I love to bake my own bread, grind my own flour and knead my own dough by hand. The more hands on the process, the better, as far as I am concerned. There is something so elemental about baking bread, so peaceful and life giving. Did you know that in ancient Egypt bread was a form of currency? They had their priorities straight!

About a year ago I read Sally Fallon’s controversial book, called Nourishing Traditions. In a nutshell, she explains the science behind why Grandma knew best, or perhaps, Great Grandma. That techniques used before the Industrial Revolution were far superior nutrition-wise; nowadays the processed food most of us eat is damaging to our health. She talks about bread and cooking with whole grain. We all know that whole grain is better. But did you know that it is far better to soak your whole grain overnight before starting to assemble your dough? For those who are curious about the why, read on. Otherwise, skip the history and science lesson and let’s make some bread.

On grains and soaking
Grains, albeit in smaller quantities, have been a part of our diet for a very long time. There is evidence that our hunter gatherer ancestors were foraging for grain as early as 19,000 years ago. Rice grew in the hot, humid parts of the world, wheat and oats in the temperate areas, maize in the New World and barley and rye where it was cold. These wild grains were ground, parched on hot rocks and heated in the fire to remove their husks.

A whole grain is made of a germ, bran and endosperm. White flour is predominantly endosperm. According to A History of Food, along with scrubbing our modern white flour of its germ, we’ve also lost 75% of the mineral salts, 35% of fat, 10% of protein, 50% of vitamin E and 75% of vitamin B. When we removed the bran, which contains all of the fiber in the grain, we also wound up engineering a carbohydrate that can be digested quickly with up to 90% assimilation. While this sounds all well and good, our digestion is not suited for these simple sugar spikes. Fiber keeps our digestion healthy; it adds bulk and serves as fodder for the good bacteria in our intestines. White flour, lacking any fiber, has been linked to all sorts of diseases.

While those of us who eat whole grains would like to think that the “white stuff” is mostly a modern invention, we’ve been debating flour colors for a long time. People have been sifting flour as far back as Egyptian times, and grading it both on texture and color. Many cultures valued white, fine flour over the coarser brown kind. Until the end of the second century BCE, and the rise of master Greek bakers, grinding grain was done in the home. With the introduction of mills, people no longer needed to grind their own grain. However, whole grains were never as removed from the general population as they are today. While mills had been around for a few centuries, it was not until the Industrial Revolution that we engineered a grain which could stay on the shelf without going rancid but by removing the fatty germ (and most of the bran). And white bread was born.

These days, it has become common knowledge that whole grains are healthier than refined white flour. But just switching to whole grains isn’t enough. Whole grains, legumes and nuts contain phytate (the salt form of phytic acid, the principal storage of phosphorus) and enzyme inhibitors, both considered anti-nutrients. Phytate binds with iron, zinc, and to a lesser extent calcium and magnesium in the body and prevents their absorption. So not only can we not readily absorb the phosphorus in whole grains, by consuming them our body can also be robbed of other important minerals.

Many of what we consider anti-nutrients are simply a plant’s natural defenses to protect its seeds from being eaten or from sprouting when conditions aren’t optimal. Plants generally need warmth, a slightly acidic environment, moisture and some time to sprout. Of course animals, like ourselves, are drawn to fatty, starchy grains; just as the germ of grains have everything the baby plant needs to survive, it also has many beneficial nutrients for humans.

As Sally Fallon points out, ruminants are primed for digesting tough plants. In addition to having four stomachs to our one and longer intestinal tracts they, unlike us, have the enzyme phytase in their guts which allows them to break down phytate and release phosphorus for absorption. Not to mention the fact that they stand around most of the day chewing their cud.

So how do we reduce the amount of phytic acid while increasing the amount of whole foods in our diet? We do what people have been doing for ages: we soak our grain in an acidulated solution for 12 to 24 hours. Fermenting and sprouting are also excellent ways to make grains more digestible.

Before the introduction of modern instant yeasts and the onset of our quickbread mania, we soaked and fermented grains. In the pre-industrialized world people had a greater respect and connection with their grains. Over millennia of trial and error, people organically developed techniques that made the most of grains. In Europe and the Americas we used sourdough and other starters to make breads; in India idlis and dosas were made of fermented rice and lentils; in Mexico corn was soaked in many preparations.

Using warm, slightly acidulated water activates phytase (the enzymes which breaks down phytate), thus neutralizing phytic acid. It also activates certain enzymes (by deactivating their inhibitors) which go to work breaking down hard-to-digest proteins, like gluten, for easier assimilation and also increasing important vitamins (especially B vitamins). This acid can come from foods like kefir, buttermilk, yogurt, whey or lemon juice.

That said, you should also know that phytate has antioxidant properties, and, like every other antioxidant at one point, has been placed on the list as a chemical for cancer prevention. It has been known to reduce oxidative stress on the digestive tract, have anti-inflammatory affects and slow blood glucose. So when it comes to food and science, it’s important to seek balance and not simplify foods or chemicals into terms such as “good” or “evil.” Too much phytic acid can cause mineral depletion but some is OK.

