty vice attached. The wood had once been green, then rust colour and was now washed out grey but you could still see the mottled colours, like age spots on old hands. I loved it and asked the builders not to throw it away. So they carefully removed each of the planks that made up the bench. 

We stored them in the garden, protected from the rain. So many times someone would attempt to throw them away and I'd rescue them again. They couldn't hear the story that those old planks told...Maybe just to me and Ahmad...Although I think that sometimes, even he doubted whether they were worth keeping. 

The bones of the kitchen have been finished for a while and now we're trying to make it feel like ours. I finally persuaded Ahmad to fit some shelves from the re-claimed wood. 

First he gave the planks a good wash. Then he cut a piece to size and sanded all the edges and fitted a dinky little one over the old stainless steel school kitchen table, also rescued...this time by him from being dumped into a rubbish skip at school. We manage to find some old brackets here that had once held a small wash basin. They worked perfectly.

I'm so happy with it. It's the best place to keep mugs and cups and bargain charity shop vintage finds.  Like another 1950's Inger Waage Norweigan piece, this time a gorgeous lidded casserole dish (I made retro coq au vin supper just so I could use it) and my gorgeous Finnish fish pot by Kaj Franck. I've been looking for some of his dishes for ages. It cost me just £3! I've seen them on Etsy for at least £50 but don't think that I could bare to part with it. 

Then Ahmad made a double shelf. This time for high up, over the kitchen window using more old sink brackets and he placed the wooden panels, side by side. It's great for those things we don't use every day. 

At last I made the first bread this year using this recipe it's so simple that you don't even have to knead it. It's very more-ish and so easy to make, you might like to have a go too.

Simple spelt loaves

Ingredients for two small loaves:

• 500g/1lb 2oz organic spelt flour
• A tspn of sea salt
• A tbsp of dried yeast 
• 500ml/17 fluid ounces warm water
• A spoonful of runny honey
• A little olive oil

You may  like to add some seeds like here or as I did this time fresh rosemary and thyme. 

Method:

1. Oil a baking tray
2. Put all the dry ingredients into a large bowl. 
3. Add all the wet ingredients and mix well. Form into a ball and divide it roughly into two.
4. Form each half into a rough loaf shape. Place on the baking tray and cover with a clean, damp tea towel and leave in a warm place until they have doubled in size. This should take about half an hour. Towards the end of this time, pre-heat the oven to 200c/400f/Gas Mark 6.
5. You may like to sprinkle a few more seeds or sprigs of herbs on top if using and brush with a little more olive oil.
6. Place into the oven and bake for about thirty minutes until golden brown and cooked through. 

...That's a bit of what's happening in my kitchen...

I wonder what's going on in yours...

dx

Back on a bread roll..Three Seed Spelt Bread made with fresh or dried yeast

 

 

I lost my bread making mojo recently. I think it was ordering the 25kg sack of spelt flour that jinxed it. But now I'm well and truly back on track. 

Once I started again, I remembered not only how easy bread-making is but that you get so much more out of it than just a loaf. It's almost like a kind of therapy. You can't rush bread making. It's an organic process. You have to wait for the yeast to prove and the bread to rise. There are no short-cuts. With some grains you have to knock it back and start the process all over again, taking even longer. But I reasoned that all that kneading and knocking back must be good at reducing any built up tension, making you perfectly ready for the calm process of patiently waiting. I do recommend that if you are new to bread-making that you sling the hook, the dough hook that is, and make bread the old fashioned way. Get your hands sticky and get involved in the whole process. 

Having said that, with this recipe made from spelt flour, very little kneading is necessary. So it's a great beginners bread to make. 

I had fun this weekend teaching two of my sisters-in-law to make this bread. They are the most amazing cooks but don't bake. I wondered why when there are so many delicious breads and pastries in Persian cuisine and they are such talented cooks, that yet they don't bake. Or why they always seem overly impressed if I arrive with a home baked chocolate cake or truffle torte for them, finding it hard to believe that I've actually made it. Then I discovered why. 

They described childhood memories back home in Iran of a young woman who came to their house early every morning. She would mix flour, and add yeast and water and roll out  Persian Nan-e  Barbari,Breakfast Bread; or add milk to make sweet soft Sheermal, Milk Bread, painted with a sticky, sugary glaze that children love. Can you imagine what it must have been like to wake up to that warm sweet aroma every morning. They had their own baker, so they didn't need to learn to bake...

So when I stayed over with them last weekend  we had a mini bread making master class. And as they love English rustic seeded bread we made my favourite Three Seed Spelt Bread.


To make two small loaves of Three Seed Spelt Bread you will need.

Ingredients:

• 500g/ 1lb 2oz spelt flour. I use Dove Farm Organic Spelt flour.
• 50g/ 2oz pumpkin seeds 
• 50g/ 2oz linseeds
• 50g/ 2oz sunflower seeds
• 1 tsp fine sea salt. Some recipes call for less but I think these two loaves need a whole teaspoonful.
• 20g of fresh yeast or a tbs of dried 
• 500ml/17fl oz warm water
• A spoonful of honey
• Olive oil

The first time that I made this I read the amount of seeds incorrectly and double the quantity. When I made it correctly the next time as I put the seeds into the bowl  it didn't look enough, so I add a lot more because I love the flavour and crunch of lots of seeds. 

