Back... and back to basics. No-knead light wholewheat oatmeal bread

 

 

An Italian saying goes l'Epifania tutte le feste porta via. Indeed, in many European countries the holiday season officially ended on Monday, with the Catholic celebration of the Adoration of the Magi, also known as the Epiphany. In Italy this day is marked by a nightime visit of the befana, an old lady resembling a witch, dressed in rags and covered in soot that stuffs children's stockings with sweets or lumps of coal, according to how they behaved the previous year.

It is also traditional to take your tree down on January 6th and most kids go back to school the following day.

So with the new year now in full swing, I have been thinking of my resolutions, or rather the resolutions I have not made yet, and what I truly wish and hope for in 2014.

There is little I desire, considering I have all the things that really count (a family I love, good health, a job - albeit not one I love and that doesn't pay as much as it used to but on the other hand gives me more time with my children - a roof on my head and good friends). Sure, there are things that I would really like but they come after the list I mentioned. Who doesn't want more financial security, a home to call their own, the possibility to travel and see more of the amazing planet we live in?

If there is one resolution I think we should all make it is ackowledging what we do more and feeling less guilty about what we don't. It is easy to beat ourselves up, to look around and see what others are doing better than us, to feel like we are not enough. We always feel compelled to work harder, to run faster, like hamsters spinning endlessly on their wheels.

There will always be somebody who is doing better than we are, sure, but there is always somebody who is doing worse too. Just because someone is driving a fancier car, it doesn't mean they worry less than you do at the end of the month. Sure, some problems are bigger than others, some people are luckier than others, but we all have to face obstacles, fear and problems. Rich or poor, we all have loved ones to take care of, children, parents, relatives or friends. We all care, we all worry, we all grieve.

I will not deny that I get caught up in this vicious cycle. I need to loose weight, I should look for a new job, I should be more organized...

I compare my kids' life with my very priviledged childhood and wish I could give them more. Of course I wish I could take them to exotic places on the spur of the moment or that our five-day ski vacation could be two weeks instead, but I am also aware that my husband and I work very hard to give them a taste of everything we had growing up and that what we can't provide materially we make up for in love and presence.

But no worries, I am not getting all Christmas-movie on you and will not start telling you about how I didn't take my family on a cruise to the Carribean but made a snowman with them instead and about how we all rolled in the snow and laughed and hugged and ended the day drinking hot chocolate in front of the fire. Because at the end of the year day, we all have shit to deal with, each and every day, whoever we are and no matter how much we have or don't have.

So this year why don't we all take it a little more easy on ourselves?

Pat yourself on your back, let yourself know you are doing a great job as a friend, a mother, a daughter, a son, a dad, a husband, a wife, a companion, a sister, a brother, a boss, an employee...

I will not to beat myself up about all the things I think I should be doing better and more of. I will not make unattainable resolutions and then feel guilty or lacking because of them. I am going back to the basics, focusing on what matters, on what I have and taking my life one step at a time.

Let this be your resolution for 2014.

By all means, strive to do more, fix some targets, aim higher - because this is human and healthy to a degree - but also let the new year be a time to stop running, to take inventory of your life and let yourself know that you are doing a good job being who you are, providing what you do, caring the way you care.

Go back to the basics.

Here is a little Instagram testimony of the basics in my life: my family, my children, beautiful nature, great food and good friends to call-in the New Year.

 

Pita bread

 

 

 

To puff or not to puff? That is the question (well, maybe not if you are Hamlet, but most certainly when it comes to pita bread).

Because the truth is, when you are making pita, it doesn't always balloon as you were hoping. It didn't matter that much to me because the pita was very authentic in texture in flavor and I made it to accompany a dip, but if I had been planning to stuff it with falafel and more, I surely would have been disappointed.

So I thought for a while whether to post this recipe at all and whether I should call it pita bread or flat bread if I did. I did not, after all, succeed in getting a big pocket in all my breads. Some puffed a lot, some puffed a little, bubbles here and there, and some barely puffed at all.

 

I finally decided to share my experience for these reasons:

 

1. The pita was good, exactly what you would expect from a pita bread.

2. It was easy to make, quick and straightforward.

3. Pita stores very well.

 

I think any recipe that makes you want to make it again, that connects you with your primal instincts (flat bread is the most ancient form of bread, baked long before ovens or baking utensils existed), that is cheap, that yields a result that is so much more than the sum of its components, that makes leftovers that can last you a week and that allows you to feed your family unprocessed food is a recipe to be posted. 

 

In the meantime I have learned to use instant yeast that has not been open too long, a very, very hot oven and to try it on a stovetop next time.

 

Sally Lunn

It is snowing out, but despite the stone floor and walls of the kitchen, the room is warm from the fire crackling in the hearth and the new glass panes in the window, that have become more and more popular in the past decades. She gently but thoroughly works the dough with her small, red hands and then sets it under a cloth to rise. She watches the snowflakes fall, listens to the silence and puts the bread into the oven. While it bakes she breathes in the warm, sweet scent and starts to prepare a new loaf. As she kneeds the dough she thinks of her homeland, Normandy, of the brioche her mother used to prepare on special occasions. Her bread is similar and the locals seem to like it. More and more people in Bath have started coming into the bakery to ask for the sweet bread she makes. She smiles to herself when remembering how they call her in this country. Her name is Solange but they prefer to call her Sally and when they ask for her bread they refer to it as Sally Lunn's.

  

This bread, reminiscent of brioche, was seemingly made by a French Huguenot immigrant in the second half of the 17th Century in Bath. It quickly became fashionable in the aristocratic circles, eaten to accompany both sweet and savory foods.

Another story attributes the name to the mispronunciation of the French words "soleil et lune", to describe the golden and white interior and exterior of the loaf.

Whatever the origin, this sweet bread is still popular today, although it is not always served the traditional way, cutting it horizontally to spread it with clotted cream or butter and then slice it into vertical portions.

I had never had it before but was flipping through one of my cookbooks for a recipe similar to a brioche. The preparation seemed simple enough  to someone like me who is still a little frightened at the prospect of making bread, and I had everything I needed to bake it...uh...expect the right pan to bake it in. I only noticed that minor detail halfway through. It should be baked in a Turk's head mold or a tube mold, so I had to invent something quickly and came up with the contraption you see in the photo: a circular cake dish with two cocottes stacked on top of each other in the center. It turned out a little darker than intended and the circle wasn't perfectly centered, but it tasted exactly as I imagined it would and accompanied breakfast, lunch and dinner at our house for a few days.

I thought it would be a perfect recipe to share for these holidays, a little extra something like I promised in my last post to add to your traditional Christmas feast, something that will taste great with your turkey, ham or goose but that will also feed a hungry household on a holiday morning (it serves 24!).