Suffice to say, soaked grain is more digestible and, in a yeast bread, it responds more like white flour, making a higher, lighter, more tender loaf than you would have thought possible with totally whole grain.

A word about yeast
Recently I have been reading The Bread Baker’s Apprentice by Peter Reinhart. He was not only a professional baker for many years but he now teaches bread baking at Johnson & Wales University. His book is a treatise on bread. I have learned so much more about the science behind the art of bread making. For the longest time, I have been buying instant yeast from King Arthur’s Flour. There are 2 types, SAF Gold and SAF Red. I already knew Gold was used for the heavier breads that contain eggs, raisins, sugar, etc. and Red for normal, everyday bread. What I discovered from Peter Reinhart was that the Gold is a different strain of yeast, called osmotolerant, grown specifically for use in breads that are very acidic or sweet. For this recipe, because of the eggs and raisins, I used Gold.

A Word about whey
Whey is what is leftover from milk or cream when you separate the curds while making cheese or butter. We use two tablespoons whey per loaf of bread when we are soaking grain to make the batter slightly acidulated. You could also use buttermilk, kefir, yogurt or lemon juice. Keep in mind, though, that lemon juice won’t have the added benefit of all that good bacteria.

Enough about all these technicalities, let’s make some bread.

Spelt Raisin Bread Makes 2 5 x 9 loaves
Ingredients
1 cup raisins
6 cups whole spelt flour
1 1/2 cups cold water
1/4 cup whey
5 teaspoons SAF Gold Instant Yeast (If using active dry yeast use 2 packets)
4 tablespoons ghee
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon salt
1 cup pecans, toasted and coarsely chopped
3 – 3 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

Note: all the above ingredients were organic

Soak the raisins. In a large glass or ceramic bowl, add the raisins and the water. Let soak for 15 minutes.

Soak the grain. Add the spelt flour and whey to the raisins and water. Mix well until thoroughly combined. Put a plate on top of the bowl and let it soak overnight.

Make the dough. Next day, mix in all the remaining ingredients except the whole wheat flour. Stir well until thoroughly combined. Stir in 1 cup of whole wheat. Add more whole wheat until it is hard to stir. Turn out on a board floured heavily with more of your whole wheat. I use a bench knife in the beginning to turn in some of the flour. Then when I have incorporated enough so I can handle it I start kneading with my hands until the tough is slightly tacky, not sticky, 8 – 10 minutes.

Let the dough rise. Grease a large bowl with ghee or butter. Roll you dough around in the bowl to get a thin film of the fat. Cover with a damp dish towel and let rise until doubled, about 2 hours.

Form the loaves. Gently squeeze the dough to remove the air and divide in half. Shape each life into a log. Place in 2 greased 5 x 9 inch loaf pans. Cover with a damp kitchen towel and let rise until crested over the top of the pan by 1 1/2 to 2 inches, about 1 1/2 hours. In the last 15 minutes of this second rise preheat the oven to 375 F.

Bake the bread. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes until an instant read thermometer registers 190 F or until you thump the loaf on the bottom and it feels a little hollow. I usually turn the loaves after 25 minutes for even browning.

Cool and store. Remove to a wire rack. You can paint the top of the loaf with ghee or butter. Let the loaves cool completely before storing. I wrap one in wax paper and then aluminum foil and freeze. The other I keep on the counter in a bread box. This bread makes wonderful sandwiches and great toast.

If I want something impromptu that I can whip up from start to finish in one hour and still call it homemade bread, something I can offer for lunch to dress up a homemade soup, for example, expecting each and every time I make it to hear oooooh, I make focaccia. I make it with my pizza dough, paint it with olive oil, sprinkle it with minced garlic, rosemary and coarse salt and voila, in six minutes at 500F I have a crusty masterpiece.

Generally we think of focaccia as it is offered in many restaurants – somewhat thick and spongy and full of olive oil, yes? Well, there is another kind, it is thin and crusty. That is what I make. Most of my inspiration comes from a little book I bought in the 80ties called The Pizza Book by Evelyne Slomon. The dough for pizza and focaccia is the same. Sometimes it is baked in a pan but I bake mine like pizza on tiles. After the olive oil I put simple things on top like garlic and rosemary with or without black olives. I might make one with fig spread and goat cheese. Once you can make this focaccia, it is simple to make pizza, you just need the sauce, cheese and topping. You will have already mastered the dough!

