Je t'aime, melancholie...

Ramadan is knocking and I got a bad bout of nostalgia. I miss UAE. I miss the mood, the food, I got a bad bad craving for Sarai restaurant food (the best Syrian food), I miss the evening crowds in shopping malls, the salty humidity blowing from the sea. I miss being able to go downstairs for a stroll after sunset with Little Miss and not only feel safe but see lots of other parents doing the same. I miss my girl being welcome in proper restaurants, I miss being able to eat anywhere and not worry about the almighty pork in pancakes. And I miss our apartment, not smelling cigarette smoke 24/7 from addicted neighbours. I miss the bread from Organic Café, I miss being able to wear the all-black abaya with black scarf without scaring the living daylight out of people... I miss the respect and courtesy regarding pregnant women, I miss so much...
This, too, shall pass but today I allow myself to indulge in memories.

Joys of multilingual life

Little Miss decided to be a French speaker. She started to speak and answer exclusively in French. She obviously understands when I speak to her and acts accordingly but answers in French. Counts in French, her letters are French. Only her food is still Polish but I guess it will change as soon as she actually learns French equivalents in kindergarden. Oh well, I always said what counts is that she understands my and husband's languages. This way the languages are imprinted in her brain and if one day she decides to use them, it will be so much easier. Understanding what people say to you and around you is very reassuring and confidence-boosting, as any TCK or foreign language learner will tell you. But for now, I have a little francophone at home. Can't wait for the Quebecer accent to come out!

Quick cake update

Two days ago I made the cake from the post below with 3 bananas (I added a table spoon of flour to balance the consistency) and it came out even moister and yummier! It's best the next day after spending some time wrapped in the fridge. Sinfully good!

Midnight Banana

Little Miss has been going to sleep early lately. Probably, because she refuses to nap. And so when the urgent need to eat something sweet got hold of me yesternight, I had to find a recipe that doesn't require use of electric gadgets. Found one and since I tweaked it to the point of making a different recipe altogether, I share it here.

It's a dairy- nut- and soy-free banana bread. It' really sweet, so feel free to use less sugar. Personally I like my cakes sweet.

INGREDIENTS:

• 3 ripe bananas, mashed
• 1/3 cup olive oil (not virgin, the lighter the better)
• 1 cup brown sugar (I substituted some of the sugar with maple sugar)
• 2 eggs, beaten (by hand - I used a beater but can be done with fork)
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon allspice (optional)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda (NOT baking powder)
• 1 1/2 cups + 1 tbl spelt flour (can be all-purpose flour or any flour, really)

METHOD:

Preheat the oven to 170 C (325 F). With a spoon, mix oil with the mashed banana. Add sugar and beaten eggs. Mix. Sprinkle baking soda and cinnamon onto the mixture and stir. Mix the flour in. Stir just enough to incorporate the flour into the batter. Do not over-stir, the batter is supposed to be lumpy. Pour the batter into a loaf pan. Bake for 50 minutes to an hour. Let it cool before taking it out of the pan. If you want the cake extra-moist, wrap it in aluminium (or put into tupperware loosely wrapped in wax paper) and put in the fridge. It's better the next day (if you can wait, that is).

It works perfectly in muffins, mini-loaves, cup cakes, just adjust the baking time accordingly (30 minutes for small cup-cakes).

You can use 1 egg and 3-4 bananas. You can substituted melted butter for oil. You can add walnuts or chocolate chips. Vanilla extract instead of cinnamon. Etc etc... 

Enjoy!

I made edible bread

Some of you know - I don't succeed in making bread. Any kind. Ever. Me and yeast do not agree. It refuses to do what yeast is supposed to do. Each and every time. And yet I've continued to fantasize about home-baked bread. The freedom of being able to have the exact bread I want with the exact ingredients and saltiness I want. And then I stumbled upon this site . It has a recipe for a spelt raisin bread. Now, it wasn't the exact recipe I was looking for but it has eliminated my problem. For the first time in my life I got the stupid yeast to work. The dough doubled, bubbled and basically behaved itself in a very yeasty fashion.  The bread looked very handsome, smelled good and Little Miss seemed to appreciate it. I had to tweak the original recipe a little and it came out too yeasty, too dense and too crumbly (in my opinion).  But it was a first success! I won't post the recipe here as my bread wasn't good enough to share with the world but do follow the link, there is a secret to the whole process.

Fruity Goodness

I used to play the Chocolatier 3 game for a while and developed a love for cheesy dessert names. Fruity Goodness is a basic fruit cocktail/smoothie with added nutrition. The proportions and exact components may vary according to taste, allergies and supply, of course. Here is my favourite version

• Frozen wild blueberries (fresh would be even better)
• banana
• milk (animal, nut or grain)/buttermilk/laban/liquid yoghourt
• avocado
• ground chia seeds
• a little raw honey (optional)
• ground cinnamon

Blend, serve. I sometimes add some almond butter, vitamin D or even hemp protein. Mango, strawberries, apple/orange juice instead of milk are delicious variations as well. Just make sure there is some good fat there (avocado, nut butter or some good organic oil) to maximise the nutritional value.

Enjoy!

