breads Archives • Page 2 of 2 • Ant & Anise

The Paleo Diet Challenge: Day 17

Exciting news! I’ve found a Paleo bread that is quite acceptable.

It is a flatbread, though. I have yet to crack the code on Paleo sandwich bread (or a baguette of sorts), except maybe in my dreams. (Sigh.)

So far, I’ve experimented with a couple recipes to work some bread-like food into the challenge, but success has eluded me. The muffins and banana bread both passed through my taste and texture hoops, but the plainer bread I tried, in the hopes of making some toast for breakfast some day, didn’t come close to making it through any kind of hoop at all. Not even off the ground.

I’m starting to think that, perhaps, the key to enjoying any kind of Paleo bread is expectation management. Yep. Like several things in life, lower those expectations a notch or two and you might be pleasantly surprised by how you feel.

That’s exactly what happened with the eggplant-based flatbread I made. Eggplant as a bread, really? Dead simple to make and, even better, I wasn’t even expecting to like it but I did. Much better than I thought I would. It definitely has an eggplant-y flavor, but the texture is chewy and has a graininess that reminds me of a hearty multigrain bread, albeit on the very, very thin side.

No, it’s not what I would pair with peanut butter for breakfast, but it did toast up relatively well to have with a nibble of cheese. It also made a softer, more substantial base for a smoked salmon and cream cheese appetizer that I usually make with puff pastry.

Eggplant Flatbread

Adapted from Make It Paleo by Bill Staley and Haley Mason, where they use it as a base for pizza.

Ingredients

1 medium eggplant
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons (10 tablespoons) grain-free 'flour' substitute (flax seed meal, almond meal, coconut flour) - use all of one type or mix it up to equal 10 tablespoons
1 egg
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350F. Cut 2 sheets of parchment paper to fit your pan.
Peel the eggplant and grate. (I used my food processor with the shredding blade.) Transfer the eggplant to a fine mesh strainer and, over the sink, squeeze the eggplant into a ball to drain the liquid out. Transfer the eggplant to a medium sized bowl.
Add the grain-free 'flour' to the bowl and mix to combine. Add the egg and mix thoroughly. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Transfer the batter to the baking sheet lined with 1 sheet of the parchment, and flatten out with a spatula or your hands until it’s about 1/8” thick.
Bake for 30-35 minutes. Remove from the oven.
Here's where it gets a little tricky: Brush some olive oil on the flatbread, and then place the second piece of parchment over it. Nest a baking sheet (bottom side down) right on top of the parchment, then carefully flip the whole thing over. Slide the flatbread back onto the original baking sheet. Slowly peel back the parchment paper on the top of the eggplant (what used to be the bottom), and brush the top lightly with a little more olive oil.
Bake for another 15 minutes or until slightly brown around the edges. Remove from oven, cool and slice.

More on the Paleo diet challenge:
Why I’m doing it in the first place
My plan for the 30 days

The Paleo Diet Challenge: Day 11

The answer to my question yesterday seems to be a definite maybe. Like a lot of things, it’s tough to nail it on your first try.

I’ve done a fair amount of searching for Paleo bread recipes in the past week and a half. The first thing that struck me is the amount of eggs involved. There are typically many, many eggs in Paleo bread. I guess it makes sense, really, because without any gluten to give some structure and help it rise, the bread needs something to achieve a texture that is lighter than, say, a door stop. With cakes and other baked goods, eggs are definitely the go-to ingredient when you want light and fluffy, particularly when you beat the whites separately and fold them in to a batter. (Just like we do with our waffles.)

When I came across a recipe for a grain-free sandwich bread that uses coconut flour and flax meal, and the accompanying picture looked great, I thought fabulous! Here I go, with the promise of enjoying a nice slice of Paleo toast in the morning.

Unfortunately, the result was less than stellar.

The loaf actually looked pretty nice, especially with the sesame seeds sprinkled on top. The texture was pretty good as well, denser than a regular bread but I was expecting that anyway. No, it was the eggs that sunk this one. It smelled quite eggy when I sliced it but when I toasted it up, the eggy smell really intensified and was, for me anyway, pretty off-putting. Instead of enjoying the toast I almost gagged. Yuck.

Note to self: When a bread recipe calls for 7 eggs in one loaf (7!), you will not like it.

To help erase my first Paleo baking disaster I consoled myself by making some banana bread, which was delicious, nutty and dense. Maybe I’ll just stick with quick breads for now.

Paleo Banana Bread

Adapted from Comfy Belly's banana bread -- I left out the oil, cut back on the honey, and ended up with a very enjoyable, very moist (but not greasy) loaf. One thing I enjoy with baking without wheat flour is not having to worry about over mixing the batter (and therefore ending up with a tough quick bread). Mix away to your heart's content! Within reason, of course.

