freestyle chocolate, blueberry and pumpkin seed loaf

 

When I’m feeling stressed or anxious I often bake. This loaf was free-style baking at it’s best. Almost trancelike concocting without any real idea what the outcome would be.

The quantities here are very vague (as per the trancelike state I refer to above)..but very roughly ; 50g melted dark chocolate, 50g melted butter, 3 eggs, 1/2 cup raw sugar, large scoop of full fat yogurt, 1 cup ground pumpkin seeds, 1 cup ground almonds, 1/2 cup blueberries, 1/2 cup rice flour, 2 spoons cocoa powder, 1 tsp baking powder. All beaten together and then poured in a loaf tin – baked for around 40 minutes at 180 until a knife came out clean.

Maybe I need to think about yoga.

Aside from some crazy freestyle baking I’ve been making a lot of the old staples. Looking forward to the food bloggers conference tomorrow for some new inspiration. Will also be writing a few posts for Munch over the coming weeks – pop over there and check out this interview.

hello darkness my old friend

A few weeks ago, I was feeling quite chipper and I wrote this post. It was definitely on the perkier side of normal for me, but it’s nice to spread some good vibes now and again. So it is with mixed feelings that I begin this post. I don’t want to burst any bubbles because I really believe in all that stuff. I do live by it, and it definitely does help me to cope with the chronic sleep deprivation that is my reality…most of the time.

But, some days, days when you are clinging on to the rope that you find yourself precariously hanging to, are days for some deep dark indulgences. Some days, you feel compelled to do exactly the reverse of what’s good for you. Some days, for the atheists amongst us, when prayer is not an option, then a strong hot coffee and a seriously large slab of chocolate are really your best bets to carry you from one breath to the next. And let’s just leave the word moderation out of this post shall we. There are days when moderation is a very fine thing, and days when we laugh in the face of moderation, and it’s the best laugh we’ve had all day.

free-style friday baking ; chocolate and raspberry cake (gluten free)

I often find myself amongst the minority. I find politics interesting, I find watching sport dull. I vote Green. I don’t like cats. I don’t even like kittens. I enjoy free-style baking with the kids.

It’s not like I’d put it up there on my wish list of things to do in an afternoon alongside a few quiet hours browsing a bookshop alone, but when we’re all at home with nothing pressing to do, I’m pretty keen to let them get in amongst the mixing bowls.

To make an easy gluten free cake I’ve found a mix of 3 or 4 eggs with 1/2 cup sugar / 70g butter / 2 cups of ‘flour’ (mix of ground almonds / rice flour / puffed amaranth ) is a good base and then you can freestyle a bit.

This cake is a simple chocolate and raspberry. Get the kids whisking up some eggs (I used 4) with 1/2 cup raw sugar. Melt a couple rows of dark chocolate over some hot water with around 70g butter. Add a cup of ground almonds, cup of brown rice flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 1/2 cup cocoa to the eggs. Add a couple of spoons of full fat natural yogurt. Pour in the melted chocolate / butter. Add a cup of frozen raspberries. Bake for about 30 mins.

There are several highlights for the kids in making a cake like this. Whisking ; always a winner. Scooping yogurt. Licking the yogurt spoon. Sneaking frozen raspberries. Scraping the chocolate off the melting plate. Yes they make a mess, but they make a mess regardless,  and with baking  there’s a chocolate cake fresh out of the oven at the end of it all.

there may be trouble ahead brownies

When the going gets tough, my first instinct is to panic. Not very helpful when you are a mum of four. My second instinct is to bake something with chocolate in (although that’s not an instinct I reserve for a crisis, as you know).

Of course, as is always the case, ever since I wote my rather up-beat (totally out of character) optimistic post about sleep deprivation then things have  been falling apart around here. The six year old has a nasty case of the chicken pox (meaning his three younger brothers will have it too, within a couple of weeks) and the man of the house is feeling under the weather. So we’ve been eating lots of virtuous healthful stuff..lots of ice cream ..the odd lollypop, and absolutely no cod-liver oil (my attempt to convince B that a spoonfull of fermented fish oil would do him the world of good were spectacularly unsuccessful).