I'm cold

The temperatures go up and down, as it is usual in April and at the moment they're very down, it's 10am and -3C. It inspired me to make my own manakeesh. I bought fresh active yeast, followed the recipe, the yeast frothed as it should, the dough looked as in the description. But, of course, it didn't rise. Or, actually, it did...but instead of doubling it got like 10% bigger. I tried baking it anyway. Bleurgh is all I'll say. So no pics and no recipe. What is it with me and yeast? It just never works! Never. Not in winter with well-heated kitchen, not in the summer when it's naturally warm. All I got are sore arms from working the dough. Oh well. Still pine after some decent manakeesh but no idea when I can get some close to home...

Not guilty

I believe that one of major reasons for not sticking to good eating plans and other resolutions long-term is guilt. When we transgress our self-made limits we tend to feel guilty, we feel like a failure, we feel bad about ourselves. Or it's just me. Anyway, what a person who feels bad about themselves do? They give up. I stopped having problems with weight (meaning I kept stable weight without really trying) once I got rid of the guilt. Obviously, old habits die hard and so as soon as the guilt creeped in, I put on the weight I'm unhappy about now. And so I decided - out with the guilt! What's the point of having that piece of cake if I feel bad about having it? It is there solely to make me happy, if it doesn't then it's wasted calories.
This is why I bought the poppy and cheese cake I've been fantasizing about, cut myself a generous piece, poured some coffee and enjoyed. I enjoyed it so much, I didn't need to silent my guilt with another piece. It will wait safely in the fridge for me to enjoy tomorrow or the day after... ok, I'm delusional now. Tomorrow. Morning. Yes, I can wait that long and this is a huge step. Yay for me :)

I hope I'm losing it...

Like so many, I've been battling with my weight for ages. It started when, objectively, I had nothing to battle with. Unfortunately people around me weren't objective and managed to make me believe I was fat and ugly. Thank you, family and friends.
At some point I got rid of depression, eating disorders and learnt to appreciate myself. I was fatter than I should've been at that point but still within healthy range (just) and, most importantly, I was happy and well. Unfortunately, years later, I put on more kilograms and I really need it to go away now. Usual diets bring my lovely eating disorders back so it's a no-no. But I think I found it. My "miracle" (tfu tfu, spitting over the shoulder and all that). Soy-derivatives. To be honest, it was my daughter, Little Miss, who put me on the right track. She has dairy and soy intolerance and that includes soy oil and soy lecithin. Because of this I started to read about soy and other food-related things and... And I got disgusted. Reading up on soy managed what all the health-consciousness didn't - it put me off supermarket goodies like ice-cream, most chocolate and other yummies. So basically I decided that if I feel like sweets, I have to make them. I'm not forbidding myself to buy things but 95% of time simply reading the ingredients puts me off. It seems to be working, I've lost 2kg last month and hopefully it will continue.
Oh, and I've just had a piece of chocolate cake from the previous post... yum!

Sweet Beginnings

Ever since our family got burdened with diabetes and dairy/soy intolerance (different members, different ailments) I've been on a hunt for good, wholesome recipes that do not contain artificial sweeteners and other additives and improvers. It was especially hard for cakes and cookies. I first tried stevia but I wasn't really impressed with the results. Finally I discovered raw blue agave juice and the experimenting fun could begin. Now, as great and low GI as raw blue agave juice is, it is not a "free" food, so if you do have diabetes or liver issues, don't over-indulge (actually, even if you do not have any digestive problems, sweets are sweets, LOL).

So, curtesy of multiple recipes tweaked to meet our needs, here comes a spicy chocolate cake that my husband hailed as the best cake I've ever made. Not sure about this but it is delicious :)

Sugar- and dairy-free spicy chocolate cake

• 3 cups + 1tbs all-purpose flour (I usually mix all-purpose with kamut or spelt flour)
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
• 4 tsp. baking powder
• 3/4 tsp. baking soda
• 4 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. ground cloves
• 1/2 tsp. ground allspice
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 2 cups of agave juice (can be replaced with maple syrup or honey for non-diabetic)
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 cup apple purée
• 1/4 cup spicy tea (or coffee, juice or simply water)
• 1 cup walnuts (optional)
• 4-5 apples, diced (not too small)

I used a 9"x13" sheet cake pan that I lined with parchment paper.

Preheat the oven to 350F/175C degrees. Lightly grease pan(s).  Have ready doubled up baking sheets with a piece of parchment on top.

1. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda,  cinnamon, cloves and allspice. Make a well in the centre. Add oil, agave juice, eggs, tea, apple purée. Using an electric mixer on slow speed, stir together well to make a well-blended batter, making sure that no ingredients are stuck to the bottom. The batter will be quite thick.
2. Add walnuts and diced apples.
3. Spoon batter into prepared pan. You can decorate with walnuts on top. Place cake pan on two baking sheets stacked together. (This will ensure that cake doesn't burn.)
4. Bake until cake springs back when you gently touch the cake centre, for 40-50 minutes (depends on your oven), turn off the oven and let it stand without opening for another 10 minutes (optional but works for me and my old gas oven). Take cake out of the oven and let it cool before removing from the pan.
5. Enjoy!

Why and what for?

Over the years I went from "if it tastes good, feels good, smells good it's all good" to "how to live without poisoning myself and my family"? Now, I'm not super-strict-raw-vegan kind of person, I don't have the will to go with such a life-style. I'm just trying to stay away from things that are really bad for the health. I'm also on a constant quest for dairy- sugar- and soy-free recipes due to food-related conditions in our family (allergies, intolerance and diabetes). I decided to post recipes and other findings to help myself to stay on the right track.