Tag Archives: Lunch

Potato Focaccia

Makes 2 large Focaccias or 6 – 8 small ones

Pre heat the oven to 425° F

Spoiler alert!!

There’s mashed potatoes in the dough.

If you think your love for all things “Dough” can’t grow bigger…you’re wrong.

Unless you have already had a potato Focaccia before. This is the lightest and fluffiest Focaccia you will ever have. When you press the Focaccia between your fingers you will see there is a bounciness that is unmatched by anything else. The mashed potato does something magical to dough.

I’ve had it in cakes before too and the same thing happens.

But back to the recipe, you will need to plan ahead, because it has to rise for quit some time. You can use left over cold mashed potato or otherwise just boil a few potatoes and mash them. This recipes makes a lot, but you can easily freeze some of the dough for later use.

The Focaccia above has home roasted Tomato sauce, grilled Onions, grilled Peppers and a few Anchovis on top. You can leave out the Anchovis for Vegans.

Ingredients:

1.5 C. Luke warm water, about 100° F

2 tsp. instant yeast

1 tsp. Honey or Sugar (for vegans)

6 C. Spelt flour

1/4 C. olive oil

1.5 tsp. Himalayan Salt

1 C. Mashed potatoes.

Method:

Put the warm water in the bowl of your mixer, fitted with the hook attachment. Pour in the honey, or sugar. Add the yeast, carefully mix and leave it to activate for about ten minutes.

Meanwhile measure out all your other ingredients.

Mix the olive oil in with the mashed potatoes and add to the bowl. Mix gently. Add the remaining ingredients and mix on medium for about 5 minutes. The dough should not cling to the bowl anymore, add a little flour if it does.

Turn out to a lightly floured surface and give it a knead and shape into a ball and place in an oiled bowl. Cover with oiled cling film and leave to rise for 3 hours.

After the rise. Turn out the dough to a floured surface. Divide in half. Shape one half into a Focaccia shape, I always make mine a little oval shape and also a bit irregular to give it a more rustic look.

Place the Focaccia on a baking tray lined with parchment paper. Press little dimples in the dough with your finger and drizzle with some olive oil and sprinkle with some coarse sea salt and Rosemary. Drizzle the Rosemary with a little bit of oil before to prevent burning.

Place in the oven and bake for about 25 minutes. After 15 minutes turn the heat down to 400° F. It should sound hollow when you tap on it.

Alternatively, make smaller shapes and bake about 5 minutes less.

You can also top your Focaccia with vegetables, or anything else you like. This way becoming a meal in itself.

When I bake smaller plain ones I use them for sandwiches. Or serve them with soup. The large ones are great party food cut into smaller squares, or serves two as a dinner with plenty of toppings. Basically once you have the dough let your imagination run free.

Enjoy

Myra Xo

Watermelon Salad

14 Replies

Serves 4

At home we try to eat what’s in Season, it feels like the right thing to do. So it’s really exciting when I see a Watermelon for the first time in season. Not only are they delicious but very healthy too. They are full of Lycopene which is a carotenoid good for heart health and bone health. They also contain Citrulline.

Citrulline is an amino acid that is converted by our kidneys into arginine.

Watermelon contains about 250 milligrams of citrulline per cup. Arginine improves blood flow and there’s also some preliminary evidence arginine may help prevent excess accumulation of fat in fat cells. Hello?

Ingredients;

2 bags of Arugula
1 small watermelon, peeled and diced
4 oz. Feta cheese
1 onion, peeled and sliced as thin as you can

a bunch of fresh Mint. Pick of the leafs, thow the stems away.
1/2 C. Pomegranate Seeds
1/4 C. toasted Pine nuts
1 tbsp. Chia seeds
1/4 C. extra virgin olive oil
juice of one lemon

Instructions;

Star of by putting the onion in a bowl with the juice of half a lemon and leave for about 15 minutes. This will take away the sharpness of the onion.

Arrange the Arugula on a platter. Scatter over the Watermelon. Then the drained onions.

Crumble over the Feta. Then tear the Mint leafs up a bit and sprinkle over the salad tucking the leafs in between the pieces of Watermelon.

Then scatter over the Pomegranate seeds, the Chia seeds and the Pine nuts. Serve drizzled with the olive oil and the remaining juice of the lemon.

Enjoy!

Myra XO

Rye-Spelt bread

3 Replies

Being a bread lover, I’m always looking for new ways with bread that don’t include wheat. Not that I am gluten intolerant but I know that the wheat we consume today is a far cry from the original grain from 50 years ago. It has been terribly manipulated and now we are stuck with a grain that does more harm than good. It inflames our bodies, causes our guts to leak, and it triggers autoimmune diseases just to mention a few.

Nothing beats a home made bread and this way I know exactly what ingredients are used. It takes fairly little time once you get the hang of it, and I don’t add as much salt. If you do like the salty flavour you could add some nutritional yeast to the recipe together with the salt I use, which is usually half the amount you are used to. Do give it a try, it is so much healthier than store-bought bread.

INGREDIENTS:

2 C. Whole grain Rye flour
2 1/2 C. plain Spelt flour
2 tsp. instant yeast
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/4 C. luke warm water
1/2 C. leftover black coffee, at room temperature. Either regular or decaf.*
1 tbsp. cocoa powder*
1 tbsp. coconut sugar
1 egg beaten for glazing (omit for vegans)
1 tbsp. oat flakes for decorating
optional: 1 tbsp. nutritional yeast, add with flour.
Add ins: 1 tbsp. whole flax seed, poppy seeds, sunflower seeds

INSTRUCTIONS:

In a mixer fitted with the hook attachment, mix the two flours, the yeast, the cocoa, the sugar, the water and the coffee. Add seeds if you want. Mix on low for about five minutes, then add the salt. Now knead on medium speed for about ten minutes. Remove the dough, form a ball and put it to rest in an other bowl sprayed with some oil and cover with a damp cloth or some cling film. Leave to rise for two hours.

Now take the dough out of the bowl and spray the kneading surface with cooking spray. Knead briefly until it has a smooth even consistency (this will only take several turns of the dough to accomplish). Place in greased loaf pan, brush with beaten egg and sprinkle over the oats. Let rise in warm place until doubled. Bake at 375ºF for 25-30 minutes. To check if it’s ready tap on the bread, it should sound hollow.

*The coffee and cocoa may sound odd in a bread recipe, you don’t really taste either one much, it just gives it a nice color and the cocoa does give it a velvety texture. You’ll see.