Focaccia Makes 2 14″ pies

Ingredients
1 cup warm tap water (110 – 115F)
1 tablespoon instant yeast
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 – 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup olive oil

2 tablespoons olive oil in a small bowl for painting pies
2 tablespoons garlic, minced
2 tablespoons fresh rosemary, coarsely chopped
Coarse salt for sprinkling on the dough, 1/2 – 1 teaspoon per focaccia
1 pizza paddle or cookie sheet (back), sprinkled with cornmeal
1 pastry brush
1 long-handled spatula (if you don’t have a paddle)
Pizza cutter or sharp knife

Note on tiles and stones: To get the best from your dough you need to bake it in a hot oven on a pizza stone or quarry tiles. The tiles can be purchased from Home Depot; I buy a full box that does just 2 racks. Just fit them on one of the racks of your oven. Since the dough rises quickly, let heating the oven be your first step, even before you form your dough.

Set up for the bake. Place the stone or tiles in the oven. Preheat the oven to 500F. It’ll take about 45 minutes to completely come to temperature.

Make the dough. Pour the water into a medium sized glass or ceramic bowl. Add the yeast. Stir to combine. Add the olive oil. Add whole wheat flour and 1 cup of all purpose. Add salt. Stir to combine. Now you have a dense mixture. Measure out 1 cup more of all purpose. Put some on your counter. Add the dough from the bowl. Knead the dough for about 10 minutes, gradually adding more flour until the dough is smooth and elastic but not sticky, not even tacky. You may need another 1/2 cup flour for a total of approximately 2 1/2 cups of flour.

Let the dough rise. Oil a glass bowl and roll the dough around in the bowl until it has a thin coating of olive oil. Place a clean kitchen towel on top of the bowl and let rise until double, approximately 1/2 hour, maybe less.

Shape the dough. Put the dough back on a lightly floured counter. Divide in 2 pieces. Leave one piece in the bowl. Roll the first piece out to a 14” circle.

Tip: If the dough becomes too elastic as you roll, if it fights and goes back to its original size, let it rest for 3 – 5 minutes and roll again. It just means you have to let the gluten relax a little.

Dress the focaccia. When you reach your desired diameter, fold the dough in quarters and transfer to your paddle or sheet. Fold out to its full circle and readjust the shape if necessary. Using the pastry brush paint with olive oil, sprinkle with garlic, rosemary and finally salt.

Bake the Focaccia. Transfer to the heated, tiled/stoned oven, shimmying the dough off of your paddle or sheet. Bake for 3 minutes. Use the pizza paddle or a long-handled spatula to turn the pizza 1/4 turn. Bake 3 more minutes until golden. Remove from the oven and cut into rough squares and enjoy.

I don’t know if any of you are familiar with Sally Fallon or her cookbook Nourishing Traditions. Sally Fallon spent ten years putting together recipes that focused on Old World traditions before cheap and easy were the primary objective of our meals. Her research and inspiration were the provactive studies conducted by a dentist named Weston Price in the 1930s. Dr Price traveled the world to document the teeth and bone structures of different peoples. After extensive research, Price came to the conclusion that people with good bone structure and strong teeth – full, wide jaws and well-formed, even teeth – came from pre-industrialized villages that all had common nutritional threads. The people whose villages had already switched to more processed food tended to have crooked, crowded teeth, narrow jaws and unbalanced features. Dr Price’s own book, Nutritive Degeneration is a fascinating, if dense read, illustrated by smiling faces of people Dr Price encountered in small villages and towns.

For her own book, Sally Fallon paired up with a nutritionist, Mary G. Enig, to explore these common threads in diet from a physiological and chemical point-of-view. Based on Price’s findings and Enig’s nutritional recommendations, Fallon was able to write authortiative recipes urging us to cook like our great grandmothers used to do. Nourishing Traditions caters to both cooks and food-enthusiasts with its descriptions of cooking methods and recipes interspersed with nutritional information and stories of how food was cooked way back when. Anjuli and I have perused this interesting, though controversial book quite heavily. Sally Fallon’s book covers a full dietary range – meat, vegetables, grains, fruits and dairy.  

The first topic that attracted our attention was whole grains.  We like to cook with whole grain for their nutritional superiority and taste, but at the time we didn’t know too much more.  We learned  that whole grains have an outer shell or covering which white flour and more processed grains do not.  When a grain is whole, it includes the germ, bran, and endosperm. When the grain is refined, all that remains is the endosperm.   The germ is where a baby plant sprouts. Therefore it is filled with nutrients – in this case a concentrated source of vitamin E, B vitamins (thiamin, niacin and riboflavin), and minerals phosphorus, magnesium, iron and zinc as well as being rich in protein and fat. The bran also contains many B vitamins and minerals as well as the fiber.

Sally points out that unlike ruminants, we don’t have four stomachs to break down all the nutrients in the whole grains over a day of chewing our cud. In the pre-industrialized world, grains were treated with great care.  People knew, through trial and error over the millenia, that grains need to be soaked. Better still they need to be soaked in a solution that is slightly acidic. This neutralizes the phytic acid which would otherwise bind to vitamins and minerals in the body and prevent their absorption. For this reason, she maintains, all whole grains and rolled oats should be soaked before making the dough in a slightly acidulated solution.  This acid can be in the form of kefir, buttermilk, yogurt, whey or lemon juice. This intrigued us.  We began experimenting with some of the whole grain recipes for yeast breads from King Arthur’s Whole Grain Baking, adding this step the night before, according to Sally’s instructions.

