thursday recipe: Ruth's spelt crepes with avo, fetta, lemon and sprouts

Before we get to the recipe, let's take in the view for a moment.

Who wouldn't want to wash the dishes with this magical garden to gaze upon?

Today's recipe comes from my dear friend Ruth who we were lucky enough to spend a beautiful Sunday morning with, and her delightful family, in their sun soaked back garden pictured above during our stay in the Byron Bay area.

The table was set with fresh paw paw and lime, pumpkin and rice bread toasted, home made marmalade, hot chai and Ruth's wonderful paper thin spelt crepes. The children all clambered for strawberries and to spread their crepes with honey or maple syrup, while the grown ups tried Ruth's savoury filling of avocado, marinated fetta, Ruth's sprouts and a squeeze of lemon. Roll like a wrap and enjoy, no cutlery required.

I say Ruth's sprouts because Ruth and her partner Michael run a business selling beautiful fresh sprouts at Byron Bay and Mullumbimby farmer's markets. If you are local or visiting the markets buy some of their sprouts, they are the best really they are! You'll be hooked.

The sprout mix can contain sprouted blue peas, mung beans, fenugreek, alfalfa, lentils, soaked almonds...and perhaps there are some others I can't remember right now...(if you are reading Ruth please feel free to add in the comments :)

We were lucky to have lemons plucked from their backyard tree by Ruth with the help of one of her twin babes.

I know its all sounding pretty idyllic, and well it was.  Not every winter morning is this sunny or full of joy but it was one of those mornings where the children all played happily, the adults enjoyed endless cups of chai and we all savoured the moment.

Ruth has such a beautiful feel for creating tasty, nourishing food. She rarely follows a recipe except when baking, so when I asked her for this recipe it went along the lines of, "hmmmm lots of eggs, I use lots of eggs. I filled that big bowl with flour and used maybe 6 or 7 eggs. I made a well in the centre of the flour maybe 4 or 5 cups, cracked the eggs in and gently whisked them in so as not create lumps, then I added milk until it was really thin. Oh and a pinch of salt. This batch had a pinch of salt. Oh and it must be made the night before. I don't know if that's an old wives tale but it is something I always do, make the mixture the night before."

For those of you who feel lost at the mere thought of throwing ingredients together and hoping for the best I had a go at making Ruth's recipe for you with measurements. Ruth changes the flour around depending on what she has in the cupboard, sometimes buckwheat, sometimes wholemeal spelt mixed with white spelt, other times some rice flour gets thrown in too.

So this weekend get a few friends together, pray for a good dose of winter sun and make a batch of Ruth's spelt crepes.

Ruth's spelt crepes with avo, fetta, lemon and sprouts

Ingredients

2 cups wholemeal spelt flour
3 eggs
1 cup of milk of choice
1 and 1/3 cups of water
pinch of salt (optional)
1 large ripe avocado, roughly 'smashed' in a bowl with a fork
1 container Barambah organic marinated fetta (this just happened to be the one Ruth had)
Sprouts of your choice
1 lemon cut into wedges to squeeze
Butter or coconut oil for frying

(makes 12-14 depending on the size of your pan)

To make

Make the mixture the night before.
Place flour in large mixing bowl.
Make a well in the centre and crack eggs into well.
Using a hand whisk, gently whisk the eggs into the flour and begin to gradually add the milk and then the water.
Continue whisking until smooth.
Cover and refrigerate overnight.
Next morning take the mixture out of the fridge and allow to come to room temperature.
Depending on how thick or thin you like your crepes you may need to add some more milk or water, if you like them paper thin like Ruth's you want the mixture to be very thin, the consistency of water.
If you are feeding a crowd and want to cook a stack and keep them warm, turn your oven on low and as you cook the crepes add them to a plate, cover with foil and keep in the oven.
Heat a large round frypan or crepe pan if you have one, and add a teaspoon of butter or coconut oil, enough to coat the bottom of the pan.
When the fat is sizzling pour in enough mixture to coat the bottom of the pan.
Turn the heat down a touch if too high, cook until bubbles appear and then flip over and cook other side until golden.
As Ruth says, the first couple are never the best of the batch, not that anyone complains!

