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I’ve been playing around a fair bit lately with gluten-free flour blends that are closer to “whole grain”, and less reliant on starches. From a nutritional stance, its always preferable to have fewer refined ingredients happening in one’s food, and quite frankly, some of the carb counts on some of the fluffier gluten-free breads can be a little alarming.
I’ve also been noodling around with sourdough starters, aiming for creating a nice wild-yeast starter that could be used for slow-rise breads with that perfect tang to them, and ideally increased digestibility due to all that enzymatic breakdown that happens with the delayed ferment.
One of the bigger issues with many of the gluten-free whole grain options out there, are that they bake up quite densely — not really a desirable texture in something you are likely to be eating on a daily basis. I’ve tried quite a few options, including the GEMS flour blends developed by Wendy Turnbull, and found that while the taste is quite good, both hub and I weren’t really keen on the texture — a lot of these flour blends, the GEMS included, rely very heavily on brown rice flour, which, even when finely milled, don’t result in the crusty exterior I know and love in breads, and when not superfinely milled, can be a bit sandy in texture.
So when last month, Dr. Jean Layton put up a post about her sourdough starter, I pulled out the mason jars and got burbling!!! On closer inspection, she has put a lot of work into developing her sourdough flour blend, to have the same composition as hard white winter wheat! and while it had some brown rice flour in it, it also has other flours like sorghum and millet and sweet rice, and some garfava and white bean for protein! I figured since I had mixed up a few kilos, that I’d also try it out in an egg and dairy-free loaf form, and see what the result was like.
As a little teaser, this is the interior of one of the FAIL loaves!
The interior is moist yet tender, and the crust … well its CRUSTY!!!!
I’ll post pictures and a recipe for the SUCCESS version tomorrow! From the FAIL loaf, we made a few tweaks, adjusted the hydration levels a bit, switched to chia seeds, and played with the baking temperature — This is a more nutritious, plain-jane loaf that will satisfy!!! Stay tuned 
Last Sunday, I spent the better part of the day helping harvest grain up at Makaria Farm in Cobble Hill! I’ve been looking forward to this all summer — having bought into a grain share earlier in the year. I have grown small trial-plots of hull-less barley and oats in the back yard, and been interested in growing other grains, but the battle against marauding rabbits deterred me from devoting more space. So…. when I heard about Brock and Heather`s grain share, I jumped at the chance.
We always associate grain-growing with prairie farming, but, in fact, grain has been grown successfully on Vancouver Island in days gone by, and one of the interesting things about landrace varieties such as Red Fife, is that they are quite adaptable, and develop flavours and characteristics unique to the region growing them. We also don`t see a lot of organically grown whole grains such as rye, and I was also curious to see how a hardier grain would fare in our climate.
My share of the harvest was roughly to 875 square feet of growing space, some of which was devoted to Red Fife Wheat, some to Hard White Spring Wheat, and some to Rye. Heather and Brock also organized the Threshing through another Cowichan Valley farmer with a small combine, and have plans for one more workshop on cooking with whole grains.
Harvest day actually ended up being delayed by a week — with all the funny weather we’ve been having through the summer, the grain needed another week to fully dry. Sunday, I woke up to sunny weather, and headed up island, with a thermos of coffee, lots of water, and a packed lunch!
 Brock and Heather had planted three grains this year — some of which had been planted last fall, and some of which were planted in the spring. It was interesting to see the differences between the same varieties planted at different times of the year. Many of the grains are quite happy being fall-planted, and there was a marked difference in the rye which Brock had not only planted in the fall, but interspersed with fava beans!
The Red Fife wheat is a heritage variety, which, while good for baking (excellent flavour and protein content), runs the risk of lodging (falling over). The stalks are decidedly more slender. For the drawbacks though, for those planting and harvesting on a smaller scale, this was much easier to load into the trucks, compacted more easily, and did not have much in the way of prickly awns.
 The Hard White Spring wheat, on the other hand, is much more compact, with sturdy stems and lots of protection from marauding fauna due to the awns. While it cut very easily, it took a great deal more effort to pack the trucks for their trip to the combine, and I`m still picking prickly bits of awns out of my underwear!!!!
Finally, the Rye turned out to be very prolific. Some of the seedheads were a full 4-5 inches long!!! The stems of the rye that Brock planted with the fava beans were easily 6 feet tall, and actually got harvested by the Cowichan Valley Ecovillage to use as thatching for some of their demonstration buildings. These guys were harvesting fairly carefully, creating nice neat bundles as they went. Despite being so tall the stems were remarkably sturdy, showing little sign of toppling over. The rye (similar to barley), also has a built-in indicator of ripeness, where the seed-head nods so its parallel with the stem, curling right back on itself as it dries.
During the course of the day, we harvested all of the grain by hand — a combination of scythe, sickle and shears — creating piles as we went. The harvest went fairly quickly, and was loaded into the waiting trucks in batches (to keep each grain separate) to be taken off to the combine. It is possible to thresh by hand, but the combine was MUCH faster!
At the combine, the grain got fed into the combine with a fork — through the rotating drum, with the straw coming out the back end. A couple of people at the back end were needed to feed the straw into the baling machine, which resulted in a good number of bales of organic straw for Heather and Brock to use in the fields.
Finally, the grain, once threshed, was collected in plastic bins — you can see Brock, hoisted up near the chute, making sure the rye actually got into the bins!