We found that taking this additional step not only makes whatever you are baking far more digestible and nutritious, but leads to a lighter texture – much lighter than you normally would find cooking with whole grains. The grains have opportunity to absorb all that moisture, similar to when you soak a bean or lentil.

However, thus far, all our experiments had been with yeast bread.  I had hesitated to experiment with quick breads because it is always requested to keep the dry and wet ingredients separate until the end, when you finally combine and mix as little as possible.  If I soaked the grain beforehand, I obviously could not do that. So naturally, I was curious what would happen.

Austin was home.  I wanted to make vegetarian chili and cornbread for him.  I decided to take the plunge and figure out some way to make the cornbread – which is a quick bread – by soaking the whole grain first.  I combined quite gritty whole grain cornmeal and whole wheat flour with the buttermilk and maple syrup in my recipe.  I left them to soak overnight.  The next day I combined my leavening, fat and eggs and stirred it into the whole grain until just combined.  Then I cooked it in the oven in a cast iron frying pan to give it a good crust.

It worked!  It was amazing.  Austin said it was the best cornbread he had ever had.  It was a real keeper – sweet, rich, soft and fluffy but full-bodied with a fantastic crust on the bottom.  

Ingredients
2 cups whole cornmeal (the one I used was Arrowhead Mills and it was very gritty before the soak)
1 cup whole wheat flour (I used King Arthur organic)
1 1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup maple syrup
1 1/3 teaspoon Bakewell Cream*
1 2/3 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1/2 cup ghee
2 ears of fresh corn
1 tablespoon ghee for the pan

*Note: Bakewell Cream is a leavening similar to baking powder that some people consider to be superior.  I have been experimenting with it as well and tend to agree so far.

Soak the grain. Measure out the cornmeal and whole wheat into a medium bowl.  Add the buttermilk and maple syrup.  Combine until uniform but no more.  Cover the bowl with a plate and let soak overnight (7 to 12 hours).

Grill the corn. Ramani showed me how to grill the corn as follows.  Insert a metal skewer into the end of a raw ear of corn.  Turn the gas on your range to medium.  Hold the corn over the range and slowly rotate until it starts to pop and brown.  You are done when almost all the kernels have changed color, about 5 minutes per ear.  Remove from the heat.  Leave on a plate until cool enough to handle.  When cool cut the corn from the cob and chop coarsely in a mini chopper.

Note: You can do this outside on your grill as well.  It can be done on an electric stove, but it makes a bit more mess.

Get ready. Next day when you’re ready to make your batter, preheat the oven to 400 F.  Place a 9″-10″ cast iron frying pan on the middle rack of your oven while you are preheating so it gets hot.

Make the batter. In a separate medium-sized bowl add the salt, Bakewell Cream, baking soda, ghee, eggs and corn.  Whisk to combine completely.  Add to the soaked grain and stir until just combined.

Bake the bread. Remove the skillet from the oven. Use a mitt!  Add 1 tablespoon of ghee and swirl to cover the bottom and sides of pan.  Add the batter.  Return to the oven and cook 25 to 30 minutes until a tooth pick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Remove from the oven and serve warm.

The other day it was easy and breezy in Portland and I was missing steamy NY. This is the yin and yang of the journey. As I get farther away from where I’ve been, I am closer to realizing what matters to me. This Portland summer is altogether wonderfully mild… and sometimes that makes me feel complacent and underwhelmed. We’re about to take a plunge and attempt to live in the woods OFF THE GRID for a few months by ourselves. While this is something I have been dreaming about, here I am missing the most urban place on the planet.

But I was. I was jealous of the heat wave that everyone else is having. Yes, you heard me. I was wishing my face was melting off along with everyone else’s across the country. But I was especially missing NY, kind of how a widower would miss his deceased wife. You know, like missing her farts or the drool on the pillow or the way she always made a funny clicking sound with her false teeth when she was nervous. Those endearing little human things.

NY, I miss… the grimy foot “tan” that covers everything except my sandal strap from all the muck and grit you put on me; the throngs of half naked people strewn across your Great Lawn, each as white as the underbelly of a ginormous whale; the sweaty mesh of bodies in various states of dress narrowly missing each other as they travel your sidewalk; your rudeness and briskness on a weekday morning; your nonstop energy; your surging beat, overflowing with so many emotions and desires and untapped creativity; your ridiculously over- or under- priced food and those bad hot dog smells. New York, you are not the easiest place to be in the summer, but I do remember fondly how good it feels to be surviving together with millions, in your hot, stinking, beautiful loins.

So there, I said it. I miss NY. I miss my family and friends. I miss that luscious garden of my mother’s, out there in the boondocks in Connecticut. I miss all y’all.