To assemble

Place some smashed avocado, crumbled fetta and a sprinkling of sprouts in the centre, squeeze lemon over the top and roll up. So delicious and they would also make a nourishing afternoon tea alternative to cake!

thursday recipe: fig, apple, ginger and almond cake (egg free, refined sugar free)

More cake. I know. We had cake last thursday, but there was a bowl of figs on our bench ripening fast and Pete asked 'can you please make a cake with these?' I don't need much prompting to get baking. So, this is a cake of sorts. Another egg free version. And might I say quite a delicious one. The apple puree means it is very moist and the cooked figs are like jam, the almonds and chia seeds add crunch and texture. I told you it's yummy. With some custard you could have it for dessert. Happy cooking x

Ingredients

1/2 cup of unsweetened apple puree
6 walnut sized figs roughly chopped
2 cups of white spelt flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 - 1 tsp ground ginger
1 tbsp maple syrup
1 tbsp maple syrup, extra
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup melted coconut oil
1/4 cup milk of your choice
1 tbsp chopped raw almonds
1/2 tbsp black chia seeds

To make

Preheat oven to 180 C.
Prepare small loaf tin, grease and line the bottom (I used 22cm x 12cm)
Place flour, baking powder and ginger in a mixing bowl and stir to combine.
Add in apple puree, figs, milk, coconut oil, 1 tbsp maple syrup, apple cider vinegar and stir until combined.
Pour into prepared tin and sprinkle top with almonds and chia seeds, then drizzle 1 tbsp maple syrup over the top. Come to think of it shredded coconut would be nice on the top too!
Bake for 40 minutes or until golden and when skewer is inserted it comes out clean.

thursday recipe: egg free carrot and cinnamon & chia loaf

How did it get to be the first day of May?! It feels like just a couple of weeks ago we were having beach days. The countdown is on in our house as we prepare to hit the road in a couple of weeks and travel to the top of Australia. I'll be writing more about that next week, for now let's get on with today's recipe...

I was out of homemade lunchbox 'snacks' and planned to bake Georgia's carrot slice until I realised that I was also out of eggs. And, as Sol was home from kinder with a temperature and sore throat, popping out to the shops wasn't an option. I decided to try making an egg free carrot cake recipe and I am happy to share the successful result with you here today. It is super easy, moist and nourishing.

Ingredients

2 cups white spelt flour
1 cup grated carrot
1/2 cup organic panela (unrefined cane sugar) you could use rapadura or stevia if you prefer
2 tsp aluminium free baking powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup coconut oil
1/2 cup milk of your choice
1 tbsp black chia seeds

To make

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C
Grease and line
Place flour, baking powder, cinnamon and sugar in a mixing bowl and stir to combine.
Add in carrot and apple cider vinegar and stir until carrot is mixed through flour.
Add in coconut oil and milk and stir until combined. The mixture will be quite wet.
Pour into prepared tin (I used a small loaf tin 22cm x 12cm) and sprinkle top with chia seeds (and/or sunflower seeds and pepitas).
Bake for 40 minutes or until golden and when skewer is inserted it comes out clean.

Enjoy!

thursday recipe: spag bol with a twist

During the school holidays River and Pete headed out for an early morning bike ride that didn't go as planned. They arrived home shaken and sorry, a caring passerby had given them a lift home as River had come off his bike hard. He went flying down a hill that in the past he had walked his bike down but decided that day was the day he would give it a go. Fortunately he escaped serious injury despite the fact that he went over his bike, became airborne and landed with a thud. He walked away with a blackened bruised thumb nail, sore back and elbow accompanied with a confidence crash when it comes to getting back on the bike.

I let the shock subside and in the afternoon took River to get checked over by our wonderful family chiropractor Carmel Whelan who has been treating all of us since River was six weeks old. On the way home from visiting Carmel, who gave River the ok after sending us for an xray of his elbow (just to be sure), we stopped in at Provincia a newish local foodstore/deli and picked up ingredients for a pasta dinner, quick(ish), easy, a dish the whole family enjoys = comfort food.

