Lemony Banana Bread Bites and Thinking Small

It's been kind of noisy around here. 

Lately, whenever I step outside, I can hear things like the red-naped sapsuckers calling from the woods. Leaves clicking together in the breeze. A two-foot garter snake we've taken to calling Eek (as in "Eek! There's a snake!") slithering across the backyard through piles of dessicated leaves from last Fall. I always hear its rustle before I see the quick movements of its yellow-striped body.

Then, I jump!

There's also the bullfrog who lives in the pond behind our house. He's come back this Spring and let me tell you, he's about as loud as a foghorn. When we first moved here and I was still a city girl, I used to curse his incessant bellowing, his vocal alert to the ladies in the area, reassuring them that he was, indeed, available. But what's to curse, really? He's just searching for a little happiness. 

Aren't we all? 

"Eek" the snake slithered away before the camera lens could catch it!

These sights and sounds have had me thinking about the small things and how if you don't pay attention, you can move through your day and miss out on them completely. How sad this would be!

Maybe it's because I live in a place with easy access to the natural world, but I find that shrinking the tangle of my mind down enough to make room for "small noticings," as the poet Sam Green calls them, makes my every day life richer. 

So wherever you might be at this moment, dare to move a little more slowly. Do look up to the sky. Pause when something catches your eye. Look at it. Really look. If you take the time to "think small," you just might see --or hear-- some truly magical things.

Lemony Banana Bread Bites
These little snack bites are inspired by Heidi Swanson's Lemony Olive Oil Banana Bread, which I make often since it's a favorite in our house. But this time, I didn't want a whole loaf, so I downsized them. They're tender, not overly sweet and are great for sharing. If you want to send them more into the treat territory (versus just snack), you can make a lemon glaze and spoon it over each one and let it set before eating. For the glaze, use equal parts brown sugar and powdered sugar, then stir in freshly squeezed lemon juice until it gets to the thickness of your liking.

Makes 2 dozen.

Adapted from The Sprouted Kitchen.

Ingredients
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup mashed, very ripe bananas
1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest

3/4 cup oat flakes
3/4 cup oat flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
1/2 cup sesame seeds, plus more for sprinkling on top
1/2 cup chopped bittersweet chocolate

2 tablespoons turbinado sugar

Instructions
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a medium bowl, whisk together oat flakes, flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, salt and brown sugar. In a separate bowl whisk together egg, vanilla extract, olive oil, maple syrup, banana and lemon zest. Add wet ingredients to dry and stir to combine. The mixture will be fairly wet. Cover and refrigerate for 20 minutes to allow it to firm up slightly. While the mixture rests, preheat oven to 375° F.

Use a small ice cream scoop (or a spoon) to scoop and drop dough onto the prepared pan. Sprinkle with sesame seeds and turbinado sugar. Bake for 12 to 14 minutes, rotating halfway through. The bites are done when you feel a bit of resistance when you press down lightly on them with a fingertip. 

If using glaze, cool completely before spooning over each bite. 

...And speaking of small things, you can't get much smaller than the amazing creatures living inside a teaspoon of ocean water...

2016 Oscar® nominated Best Original Song "MANTA RAY" written and performed by Academy Award® nominated composer J. RALPH and Academy Award® Nominated artist ANOHNI (F.K.A.

Corn and Cumin Crackers and Trying New Flavors

Recently, at morning drop off, Kingston and I stepped into the Sweetpeas schoolyard to be greeted by the most delicious aroma. Instantly, I thought of black bean soup, chili. Mexican. 

Miss Gregory was at it again, and this being Tuesday, Soup Day, I knew she was cooking up some kind of vegetable concoction with cumin in the little classroom kitchen. Cumin isn't a spice I naturally associate with cooking to please a typical American kid's palate. But of course cumin and many other spices are fed to children all over the world, from birth on (or actually even before). In fact, there is evidence that food choices mothers make during pregnancy can affect the palates, future food preferences and food memories of their children.

How cool is that?

When I walked into the kitchen that day, Gregory was busy chopping onions and carrots. I told her the schoolyard smelled amazing. We chatted on, discussing ways to get kids to try new flavors.

"Peer pressure," she told me. "When everyone's eating the same thing together, they feel like they want to eat it too."

She went on to remind me that we have to offer new foods many times to kids so that they eventually try it, become familiar with it, and eventually fold it into the range of flavors their palates find acceptable. Quite sensible, and a tactic I vow to use more. As an adult, it's sometimes easy for me to forget that learning encompasses everything for a young child, including what different foods taste like. Sometimes it's also easier to bypass the wrinkled nose and protesting and instead offer the same things until everyone ends up in a rut. 