Like I said, I was feeling sad. I think it was partially because of these blueberry and apricot bars. Baking is incredible. Despite all sorts of unknowable factors, when you bake, you try to be precise and consistent. You will yourself to pay attention… to measuring, to texture, to viscosity, to spreading out the layers just so, to letting it bake until it’s just golden. You spend all this energy attempting to be totally meticulous. But ultimately, when you put the pan in the oven, you feel you’re leaving it all to chance. In this meditative madness, things tend to just flow. And well, sometimes, you can get all emotional in the midst of baking a batch of cookies. Thankfully with baking, if it proves to be the cause of your woes, when that timer beeps you have also found a good cure all.

The inspiration for making these oat bars came from this awesome bakery in Portland called Nuvrei (still waiting on the recipe for their oat currant bar) and the base recipe came loosely from the date oat bars in Breakfast, Lunch, Tea. I wanted a bar with a chewy bottom and a crunchy top but that didn’t require a lot of extra work, and one that could hold the softer fruit filling. This recipe is dead simple.

These oat bars have a good structure but they’re also begging to fall apart into chewy little gobs (or be toasted for breakfast!); their sweetness is magnified by a good, tart berry; they start off wholesome but lend themselves to a little overindulgence. They may look like granola, but that oat gives way to a toasted richness with a hint of molasses. They’re full of sunshine and summer, but they’re also just a tad bit blue.

Even though you say you’re tough, NY, I know you’re just a Stay Puft Marshmallow Man inside. Just like me. So here, NY and all its inhabitants, I baked these especially FOR YOU.

Blueberry and apricot oat bars
These were chewy on the bottom and a little crunchy on top. The original recipe called for golden syrup and was probably more like a flapjack, but I used brown rice syrup. You could also try them with agave or maple syrup. Each of these sweeteners will have a slight affect on the texture of the overall cookie. Omitting the egg will make the bottom less caky. So experiment and suit yourself!

Filling
1 pint blueberries, washed
1 pint fresh apricots, washed, pitted and sliced
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon cardamom
1 teaspoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons raw sugar

Oats
2 2/3 cup rolled oats (not quick oats!)
1 cup whole wheat flour
Pinch of salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda

2/3 cup unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing
2/3 cup raw sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons molasses
2 tablespoons brown rice syrup (agave, maple syrup, or if you must, corn syrup would all work, but result in varying textures; experiment!)
1 egg

Preheat the oven to 350F. Butter a 9×9 pan and line it with parchment.

Put the blueberries, apricots, and 2 tablespoons raw sugar in a medium heavy-bottomed sauce pan and turn on to medium-low. Cook until the apricots are tender, about 10 minutes. If the mixture looks decidedly wet, add in 1-2 tablespoons whole wheat flour. You want the mixture to hold together but not be stiff, like a thin paste. Remove from heat and add in the vanilla, cardamom, and lemon juice. Stir and set aside.

In a bowl, mix the flour, salt, oats, and baking soda.

Heat the butter, sugar, molasses, and brown rice syrup in a medium heavy-bottomed sauce pan on medium-low until melted, about 5 minutes. Stir often to prevent from sticking. Put this over the oat mixture and mix until crumbly.

Split the oat mixture in half. In one half crack in the egg and mix around until just coasted. Press this egg + oat mixture into the bottom of a pan with a wooden spatula, making sure to coat evenly.

Spread the fruit mixture on top. Sprinkle and lightly press in the other 2nd half of the oat mixture until evenly covered.

Bake in the oven until golden brown, about 30 minutes. Remove and let cool, then cut into rectangles and enjoy!

I have been a fan of King Arthur Flour for a long time. They have been grinding flour for 200 years and they really seem to have it down. Their organic whole wheat, if treated right and soaked the night before in a slightly acid solution, rises as high as white flour in my experience. They have a huge product line and they offer recipes on line and classes in their headquarters in New England.

This recipe was inspired by a King Arthur recipe from Azerbaijan and was a blast to make. The dough was easy to handle and roll, the bread was delicious, crisp on the outside and tender inside, stuffed with raisins, nuts and cinnamon sugar. And check out the photograph, the loaf is beautiful (even if the photograph isn’t. Anjuli is the photographer, not me!) I hope you have as much fun making this as I did.

Note: Anjuli and I always soak our whole grains in a slightly acidulated solution. It makes the bread more digestible and rises as high as white flour even though made with whole grain. Perhaps even more importantly, whole grain has phytic acid which bonds with the minerals in the grain and makes them less available for our bodies to absorb. The acidulated solution breaks down the phytic acid. So if you want to get all those great goodies that whole grain provides, soak your grains, my dears. It is not hard, I promise, and you will be really glad you did. We soak a minimum of 7 hours and up to 24. -Weezie

Ingredients (all were Organic)
4 cups whole wheat flour
2 1/4 cups warm water
1 tablespoon ghee
3 tablespoons high gluten flour
2 teaspoons instant yeast
Up to 2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon orange zest or 1 teaspoon lemon zest

Filling ingredients
4 tablespoons ghee
1/3 cup sugar mixed with
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 cup toasted and chopped walnuts
1/2 cup raisins

Soak overnight. Measure out the whole wheat flour into a large glass or ceramic bowl. Add the water and 1 tablespoon ghee. Mix thoroughly. Cover the bowl with a plate and leave on the counter or in a cold oven overnight to soak.