Ingredients

3/4 cup almond flour
1/4 cup coconut flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 eggs
2 ripe bananas, mashed
2 tablespoons honey
1/2 cup pecans

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350° F. Line a loaf pan with parchment paper.
Blend the dry ingredients together in a medium sized bowl. In a stand mixing bowl with the paddle attachment, beat the eggs together for 2 minutes, then mix in the mashed banana.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix well to ensure the batter is well blended. Stir in the pecans.
Add the batter to your loaf pan and bake for 40 minutes, or until browned and a cake tester inserted in the middle comes out clean. Remove from oven and let cool before slicing.

More on the Paleo diet challenge:
Why I’m doing it in the first place
My plan for the 30 days

Roasted Tomato Pizza Sauce

There’s a saying that when the student is ready, the teacher appears. That’s kind of how it felt when you made the roasted tomatoes for that cheesy, puff pastry appetizer.

I recently found a new pizza dough recipe and was eager to try it, but was hesitating because I’d never been able to make a good, tomato-y sauce. Years ago I attempted it several times and ended up with nothing better than, well, red paste with not much flavor. Frustrated, I just gave up on making my own pizza – for good.

But that’s crazy, right? I tackle complicated new recipes often enough, and they almost always turn out great. And pizza is supposed to be easy to make. What was it about the sauce that had me defeated before I had even started?

The appetizer you made was delicious. (Aside from the roasted tomatoes, when there’s puff pastry and melted cheese involved, what’s not to love?) But it was when I tried one of the sweet, smoky tomatoes straight from your roasting pan that afternoon that I suddenly thought pizza sauce, I just might have found a way to conquer you for good.

So there I was a few days later, me and 5 pounds of ripe tomatoes in the kitchen.

I tried the same recipe you did and got the sweet-smoky complexity I was after. Yes! But a whole cup of oil seemed like a lot. Tomatoes are pretty juicy anyway, so I ended up with lots of extra liquid that I didn’t want.

So the next time around, I used the quicker-cooking variation: I took the seeds and other watery bits from the center of the tomato first, and reduced the oil by more than half. This reduced the roasting time to 2 hours (from 3) but – even better – produced tomatoes with much less liquid and an even more intense, smoky, tomato-y punch. Just what I needed to end my homemade pizza hiatus for good.

Roasted Tomato Pizza Sauce

Yield: 5 cups

You can find the Fine Cooking recipe for slow-roasted tomatoes here. This is the adjusting I did to arrive at my really ridiculously good pizza sauce.

Ingredients

5 pounds medium sized very ripe tomatoes, stemmed
1/2 cup olive oil
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
sea salt
granulated sugar
4 cloves garlic, sliced thin
2 tablespoons thyme leaves

Instructions

Heat oven to 350F. Line two 11x17" rimmed baking sheets with foil, then with parchment paper.
Cut the tomatoes crosswise. Scoop out the seeds and any pulp in the middle, and then arrange cut side up on the prepared baking sheets.
Sprinkle a pinch of salt, then sugar, over each tomato. Arrange a slice of garlic and sprinkle the thyme over the tomatoes. Drizzle a little balsamic vinegar over each tomato, and then drizzle the oil (sparingly, but believe me 1/2 cup is enough!) over the tomatoes and on the bottom of the baking sheets.
Roast in the middle of the oven for 1 hour. Remove from oven and redistribute the juices by pressing down slightly on the tomatoes with a spatula and tilting the baking sheet around. (The aim here is ensure there's some liquid on the baking sheets so the bottoms of the tomatoes don't scorch.)
Roast for 1 more hour, until the tomatoes are browned, shrunken and concentrated. Remove from oven and cool on baking sheets for 30 minutes.
In batches, place the tomatoes in a fine mesh strainer over the sink and press out any excess liquid. Transfer tomatoes to a food processor and pulse to a sauce-like consistency. Refrigerate for up to a week, or freeze for up to 3 months. I portion out the sauce in small packages before I freeze it, so when I feel a craving for homemade pizza coming on -- which is fairly often these days -- I've got a perfectly-sized amount ready to go.

Aside from pizza sauce, these roasted tomatoes have worked their way in to a number of dishes I’ve been making lately. Here are some ideas to try:

Warm up a few roasted tomatoes and place whole on top of toasted baguette slices with goat cheese spread on them, for some amped-up goat cheese crostini. These are great on their own or as a hearty topping for a main course salad.
Slice and toss with shaved parmesan cheese and arugula for a substantial salad accompaniment to grilled meat or fish instead of your regular green veggie side dish.
Tuck inside a baguette with cheese and lettuce for an everyday gourmet kind of sandwich.
As a twist on the ‘full English’ – instead of a broiled tomato, warm a couple of roasted tomatoes in the oven and serve with eggs and bacon….and the baked beans of course.