A Green Eggs and Ham moment...Anchovies and Pissaladière

I know right. Last week surely you thought I was nuts to stand in front of a stove for an hour sweating onions. Here I am this week extolling the flavour of fish and onions on pizza.

Pissaladière is a wonderful pizza-like dish from the south of France. I don't caramelize onions often, once maybe twice a year but when I do I go all out and do a huge batch. So yeah it was a lot of work but it means that I can come home from work, spread my onions on a pita base and in the 5 minutes that it takes to heat this in the oven, dinner is done. The onions go just as well on a traditional pizza dough base and are just sublime on a pastry base. Whatever. Knock yourself out.

I know for some of you the the idea of fish on a pizza seems strange. Let me tell you that there was a time I thought so too. I hated anchovies which was strange because when I was growing up I never actually saw or even tasted an anchovy. It wasn't something that was available in the stores here. In fact, I've been searching my memory to figure out where I got the idea that anchovies were hateful when truth be told I wasn't sure what anchovies even looked like. Stranger even since I totally love these gruesome looking fry-dry.

My opinion of this much maligned fish changed when my favourite brand of Worcestershire sauce was off the market for a while. I tried other brands and they just couldn't measure up. It was only when I read and compared labels that I discovered that the secret ingredient which distinguished my preferred Worcester from it's failing competitors was non other than the 'dreaded' anchovy!

So last year when tinned anchovies and anchovy paste turned up at my supermarket, I decided to try them. To my very great surprise I found that I was already familiar with the flavour of anchovies since they taste exactly like smoked herring albeit much saltier. However the intense brine of these little fish used sparingly goes perfectly with  those melted sweet onions.

To those who say they do not like anchovies permit me to borrow from the character in Dr. Suess' Green Eggs and Ham and encourage you all to try it in the hopes that you discover that you actually like it. Try it, try it and you may. You may I say!

Right so clearly Seuss says it better. No worries I'll not be quitting my day job any time soon:-)

Fear of anchovies conquered. Next up the pound of black, scary, viscous looking eggplant jam I bought at an Arabic shop.  Tell me is there any food you have a pre-conceived hatred of even though you've never actually tried it?

Ingredients

Serving Size: 1 person

1/4 cup caramelized onions

1 pita bread (white or whole wheat)

4 olives (cut up)

1 or two anchovy fillets ( torn into small pieces. Very intensely salty so you don't need a lot)

1 or 2 ozs crumble feta (not traditional to pissaladière but a great add in)

Method

Spread onions on the pita base. Sprinkle cheese, onions, and anchovies. Heat in a 350°F oven for 5 mins or under your broiler on low until it's warmed through. That's it. You're done.

Love is a Loaf of Bread

Looking for love?

Bread is totally where it’s at.

Hear me out.

Chocolate, candy and flowers are all very romantic expressions if you're a gal.

However believe me when I tell you that men love these things, not so much.

My advice. A loaf of home-baked bread is where it’s at.

I defy you to find me a man who can resist a just out of the oven slice of warm, buttered bread.

He might want to marry you.


Promise.


In my world home-made bread is romantic.

When my husband learned that I’ll be making him his favourite loaf of jalapeño cheddar bread for breakfast on Valentine's day, he gave me THAT special smile.

Heck, this bread is downright sexy!

Jalapeño Cheddar Bread

2 (2 ½ ounce packs) yeast

½ cup lukewarm water

1 cup milk, scalded

1/3 cup sugar

1/3 cup butter, melted

1 teaspoon salt

6 – 7 cups flour

2 eggs, lightly beaten

¾ cup cornmeal

1 bottle pickled jalapeño peppers, coarsely chopped

8 ounces coarsely chopped cheddar cheese, cut into small pieces

Method

Add yeast to lukewarm water and leave for 5 mins. While waiting on the yeast scald milk and add, sugar, melted butter and salt to it and stir. Let cool to lukewarm. Pour mixture into the bowl of your stand mixer. Add cornmeal and eggs. Then add the yeast. Add 2-1/2 cups of flour and mix well with dough hook. Add enough flour to make a soft dough. Finally add the pepper and cheese and mix until just blended or turn out on to a floured counter top and knead until the pepper and cheese is incorporated. The dough will be slightly sticky. Lightly grease a large bowl and place dough in turning once to coat. Cover and let raise 1-1/2 to 2 hours. Punch down dough, divide in half and let rest 10 mins. Form into 2 round or regular loaves and place in greased pans or on greased cookie sheets. Let rise until doubled. Bake at 375°F for 30 to 35 minutes