Mix the dough. Add the high gluten flour, sugar, zest, and yeast. Mix thoroughly with a spoon. Cover the bowl with a plate again and leave it for 1/2 hour. Now turn the dough out on a floured board and gradually mix in enough all purpose flour to create a dough that is tacky but not sticky. Knead until smooth and elastic.

Let it rise. Place the dough in a greased bowl, cover and let rise until doubled, under an hour.

Shape the dough. Turn the dough out onto a floured board and gently deflate it into the shape of a square. Now roll the dough until it is a 23” square, 1/8 inch thick. If it “fights” back meaning it shrinks back when you have just rolled it, let it rest for 5 minutes and then continue rolling. Paint the dough surface with half of the ghee, sprinkle with cinnamon sugar, then the raisins and nuts. Roll the dough, jelly roll fashion and seal the seam by pinching. Now gently squeeze this rope you have just created until it is 5 feet long. Grease a cookie sheet and loosely coil the rope on the cookie sheet. Paint with ghee, cover and let rise until doubled, 40 – 45 minutes. Preheat the oven to 400 F during the last 15 minutes of the rise.

Bake the bread. Bake the bread until deeply golden brown, 30 – 45 minutes. Cool for at least 15 minutes before serving. Traditionally you serve and tear off hunks. But I have also sliced it. It makes great toast.

A couple weeks ago, our friend Gail brought us some ramps. She had carefully pulled them out by the roots in the woods at the corner of her yard, washed them off, and double bagged them. They sat in our fridge and I wondered what to do! Wild ramps are delightfully potent, sweet and tender but with a good kick, just like the good cousin of a leek would be. In sweet and early spring they are an incredible find. Come late and they will most certainly kick you on your ass. So they sat in the fridge while I thought of pestos and pastas and sauces and stuffings and such things.

Then one morning the asparagus shot straight out of the ground, their thin, emerald stalks announcing spring has sprung. So we picked ‘em and made an asparagus and ramp tart with cannellini spread and kalamata olives. The oniony lick of ramps contrasted with the delicate sweetness of those tender asparagus stalks all floating on a buttery crust is a spring I’d like to wake up to. You can make this tart way more decadent – with fancy cheese, fresh, pastured eggs, milk or cream, store bought puff pastry, and cuts of sausage or prosciutto. Me, I like this delicate side of spring – where patient observation is transformed into something delicious and new.

The recipe below is not complicated by any means, just a healthy description for anyone who is a pie crust newbie. Read on and enjoy!

Making the dough
Pie crust is damn easy, but you do have to be organized, work quickly and with light hands, and not fuss. If you get in hysterics because the dough split while you were rolling your crust, your butter is going to get warm and ooze all over your work space and you’re to have a dense, chewy crust.

I generally like working with my hands. This time we followed most of Julia Child’s Baking with Julia recipe, and on her suggestion used a blender to mix the flour, fat, and water. It worked quite well. Instead of using 4/5 all-purpose flour and 1/5 pastry flour, we opted for 3/5 pastry flour and 2/5 whole wheat, which gave the crust more flavor but with none of the toughness. We were also incredibly pleased to find out that we could substitute ghee for vegetable shortening directly, just by putting the ghee in the freezer for 15 minutes. Seriously, I will never, ever have to look at that partially hydrogenated garbage again. If you have animal shortening, by all means!

1 cup whole wheat flour*
1 1/2 cup pastry flour*
1 stick butter, cut into bits and stored in the fridge
1/4 cup ghee, placed in the freezer until hard, (takes about 15 minutes)
1/2 cup water, placed in the freezer to keep cold

Place the flour in the blender and pulse a couple times (pulse 1—- pulse 2—, like that). Remove the butter from the fridge and add to the blender and pulse three times more. Take out the ghee and the water. Add the ghee to the blender and turn on. While it’s blending, pour the water in through the chute in the top in a steady steam. Turn off. Pulse five times more. Open up the lid and grab a handful of the dough. It should easily form a clump in your hand.

Dump the dough out onto parchment paper on your work surface. Working quickly and making sure not to overwork the dough, form into a mound. With the heel of your hand, push the mound backwards once or twice until it’s evenly flat. Place on a piece of parchment, form into a mound again and wrap in the parchment. Store in the fridge for at least 1 hour.

*Note: We usually measure with a scale, but wanted to be consistent with Julia’s suggestion of using a cup, and found it to work out perfeclty. Open up the flour, fluff it up with a spoon, use your spoon to fill up your measuring cup lightly, and then level it off with the back of a knife. You can sift the flour to make it even more fluffy, but do it after measuring.