All told, we had 12-15 folks helping throughout the day — most of whom, like me, were inexperienced at this kind of thing. Total harvest, about 900 lbs of grain, with a bit left on the ground to fatten up the chickens!
For my share, I now have 10 lbs Red Fife, 10 lbs Hard White Spring wheat and 20 lbs Rye. I`ll be making bread with some, using some as whole grain (wheat or rye berries), and perhaps saving a little for seed for next year. I`m already looking forward to next year!
Following up on my last blog post, I’ve submitted a recipe to the Maple Leaf contest and some of you have started voting on it. But I thought I would put a printer-friendly recipe up for those of you interested in making it.
 This recipe is gluten-free, and while it looks like it contains a few steps, once all the ingredients are ready to go, it comes together fairly quickly … and you get to resurrect your boy-scout skillz when you truss the pork! Pork these days is a fairly lean, mild flavoured meat, and makes a good alternative (for those who eat meat) from chicken.
The quinoa used in the stuffing does double duty as a “starch” side dish, so all you need to pull of a complete meal is pair with a veggie or salad — you could even go crazy with a spinach/peach/red onion salad if you found some nice peaches!
Pork Tenderloin Stuffed with Spiced Quinoa (printer friendly recipe)
Please remember that Maple Leaf is continuing to run this contest for the next month or so, and you can vote daily for the recipes you “like”. Should I be fortunate enough to win, I’ll be donating the winnings to the Mustard Seed food bank here in Victoria.
You can find the contest at the Maple Leaf Prime page on Facebook. Thanks for your support!
( EAVB_RCCOLGZPDW )
I decided within the last couple of weeks to enter a recipe contest sponsored by Maple Leaf foods, and I promised those of you who follow the Real Food Made Easy page on Facebook an explanation for why I decided to enter…
For those of you worried that I’m shilling for “the man”, here’s my thinking:
My primary goal in getting involved in food was to see more people eating food made from scratch. My chequebook is happy if people want to use my services to help them do that, but personally, I get just as much satisfaction from helping people acquire the skills and confidence in the kitchen to do that on their own.
While I strive to use locally produced meats, that is not always feasible given many people’s lifestyle or chequebook. Often people buy premium products but don’t always know the best way to cook a particular cut of meat, and end up disappointed, feeling like they have wasted time and money. Pork tenderloin and the leaner cuts of chops are often one of those cuts — being so lean nowadays, that they are easy to overcook. Processes such as brining help considerably, but are not in the repertoire of many home cooks.
When I started this blog, it was with the intent of sharing information as I went — hopefully things people might find useful for themselves. So, when I was made aware of this contest, I thought it was a good opportunity to take a product available to most people in their supermarket, and develop a recipe that was practical for a weeknight dinner. I’d love to hear your thoughts, if you have any.
I’ll be posting a recipe sometime between August 7th and 15th, on this blog AND on the Maple Leaf Prime page on Facebook. I’d love it if you would take a look at the recipe, and “like” it (if you really like it!). Maple Leaf will be compiling votes until October ON THE FACEBOOK PAGE , at which time they will award a prize of $500.00 towards groceries plus some exposure through Maple Leaf. Should I be fortunate enough to win, I plan to donate the prize to the Mustard Seed here in Victoria.
In the interests of keeping it real …. for the record, the Maple Leaf Prime products are:
- from hogs raised and processed in Western Canada
- Not certified organic
- brined ahead of time in pork broth and sea-salt. This is a process identical to one I use at home and for catering jobs for pork, chicken, turkey and sometimes seafood.
- Not processed in any other manner — from a home cooking standpoint, you would treat this like any other pork cut you would purchase from your butcher or supermarket.
- I have received coupons for two packages of this product, which I will be using for the recipe development.
I’d like to thank you all in advance for your support, and look forward to your thoughts and comments
I recently got a copy of David Lebovitz’s most recent book, Ready for Dessert, and have noodled around a little bit, but wanted to make a few of the cakes. For tonights dinner, I was looking for something that wouldn’t be too sweet, and might pair well with some of the rhubarb that was begging to be used up. Pistachio Cardamom cake seemed to be just the thing!
I made the pistachio cake as written and it is pretty easy to pull together. I baked in a regular cake pan (no cake pan strips) just to see how much it would dome — as you can see from some of the pics that follow, it does dome slightly, so if you like your cakes level, use a strip around the edge.
The other nice thing about this is that it uses plain old AP flour. David’s recipes are really nicely written — everything is in volume and weight measures (grams!) — this will make converting some of these recipes to gluten-free that much easier! David’s original recipe calls for a syrup/sliced almond topping, but I decided to split the cake into two layers and put rhubarb compote in between. I was struck by the contrast between the bright green of the pistachios and the vibrant pink of the rhubarb, and have to confess to a Hello Kitty moment!
The rhubarb compote is pretty easy — make a 2:1 syrup with 1 teaspoon cardamom, 1 teaspoon coriander, with 1 c sugar, 1/2 c water. When it comes to the boil, add about 3 c chopped rhubarb. simmer for 3-5 minutes. If you want it thicker, you can strain off the syrup and reduce in the microwave for 10 minutes on high in a pyrex measuring cup. Add about 2 T rosewater
Marscapone whipped cream — whip 250 ml heavy cream, 2T sugar, fold in 250 ml marscapone
 Rhubarb 
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