Making some Dough

Today was yet another rainy Sunday spent indoors, so while the kids destroyed the place, I decided to take the opportunity and get organised for the week.

I donned my apron, cranked the oven, and got baking!

First off I started with some home made bread. I have started to become very suspect of commercial breads of late for a number of reasons…

I have not long finished reading the book ‘Fed up’ written by Sue Dengate. This is the book I should have read twenty years ago. It covers how food affects behaviour, particularly in children.

I was astonished to read about the additive, Calcium propionate (282) which is used in many commercial brands of breads in Australia. It has been linked to a variety of behavioural problems in children. Brumbys and Bakers Delight supposedly do not use the preservative any longer. So the last time I was in the grocery store (it was Woolworths) I made a point of reading the ingredients on their home brand bakery bread. All of it contained 282. Also most of the so called ‘healthy’ flat breads contained it as well.

I have also been conducting a little experiment of my own with some commercial raison bread that we had been eating a lot of just recently… let’s just say I will NEVER eat that stuff again… the results and pictures of the experiment will be posted shortly…

So its back to the kitchen for me and time to dust off the bread maker.

Today’s loaf is a 4 seed white loaf

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups of flour (I used Wallaby Bakers unbleached flour, which contains no preservatives or animal fats, as well as being GMO free)

2 tablespoons of butter or a dairy alternative

1 teaspoon of salt

2 tablespoons of honey or rapidura sugar

1 egg

3/4 cup of milk (I used soy milk)

2 teaspoons of yeast

1 tablespoon chia seeds

1 tablespoon poppy seeds

1 tablespoon sesame seeds

1 tablespoon flaxseeds

I’m not too fussy with my method of putting the ingredients together, basically I melted the butter, added it to the egg, and milk.

I then added all the dry ingredients including the seeds gave it a bit of a mix and set the bread maker to do the rest.

Ahh what could be better than four hours of rain on the roof, the smell of fresh baking bread… and stir crazy boys looking for something to break!

The results were delicious!

Megan Georgoulas

Crazy for the Coconuts

So while the balmy summer weather continues, the coconuts are still flowing in our house.

For today’s coconutty treat, I am making choco blueberry muffins. Sure to please everyone as an afternoon treat, or what the hell, even a breakfast treat, I clearly have no other food in the house!

For today’s batch I have used;

2 cups of self-raising flour

2 eggs

4 tablespoons of raw sugar…. completely up to your own taste as to how sweet you want these babies

half a cup of coconut flour

half a cup of coconut oil

Approximately 6 heaped tablespoons of Greek yogurt, I love Jalna.

I used a couple of handfuls of blueberries, which can be fresh or frozen. However I feel that a good 2 cups of any chopped fruit is really needed for the muffins to stay moist. The more fresh fruit you add, the less sugar you need.

Now for the hero ingredient, a choc-coconut spread by ‘nui’. It is gluten-free, dairy-free, vegan friendly and oh so delicious!

I added a heaped tablespoon of the spread to the mix and then made mouth love to the remnant on the spoon.

Blend together and then get your coconut cup cake on!

Really there is no excuse for not making muffin/cup cake combos, especially if you own any form of electrical mixing device. For 10 minutes of minimal effort and 15-20 minutes of laying on a deck chair time, it is well worth it.

Your children will love you, your friends will love you, your arse will love you… maybe not that last one, but no one can see your arse when it is firmly planted in a deck chair!

Megan Georgoulas

Requiem for Caffeine

Last night I dreamt of coffee.

Gloriously strong, smooth, dark, and did I mention strong, coffee. The smell, the ritual, the stimulation, ahh what a wonderful reason to get out of bed.

Today was my third consecutive day coffee free. Why would I play such a masochistic game I hear you ask? Well at 3pm this afternoon, I was asking the same question. I was actually asking this while rocking in fetal position in the corner, while my chilren threw sultanas at me.

So like any good addict, I caved and let the sweet caffeine, or trimethylxanthine, flow all over my adenosine receptors. Just like magic I am a functioning, albeit slightly hyperactive,  member of society.

Every now and then I make the decision to quit coffee. I do this mainly for health reasons, however I also like to keep tabs on the underlying addiction. The pain of withdrawal is a great reminder of why caffeine addiction is so insidious.

Some folks head into the desert with no food or water to find the truth, I think it is much easier and involves less sun damage, to simply stop drinking coffee. I like to watch the layers peel back and discover the true state of my nervous system and adrenals.

The exhaustion, lethargy, gloominess and outright bitchiness is quite overwhelming, along with the inability to remember the end of my …. ah … what’s that word … you know …. Sentences!

My other main reason for having a little holiday from my best friend coffee, is that… brace yourself for this… Coffee is a drug!

Coffee has positive and negative effects on the body, with many, often contradictory studies coming out recently. Some of the positive effects from these studies range from reducing the risk of aquiring alzeimers disease, to helping with headaches.

Were these studies credible? I do not know. Maybe they were being conducted by coffee starved individuals with raging withdrawal headaches, so yes, it goes without saying that coffee is going to help with that.

So it doesn’t look like I’ll be quitting coffee anytime soon. Maybe next time I take a ride on the coffee rehab bus a good adrenal tonic and a ‘kids-free’ week on the beach in the Maldives would help to ease the withdrawal pains….

mmm beach…

mmm Maldives…

I wonder if they do a good espresso martini there?

Megan Georgoulas