Ramp pesto
1/4 lb ramps, roots removed and washed
1/2 cup reggiano, grated
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup walnuts, toasted in an oven at 325 on a cookie sheet for 12 minutes, turned once
1/4 teaspoon salt
Pepper

Add all ingredients into a blender or sumeet and blend until smooth. Taste and adjust seasoning. Store in the fridge for a few days. You can also store the pesto in an ice cube tray in the freezer for up to 1 month – just remove a little portion as needed!

Cannellini ramp spread
1 can cannellini beans, rinsed
1/4 cup reggiano
2 tablespoons ramp pesto
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
Salt
Pepper

Add the beans, reggiano, pesto, and oil to the blender. Blend until smooth and the consistency of a thick hummus. Add more oil as necessary. Add in the lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste. Can be made a couple days in advance. Store in the fridge for up to 1 week. Take out and bring to room temperature when ready to use.

Making the tart
15-20 asparagus, washed and ends snapped off
1/4 cup kalamata olives, pitted and quartered
Extra virgin olive oil
Salt
Pepper

Blanch and dress the asparagus. Blanch the asparagus in boiling water for 30 seconds, then remove to an ice bath and cool for 2 minutes. Lay out on a cookie sheet, drizzle with olive oil and salt and pepper. Toss asparagus and set aside.

Get your workspace ready. Turn the oven on to 450F. Make sure your workspace is clean, and cover it in flour. Get out your rolling pin and cover it in flour also. Get out a cookie sheet, some tinfoil, and a spatula or knife for spreading, and place them nearby. Take the dough out of the fridge.

Roll out the dough in a rectangle until it’s 1/4 inch thick. Roll the dough out into a rectangle. To do this, lightly roll it crosswise and lengthwise, then turn it over, roll again, and turn over. If there are cracks in the dough as you roll, just squeeze them together with your fingers. If the ends of the dough splay out, press them together and gently roll over them. Once it becomes too cumbersome to turn over, make sure there’s enough flour underneath and continue rolling on a single side until the depth is a little bigger than your average asparagus and the thickness 1/4 inch.

Make a lip with ripple and prick the dough. Fold it in half and then half again and place it on the back side of the cookie sheet. Unfold. All around the edge, make a lip about 1/2-3/4 inch high by folding over the dough. Then, with the thumb and index finger of one hand and the thumb of the other, pinch with the latter on the outside of the lip and press in with the thumb of the other hand to create a ripple in the crust lip all the way around. Using a fork, prick gently in rows all over the crust.

Add the pie weights. Grease a piece of foil large enough to cover the inside of the tart crust plus some edges. Green the underside and place it into the tart, folding up the edges. Pour in the pie weights or beans. Fold some foil into a frame around the tart to keep the sides from collapsing.

Blind bake. Place in the oven for 15 minutes. Take out and re-prick gently. Place back in the oven until starting to change in color (ours was only in another 2 minutes). Remove the tart and let cool for 5 minutes. Turn the oven down to 350.

Assemble the tart. Using your icing spatula, knife, or what have you, spread a good layer of the cannellini ramp spread onto the crust (we used all of ours). Then using the knife or a pastry brush spread a tablespoon of the ramp pesto thinly over the top.

Align your tart horizontally and lay down the asparagus, pressing them into the spread, and alternating the direction of the tip in each row. Then fill the empty space in the row with a couple pieces of chopped olive. Continue.

Bake the tart. Put back in the oven at 350 for 25 minutes, or until golden and the asparagus is starting to wrinkle and brown. Remove and let cool 5 minutes. Cut and enjoy!

Tip: If you’re going to eat the tart within a couple days you can leave the leftovers out, just loosely covered with a plate.

We have been making these shockingly gingery ginger cookies since summer. They are head-to-head with my other favorite ginger cookie, the ginger snap. We’d been looking for thick, chewy, and gingery cookies (but not so much it burns) for a long time. I’m a longtime fan of 101cookbooks.com, and Heidi has definitely found a winner with these triple ginger cookies. Instead of pondering the ideal source of ginger (dried, crystalized, or fresh), why not use them all? Why not indeed. Ginger has long been considered a good way to whet the appetite. So why not have these before and after dinner?

Slightly modified from Heidi’s Triple Ginger Cookies
1/2 cup raw sugar
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup spelt flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon star anise, finely ground
4 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon garam masala (optional)
1/2 teaspoon fine grain sea salt

1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
1/4 cup unsulphured molasses
2/3 cup fine grain natural cane sugar, sifted
1 1/2 tablespoons fresh ginger, peeled and grated
1 large egg, well beaten
1 cup crystallized ginger, minced
2 lemons, zest only

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees making sure the rack is in the bottom 1/3. Grease a cookie sheet with unsalted butter. Line a couple baking sheets with parchment paper. Place the raw sugar in a bowl and set aside.

In a large bowl whisk together the flour, baking soda, star anise, ground ginger, garam masala, and salt with a fork.