To calm the situation I made these cake/brownies, because B likes the chocolate prune combo and he has rather been calling the shots today.  Started off by stewing half a cup of prunes with half cup blueberries, a couple of spoons of chia seeds. Melted about 50g dark chocolate and 50g butter over the top. Whisked 4 eggs with 1/4 cup of raw sugar (really seeing how low I can go with the sugar now.. )  with 2 cups ground almonds and 1/2 cup cocoa powder. Blended the prunes etc and chocolate. Mixed it all together with a couple of spoons of yogurt and baked it for about 30 minutes. It’s far from being the best cake I’ve ever made (funny how a bit of stress really seeps into the baking .. or is that just me? )  but if nothing else the act of mixing the thing up, melting the chocolate, and smelling it baking, went a little way towards calming my nerves. Sadly my nerves were almost immediately shattered again by young T dropping a dozen eggs on the wooden floor (whilst attempting to lend me a hand). Eggs are no fun to try and clean off a wooden floor.

So that sums up day two of this little adventure in spots and pox and stuff. It’s going to be a long few weeks. If you’d like to cheer me up you can pop over here and give my little blog a vote. You don’t need to register on the site, you just need to scroll down and down and down until you find me.. I think I’m cruising around the 200 mark. You can vote once a day for the next few days if you’re really game. I’m not particularly a competition type of person but I impulsively registered for this and it will make me smile to see a few votes by my name amidst the chaos of the days ahead. Thanks.

the sleep deprivation diet

I have lived under the haze of chronic sleep deprivation for the last  six or seven years.  Having four young children very close in age is the primary cause. For four of those seven years I’ve been breastfeeding; all my boys have been keen night-time feeders ( one – three feeds a night until sometime around their first birthday).  I’ve chosen to do this (I don’t live under a rock, and am well aware that there are other approaches to parenting that might be more likely to give me uninterrupted sleep – but this post isn’t about right / wrong parenting choices … it’s about coping with sleep deprivation when that becomes your reality, for whatever reason).

For the first five(ish) years of this new life, this life in which a full night’s sleep had become a mythical thing of the past then, there were two words that described me perfectly – ‘run down’.  I was the picture of exhaustion; anxious, erratic moods,  chunks of each day where I could barely keep my  eyes open. Every bug that was cruising the playgroup circuit would settle upon me and wipe me out. Every sniffle would lead to acute sinusitis / tonsillitis etc. This came as quite a surprise because I’d always been pretty robust, rarely ever ill and generally quite energetic and healthy.  The kids were thriving, shaking off any snuffles way more quickly than I could, and so I decided my poor health was due to a combination of all the ‘kiwi’ bugs invading my foreign English immune system, and the repeat pregnancies zapping my reserves.

I self-medicated with a mix of coffee and chocolate (in various forms but more often than not just straight creamy milk slab,by the kilo – literally I would probably eat a kilo over the course of a week).  Aside from the excessive chocolate and coffee  my diet was (I thought) pretty good. It was certainly in line with what I had grown up to believe was a healthy diet (plenty of carbs / whole grains / salad / fruit etc). I would make big homemade pasta dishes for our evening meal, hoping to fuel myself up for the night ahead.  If anything, despite all that chocolate, I struggled to keep weight on (I do have pretty lucky genes .. thanks grandma!). and as I have a big appetite I would just eat more and more (even sometimes  sending the man of the house out to the kitchen at two am to make me a couple of pieces of toast!).

Then around two years ago we started to change the family diet quite significantly. This was in part due to the man of the house being diagnosed with a chronic inflammatory condition which (through trial and error) we found was helped by eliminating gluten from his diet). Around this time I also started working with a fantastic naturopath / nutritionist (Helen from Nourish-ed) who opened my eyes to a completely different way of looking at healthy eating (based around the principles outlined in Sally Fallon’s Nourishing Traditions).

Now, after gradually making some changes I can step back and see I am way healthier and better able to function, despite the birth of baby number four, and the continuation of the chronic sleep deprivation.  I am not bullet proof, getting up several times a night to breastfeed (calm nightmares / fetch water / take wandering toddlers back to their beds etc), is tiring. I still get a bit grumpy from time to time. But, I am way better. I have hardly been ill (no doubt I am totally jinxing myself by writing this) aside from the odd cold. I haven’t needed antibiotics in over a year and a half (the year prior to that I had to take 4 courses), and I’ve even started popping out for the odd jog. I can think beyond the basics of work and family, and am on occasion able to hold a reasonably sane conversation. I write this blog, for fun, and I have even played a couple of games of scrabble without falling asleep.

So what’s the secret? Here are my top tips for a diet to minimise the impact of sleep deprivation on your body and soul.

