Tag Archives: flat bread

In my kitchen… lie honey and spelt

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 The kitchen floor is strewn with flour, my nails have dried dough embedded round the edges, and there is a softly residing smell of something that had vanilla in it from the oven.

My kitchen, where breakfasts, lunches and dinners begin and dishes mount with heady regularity.cityhippyfarmgirl

 Tomato and olive oil flat bread headed for a party in the park. Easy to make and easy to take.

DSC_0070 copyWon Berenberg products.  I was VERY excited to hear that I had won a Berenberg hamper of goodies from the lovely Amanda at Lambs Ears and Honey. Beerenberg is a lable that you probably recognise from grocery aisles. Why would you pick a jar or bottle up? Because, it’s locally made (SA) with local ingredients. Do you know how increasingly rare that is on supermarket shelf these days? (Expect rant post to come soon, as this truly drives me nuts.)

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Farmers Markets goodies- $30 this cost. Locally grown just out on the edge of Sydney. Chemical, and spray free, and picked just a couple of days before. The farmer who lovingly grew all of this, predicted I would have a girl. She’s so busy with her market stalls at various farmers markets around Sydney I haven’t had a chance to tell her…that she was right. Instead, I show her my love by choosing where my vegetable dollar goes.

Honey and wholemeal spelt (oh and not to forget buckwheat) are probably my two most reached for ingredients in my baking at the moment. They both feel honourably wholesome and I’m loving the results they both give out. Old recipes are being switched round and new recipes are being tinkered with.

honey spelt

These biscuits are another version of the honey biscuits I’ve been making for quite awhile now. Easy, healthy, no sugar and flexible. More butter will make them crisper, more honey and they will be chewier, don’t squish them down and they will stay as little round domes. Easy

Honey Spelt Biscuits

150g softened butter

200g honey

1 tsp vanilla

375g wholemeal spelt

Mix it all together, roll into balls, squish them down slightly onto a lined or greased tray. Bake at 180C until golden.

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For more kitchen action, have a peek into Celia’s kitchen and some of the others linking up.

red food dye? I don’t think so

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He was scampering that was for sure. Up and down the hall with an obvious focus to those little feet. He caught me watching him and seemed to push away the raised eyebrow look and what are you up to question on my lips. I couldn’t hear anything that I shouldn’t be and he really was quite busy. So I left him to it. Back and forth, back and forth. Scurrying like a little bug, taking huge bundles 4 times his body size and wrangling it to his chosen destination.

Little Monkey was building a castle. He called out, declaring he was ready now, and in I went to inspect the wall building. Foundations looked a little shonky, brick work was a little sloppy, but there he was sitting on top of his castle, pleased as a 3 year old would be…sitting on top of his castle. Every cushion, pillow, blanket, soft anything had been dragged in and utilised. Just perfect for a mama to make a flying leap on to….

Now if you are the kind of person that likes looking into what you are eating or what your kids maybe eating, you may have looked up red food dye before. You may have also heard, that just like my little cushion carrying bug of a son, red food dye can be made from a certain bug… Or it could also be made from a coal tar derivative. Either way, these days I don’t particularly want to ingest anything that is fire engine red unless there is a really good reason to.

So with that in mind I was mighty annoyed to get a jar of tandoori paste home a while back. Only to find out, that one of the main ingredients was red food dye!

Not a tomato ingredient in there. All that lovely red was thanks to some good old red food dye. I was annoyed, as I would never normally buy a jar like this but was feeling generous as I had been at some great farmers markets and was seduced by all the lovely food stuffs around me… the seduction however, had not carried over to the tandoori paste I had just bought home.

Surely I could make something that wouldn’t give me the heebie-jeebies just looking at the colour?

Let’s give it a crack…

Tandoori Paste

In a pan add

a couple of slurps of vegetable oil

diced onion, knob of ginger, and a couple of cloves of garlic

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp coriander

1 tsp turmeric

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp yellow mustard seeds

2 tbls tomato paste

salt to taste

chilli to taste

fry it all off for a couple of minutes, until fragrant. Then whizz to a smooth paste with a hand held mixer.

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Now authentic? Perhaps not, but I think a whole more so than a jar full of red food dye, and salt.

 I cooked this up with the obligatory chicken and yogurt dish, but I also had some left over and sourdough on the go. So Tandoori Flat Bread it was.

Just the thing to go and snack on while sitting on top of a castle.