Crusty Seeded French Bread Recipe

This is a really nice bread, studded with lots of seeds for flavour and nutrition! This recipe will yield fairly dense loaves, but feel free to play with the fife wheat to white flour ratio. If you are new to baking with whole grain flour, I would suggest doing half/half fife wheat and white flour.

A note on white flour! I like my bread on the denser side, just like the way it used to be. Many people are not used to this though, so it might be best to slowly transition yourself into using less and less white flour until you become used to heavier bread. That being said, my favorite option for white flour is something called Soft White Wheat. It is a type of grain that when ground produces a white flour. The beautiful thing is that it is ground from the whole grain, so it has all the nutritional benefits of whole grain flour but is a very light flour. Actually, you know that all-purpose flour you buy at the grocery store? Back in the day it actually literally used to be a blend of soft white and hard red  flour (for example, the Red Fife is a hard red wheat). If you can't get soft white flour, try to get organic, unbleached all-purpose flour. Unfortunately, even though this kind of flour will be organic and great in that sense, it will most likely not be heritage. As you know, our Red Fife grain is heritage, meaning its more easily digestible because the genes have not been altered unlike modern wheat's. So, if you are eating Red Fife for health reasons, you might just need to stay away from most other wheat flours.

Crusty Seeded French Bread. The 2 on the left were baked free-form, the one on the right in a bread pan

Crusty Seeded French Bread
(originally from Simply in Season cookbook- altered by Anna Chappell)

5 cups Red Fife
1 cup organic soft white or all-purpose flour
2 Tbsp active dry yeast
2 Tbsp organic cane sugar, or honey 
1 tsp sea salt
4 Tbsp of any combination of fennel, pumpkin, sunflour, ground flax, poppy seeds
Mix together in a large bowl, or in kitchen aid-mixer if you have one

2 1/2 cups hot water 
1 Tbsp organic olive oil
Gradually add. Mix well. If needed add more flour to make a soft dough...knead at least 10 minutes. I leave mine in the kitchen aid bowl and let it knead for up to 20 minutes. You want the dough to have a soft texture and stretch nicely (take a piece and pull on either side of it with your fingers. If it just breaks, it needs more kneading. If it slowly pulls/stretches apart its ready!)

Place a greased bowl and cover with a damp cloth, let rise an hour or until doubled in size. (Draft-free, warm location is ideal). Punch down and let rest for 20 minutes. Divide into 3 equal parts and shape or place in a greased bread pan. Make 4-5 diagonal slices on top of each loaf with a serrated blade.

1 egg
1-2 Tbsp of any combination of seeds
 Beat egg and brush on loaves. Sprinkle seeds on each loaf. Let rise until double. Beake in pre-heated oven at 400F/200C for 20 minutes. (To check done-ness knock on bottom of loaf. A hollow sound means its done!)

Take a picture and share with us via email or our facebook page! And Enjoy!

Edible Flowers: Adding beauty to your meals

It's summer, and the gardens are starting to burst with colour! Did you know many colorful blooms are edible? Yes, there are edible flowers!

Just a handful of flowers from our garden that are edible: Calendula, Johny-jump-ups, Bachelor Buttons, and Nasturtiums

  And not only are they beautiful, they come in a range of flavours, from refreshinlgy cucumber-like flavours, to sweet and licoriceey to spicey and peppery. This range of flavours means a range of uses.

A gorgeous Calendula bloom: to use remove the petals and only use the petals for eating (unless making a medicinal salve)

 Flowers as a garnish: 
 
 Here are some ways of using edible flowers to enhance your meals. Nowadays its all about getting food cheap, making food fast, and then gulping it down without much thought. I think there should be more reverence in our daily meals. Slowing down your hectic schedule in life, in small ways, goes a long way for your quality of life. Like putting flowers on your salad as a garnish. Such an unnecessary thing. And yet, the value is priceless. Beautiful. Tasty. Taking the time to enjoy a beautiful salad, garnished and tossed with extra flavor and prettiness.  And really, it's so easy (wait till you take a salad garnished with flowers to a potluck- sure to be a crowd wowser!)

Ever made pesto? Nasturtiums spicy, peppery flavour makes for a flavourful and colourful pesto.

 Nasturtium pesto on a snadwhich, garnished with borage flowers

Here is the Nasturtium Pesto Recipe: 

Chop the blossoms ( it takes a lot!) then added olive oil, some yogurt, minced garlic, Parmesan cheese, a dash of salt and pepper and some chopped pine nuts.

Stir into cooked noodes, or spread in a sandwhich. Infinite uses!

Flower Butter is another interesting way to incorporate flowers into your meals:

 Chop a handful of flowers and stir into softened butter. Can add salt or onion, garlic powder. Place in a small dish and chill. 

Tip: Use savoury flowers like Nasturtium, basil, oregano flowers. 

This flower butter looks like it has confetti in it. Looks beautiful spread on toast. Place a spoonful on steamed vegetables or a baked fish. Lovely!!

 

*Warning*: Not all flowers are edible- some can make you sick.  If you are harvesting your own flowers do your homework to make sure you are only harvesting edible ones. Do not use flowers if they have been, or if you even think they might have been, sprayed with pesticides, or herbicides.

Here are some links about which flowers are edible:

Edible Flower Chart

Edible Prairie Flowers Only a small list at the bottom of the web page, includes other info on other edible prairie plants

Visit our farmers market booth in the summer! We will be selling our edible flowers that have been grown all-naturally and harvested that day for freshness. For the summer of 2012, we will be at the following markets (subject to change in the future- please check our website or email us for more info) :

Olds farmers market

 Downtown Red Deer Farmers Market

and in Calgary at the Northlands Farmers market and the Hillhurst Sunnyside Market