Cookie time

Ready with some lemon icing!

About to go in the oven..

It's saturday today and that means I have time to do fun stuff in the kitchen. Weekends are lovely because I usually have time to cook and try out new things. I really felt like cookies today so I whipped up some of these real quick!

These cookies are only sweetened with honey and are made from almonds. They smell like gingerbread cookies. I whiz up almonds in my blender to make my own almond meal. I made some lemon icing from coconut oil, honey and lemon juice to put on top. You just have to wait for the cookies to cool down before putting on the icing. I debated whether to make chocolate icing using raw cacao powder instead of lemon. But lemon won today. It will be chocolate's turn next time:)

I didn't know what to call these. Almond cookies? Spice cookies? Anyways, here is the recipe for super yummy cookies:

1 cup almonds
1 tbls flax seeds
2 tbls butter or coconut oil
2-3 tbls honey
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp cinnammon
1 tsp ginger
1/2  tsp cardomon
1/2  tsp cloves
1/2 tsp baking soda

Blend almonds and flaxseeds into a fine powder. You can leave it more coarse if you want a more nutty dough. Add rest of ingredients and mix with hands so that the butter becomes soft and it all forms a sticky dough. Roll into small balls and press flat onto baking sheet. Wet your hands if the dough is sticking to your fingers too much. Bake in oven for 10-15 minutes. Keep an eye of them as they brown quickly!

 Makes about 16 cookies

Colourful breakfast

I had to quickly take a photo of my breakfast. Aren't the colours pretty? I love my scrambled eggs! I just mix some eggs with a fork with a little water and herbs and onions and scramble it in the fry pan with heaps of butter. Oh yeah and I love my butter. It's what people have always traditionally been eating and beats margarine any day nutrition and health wise.
I have been trying to eat different fermented foods so I made some of my own tomato salsa, which proved to go super well with the scrambled eggs. I have also been making some beet kvass lately which is basically fermented beetroot juice and is a wonderful health tonic. Can't wait to have a juicer one day too so I can have fresh veggie juice as well... *dreaming* .. :) I really like the taste of beetroots so beet kvass is just my thing. I just mix a little into my glass of water most mornings.

Sourdough Bread!

There is some joy in the kitchen because I am so excited that I have made my very own loaves of sourdough bread!!! Oh the feeling. And they were edible too which is also important ;) It is such an exciting step for me because I have been wanting to try baking my own sourdough bread and get a sourdough starter going for ages.. I wasn't sure if I would succeed. I have seen so many other real foodies on their blogs talk about how the make their own sourdough and have seen all these yummy recipes you can make with excess sourdough starter. I kept imagining freshly baked bread coming out from oven.. mmm.

Real sourdough bread (not the wannabe ones you probably find in most shops) is a traditional way of baking bread. Today in this 'I want it now' culture I feel we have swapped traditional nourishing ways of preparing food with quick alternatives which are no where near as good for our bodies. Commercial yeast, refined flours, rancid vegetable oils and lots of preservatives are basically what breads today are made from. Sourdough bread only needs water, flour, some starter and sea salt. Here is a lovely blog were you can see some of the benefits of why to eat sourdough:)
http://www.kitchenstewardship.com/2010/03/05/food-for-thought-health-benefits-of-sourdough/

The first step was to get a sourdough starter going. I tried this in the summer time and got one going after my third try with some rye flour. I was squealing with joy when I noticed after a few days the starter had doubled in size and was nice and bubbly! You see to make a starter you mix flour and water together and feed it a mixture like this every day and after a while it should start to bubble because of the wild yeasts and bacteria. I'm not sure how the chemistry of this all works but anyways this is how a sourdough starter is formed and you use some in the bread to make it rise and sour the bread. How cool is that!  Well my first starter lasted a week and ended up dying and I couldn't get another one going since. I wasn't sure if the temperature in my kitchen was not right of the flour I was using wasn't fresh enough. But recently I decided not to give up and and tried again and this time added a tablespoon of milk kefir whey to the mixture. I had read in places that this helped get the yeasts and bacteria in the starter going. And it worked!! This starter I have now  is made from wholemeal spelt flour. I have some in a little jar and feed it every day the same amount of flour and water that is in it. After a few days as it grows I have enough to make some bread and then save a little to start the process over again.

I can't wait to to dive into the world of making sourdough bread and learn how to become a real bread master haha. I use this seriously easy recipe from my Nourishing Traditions book which is essentially a no knead method and doesn't take much time at all. I do my work then leave the bread to do it's magic.