Bird Seed Bread

My Mum is into all sorts of Natural Health and Alternative Remedies

She regularly sends me emails and information about this or that herb or vitamin and recipes that she thinks will interest me and suit my InTolerances. I have to admit though, that this recipe labelled Life Changing Loaf, languished in my in-box for quite a while, and though it sounded OK, it had no photos or really enough information to tempt me to go to the effort to buy all the bitsies and bake it. It wasn't until I saw the great photos and step-by-steps on Lovely Loraine's blog Here that I woke up and realised what a gem this recipe was. I'm really not sure where this recipe originated from, but after graciously receiving both Mum and Lorraine's blessing, I just had to post it as well and share the love with you too Dear Readers
**I've found out that the owner of this yummy recipe is Sarah from My New Roots. The original post can be found here: http://www.mynewroots.org/site/2013/02/the-life-changing-loaf-of-bread/  check out her blog for lots of yumminess!**

Bird Seed Bread

1 cup Sunflower seeds
½ cup Flax seeds
½ cup Hazelnuts or Almonds
1/2 cup Sesame seeds
1 ½ cups gluten free Rolled Oats
2 tbsp Chia seeds
4 tbsp Psyllium seed husks
1 tsp Salt
1 tbsp Honey/Maple syrup/Agave
3 tbsp Coconut/Nut/Olive oil or Ghee
1 ½ cups Water


I was glad I was able to get all the ingredients for my seedy bread at the supermarket instead of having to hunt everywhere. I always find that easily accessible ingredients mean that I will definitely MAKE the recipe instead of ADMIRING it, and I figure that most people probably feel the same :)

Pop all the dry ingredients in a large bowl and mix well

Mix together the  oil, honey and water stir to dissolve the honey
I used a yummy Macadamia oil to add to the nuttiness of the loaf, and that black looking stuff is a really dark candied honey that has an amazing, deep, strong flavour- delicious!

Mix the wets into the dry and stir through really well making sure there aren't any little pockets of dry mixture on the bottom

See how quickly the chia, flax and psyllium swell up and go gummy? This is what binds the loaf together and stops it from falling apart

Press the mixture into a loaf pan and leave out at room temperature for at least two hours to continue setting

Pop the loaf into a 175*C oven and bake for about 50-60 minutes
I used a silicon pan to bake mine in though and I always find that things tend to sweat in them and can become a little soggy. To make sure I got a nice toasty loaf, I turned my loaf out of the silicon and onto a baking tray after 30 minutes, then just cooked it for the rest of the time like that

Nice and golden brown! The loaf should sound hollow when you tap it on the bottom, if it's not then leave it to cook a little longer

Now comes the hardest part of the whole experience- waiting until the bread cools down totally before slicing! It will crumble into pieces if you are impatient and don't wait

 

I really, really enjoyed this bread hot and toasted, with a dab of naughty butter and a bit more of my deep, dark honey. I don't know if I would really call it Life-Changing, but it is easy, full of fibre and other healthy goodies, and most of all it is definitely delicious indeed and I will certainly be making this one regularly- yummo!

So my Dear Readers, are you into Natural Remedies and have you ever realised that you have passed up a great recipe because you didn't give it enough attention?





 

St Patrick's Day Pickled Pork

 

There's a fair bit of Irish blood in this Chef from my Dad's side of the family


Though diluted through generations in the Wide Brown Land away from the Emerald Isle, St Patrick's Day is always heralded with a phone call from my Dad wishing me well in a terribly fake Irish accent. I guess with his middle name being Patrick, he just can't help himself :) As a mother of two girls, we had to name the male cat Patrick in Dad's honour, but Pat the Cat was happy to let St Patrick's Day pass by with just an extra cuddle or two


Today's celebratory menu is Pickled Pork, a tasty alternative to Corned Beef and served up with these absolutely gorgeous mini root vegetables I found at the markets this week. Tiny onions, turnips, carrots, beets and dwarf cabbage- how could I resist?

Perfect Pickled Pork

1 piece of Pickled (Corned) Pork
1 large or 2 small bottles of Apple Cider
1 Carrot- roughly chopped
1 Onion- roughly chopped
Parsley Stems
3 Bay Leaves
1/4 cup Golden Syrup
1 Star Anise
6 whole Peppercorns
4 whole Cloves
4 Allspice


Isn't this a lovely piece of meat? Glossy and glistening, just waiting to jump into the pot! Nowadays corned meat isn't as tough and salty as it used to be, and there's no need to pre-soak or change the cooking water halfway through

Now for the extra flavourings- pop in the cider, spices and golden syrup and stir to mix through. Add enough water to just cover the meat

Pop in the carrot, onion and parsley

Bring to the boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook for about 40 minutes per 500grm, or until lovely and tender. Pull out the meat and allow it to rest for little while to firm up while the veggies cook

Bring the pot liquid to the boil and pop in the whole onions, turnips, carrots and the quartered cabbage. If you don't want to taint everything pink, I advise you to cook the beets in a little pot of their own :)

Serve the pork sliced into nice thick slices along with the cute little baby vegetables. You can make a White or Mustard Sauce (using the cooking liquid) to accompany it all, or just drizzle with some of the cooking liquid to keep it nice and moist- yummo!