If you are a bit tired of your spag bol recipe I thought you might enjoy this one. I always grate zucchini and carrot into my version, yes to get more veggies into everyone but also because the carrot provides a nice sweetness. The twist in this version comes from our friend Robin, we enjoyed dinner at her house one night and had spaghetti bolognaise with a delicious flavour I note that I wasn't quite expecting. I asked Robin what it was and she revealed...star anise. A little trick she picked up off her brother-in-law. (correct me in the comments Robin if you're reading and I got brother-in-law part wrong!) Whoever came up with the idea of adding star anise it is a good one. I think you'll enjoy it too. Xx

Spaghetti bolognaise with star anise

Ingredients

1 tbsp butter or ghee
500g organic mince beef
1 brown onion finely chopped
2-4 garlic cloves depending on clove size and your flavour preference, crushed
1 tin diced tomatoes
1/4 cup tomato paste
1 cup water or stock
salt + pepper to taste
3 teaspoons Italian dried herbs
1 bay leaf
1 medium carrot, finely grated
1 medium zucchini, finely grated
1 whole star anise
pasta of your choice or zucchini spirals

Parmesan
I added fresh spring onions and parsley from our garden to the top of this bowl

To make:

Heat butter or ghee in a large heavy based saucepan over medium heat, gently fry onion til transparent.
Add meat and garlic, cook until meat is brown.
Add all other ingredients, bring to boil then reduce to simmer for 40 minutes (an hour if you have time).
Cook pasta towards end of sauce cooking time.

Dinner is ready! (Watch out for the star anise and remove it, not that pleasant to chomp into)

thursday recipe: back-to-basics fritatta

Sometimes, you just have to cook what you want to eat even when you know your kids aren't going to eat it. I broke my own 'I only cook one meal at dinner' rule. There was a bunch of kale in the fridge starting to look a bit wilty and a dozen eggs, the perfect beginning of a frittata that I knew my boys wouldn't really love and I didn't have the energy to do any convincing. So I set out black olives, boiled eggs, cucumber and capsicum sticks for River and Sol and if they got through that there were nori rolls with avocado coming their way. In the end everyone was fed. Vegetables were eaten. Nothing was wasted. And money was saved by not going out to buy more ingredients to cook something different.

Do you cook frittata? If you haven't before it is so simple and a great way to use up veggies, I make a simple one with baby spinach and fetta River and Sol are happy to eat it, this version was made with the following:

1 small bunch of kale roughly chopped
2 spring onions chopped
a handful of cherry tomatoes halved
a few tablespoons of fresh, finely chopped parsley
6 eggs
1/4 cup grated parmesan

Combine veggies and herbs in a bowl.
In a separate bowl whisk the eggs and add in the cheese.
Heat a fry pan and add a knob of butter, stir fry the vegetables in the butter for 2 minutes then pour in the egg and cheese mixture.
Cook over a low heat until the frittata is starting to set, to finish either bake in the oven for 5 - 8 minutes or place under a grill to finish cooking and brown the top.

Serve with a salad and you have a quick nourishing meal.

For more fritatta inspiration see:

Stonesoup

The Kitchn

Allrecipes

What's your favorite combo in a fritatta?

thursday recipe: chocolate coconut biscuits

This recipe is a case of necessity being the mother of invention.

I had all the ingredients in the bowl to make anzacs for River's school fete, butter melted and then when I went to look for oats, we were out of them. A fairly key ingredient missing.

Hmmm. What to do? Drive to the shop to buy more oats or create something new? I consulted my trusty old Margaret Fulton Cookbook because I figured I would be heading down an old fashioned biscuit path and wanted to get an idea of what I could make with the ratios of flour and butter that I had in the bowl.

I decided to add a few tablespoons of cocoa powder and create the chocolate coconut biscuits you see pictured. They are definitely on the rich side with all that butter but they are not overly sweet, so if you like your biscuits to be sweet add some more sweetener of your choice.

To look at they do resemble yo-yos, if you wanted to be completely decadent you could sandwich them together with an icing, or jam and cream, or dip one half of each biscuit into melted chocolate.

Chocolate coconut biscuits

3 tbsp cocoa
3 cups spelt flour
1 cup coconut sugar
1.5 cups coconut
2 tsp baking powder
4 tbsp boiling water
1.5 tsp ground cinnamon
250g butter
2 tbsp honey

Preheat oven to 170C degrees.

In a large mixing bowl combine cocoa, flour, coconut, sugar and cinnamon.

Melt butter over a low heat and stir in the honey.

In a separate bowl put the baking powder and pour boiling water over it.

Add baking powder mixture to butter and honey.

Pour wet ingredients into mixing bowl and combine.

Roll into balls approx. 1 tbsp in size and then press down with a fork.

Bake for 10-12 minutes.

Perfect with a good cup of tea.

Happy cooking! x