When I left Gregory that morning, I felt inspired to follow her lead, including by eating the same meals together at home rather than making something separate for the kiddo. I'll also keep inviting Kingston into the kitchen to help with the cooking. Food always tastes better when everyone helps to make it. At least that's what I tell him. 

Here's to exploring new foods, more flavors and having fun in the kitchen!

Corn and Cumin Crackers
These are great fun for to make with a kid helper by your side. I wanted to get Kingston more familiar with the taste of cumin, so I combined it with corn, which he really likes. Here, I used corn flour, which adds sweetness and a beautiful golden color. These are delicious and keep for at least a week in an airtight container. As Kingston says, "I could eat these all day." 

Makes about 4 dozen.

Ingredients
1 cup bread flour
1 cup corn flour*
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/3 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/3 cup whole milk

Instructions
Preheat oven to 425°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Combine bread flour, corn flour, kosher salt, baking powder and baking soda in a medium bowl. Work in butter with hands or a pastry cutter. Stir in the milk. Knead the dough until it comes together. Roll out dough into a large rectangle, about 1/8" thick. Cut into small squares and transfer them to prepared baking sheets. Dock the surface of each square two or three times with the tines of a fork. Bake for 12-14 minutes, until golden. These are great eaten alone or with some cheddar cheese. 

*Corn flour is much more finely ground than cornmeal. I used flour from Bob's Red Mill for this recipe.

Herbed Soda Bread

Every year, right around Thanksgiving, my brother sends me one or two cookbooks. This is to get me in the mindset for COOKING with him when he arrives a few days before the big event. Cooking with Warren is an all-caps activity for sure. 

Call it sibling bonding, but being in the kitchen with him once a year is a real highlight for me, something that I start looking forward to months ahead of time. Before he gets here, texts with menu ideas start flying between us. Smoke the turkey or not? --Sure. Apple Pie with Bourbon Caramel? --Yes!

Warren cooks with intensity, creativity and passion. He always makes his sticky rice stuffing jammed full of Chinese pork-and-duck sausage (a crowd pleaser), but last year there were a lot of Ottolenghi-inspired dishes, like the savory cheesecake he re-created after tasting one during a recent trip to NOPI.

This time, before I received anything from Warren in the mail, he sent a text: "Let's make bread this year."

A couple of days later, a cardboard Amazon box landed next to the front door. Guess what was inside? Yep, two bread books. One by Ken Forkish and the other by Josey Baker of The Mill in San Francisco. 

The Ken Forkish book is beautiful -- thoroughly informative, down to a section on protein levels in flour and a description of him going out to one of the Eastern Washington farms that belongs to the Shepherd's Grain collective, which is where he gets his flour. Cool.

After reading the Forkish book with a great sense of reverence (which is what naturally crept into me as I went along), I was a little startled by Josey's very casual, user-friendly tone (see I'm even calling him by his first name -- he makes you feel like you should be on a first name basis). Ugh, not for me, I immediately thought. 

But then I kept flipping through, reading, and it occurred to me. What's wrong with a casual tone? Being user-friendly? With an emphasis on no special equipment needed?

Um, like, totally nothing.

Josey starts you out from the very beginning, with making loaves of bread using packets of active dry yeast. You eventually graduate to making your own sourdough starter, from which you can make a pre-ferment and hearth breads with a much deeper flavor and longer shelf life. The real thing, in other words.

I got my starter going immediately and it's been fun tending to it. Kind of like a low-maintenance, non-complaining friend or pet sitting on the counter. It couldn't be easier. It's also pretty neat that it pulls wild yeast from the air and into itself, becoming something else entirely.

The starter will be ready to go when my brother arrives, though I'll bake a few practice loaves in case I need to make the necessary adjustments before he gets here.

While tendng to the starter and reading through Josey's book, I remembered making Irish Soda Bread a long time ago. In my memory, the loaf was squat and stodgy. But, I decided to give it a fresh try, which turned out to be fun and worthwhile.

Soda bread is so incredibly easy to make that a child can do it. And, in fact, Kingston and I have been making variations of this bread lately where he gets to be in charge of nearly the whole process, from weighing the flours to mixing it all up. The only thing he doesn't get to do is slash the loaves and put them in the oven. He is, after all, only four. 

If you are thinking about becoming a bread baker and are at all nervous, this is the one to make. You will, without barely breaking a sweat, develop complete confidence. Soda bread is also the closest thing to instant gratification when it comes to baking anything bread-like.

It's utterly basic in the best sense of the word. It doesn't rely on yeast and gets its lift from the chemical reaction that happens when baking soda meets the acidity of buttermilk. (Remember that grade-school volcano experiment where you mixed baking soda and vinegar and out flowed "lava?")

Always rustic, baking up a little bit different each time but never in any way less than delicious, this fine-crumbed bread will leave you feeling like a satisfied and accomplished baker.