Method:

1. Place the yeast into a bowl or jug, add the honey and warm water. Leave for ten minutes or so until it begins to bubble and brew. If using dried yeast you can omit this stage and just add it to the dry ingredients then pour in the warm water. 
2. Mix all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. 
3. Oil a baking tray.
4. When the yeast is active, make a well in the centre of the flour, seed mixture and pour the oil and then the yeast and warm water.
5. Mix the ingredients together well. You can use a table knife or your hands to combine them. Pull the dough together to form a ball then into two separate pieces. Form each one into a rough loaf shape and place on the baking tray. You can sprinkle with a few more seeds if you like. Cover with cling film or a damp tea towel and leave somewhere warm to double in size. This should take about half an hour.
6. Towards the end of this time, turn the oven on to pre-heat. 200c/400F/Gas Mark 6.
7. Bake for about thirty minutes until golden brown and cooked through.

These loaves would never win the bread beauty pageant but they are full of flavour. Very more-ish especially when new. Delicious with butter and honey, or the way we ate them at the weekend for an English twist to a traditional Persian breakfast of salty sheep's Feta cheese with watermelon, fresh fruit and sweet cardamom tea, drunken from little glasses with golden brown sugar or honey...mmm...

Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights Recipe 11-Musician's Breakfast

This is the second time I've used this recipe to make bread this week. It's so simple, no kneading involved and tastes delicious. It's number 11 in my quest to cook my way through Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights, and you can find it on page 28.

She calls this Musician's breakfast. It's no secret that Sophie Dahl is married to musician Jamie Cullum and apparently this bread along "with butter, mustard and a big slice of Parma ham" "a strong cup of tea and Miles Davis on the stereo makes him a happy fellow in the morning."

Baking this at the weekend listening to dreamy 1930's jazz whilst 'A' was concocting an exotic delight for supper made me a happy gal. Don't you just envisage sunny southern days with the wind blowing filmy curtains and lounging around on big sofas smoking cigarettes with a long black cigarette holder, sipping Mint Juleps.....not that I'm sure what one tastes like....but I'm sure it's very nice....Oh and I don't smoke either....

Anyway, back to the bread. The recipe is copyright so I can't reproduce it, but it's a mixture of wholemeal or spelt flour and rolled oats with honey to sweeten, salt to season and quick yeast as a raising agent. As I said before there's no kneading involved just a bit of mixing, leaving to rise, knocking back, re-rising and baking....easy peasy.

I used a mixture of Doves Farm Wholegrain Spelt Flour and

Bacheldre Watermill Organic Wholegrain Stoneground Spelt Flour and it worked amazingly. The bread I have to say didn't look anything special...I wasn't in a hurry to try it but once I cut into it, it had a lovely soft texture and an amazing almost treacly flavour. It really is more-ish and reminded me why, once we'd baked bread after getting snowed in last winter, we didn't stop until the summer. This recipe is definitely a 10/10!

'A,' influenced by watching the Hairy Bikers on a bread making road trip decided that he wanted to make a white tin loaf this weekend.

So I got him the tin, and he had a go whilst I made my usual batch of spelt bread. This time I sweetened it with honey and added lots of juicy sultanas and finely chopped walnuts and replaced half the olive oil with walnut oil.

His loaf turned out amazing. Great texture and lovely flavour. It was a little bit lopsided but that only added to it's rustic charm. He used strong white unbleached flour and a recipe from an old 1980's M & S recipe book. You can find a similar recipe here.

I couldn't resist pinching the crust and eating it with butter and marmite.....mmm....

Mum used to buy a milk roll (white loaf) from the bakery at the end of our road. One of my sisters was a very fussy eater. So fussy in fact that she had to have her food made into a clock with little heaps of mashed up meat, potatoes and vegetables placed at the appropriated spot for 1 o'clock, 2 o'clock etc ...... Thus making supper time more fun....

The one thing that she really liked (besides her clock food and Morning Coffee biscuits with honey on) was the crust off a new loaf of white bread with Lurpack butter and Marmite. Which meant that she almost always got the crust! I'm sure my mother in a King Solomon-like spirit of equality would have made sure that we all had our fare share, but it didn't seem like it at the time.....maybe I was just greedy!

But I think that's why that lovely white crust, fresh from the oven smothered with butter (which I don't usually indulge in) and Marmite, tasted so yummy.......

....and the spelt bread made a lovely brunch with slices of sweet galia melon and Persian, sheep's milk feta cheese. which is one of the traditional Persian breakfasts that makes a great weekend brunch, along with fresh walnuts and hot sweet tea with no milk served in tea glasses. Preferably Orange Peko Ahmad Tea....but I'll talk about the traditions of Persian tea making and sharing another time soon.....