So Dear Readers, have you any Irish branches on your Family Tree and do you ever just buy groceries just because they're cute?



 

In My Kitchen- March 2014

March already Dear Readers!

Autumn will be a lovely change and the cooler season fruit and veggies are always something I look forward to as well as a good excuse to indulge in some comfort food

It's also the time to hook up with Celia and her monthly In My Kitchen posts where we can check in about fifty other wonderful bloggers and see what they've been up to lately as well!



In My Kitchen...
Is a jar of Earl Grey infused Strawberry Jam from T2. Now, we all know about my obsession with Dilmah Earl Grey tea, so I'm reserving judgment on this jar of yum until I can enjoy it properly on a warm GF scone with lots of LF cream, as nature intended. I'm sure looking forward to it indeed!

In My Kitchen...
Is a cute silicon mold to use when frying eggs. Littlej hasn't had much success though, with her last attempt revealing a double yolker that turned the skull into an odd sort of triple cyclops that I guess was still sort of scary

In My Kitchen...
Is the blackboard where the girls have to post the recipes they plan on cooking for the week so I can make sure all the ingredients are on hand and also to ensure we don't have multiple meals of Spaghetti Bolognaise or other family favourites. First to get their choice on the board gets to make it.
MiddleC's Pad Thai was OK, but we can certainly recommend the Lime Roasted Chicken as very yummy. Littlej's soup was lovely, light and subtle, and full of her extra requested item of BBQ pork- yummo!
The girls are having to really step up and help out for the next few months as there's a lot of Doctory stuff happening again- lucky they have such a great mentor I guess! :P

In My Kitchen...
Is a Mad Millie Cider Kit that I bought BigJ for Christmas. He hates beer but really loves pear cider. The DIY kit comes with everything you need to make yummy apple cider- which he also likes, but you can buy extra packs to make pear cider or even a strawberry one if you want a change. I'll let you know what we think of the finished product when he actually gets around to brewing some

In My Kitchen...
Is a new cookbook from my mate Heston. Now let's face it, I'm not going to go the extremes he does in pursuit of the perfect meal, but his cookbooks are full of lots of great tips and ideas and they certainly do get the creative juices flowing

In My Kitchen...
Is a gorgeous vintage Egg Beater in my favourite blue colour. My bestie Pony took me to a wonderful antique shop full of goodies and I was very proud of us that we were restrained enough to purchase just one item each. That means I can really splurge next time I go!

In My Kitchen...
Are some cute little Easter bits and pieces, again in my blue. I don't know what I'll do with them yet, but they were just too cute to resist

In My Kitchen...
Is yet another cookbook! This one is full of very nice recipes that I really will use instead of just thinking about. I was a bit disappointed though when the cover promises 'gluten and dairy free alternatives', but inside the recipes just state 'use gluten free flour instead of regular flour' and 'use gluten free wonton wrappers'. Straight substitution doesn't always work, and I've certainly never seen gluten free wonton wrappers available or I would own stocks in that company! There is also no list of stockers or suppliers where these mythical items might be available- even overseas

In My Kitchen...
Is a great find- Low Lactose Yoghurt Powder to use in a make-at-home yoghurt thermos. I actually have a wonderful EasiYo maker but these will work in it as well. When made up, the yoghurt contains less than 0.3% of lactose which shouldn't give me any trouble. Normal yoghurts give me lots of symptoms so I'm very excited about this product too

 


And finally, the reason I'm spending so much time Out Of My Kitchen this month...
Another surgery- this time for the tendons on my left wrist. Sadly, my left arm is my Good Arm as the right side has significant disability issues still and doesn't reach far. The recovery for this surgery is expected to be up to 6 months, but hopefully by then everything will be hunky-dory. My apologies for not being as active on blogs lately, and if I've missed some of your posts it's not because I don't care but because I've been back to typing with one finger again!

Don't you love the big arrow, just in cake the surgeons had a poor sense of direction I guess :) I saved you from the photo of the Frankenstitches- it really was a bit too gruesome for a food blog!

So Dear Readers, what's going on In Your Kitchen this month?