A picture says more than 1000 words...

In-work

There's a saying that one only shows half-done jobs to... But I don't want to insult anyone, just show a few things so you don't think I'm all lazy, sitting around doing nothing.

For the upcoming colder season:

Even dogs need something warm on cool days:

For next summer:

For whenever:

Now I have to finish so I can show you "after" pictures too.

LCHF Dilemma

I’ve been interested in nutrition since I was young. For a while I thought of studying nutrition at the university but never got around to do it*. I’ve always felt that most dietary advices are somewhat uncertain to say the least. Once you shouldn’t have more than one egg a week and then it’s okay to have even two a day. Once “cholesterol” is bad for you, and then it appears that there is more than one type of cholesterol and that some are even good for you.

And then I came across LCHF. For me, an eye opener! It was as if the puzzle suddenly made sense. If you know how your body works and what it does with the different nutrients then you know what you should eat to keep it as healthy as possible.

That sugar is bad for you, I think is commonly accepted today. But the natural choices (date honey, apple sauce etc.) are just different types of sugars when it comes to our bodies’ handling of it. It’s the same with flour. White flour = no, no. But what about whole wheat? And rye and the other grains? Again, when it comes to how our bodies’ metabolize them, in the end it’s the same. (It might take a bit longer for the insulin to break down whole wheat or rye than it takes to break down refined wheat. That in turn gives a more stable insulin level in our blood, but the body still needs the insulin to break down the sugars.)

So the more I read and understand the more upset I get because the BIG question for me as a baker is: How do I continue to bake?

I love to bake. I don’t want people to eat baked goods. What to do?

Since I decided to do commercial baking, I’ve been trying to use ingredients that on one hand are healthy but on the other hand don’t take away from the quality. (No, a cookie made with oil is not as crispy as one made with butter.) **

How do you bake without any flour and sugar at all? And then I mean no whole wheat, no rye, no honey, no date honey, no anything that has sugars in it. What is left? Doesn’t everything have sugars in it? (Unless you’re making a meat pie.)

So I’ve been looking for recipes and experimenting with celiac and diabetes in mind. It’s fun. It’s different. You need to get used to another type of sweetness. (I’m using Stevia for sweetener.)

So far the results are mixed. Mostly the hang up is on texture - flavours are fine***.

And no, I don’t think you can get totally rid of the carbohydrates in baking, but you can definitely get it much lower. Low enough to make it a healthy alternative.

*Who knows, maybe better that way or I might have ended up repeating the establishment.

**Now I know that butter is actually a lot healthier than most vegetable oils.

***Don’t worry, nothing is thrown away. One can always make chocolate balls out of misshaped cakes. It’s actually easier to make LCHF candy than cookies.

Experimenting in the kitchen

This is usually not a food blog but last Friday's concoction was definitely something to share.

CherryTurkey

Sauté onions, mushrooms*, garlic, and ginger

Cut turkey breast in stripes or cubes and sear all around

Put it all together and add, according to taste:

- coconut cream

- good red wine (I used a fruity Merlot)

- salt, pepper, chili sauce (I used a chili&lime sauce)

Let it all simmer to cook the turkey through and get desired thickness of the sauce

Add sour cherries for the last 5-10 mins

Serve on rice or as is with a good bread, and some green leaves salad.

*The mushrooms didn't really add anything to the flavour, though it gave a nice texture to the sauce. I will probably skip them next time and add sliced bamboo shots instead.

Being busy

This is some of what I've been doing instead of updating the blog:

It was fun!

Sometimes it's just not right

My quilting teacher once said: "some days you sew and some days you un-sew".

I have just ripped out a 50 x 130 cm shawl that I've been knitting on. Deep breath and start from the beginning.

"Syjunta" - A Swedish fenomena?

Free translation from the Swedish Wikipedia:

A group, usually women, that meets to sew, crochet, knit, or embroider, and to socialize. 'Syjunta' is not a formal organisation but rather a group of friends that meet every now and then, usually at each other's homes.

In English it would probably be called a 'sewing bee'. I haven't found a lot of online information about the activity* so I assume that it's not so common. (Maybe I just don't know how to find it?)

In Hebrew, they don't even know what I'm talking about.

So, for all of us that have sweaters with just half an arm left to knit laying around for three years, or a pair of nice pants that only need to be shortened for the last few months - Welcome to my Syjunta! (for both sexes)

(While I was writing this, my head was busy trying to figure out how to write 'syjunta' in phonetic script. Still haven't figured that one out.)

* There are knitting circles but that's only part of the game ;-)

Stepping out...

...to the big world.

May I present my logo:

If you click it, you'll get to my future website.

"You Are Cordially Invited"

Final exams are over. We had to bake and prepare quite a bunch of things - About 10 different categories (including eatable table decorations) and three different variations within some of the categories. A day and a half at our disposal. Here are the results of my efforts:

The "theme" of my table was a fancy tea party.

The menu:

Bread - "50-50" Rolls

Yeast dough (folded) - Swedish Wienerbröd, Cinnamon-Coffee Danish Cluster, Cinnamon Danish

Puff pastry - Jam&Nut filled Combs, Voul-a-Vent with Compote, Fruit of the Season-length

Center Piece - Orange-Chocolate Cake

Choux dough - Paris Brest, Éclairs, Swedish Maria Balls

Petit Fours - Filled Chocolate Cups, Mini Tartlets, Ganash-Marmalade Sweets (Pineapple & Red Wine)

"Cut" cake - Pineapple Upside Down Cake

Desert - Wine Poched Pear Baked in Marzipan Shell

Signs - White Chocolate writing on Dark Chocolate signs

Decorations - Cookie lollipops

Now - Reality!

Final Exams

Today was the written exam. There were questions on how you check quality of flour, how you serve a Wiener Strudel, how much water you need for 1/2 kg flour when you make pastry dough, and so on. And then there was a question on what is regulating the temperature in the cake fridge. Are pastry chefs supposed to fix broken refrigerators by themselves?

Scary

I really enjoy planning. Ideas pop up all the time. Using my imagination to create new products, new flavours, new patterns.

I love to try my ideas. To create something from a string of yarn, to mix ingredients and see it develop to something tasty.

My downfall is the marketing. I know what I need to do and how. But I'm reluctant to do it.

HELP!

February 1st 2010

D day. The day when I re-start reality. When I re-start my efforts to realize my dreams. Dreams that now have fleshed out.

I'm full of energy!