Lunch Box Chronicles: Day One Hundred Fifty (On Sweet Things in Life)

OY VEH!!! Sometimes life just gets too complicated. That's when easy sweet recipes come to the rescue. Here is my rescue recipe.

LOW FAT SPELT BLUEBERRY/RASPBERRY TURN-OVERS

Ingredients:

One Spelt Right Pizza dough fully thawed and proofed. (That means that it should fill the bag after it has risen).

12-16 ounces of berries of your choice (either frozen or fresh). I used blueberries and raspberries.

1/4 cup VITA SPELT flour

1/4-1/2 cup organic cane sugar

1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon (optional)

Lightly oil (with EVOO) a stainless steel baking pan. Preheat oven to 375-400F

Mix berries, flour, sugar, and cinnamon (if desired) in a small bowl. Set aside.

Cut dough into 6-8 equal pieces. Stretch dough to about 1/8 inch thick in circle. Heap the berry/flour/sugar mixture on one half of dough. Gently stretch over berries and pinch on ends (see pictures).

Place on baking sheet; bake for 20-30 minutes until lightly browned on the bottom. Can be served warm or cold. As an additionally remedy, serve with natural vanilla ice cream.

Lunch Box Chronicles: Day One-Hundred Forty-Two (Special Person Day: Banana, Applesauce, Orange Juice Spelt Cake)

This special recipe is for special person day.  

Last week we had special person day for the 4^th graders at Olivia’s school.

She had a hard time choosing between her dad and me, but finally came to the conclusion that we both warranted a “special person” title.   I felt privileged!  As special people, we were treated to a personalized reading session, a tour of the classroom, and being served treats by our daughter.  I was moved that the feature in Olivia’s Newspaper was about Spelt Right Baking Company.  Despite her protestations about the time I spend on the company, there seems to be a special place in her heart for this  family endeavor. 

 All in all it was a pretty special day.

Here is the cake we made for special person’s day. 

Banana, applesauce, orange juice spelt cake.  So moist!

1/2 cup soft butter

1 cup brown sugar (we use organic)

2 eggs, beaten

2 cups whole grain VITA SPELT flour
1 teaspoon aluminum free baking soda

1/4 cup orange juice

1-2 ripe bananas

1/2-3/4 cup applesauce (we used this because we ran out of bananas and it turned out to be a fantastic modification to the recipe)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Cream butter and sugar, beat in eggs.  Add dry ingredients, and then mix in mashed bananas, applesauce and orange juice.   Mix well.  Bake in 9 x 12 well butter glass pan, or in loaf pan.  Bake for 30-40 minutes in glass pan or 45 min-1hr in loaf pan.  Enjoy!   This is really really moist, and surprisingly light for a whole grain cake.

Lunch Box Chronicles: Day One-Hundred and Twenty (Spelt Coffee Cake the Answer to an April Fool's Snowstorm):

It just AIN'T fair.  Finally, we saw a glimpse of spring.  The brown beaten wet grass in our front lawn and the last remnants of polluted snow banks littered with tar and sand all sang the notes of spring to us.  We could hear it!  The kids even got to take out their bikes for a day or two.  The cats started choosing the out-of-doors, rather than their litter box, to deposit their cat duties.  It was glorious!

But, that all changed.  April 1, 2011, the day that makes us all FOOLS, brought us a whopper of a snowstorm.  School was cancelled, roads were too slick to drive anywhere, and Olivia - now almost 9 - was BORED out of her mind.

"Ahh, honey, please let me get just a little more shut eye...we can rest, stay in, keep on  our jammies."  No doing for this kid.  She was BORED, is BORED, and will forever be BORED, unless we figure something for her to do.

Well, I was NOT going outside.  I've had it.  I am not built for cold, but for some reason, I was born into a 4 season climate with long winters, and moved to 4 season climate with longer winters.  What's the matter with me?  I need to go south.  It is in my blood.

So, what to do?  Well, this almost 9 year old is an excellent reader, and an even better speller.  Just ask her?  How to you spell...PHENOMENAL...well, she'll tell you, and then tell you some more.

I said, let's make cookies...She suggested something better.  COFFEE CAKE...."O.K., Olivia, you get out the cookbook, follow the directions, and get to work."  And, that is what she did.   We modified the recipe just a bit to use spelt instead of wheat, and to make our own sour milk with milk and fresh squeezed lemon.  The result was an absolutely decadent coffee cake - phenomenal in fact.  The problem is our family of 5 ate the entire cake (with a few pieces to spare for some special friends) in less than a day.  Great cake, but we'll make this baby only once a year.  Too much sugar and fat for our daily intake...but once in a while, especially on such a FOOLISHLY snowy April's day, it is the perfect treat.