Hot Cross Buns and Bunny Buns

If like me, you are a citizen of a former colonial country, you may well acquainted with the tradition of eating hot cross buns on Good Friday. These simple, sweet buns (sans the cross) are sold throughout the year in bakeries all over the island. On Good Friday, they are dressed with a cross as a reminder of the Crucifixion.

As a child, these buns were always store bought. Often they were a bit dry. Indeed, you considered yourself blessed to find anything more than one or two raisins in a bun. Meh, I never thought that they were anything special. Perhaps this was because they were accompanied by a Catholic mom's sermon about the torture and subsequent murder of a perfectly nice guy who died for my sins. Sheesh...so the next time you put toothpaste into your brother's underwear while he's asleep just remember, YOU killed Jesus!  Not surprisingly my mom wasn't at all put off by Mel Gibson's gory Passion of Christ. I am almost certain that the two of them met over a hot cross bun one Good Friday. From that secret meeting Mel came away with a screenplay for the graphic details of Christ's torture. Oh and in my defense, regarding my torture of my brother, I promise you he always started it.

So these are Easter buns done my way.  I like them heavy with raisins, fragrant with spices and sans the guilt trip. Although I do anticipate an anti, Easter bunny rant from the Rabid Catholic Woman when I roll up with my bunny buns. Whatever.

Let me assure you that whichever version you choose to make, you will find that the texture of these spiced pillows of goodness is close to perfect.  I understand. You are reluctant to trust me aren't you? After all, every other bun recipe out there is claiming that the texture of their bun is otherworldly soft. Do me a favour. Go read the ingredients of your favourite mass-produced soft, sliced bead. Chances are you will see an ingredient called gluten.

Do you see it? If you don't see it on the label of your white bread then for sure it will be in your whole wheat loaf. Ever wondered how come your homemade whole-wheat loaf is more brick like than the mass-produced store bought loaf? That my dear friends is the magic of gluten.

Gluten is also called vital wheat gluten. It makes the dough more elastic and bakers use it to get a more consistent rise and a lighter textured bread. Click here to head on over to Goodness Gracious Great Balls of Gluten where the science behind this ingredient is explained in more detail. For now just trust me on this, Gluten = lighter, fluffier bread. Now hurry. Go make some buns, only three days left!

Hot Cross Buns or

Bunny Buns

Ingredients

1 tbs(11g) dried yeast

1 tsp granulated sugar

185ml (3/4 cup) warm lukewarm milk

125 ml (1/2 cup) milk at room temperature

50g (1/3 cup) butter, melted

1 egg, lightly whisked

4 cups all purpose flour (maybe even 1/2 cup more depending on humidity)

5 tsp vital wheat gluten

90g (1/ 2 cup) granulated sugar

1 tsp salt

1 tsp nutmeg, freshly grated

1/4 tsp cardamom, freshly ground (about 8-10 pods)

1/4 tsp all spice, freshly ground

3/4 cup raisins

50g (1/4 cup ) mixed peel

Flour Paste Crosses

75g (1/2 cup) flour

80ml(1/3cup) water

Sugar Glaze

2 tbs granulated sugar

160 ml (2/3) cup water

Combine 3/4 cup lukewarm milk the one teaspoon of sugar and the yeast in a small bowl. Set aside in a warm, draught-free place for 10 minutes or until frothy.

Whisk in the 1/2 cup room temperature milk, butter and egg.

In a large bowl Combine 4 cups flour, vital wheat gluten, sugar, salt, nutmeg, cardamon and all spice. Add the raisins and mixed peel and stir to combine. Make a well in the centre. Pour in the milk mixture and use a wooden spoon to stir until just combined, then use your hands to bring the dough together. If too sticky add up to 1/2 cup flour one table spoon at a time kneading in between.