Heat the butter in a skillet until just barely melted. Stir in the molasses, cane sugar, and fresh ginger. The mixture should be warm, but not hot at this point. If it’s hot to the touch let it cool. Whisk in the egg. Pour this over the flour mixture, add the crystallized ginger (make sure it’s finely minced), and lemon zest. Stir until just combined. I find if you put the dough in the fridge for at least 45 minutes before making into balls, they bake much better in the oven.

Heidi likes them tiny, but I prefer the cookies larger so they have a nice moist center. So I scoop them out by the spoonful and roll them into a ball. Then take a small handful of raw sugar and roll around the ball until it’s evenly coated. Place the cookies two inches apart on the greased cookie sheet. Bake for 10 minutes or until cookies puff up, darken, and crack in the center.

By now we know this base recipe by heart, but we like to change its embellishments every time. In the spirit of Thanksgiving we made ‘em a little sweet, adding in the warmth of winter spices and plumped currants. Slathered with butter and eaten over the cooling rack, these no-fuss morsels held their own even though our attention was focused on tomorrow’s more high-maintenance eats.

3/4 cups whole wheat flour
1/4 cup buckwheat flour
1/2 cup spelt flour
1/2 cup oat flour
1/4 cup raw sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 stick cold, unsalted butter (keep in the fridge until needed)
1/3 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1 large egg
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup currants, plumped in hot water and drained
1/2 cup walnut pieces, roasted at 325 for 10 minutes
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
10 good grinds of fresh nutmeg

Preheat oven to 375F. Lightly grease a baking sheet.

Measure out the flours, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt, and stir in a large bowl. Cut the butter into the dry ingredients with a fork until it resembles bread crumbs. Add in the oats, spices, currants, and walnuts and stir.

Whisk together the egg, buttermilk, and vanilla in a separate bowl. Add, all at once, to the dry ingredients, and stir lightly and quickly with a fork until the dough is evenly moistened.

Turn the dough onto a floured work surface, and knead two or three times. Divide the dough in half, and pat each half into a circle about 1/2 inch thick and 6 inches in diameter. Use a bench knife or buttered, floured dinner knife to divide each circle into 6 wedges.

Transfer the scones to the baking sheet, leaving 1 inch in between (we fit them on one sheet). Brush the tops with milk and sprinkle with sugar. Bake until the scones are puffed and golden brown, 22 to 25 minutes. Place on a rack to cool.

I have always wanted to make scones with heat. Well, Matt obliged this weekend and baked some. We were definitely missing out. These scones are fluffy, a little spicy and with some bite from the cheddar and finish smoothly with a taste of rosemary. I am digging this spicy little wake-up call.

3/4 cups whole wheat flour
1/4 cup buckwheat flour
1/2 cup spelt flour
1/2 cup oat flour
1/4 cup raw sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 stick cold, unsalted butter (keep in the fridge until needed)
1/3 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1 large egg
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Rosemary stem (3 tablespoons)
1/2 cup sharp aged cheddar
2 jalapenos

Preheat oven to 375F. Lightly grease a baking sheet.

Measure out the flours, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt, and stir in a large bowl. Cut the butter into the dry ingredients with a fork until it resembles bread crumbs. Add in the oats, rosemary, jalapeno, and cheddar mixing but making sure not to break up more than necessary.

Whisk together the egg, buttermilk, and vanilla in a separate bowl. Add, all at once, to the dry ingredients, and stir lightly and quickly with a fork until the dough is evenly moistened.

Turn the dough onto a floured work surface, and knead two or three times. Divide the dough in half, and pat each half into a circle about 1/2 inch thick and 6 inches in diameter. Use a bench knife or buttered, floured dinner knife to divide each circle into 6 wedges.

Transfer the scones to the baking sheet, leaving 1 inch in between (we fit them on one sheet). Brush the tops with milk and sprinkle with sugar. Bake until the scones are puffed and golden brown, 22 to 25 minutes. Place on a rack to cool.

Note: For more details on how I work with whole grains read Almond and fig-filled whole wheat scones

Everything you can do with apples is excellent, but mom knows best. This one is short and sweet, like the rest. Although, I have to admit coring the apple is a bitch. Could there be a special kitchen tool for this? The Empires we used a wonderful fluffy texture once out of the oven. Serve it a la mode and be impressed with your lack of effort.

4 Empire or other hard, tart and sweet apple
4 teaspoon ghee
4 teaspoon maple syrup
1/4 cup pecans, dry roasted and coarsely chopped
4 teaspoon fig jam (can substitute dried, plumped, currants or raisins)

Ground cardamom
Ground cinnamon

Set the oven to 375. Core and seed apple without puncturing the bottom. Mix the ghee, maple syrup, pecans, and jam (or dried fruit) in a small bowl. Spoon into each apple and sprinkle spices on top. Place 1/2 inch of hot water into the bottom of a 9×9” pan, and place in the oven for an hour.