 Ingredients:
1 and 1/2  cups VITA SPELT organic white spelt flour
1 cup organic VITA SPELT whole spelt flour
1 and 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
2/3 cup BUTTER
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon all spice
2 beaten eggs
1 and 1/3 cups of milk with 1-2TBL freshly squeezed lemon juice (let sit for at least 5 minutes)
1 cup chopped nuts (we used a mix of pecans and walnuts)
1-2 TBL organic molasses (optional)

Butter a 13 x 9 x 2 inch baking dish. Set aside.
In a medium bowl. combine flour and brown sugar.  Cut in butter until mixture looks like coarse crumbs.  Set aside 3/4 of a cup for topping.
Stir in baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and all spice into remaining crumb mixture.
In another bowl, combine the eggs, milk and lemon.  Add wet mixture to dry and mix together.  Pour batter into prepared baking dish.  Combine nuts with reserved crumb mixture, drizzle in molasses.  Mix together in crumb form and then sprinkle over batter.
Bake at 350F for 35-40 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

ENJOY!!!  Eat as you watch the snow gently coat the escaping vestige of spring.

Lunch Box Chronicles: Day One Hundred and Twelve (Homemade Spelt Pasta)

Spencer and I were two lucky folks last week to come home to some homemade spelt pasta made by Tim, Grandma Helen, and Olivia. Made with Vita Spelt flour, eggs, water, salt, and Grandma Joan's hand cranked pasta maker which is at least 50 years old.  Here are some photos.  Recipe and instructions to follow.

Lunch Box Chronicles: Day Sixty-Three (Red Lentil and Carrot Soup)

This little recipe is from my archives, because it was much too hot today to make soup.  I'm a little short on words as I am soooo tired.....This is a good recipe, though, so please enjoy!

2 cups red lentils
8 cups water
3-4 cloves of garlic (crush with mortal and pestle with a little salt).
1 teaspoon coriander
1-2 teaspoons sea salt
4Tablespoon EVOO
Cumin and crushed red pepper to taste
2TBL VITA spelt flour
4-5 carrots boiled until soft and then blended in a food processor

Clean lentils by rinsing to make sure to remove any stones.  Add to water and boil over low heat until cream.  Stirring occasionally so it does not burn.  Make a paste of the garlic, salt and coriander and saute in oil until golden brown.  Add to lentil mixture.  Add cooked and blended carrots.  Simmer for 1 hour, watching so not to burn.  You can thicken the soup with a little spelt flour and water paste.  Keep simmering until blended.  Serve with cumin and pepper to taste.   We had this with a mixed green salad and homemade balsamic and EVOO dressing. See Lunch Box Chronicle Day 51 for Balsamic EVOO dressing recipe

Lunch Box Chronicles: Day Thirty-Six (Berry Struesel - the SPELT RIGHT WAY)

This is one of the best recipes coming out of the Lunch Box Chronicles so far.

It is the brainchild of two Scarborough High School Seniors, Emma and Adam, no doubt destined for great things. They hatched the idea for trying their hand at the Lunch Box Chronicles a few weeks earlier. On Sunday morning, the two teens bounded off to Hannaford with a few bucks in their pockets and a mission to make something that would knock our socks off. They succeeded and several recipes emerged!

Olivia and Spencer looked on in anticipation of great treats to come, only to be gravely disappointed, when Emma and Adam decided to abscond with the feast they created and surprise a group of friends with some culinary delights. Luckily, they did leave a few morsels behind or chaos would have ensued!

Here is the first of three recipes to be posted by the newly anointed Lunch Box Chroniclers:

BERRY STREUSEL - SCARBOROUGH HIGH STYLE

INGREDIENTS

One Spelt Right Pizza Dough (Fully thawed and risen). See earlier pictures for details.

Struesel mixture
* 1/3 cup light brown sugar
* 1 and 1/3 VITA SPELT spelt flour
* 1/4 cup organic sugar
* 1 teaspoon cinnamon
* 1 cup of old fashioned oats
* 1 stick butter.

Melt butter and then pour in a mixing bowl. Mix together all the other ingredients with the butter. Use hands to make a crumble struesel.

Fruit Mixture
* 1 quart of strawberries (slice into quarters)
* 1 pint blueberries
* 4 TBL organic sugar

Wash fruit and mix well with sugar. Let sit.

