More Bread and some Thrifting

I've continued trying different things from the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day book. The oatmeal bread worked OK although I think I may have given it too long in the initial rise, it tasted good which is the important thing.

For dinner last weekend, on a night when my husband and I would be out in the evening and need to eat dinner soon after getting home, I made pizza. I mixed up half a batch of olive oil dough (I used whole wheat bread dough for one of the cups of flour) right before we went out which meant that when we arrived home it was time to heat the oven and make the pizza. While the oven heated I cooked up some onion to which I added kale, beet greens and scapes (all from our farmers market) and some balsamic vinegar. That mixture went on one of the pizzas along with mushrooms, tomato paste with oregano and basil and then topped with fresh mozzarella. The other pizza (which I thought my daughter was more likely to eat) had tomato paste and pesto, cheddar cheese and pepperoni.

Today I had a go at making bialys with some of my second batch of bagel dough.
My daughter and I shared one still slightly warm from the oven, she declared it good and did eat some of the onion and poppy seed topping even. I really liked the texture of the bread, and love the onion and poppy seeds (I really want there to be more of it than the recipe suggested so might think about that for next time, there will definitely be a next time).

Do you like the plate the bialys are on? It's one of my latest thrift store acquisitions. I've been trying to go less often but on Wednesday my daughter encouraged me in there as we passed by (she knows where to find all the toys and heads straight in that direction). We actually found a couple of things for her, not in the toy department though. Firstly I spotted a couple of ceramic birds which I guessed she would like as she has always enjoyed watching the sparrows when we're in town. She was very happy to see them and got herself a basket to put them in and carry them around until it was time to pay. (The birds are now perching over one of our doorways where she can, and does, spot them and point them out at regular intervals.)
Then while I was looking at fabric she spotted a little tiny "mug" which she got very excited about it has "humpy dumpy with a bue balloon" on it!

In addition to the plates I came away with two interesting looking books, two sheets and a lovely tablecloth (white with pink embroidery and appliqué). The table cloth is a bit stained but it's the kind of stain that I hope might come out, if not I'm sure I can make good use of the unstained parts in some crafting projects.

Eating our vegetables

I read at Slashfood that June is National Fruit and Vegetable Month. I think I'm more inspired to eat fresh fruit and veggies around now every year just because 'tis the season. And of course there's all kinds of inspiration on the internet. These days I'm also trying to interest our daughter in fruits and veggies. Current favourites are steamed spinach, peas and most every fruit she's offered (especially peaches, plums, kiwi fruit and mango).

As suggested I had a go at the Chocolate and Beetroot Cake seen at the Great Big Vegetable Challenge. There weren't pictures from the blog, or the site with the recipe so I thought I'd take some to share. You can get an idea of how pretty the batter is! And you can see the slivers of beetroot in the slice of cake too. The recipe says that the beetroot makes the cake moist so I was surprised at how dry it looked when I cut a slice. I wonder if I should have grated the beetroot more finely (I did it in the food processor for speed and in the interest of keeping my hands closer to their original colour!). Actually it doesn't taste dry, although mine's quite crumbly. It's very chocolaty, I don't particularly notice the beetroot but maybe it's what's enhancing the chocolate so well.

I noticed that I also have a chocolate and beetroot layer cake in my chocolate cookbook. It uses canned beets though and I'm not sure how one would substitute canned for home cooked in terms of liquid. Perhaps I'll have a go some other time. *** edited to add -- I just came across another chocolate-beetroot cake while looking for recipes for my daughter. This definitely looks like something I want to try -- Beet Chocolate Cake with Banana-Peanut Butter Sauce**

Here are my purchases from the mid-week farmers market last week.

I've bought both rosemary and mint at the farmers market recently which naturally got me to thinking about lamb. So, I went to the coop and got lamb chops, new potatoes and heirloom tomatoes (I already had the mushrooms and peas).


For dinner I made a dressing of balsamic vinegar, oil, scallions, garlic, mint and rosemary, a little of that went on the lamb and mushrooms in the frying pan, and the tomatoes in the oven. I boiled the potatoes with some mint 'til soft then added the peas (the were frozen so just needed warming through). Once the meat and mushrooms were done I served them onto the plates and put the potatoes and peas in the frying pan and tossed them in the lamb juices and the rest of the dressing. So good, the mint is so refreshing with the rich taste of the lamb and I just love the brief opportunity for boiled new potatoes (which seem much harder to come by in the US).

Some of the strawberries from the farmers market cut up went very nicely with a slice of the chocolate/beetroot cake for dessert too.