Turn onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 10-15 minutes or until smooth and elastic. Place the dough in a bowl and cover with a damp tea towel and place in a warm, draught-free place for 1 hour or until dough doubles in size.

Preheat oven to 200°C ( 375°F). Grease a 23cm square cake pan. or a flat baking sheet. Punch the dough down with your fist. Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 2-3 minutes or until dough is smooth and elastic. Divide dough into 16 even pieces and shape each portion into a ball. Arrange dough portions, side by side, in the prepared pan. Set aside in a warm, draught-free place for 30 minutes or until dough has risen

Meanwhile, mix the remaining flour and water together in a small bowl until a smooth paste forms. Place in a small plastic bag and snip off the end. Pipe a continuous line down the centre of each row of buns, lengthways and widthways, to form crosses. Bake for 10 minutes 200°C . Turn heat down to 160° C (325°F) to bake for a further 20 minutes or until golden and cooked through (buns are ready when they sound hollow when tapped ).

During the last 20 minutes of baking prepare the glaze. Put sugar and water in a saucepan over low heat until the sugar dissolves. Simmer until the glaze thickens. When buns are done, transfer buns to a wire rack. Brush tops with glaze. Set aside to cool slightly.

I don't like the taste of the flour crosses. So before serving I peel them off . I then mix some icing sugar with water. I pipe this onto the bun after removing the flour paste cross. 

These are great fresh out of the oven but they also freeze well and are no less enjoyable when warmed in the microwave.

Makes 16 buns or
3 Bunny Buns and 9 hot cross buns

Christmas Bread from Venezuela - Pan de jamon

Every year for the past four years this Christmas bread from Venezuela has graced our table for breakfast on the morning of December 25th. Oh wait, every year except last year.

You see, we have an electric range and my bread was in the oven about ten minutes when poof! There was a power outage that lasted all day and I was left with raw dough mess.

I am not ashamed to tell you that I cried. Seriously for real, I cried. Do you know how much a ham costs? I was angry that my money and the ingredients had been wasted. Maria, my Venezuelan neighbour cried too. She has not had this taste of home for years and was so excited when I told her that I was making it.

This year I am beside myself with joy. I have found a Venezuelan run establishment that sells pan de jamon. Christmas breakfast has been saved!

Don't have a Venezuelan bakery in your neck of the woods, then click here to link to the recipe. Click here for a picture of one of my early attempts at baking pan de jamon. I am happy to report that my pan is pretty darn close to the real deal.

When Bread is Not the Staff of Life.

As a mom, it's my job to stay informed and make the best dietary decisions possible for my family. This is even more important when someone in your family has a food allergy.

Although he was breastfed for 10 months, we realized early on that Little Bear had problems digesting his food. I had to eliminate all peas and beans from my diet as they made him uncomfortable and gassy. Certain foods also aggravated his eczema. It was difficult to pin down exactly which foods in my diet were the culprits and for the first year we struggled to determine the likely offenders. A few thousand dollars in doctors bills and dietary adjustments later we have determined that he is sensitive to tomatoes, melongene (eggplant), ochro (okra) and gluten. Gluten causes the most severe reaction. Not only does it flare up his eczema but he also gets the sniffles and painful tummy cramps. His stomach gets rock hard. He screams for hours and is inconsolable.

Celiac Disease is a digestive tract disorder. When people with celiac disease eat foods which contain gluten, it creates an adverse reaction that damages the small intestine so that nutrients from food are not properly absorbed. While his doctor hasn't diagnosed celiac disease, we have been advised to keep his diet gluten free - for now anyway. My fingers are crossed that it will be as the doctor says and he may very well outgrow this sensitivity. In the meantime I have set about learning about gluten free food so that I can feed Little Bear stuff that doesn't make him ill and cause him pain. I am trying to remain hopeful that as he grows and his digestive system matures, things will work themselves out.