• Lots of fluids that are not coffee or tea. I still treat myself to the odd coffee (a couple of times a week) and have one or two cups of earl grey tea a day but the bulk of my fluid is not caffeinated and I never start the day with caffeine. Previously I would rely mainly on  tea, with the odd glass of water, which I would never finish. Now, I drink mint and cardamom tea made with fresh mint leaves and cardamom pods by the bucketful. It’s just my thing. I love it and I always have a pot on the go. I like it hot / cold and every temperature in between.
• Less carbs and more protein. I haven’t gone totally gluten free and do still have the odd slice of bread / toast but I try and ensure my meals are based around protein.
• Lots and lots of bone broth. I always choose meat with bones in if I’m making a casserole / curry, and I roast a whole chicken a couple of times  a week so that stock is always plentiful around here.
• Introduce lacto- fermented vegetables. Gingered carrots are the favourite.
• Found a breakfast that suited me. Which is this. Previous I’d dabbled with various / cereal / yogurt / toast / porridge combos that never seemed to keep me going very long. Everyone is different – this works for me.
• Lots of homemade soup. Especially for lunch.
• Less chocolate / more baking. I was addicted to chocolate until recently. Really seriously, I had a massive chocolate addiction, and had to ‘come off’ cold turkey – headaches / withdrawal etc.. It was harsh. Now I eat it in moderation. Mainly in baking. I bake a lot (as you’ll know if you read this blog) but I make good, nutrient dense cakes that satisfy my sweet tooth without excessive sugar or empty calories.

Those are the main things I’m doing differently. I was already eating lots of live yogurt , fruit , vegetables, oily fish etc ; so I didn’t have to change any of that. Aside from chocolate,I have always kept away from processed food.. it wasn’t enough!

So that’s where I’m up to. I’m still very much learning about a more nourishing diet – I am yet to experiment with a bigger range of fermented foods (but I’m kind of intrigued to), and I’m still holding on to a few old habits and treats… but I’ve done enough to feel a whole heap better. If I keep eating like this who knows what I’ll be like when my kids are all finally sleeping through the night – I’ll probably be running ultra-marathons or something.

pear, prune and chia butter-less chocolate almond cake

Here’s a revelation… at least for me… cake doesn’t need butter in to taste good. It’s not that I have any particular desire to cut back on butter in my life – it’s just I’d run out and wanted to bake. I’m a buttery person so don’t think I’ve ever baked without butter before and was slightly stunned to see it didn’t make much difference (possibly because my recipes are rather untraditional anyway!). If anything it was lighter and spongier which is always a bonus for a gluten free cake.

Half a cup of pitted prunes and a chopped pear stewed in a little water with a couple of spoons of chia seeds. Over the top about 60 – 70g dark chocolate melted. Meanwhile whisk 3 eggs with 1/2 cup raw sugar. Add 1 cup ground almonds, about 3/4 cup brown rice flour and 1 tsp baking powder.

When the chocolate is melted blend it with the prunes and pears (there should be very little juice because the chia seeds will absorb all the water. Add half a cup of plain (full fat) pouring yogurt. Mix the chocolate paste into the rest and bake. I iced mine with a little melted milk chocolate mixed with a teaspoon of greek yogurt ..it was Thursday afternoon after all, and that’s a reason to be festive around these parts.

 

dried apricot, blueberry, amaranth, almond chocolate cake

Half a cup of dried apricots and half a cup frozen blueberries, stewed together into purple oblivion. Over the top melt a few rows of dark chocolate with 50g butter.

Get your willing helpers to whisk 4 eggs, adding half a cup of raw sugar then 3/4 cup puffed amaranth, 3/4 cup ground almonds, 1/2 cup brown rice flour, 1 tsp baking powder, a couple of spoons of cocoa powder.

Blend the apricots and blueberries with the melted chocolate and butter. Beware – this paste tastes so darn good you could easily get distracted and find you’ve eaten half of it on your way to adding it to the rest of the mix.

Beat it all up, bake it, ice it, eat it…..think about making another one.

prune, chia, pumpkin and flaxseed brownies (gluten free)

Don’t be put off by the healthy sounding title. These may be packed with super-seeds but they taste like really good chocolate brownies. You can trust me on that because I am something of an expert on brownies and chocolate cake in general. So are my kids. It’s always a good indicator how something tastes when they all want seconds, and then they fight over who’s second slice is the biggest.

I eat ground pumpkin and flaxseeds every day as part of my super-seed breakfast, but the kids mainly get seeds when I add them to baking… more justification (as if I need it) to keep a steady supply of fresh stuff coming out of the oven.