Bread this year? --YES! Please.

Herbed Irish Soda Bread
Have this with some soup for lunch or dinner. It's also great toasted the next day.

Barely adapted from Super Natural Every Day.

Ingredients
2 ¼ cup spelt flour (283 g)
1 ¾ all-purpose flour (221 g)
1 ¾ teaspoon baking soda
3 tablespoons chopped fresh herbs such as parsley, sage, rosemary and/or thyme (I used a mixture)
1 ¾ teaspoon salt
2 cups buttermilk 

Instructions
Place a pizza stone on middle rack of oven (you can also use a cookie sheet if you don't have a stone). Preheat oven to 400°F. 

Whisk together the two flours, baking soda and salt. Add herbs and whisk. Make a well in the center and pour in buttermilk. Stir to combine. Dough will be somewhat tacky. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Knead for about 30 seconds just to bring the dough together. Place dough on a sheet of parchment paper. Brush top with buttermilk. Generously sprinkle flour over loaf. Make two deep slashes in an “X” pattern across the top of the loaf. You may make more slashes if you like. More slashes gives the finished loaf more crusty surfaces. Slide the bread and parchment onto the pizza stone. I typically do this with the back of a cookie sheet. 

Bake for 45-50 minutes, until well-browned and loaf sounds hollow when you tap on it. Let it cool, then slice and slather with butter. Best eaten within a couple of days.

Spelt Flatbread with Butternut Squash, Sage and Brown Butter

The other day around dusk, I was standing on a trail behind our house. I was feeling a little daydreamy, glad to have time to wander through the woods with the dog before dinner.

Beneath a spot full of vine maples, I waited while the dog finished sniffing a deer fern. Suddenly, I heard a strange, rapid noise. Click-click-click-click-click! Then again, and yet again. I looked up to see leaves the size of my palm vibrating against one another in the wind. Click-click-click-click-click!

I stood for a moment then glanced down at the dog, who was now waiting for me. Well? Shall we go on? his expression seemed to ask. I remained still, listening. 

In that moment I realized for the first time since living next to the woods these six years that the sound of the wind is not one entity, a single whoosh tearing through cedars and maples, thimbleberry and birch. It is made up of many small clicks, snaps and reverberations like that of the leaves now vibrating around me. 

Such a thing may seem small, not worth holding onto. But it was a reminder to me of what our former Washington State Poet Laureate, Sam Green, calls "small noticings." At a workshop of his which I was able to attend in June, he explained that these tiny, everyday details are what make poetry come alive.

I would also argue that these "small noticings" are a lot like catching fairy dust.. When we have these miraculous particles in hand and are able to fold them into ourselves, we inevitably become more alive.

Sam Green also spoke about his daily practice of writing at least three "small noticings" in a notebook. I think it's a practice worth emulating. Do it for a few days and I swear the noise around you will dampen down while what you'd otherwise miss comes more sharply into focus. 

Here's one thing I noticed today as I drove by the lake near our house:

The waves on the Lake, crinkles on a woman's dress. 

The dog and I eventually continued on. We looped around until we returned home, where it was time to get back to the flat reality of domestic life and finish cooking some dinner. I had soup ready, but I wanted a flatbread to go with it. 

The dough was already made and had been sitting on the counter while the oven heated up. I began peeling my squash, cutting it into thin slices while considering the wind and its many incarnations. Some, like these, whose very names impart magic...Papagayo. Mistral. Typhoon.

Spelt Flatbread with Butternut Squash, Sage and Brown Butter
A flatbread is just a flatbread, right? Not always. This one is sweet, nutty and savory, with crispy bits of aromatic sage. If food could be described as being as delicious as a poem, this humble Fall flatbread would be it. (No exaggeration!)

Dough barely adapted from Jim Lahey.

Makes two 12-inch flatbreads.

Ingredients
For the brown butter:
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 generous handfuls of large sage leaves

For the dough:
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour (263 g)
1 cup spelt flour (123 g)
1/4 teaspoon active dry yeast
2 teaspoons fine sea salt
1 1/4 cup water

To complete the flatbread:
1 small red onion cut in half then thinly sliced
1 small butternut squash, peeled, cut in half, seeds removed
salt
freshly ground black pepper

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 500° F. If using a pizza stone, place stone on top rack.

Make the brown butter:
In a small saucepan, melt butter over low heat. Once barely melted, add sage leaves and allow to crisp. Remove sage and set aside. Keep a close eye on the butter, as from here it can quickly go from brown to burnt. When brown and nutty, remove from heat and set aside.

Make the dough:
In a medium bowl, whisk together flours, yeast and salt. Add water and mix together using a wooden spoon. The dough will appear quite damp. No need for alarm. This is okay.

Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap. I like to place a kitchen towel on top as well.  Allow to rest at room temperature for 18 hours, or until the dough has doubled in size. 

Divide the dough in half. On a floured surface take one portion at a time and gently fold it four times, starting with the right side and going around counterclockwise. Shape dough into a ball. Repeat with the other portion. Cover both with a towel while you prepare the topping.

Prepare topping and put it all together:
Very thinly slice butternut squash using a knife or even better, a mandoline if you have one. Make enough slices to cover the surface of a 12-inch round of dough (about 12-14 slices per, you may have extra depending on the size of your squash). Set aside. 

On a piece of parchment paper stretch out one round of dough until it is approximately 12-inches in diameter. The dough should be quite thin once stretched out.

Places slices of butternut squash on the round of dough. Scatter crisped sage leaves. Drizzle brown butter over the squash. Brush edges of dough with more butter. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. Slide onto pizza stone and bake for 11-12 minutes, until golden and crusty.

Repeat process with remaining dough. If you really want to live large, drizzle more butter over the finished flatbreads. 

And now, for a little poetry...

Teff and Coconut Waffles

Since I got my hands on Kim Boyce's Good to the Grain a few years back, I've been interested in using wheat-alternative grains and flours. But it wasn't until last year that I really started playing around with a wider variety of them.

See, a good friend of mine was coming up to visit us from California. Briana is the world's best pediatric occupational therapist (OT), a person who is always smiling and shining her light out onto the world. I had the opportunity to work with her and learn so much about helping traumatized children with sensory issues.  

She was also diagnosed with MS several years ago. When Bri told me she and her family were coming to visit, we talked about her health. She told me that cutting gluten out of her diet was helping her to feel significantly better on a day-to-day basis.

They were going to be with us for a few days and I wanted Bri to feel good while she was with us. So, I started to do some deeper exploring.

With further guidance mostly from Alice Medrich, I baked enough to feed the neighborhood using alternatives such as rice and oat flour, teff, buckwheat and sorghum. I handed out "extra" scones, cookies, cakes and biscuits to those willing to take them. 

One grain I came across during my exploring and experimenting seemed especially interesting: teff. I recalled that it was used to make the spongy, fermented Ethiopian bread, injera. 

The grains are tiny, about the size of poppy seeds. Because they are so small, they are ground whole to make flour, keeping all the nutrition from the bran and germ intact. They are loaded with high amounts of calcium, vitamin C and amino acids, as described here. 

The teff flour I found locally was a light brownish-slate color and slightly gritty to the touch. But I soon found that when cooked whole, it could be made into a porridge resembling polenta. It could also be added to soups and stews as a thickener. 

While Bri was here with her husband and kids, we enjoyed lazy days at the lake, dangling our feet from the dock and into the cool water, chatting and catching up with one another.

We cooked and ate plenty too, including Pacific Northwest salmon and blackberries picked from around the neighborhood. I even made her a birthday cake (coconut flour) filled with plum jam. But I forgot about using the teff I had!

They're planning to come back next year, at which point I will pull the flour jar out of the freezer to make these waffles just for them. 

Teff and Coconut Waffles

This recipe, adapted from Alice Medrich, is free of both dairy and gluten. You might feel that it's a bit of work to separate the eggs and beat the whites separately. However, the fluffed up whites do give the waffles lightness that I find worth the effort. The shredded coconut adds texture, and the coconut oil provides crispness. If you prefer to use butter instead, go for it! I am a staunch member of the I Love Butter Club. Just make sure you eat these waffles while they are warm and crisp. That is when they are at their very best.

Makes 5 large waffles or 8 smaller ones.

Ingredients
1 cup teff flour
1/4 cup dried, shredded coconut (unsweetened)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
2 large eggs, separated and at room temperature
1 cup warm coconut milk (or, substitute whole milk or other milk of your choice)
1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
2 tablespoons coconut sugar (or, substitute brown sugar)

Instructions
Preheat oven to 200°. Prepare a baking sheet and set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together teff flour, coconut, baking powder and salt. Add the two egg yolks and milk, stirring together until combined and no flour lumps remain.

In a clean, dry mixing bowl place egg whites and cream of tartar. Beat until egg whites start to form soft peaks. Sprinkle in the sugar and continue beating until the sugar is incorporated and the whites just start to form stiff peaks but are not dry.

Fold egg whites into flour mixture, using a light touch, until just combined.

Pour batter into waffle iron and cook according to the manufacturer's instructions. Place waffles on baking sheet and keep warm in the oven as you cook the remaining batter. 

Serve warm with the topping of your choice. We're plain sorts around here when it comes to waffles. Or, call us purists, as our household preference is for a generous pour of maple syrup.