Of course prior to having my son I was only vaguely aware of celiac disease and don't know anyone with this condition. I wonder how prevalent it is in the Caribbean? What I do know is that it is a challenge to maintain a gluten free diet because gluten is the protein found in wheat, oatmeal*, barley and rye. Wheat is the fundamental ingredient in bread, a food so universally important in the diet of so many cultures that it has been described as the staff of life. But what if you are allergic to gluten? Well that means that bread and all other foods made with wheat flour: pies, cookies, cakes, roti, doubles, wantons, dumplings, pasta, macaroni pie, noodles, lasagna, fried chicken, muffins, and pancakes are also off limits. And those are only the obvious gluten containing foods.

Even more difficult to avoid is the 'hidden' gluten that is often present in commercially prepared foods. Wheat flour is often used in processed foods as a binder, emulsifier, and a filler. Here are are some foods which may be a source of hidden gluten: sausages, luncheon meat, soy sauce, snacks, malt and malted milk, icings, baking powder, some curry powder powders, some types of cocoa, some seasonings (where flour is used as a flow agent), Ovaltine, Milo, baked beans (there may be gluten in the tomato sauce), textured vegetable protein, yogurt, chewing gum, potato chips, popcorn, ice cream cones, beverage mixes, and some pharmaceuticals.


In the Caribbean we are blessed with a wide variety of starchy foods that can be substituted for cereal so initially it was easy to avoid gluten. At first, Little Bear ate a lot of porridge made from sweet potatoes, eddoes, tannia, dasheen, breadfruit, green figs, yams, and cassava. Many parents today start their babies on rice cereal followed by barley, oatmeal and wheat. These cereals are not grown in the West Indies but they are readily available in the supermarket. Let us not forget that our own locally grown produce is nutritionally superior to anything coming out of a box, packed with preservatives and shipped halfway around the world. Listen, I am not saying that I don't keep a box of baby rice cereal in the cupboard for emergencies. I do, but for the most part I don't find it at all difficult to boil a root vegetable and smash it with a fork and a bit of milk.

Little Bear is a 'big' boy now and the proud owner of 4 spanking new teeth. These teeth need substance. No more mushy mush for those bad boys. Biting (not always food related) is almost an obsession with him. I suppose chewing will come later. Sigh. At times it's alarming the huge chunks of food that he bites into and swallows without chewing. He bites everything: furniture, toys, his clothes, paper, a grasshopper ( well almost - we got to poor Jiminy in the nick of time).

Time for some toast so that Little Bear can gnaw his way to biting nirvana. I used the only the only gluten free flour that was available to me Doves Farms Gluten and Wheat Free Brown Bread Flour. At $7.00US, it's not cheap. I have made this twice and both times it produced a dense loaf with a depression in the middle. I am a bit puzzled by the picture of the well-risen loaves shown on the Doves Farm site since mine sagged in the middle. The recipe on the website mentions that the dough should be pressed inwards and upwards to form a domed top. I did not do this because that instruction does not appear on recipe on the the package of flour.



In any case the center depression in my loaf makes it look like the bread is smiling when you cut it, don't you think? It has a nice crust but the texture is rubbery. If you don't expect this to taste like bread, then you won't be disappointed with the flavour. It isn't unpleasant. It's just very bland. Think of it as a delivery method for your sandwich fixings. If I was gluten intolerant it would be an acceptable substitute for a sandwich but I can't see myself rushing to eat a warm, buttery slice of this bread straight from the oven. It's not bread; just an acceptable substitute.

Gluten Free Bread
16 oz Brown bread flour (Doves Farms)
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp Quick yeast
2 tbs Sugar
12 floz warm milk
1 tsp vinegar
2 eggs
6tbps oil

Mix together the flour, salt, yeast and sugar. In a large bowl beat in the milk, vinegar and eggs. Add the flour and mix to form a sticky dough. ( Looks wet and spongy). Continue mixing adding the oil. Place the dough in an oiled 2 lb bread tin, cover and leave to rise in a warm place for 1 hour.
Bake in a pre-heated oven for 40- 45 mins 425 degres F




*Oats on their own do not contain gluten. However, they are not gluten free because of the potential for contamination during growing and processing.