flatbreads

 Last night I decided I should make bread today. This morning I was reading Gretchen's blogpost and when she got to the part about making bread, I hightailed it out of there - I had forgotten. I went to my recipe box and saw a recipe for flatbread with spelt and rye flours. 

It made about ten, and now I know how to cook flatbreads. I had to mess with the ingredients, as the dough wasn't sticky like they said it would be; I had to add flour and water, and I let it rise longer than they said to. But then, you heat up the pan, roll it out thin, and cook it on the stove, with the lid on the skillet, for two minutes on each side. So, you stand there and it takes a while. But I was afraid to go and do anything - this is something I'll have to figure out if I ever make it again. A regular loaf doesn't need any watching, at least for most of its time in the oven. Anyway, it's very good.

moondancing in the kitchen

The golden leaves which were on the cherry tree last Thursday, that glorious day, fell almost entirely off the next day, when the (normal) colder weather returned. I guess it was a shock, because most of the leaves are down everywhere. Not that it was so cold, but after such a day - 

I always think of Moondance by Van Morrison; he's singing of October skies, and leaves falling. Our leaves fall in November - surely the Irish climate is milder than ours? I guess it's poetic license, and I love the song all the same. And now we're settling in for winter. 

I bought some gluten-free flour substitute, some spelt and some einkorn flour, and I'm experimenting. I made a batch of brownies I've made many times, with the gluten-free, and a little less sugar, and they were just as delicious as the original. But today I made a pie crust dough with part einkorn and part spelt. This is for the sweet potato pie I'm going to bake on Wednesday. I wanted to bake it a little so the filling wouldn't make the dough gummy, but it was practically melting and I ended up tossing it. This caused me to look up the why's and wherefore's of pie crust. These flours I used have less gluten, and the crust I made seemed like it was just melting after a short time in the oven. I learned from my researches that a moderate amount of gluten makes the best crust. Maybe I should stick to what I know, especially on a big holiday!