Lunch Box Chronicles: Day One-Hundred Seventy-Two (Spelt Crumb Cake to Carry Your Worries Away)

Yesterday I thought I would never escape my doldrums. I was more tired than I remember being in years.  My only option was to nap.  Finally, I had escaped into a dreamy bliss of not knowing where I was or having a care in the world. 

Nearly three hours later, I woke to the joyous sounds of Emma arriving home from college.  “PARENTS!! I AM HOME! NEW YORK, I AM HERE!”  

And, then everyone barged in on my pillowly bliss.  “HELLO MADJA” proclaimed Emma.  Then, Olivia and her pal Ying, showed up like little chirping birds.  “We’re hungry! We’re hungry!” Then Spencer chimed in waiting for that moment for me to wake.  “Mom, it’s time to make a cake!!!” Then, Tim came in with some hot chocolate.  

So, I got up, tucked away my worries and proceeded to the kitchen.  While I made meatballs, Spencer tried out his “new” KitchenAid (thanks to a friend) and made the best spelt crumb cake ever!

SPELT CRUMB CAKE

Ingredients:

1 and 1/2  cups organic white spelt flour

1 cup organic whole spelt flour

1 and 1/2 cups organic evaporated cane juice (organic sugar)

2.5 TBL organic molasses

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 walnuts

A cake to carry your worries away

Butter a 13 x 9 x 2 inch baking dish. Set aside.

In a medium bowl. combine flour, sugar, and molasses.  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.  

(If you have a KitchenAid, first mix the dry ingredients on low, and then add the wet ingredients and mix on medium until ingredients are all mixed together)

Combine nuts with reserved crumb mixture.  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!!!  Savor each piece with your family and friends, tuck your worries away, and be sure to save a piece for friends. 

Lunch Box Chronicles, Day One-Hundred Seventy One (On Being a Flexitarian - Vegetables with Chicken)

flex·i·tar·i·an noun \ˌflek-sə-ˈter-ē-ən\

Definition of FLEXITARIAN  (
source: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/flexitarian )

: one whose normally meatless diet occasionally includes meat or fish

— flexitarian adjective

Origin of FLEXITARIAN

flexible + vegetarian

First Known Use: 1998

This recipe is dedicated to my formerly vegetarian, now flexitarian friend.   We both aspire to be completely meat free in our diets, but sometimes we just need a little comfort food – both for our bodies and our souls.

Baked Chicken with Vegetables, or in Flexitarain Lingo: Baked Vegetables Accented by Chicken. (adapted from A Taste of Lebanon by Mary Salloum)

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

2 green peppers, de-seeded and sliced in rounds

2 large tomatoes sliced in rounds (field tomatoes are great for this)

2 large onions sliced in rounds
2 large zucchini sliced in rounds

1 large leek sliced in rounds

4 potatoes sliced in rounds

1 chicken cut up, or two-three bone-in breast of chicken

1-2 teaspoons of salt

1/2 teaspoon of pepper

1 tsp dried basil

4-5 cloves of garlic (crushed with salt)

1/2 bunch of fresh parsley (destemmed and chopped)

Set oven at 400F.  Wash and dry chicken (I do this by cleaning with salt and then rinsing – taught to me by my mother and grandmother).  Place all vegetables and chicken in roasting pan.  Add oil and all remaining ingredients.  Coat vegetables and chicken with oil, herbs, and spices.  Cover roasting pan.  Bake for 1 hour or until chicken is tender.

This is an easy comfort meal.  Perfect with Spelt Right rosemary bread - toasted with EVOO.  The kind of food to enjoy after weathering a storm.

Lunch Box Chronicles: Day Seventy-Five (Guest Chronicler Diana S.)

Well, folks, I have officially crossed over into another plain.  Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks?

I have learned new vocabulary words these days as we try to figure out how to transport our GLORIOUS Spelt Right bagels to faraway lands.  First word: LOGISTICS - sounds complicated and it is, but in simple terms means "how in the hell do we get this bagel from here to there without flipping over trucks, thawing out product, or breaking the bank?"  The second word is "REEFER".  Now, when I was in college and someone said reefer, it evoked images of smoke and dreadlocks, and perhaps songs by Jimmy Cliff.   In my NEW WORLD, REEFER is another term for a truck with a cooling unit in it a/k/a a truck that will keep our product safe from thawing out.   And, the third word of the day is "SLEEPER", which in my other world meant a boring professor or a slow movie or some lecturer who was pontificating about this or that.  In my NEW WORLD, SLEEPER means the cab of a truck, perhaps a REEFER with a cozy compartment in it for truckers to sleep in.   I also learned that SLEEPER means that the truck is configured in such a way that it simply can't negotiate the windy driveway at the beautiful SPARHAWK MILL, which in turn keeps me SLEEPLESS.....and still trying to figure out LOGISTICS.   

So with all of this energy spent on logistics, reefers, and sleepers, I simply have not had time to cook.  My kids are getting a lot more 'away from home' meals these days.   Good thing we have good food choices in Portland Maine.   Also good thing that I have good friends, some new, some aged-well, who are providing wonderful incarnations with Spelt Right pizza dough and bagels to post on the Spelt Right Lunch Box Chronicles.   Tonight I will post two such recipes, one from Diana (a friend from high school with whom I reconnected on FaceBook) and the other Steff Deschenes (a friend made this year with whom I have connected on FaceBook).  Both are very neat woman.

Here's Diana's recipe:

Grilled Spelt Right pizza: fresh veggies & sheep cheese!  

Now, I can't tell you exactly how Diana made this, but I am going to guess that she let the Spelt Right Pizza Dough rise to double its size inside the bag, and then GENTLY shaped the dough into some free form shape (who says pizzas always have to be circular?) on a pizza peel dusted with corn meal.   Topped with grilled veggies of her choice and SHEEPS MILK CHEESE.   She then gently schooched the pizza on a grill which was about 400 F......What can I say, my mouth is watering!   We have been saying that Diana needs to come up to visit.  Perhaps, the time is now.  I am HUNGRY.

Lunch Box Chronicles: Day Sixty-Seven (We're back!!)

Well, we survived our first attempt at the Fancy Food Show and thank McMahon's Farms for inviting us into their vendors' booth.  We were so busy just meeting and greeting and sampling that we hardly had a moment to check out the thousands of other vendors there.  Overall, it was a good first experience for us, though we did leave with ideas on how to make it better next year.

As always, we find NYC exhilarating, exhausting, frustrating, magnetic.   We love visiting with our relatives and friends (thank you both Mickey and Alissa for separate nights out at Turkish restaurants - one on the East Side and one on the West).  And, we thank Erica and Jim for making it possible to be in the City without Olivia....And, we thank our friends of friends of friends' friends who toured Spencer around the City while we worked the show.

After our six hour return drive, we came home to a house that was depleted of the fixins' for dinner, but somehow I cobbled together a meal with grass fed beef burgers, pita made Spelt Right dough, assorted lettuces from Tim's backyard garden, olives from Cortas Lebanese foods (I love Cortas brands and I actually got to meet the Cortas family at the Fancy Food Show), spelt focaccia strips, some left over cheese hiding in the fridge, and my almost famous three bean salad. Recipe to be provided at a later date.

Overall, not a bad meal for slim pickins', but as for a recipe...you're just going to have to think creatively with the list I provided.