Start by stewing half a cup of pitted prunes in a little water. Over the top melt around 60 – 70g dark chocolate, 50g butter and 2 tablespoons of chia seeds. The chia seeds will hydrate as the butter / chocolate melts. When it’s all molten blend the prunes with the chocolate mix (or just mash it together if you don’t mind lumps).

Whisk 3 eggs with 1/2 cup raw organic sugar (or any other type .. I blow with the wind when it comes to sugar and this is what I have in the cupboard at the moment).  Add about half a cup of ground pumpkin / flaxseeds. I use an old coffee grinder.. and if you’re reading this thinking ‘what a hassle to grind up seeds’, then rest assured, it’s really not. It will take about 10 seconds and these are nutritional gods, so it will be worth it.

Beat in about a cup and a half of ground almonds, and a couple of spoons of cocoa powder. (You can switch some ground almonds for rice flour if you want and skip the cocoa powder if you’re less of a chocofreak – you’re aiming for about 2 cups dry stuff, including the ground seeds, per 3 eggs).

Add the chocolate / prune mix and pour it into a greased square cake tin. It will take about 30 mins to bake. You can ice it, if you’re an icing kind of person. I used a few squares of melted milk chocolate mixed with a spoonful of greek yogurt. Obviously it would be healthier to omit this step but you know, these are brownies made with super-seeds, they can carry a little icing and still stand proud.

This post is linking up with http://www.simplysugarandglutenfree.com slightly indulgent Tuesdays

chia chocolate plum and almond cake (gluten free)

This cake is trying to be a good family afternoon tea, rather than the most indulgent chocolate cake you’ll ever eat. The chocolate is really a tool to hold all the healthy stuff together – chocolate is very useful like that. It’s not particularly sweet (for a chocolate cake) so you could increase the sugar / chocolate components if you wanted something richer. Also, this is a big cake – doubled up on my usual quantities.

Stew 4 big chopped and de-stoned plums (or more small ones..) in a little water with a couple of tablespoons of chia seeds. Over top, melt about 80g of chocolate (dark) and 70g butter. When the chocolate and butter are melted the plums will be soft, Mix together or blend depending whether you mind plum lumps. Put this to one side.

Whisk 5 eggs with 3/4 cup of granulated sugar, Add 2 cups of ground almonds, 1/2 cup brown rice flour, 1/2 cup cocoa and 1 teaspoon gf baking powder. Pour in the chocolate mix and beat together the bake. Took about 30 mins,

You can ice it with a little more melted chocolate mixed with a spoon of yogurt, if you are so inclined,… I was.

beetroot, prune, chocolate chia cake (gluten free)

I don’t think I’m going out on a limb by saying most kids don’t really like beetroot. Of course, kids are strange and unpredictable creatures, and there are probably some who do. I certainly don’t live with any. So when I pulled a nice fat beet out of the ground,  at the community garden yesterday, I assumed it would be consumed by the adults of the house. Then I bumped into Dave, the school caretaker. We got talking about the blog, and kids, and food. We talked about creating recipes that would get the kids excited about the community garden produce. Now, if you read my kid-food-wisom page, you see I believe inspiring kids to like adult food, rather than creating specific kid recipes. But talking to Dave got me thinking. Specifically thinking about beetroot and chocolate cake. Let’s face it – chocolate cake is about as exciting as it gets. It seemed like a sign. Me holding the beetroot and Dave talking about trying to come up with some recipes that would get the kids into the garden produce.

I started by putting about a half cup of pitted organic prunes in a little water to stew with the beetroot (peeled and cut into chunks so it would soften quickly. Over the top I melted about 70g of dark chocolate, 50g cubed butter and a couple of spoonfuls of chia seeds.

After about 10 minutes I caught the prunes  / beetroot just as they were beginning to boil dry – the ‘boil dry’ is never a good idea, I only mention it to illustrate the point that there wasn’t a lot of juice in the mix. I put everything in the little blender and buzzed it into a very think, absolutely gorgeous deep red chocolate-y paste.

Putting the paste to one side I whisked 3 eggs together with half a cup of granulated sugar, 1 and 1/2 cups of ground almonds, 1/2 cup cocoa powder, 1 tsp gf baking powder and 1/4 cup of brown rice flour. Then whisked in the chocolate paste and poured into a cake tin. Once again I failed to register the baking time,  but probably around 25 minutes.

Finished with icing. Made with a few squares of milk chocolate and a spoonful of greek yogurt. Can happily report the community garden beetroot was shared by the entire family – including the youngest who reached out and swiped some of  my slice while I wasn’t looking.