GOOD LIFE Living Well: Easter Sunday..caraway sprout sour dough bread and other treats

Sunday, April 8, 2012

Easter Sunday..caraway sprout sour dough bread and other treats

Today is one of the warmest days of the year..mid 80f's in my back garden, all the roses are loving the attention they are getting from the bees.
I am taking care of 2 old dogs while their owners are vacationing in India...the dogs love it here as they have full use of my gardens and my house is carpeted ( their home is hardwood floors) which is great for their backs and legs..they are both very old dogs and going through different stages of cancer...but they are very much full of life and try as far as they can to "rule the roost".
Their owners thought their dogs would have been upset that they were leaving, but when I went over and opened up the side of my SUV, both dogs ran as if to to greet me, ran past me and jumped in. So much for unconditional love!!

Enough back to the food....

I am preparing my deliveries for tomorrow:

a fabulously simple dish of cabbage cooked in tomato sauce..I increased the dimensions by making a Marinara sauce with fresh carrots, onions and garlic, red wine; removed the hard stems of the Spring cabbage and cooked it for just 20 mins..retaining some crispness and more flavor

The red cabbage is better cooked way ahead of time..brown sugar, apples, red wine vinegar, salt and pepper..fabulous, almost dessert way of eating your veggies..great with a baked potato.

The Egyptian style lentils..I used beluga black lentils and cooked them with bay leaf, thyme and red chili sauce, then added them to steamed brown rice ( cooked with turmeric, thyme and cumin).
This is to be mixed with steamed kale at the client's home and finished with fresh lemon juice..a complete meal very very nutrition dense

The Puntanesca sauce I have added eggplant, artichokes, zucchini, red bell peppers, fresh basil form my garden and rosemary black olives, capers, red onion, garlic and a hearty tomato sauce ..this is not a runny sauce from a bottle, each serving is packed with chunks of fresh vegetables. The pasta is gluten free and is only cooked for 7 mins then it has to be rinsed in hot water and drained then added to the sauce.
This sauce does not need cheese.

The potpie I have cooked with coconut milk, and I always add sage to any creamy pies as it "fits the bill" better than thyme,as it is a more mellow flavor.

The apple and strawberry upside down pies I am making tomorrow

The cookies are a successful re-creation of a new cookie I discovered last week ( the original is a caramel cashew cookie from Trader Joe's..they are fabulous), mine is a cashew, raisin, oatmeal butterscotch thin..(photographs scroll down)..almost the same but not as sweet...probably healthier as well.

Because the weather this week is going to become colder, I am not making the planned onion and fennel sour dough bread as onion quickly spoils as weather changes, so I am making caraway-poppy seed -own grown sprout loaves.
The reason is that this bread has to be kept outside the fridge ( most yeasted breads dry out in the fridge anyway)..onions will add a sweet moisture that in hot and cold weather spoils very quickly.

Enjoy the photographs and in case you have ever wondered why American cooks measure everything in the 8oz cup..it is because of the original Pioneers who came across in covered wagons ( to the west coast) or ships ( from Europe)..regular weighing scales broke easily in transit..the enamel coffee cup ( as seen on many cowboy movies) will last a lifetime..every homesteader had his cup (s) so he measured with it, even after people settled into their homes the tradition continued.