Cut the pizza dough into 8 even sized balls. On a pizza peel or cutting board dusted with finely ground cornmeal or spelt flour, shape the dough balls to about 1/4 inch thickness (this is the kids' recipe, but mama would make it a little thinner). Make a thick edge around the thin base to hold in the juices (almost like a pie)

Place fruit mixture into a pizetta and sprinkle a good amount of the struesel mixture over the fruit.

Place on well oiled baking pan. Bake in 375 pre-heated oven for 10-15 minutes, or until looks done.

Let cool and enjoy!!!

Lunch Box Chronicles: Day Twenty-Two (Turkey Pot Pie!)

I am so lucky to have my mom. Today, I had more on my figurative plate than I could handle. So, what to do? Call mom! 84 and 1/2 and still there when I need her. We had a very large frozen Kosher turkey thawing in the extra fridge for days, but it just wouldn't thaw! We needed dinner and I had no time. Her directions to me: "soak that damn bird in a salt water bath in a clean sink, leave me directions on how to use your new stove, leave out the roasting pan." Result: came home after a frustrating day (did I mention my disdain for flood maps and banks?) to a house filled with the aromas of Thanksgiving! Roasted turkey, potatoes, carrots, the fixins' I'm blessed. Thanksgiving in May! After dinner, we rushed off to Olivia's concert to hear the K-2 kids singing and jazzing.

And after all that, I had a perfect idea for a Lunch Box delight - Turkey Pot Pie - Spelt Right style.

Ingredients: One Spelt Right Pizza Dough (fully thawed). Left over turkey, carrots, potatoes, peas, Vita Spelt flour, butter, gravy from left over turkey. Make a rue on the stove top with 2 TBL butter and 2-3TBL Vita Spelt flour, set aside. Chop 2-3 carrots and potatoes in small chunks, boil soft, add some turkey on the bone for flavor, salt and pepper to taste, remove bones, but keep in turkey, cut into chunks. Add rue and any left over gravy you might have (if your mom cooked a turkey for you), let broth become thick, add peas. Set aside.

Preheat oven to 400-450F.

Cut dough into 6 even sized balls, stretch or roll to about 1/4 inch thick. I used a pizza peel this time covered with finely ground organic corn meal. Shape fitayas on pizza peel. Place two-three TBL of turkey mixture on dough ball. Make triangle shape (or any shape you can to close) Then gently slide on to hot pizza stone. I brushed these with butter when they were in the oven, but that is optional.

Bake until golden brown.

I was SO STUFFED from the turkey dinner that my mom made that I could not eat another bite. Solution? Ask Tim. His response, "if you want me to keep doing this, don't complain about my girth." Next solution? Ask the kids. Their ability to eat never ceases to amaze me. Response from the kids: "Yum, two thumbs up we want more." Answer from mom, "Enough for tonight, turkey pot pie fitayas for breakfast tomorrow!"

Good night.

Lunch Box Chronicles: Day Seven (Spelt Right Morello Cherry Tarts)

Tonight's creation is more of a dessert chronicle, but definitely one worth trying. I have to confess that I am a bit of Trader Joe's addict and can't help but stop there on my way home from Boston to Maine. I have some old favorites, but am always scouring the shelves for something new. Eureka! This week, I found Dark Morello Cherries in Light Syrup made in Germany. All natural, but still loaded with sugar.

Recipe: Organic Spelt Triangles Stuffed with Morell0 Cherries. Ingredients: Spelt Right Pizza Dough (let rise to double its size in the bag), 2 cups Trader Joe's Dark Morello Cherries, 1/2 organic evaporated cane juice, 1/4 cup organic white spelt flour (Vita Spelt brand).

You know the protocol if you have been following the chronicles. If not, here's a little direction. Cut the dough into six even balls. Set aside. In a small bowl combine cherries (without liquid), 1/2 cup of evaporated cane juice (sugar), 1/4 cup of organic spelt. Toss together. Preheat oven to 400. Prepare the dough on a lightly oiled cookie sheet, 4 can fit easily. Stretch dough gently by hand or roll to about 1/4 inch think. Place cherry mixture in center, about 2 teaspoonfuls. Try to squeeze out some of the juice beforehand. Create triangles. Bake for about 10 minutes or until golden brown. This is a messy one. The juice leaks from the cherries on to the pan so expect a little smoke in the oven.

Something about the cherries made the dough extra moist, really really nice. The kids were skeptical, but anxious to eat them. Although the limit is a two thumbs up, Spencer gave it a 6 and 1/2 thumbs up. Olivia was equally as thrilled. Their cherry stained faces were proof! A great alternative to a pie because this crust has very little fat and tons of nutrition with the spelt. In a word, yummmm!