vicious sweet tooth

Hey y’all!  Hope your Thursday was awesome!

Today was my day off and I did have plans to head up to see my parents, but those changed at the last-minute, hopefully I’ll get up there next week! So, I pretty much spent the day at home and in the kitchen, which is my favorite place anyways. It definitely has become the place where I can just put all things aside and create (or attempt) to create goodness – kind of like a therapy session.  So, I spent the day cleaning it a bit, organizing my spices and spice cabinet and even tried my hand a couple of recipes today.

Today’s key ingredient was SPELT FLOUR!

Here’s a little more info on spelt, which I’m using more and more these days, especially since I think the hubby might have a sensitivity to wheat.  It’s certainly scoring some major points with me with the recipes I’ve tried this week.

Breakfast: I had 2 carrot ginger chia spelt muffins - so yummy!! – There’s spelt in these!

muffin

First fun project on tap today was to make Spelt Tortillas which I have been drooling over at Oh She Glows….this is the 2nd recipe I’ve tried this week…Angela  sure makes some tasty treats.  I really need to do more research when it comes to making breads.  That is one of the things I struggle with the most…my doughs tend not to rise enough or my dough is too sticky, etc.  But Angela made these look so easy and I’ve been buying spelt flour lately, so I thought I’d give it a try.  Sure, I could purchase these in the store and save me lots of time, but who doesn’t love that sense of accomplishment knowing that what you’re consuming was made by you and it’s always great to know exactly what is going into your food/body.  I think that might be one of my top reasons for trying to recreate things at home – just so I can control what goes in.  I might be  somewhat of a control freak – but let’s keep that between us.

A little "Rustic" looking - eh?

Ingredients: Spelt Flour, olive oil, salt, baking soda and water – love the simple ingredient list.

So, I followed her recipe and my dough was actually pretty sticky after mixing everything in the beginning, but I let it sit for 20 mins like she said and then I added a little more flour because I couldn’t tear the dough into separate pieces without it clinging all over my hands.

Spelt Flour, salt and soda added

Olive Oil Added

Water added

See how sticky it looks?  Hmm, not sure why, but I covered it and put it on the stove where it was a little warm for 20 mins.

After mixing - now let sit for 20 mins

After 20 mins, I pinched the dough (after adding a little more flour) into 8 dough balls, which I then covered and let sit for another 20 mins

Pinched into 8 dough balls

Then it was time to roll out and again I had to add a little more flour because it was super sticky and would stick to the rolling pin I used.  I also don’t think that I got these as thin as they should be

Trying to Roll out into circles

I placed the rolled out tortilla on a piece of parchment paper

All rolled out and ready to cook!

Cooking up - over med heat in a dry skillet

Once browned, I flipped over and cooked for just a little loner

Cooking in the skillet

My “Rustic” attempt at Homemade Spelt Tortillas

Ta-Da!!

So in the end I might have added anywhere from 1/4 cup to 1/3 cup of extra flour, but I need to test that next time.  And trust me, I’ll be making these again…probably this week – they taste awesome.

Mine really look nothing like Angela’s and I need practice rolling them out, but they still tasted great which is most important!

I also did some “housekeeping” things around the kitchen and straightened things up, I HATE a messy kitchen – it throws things off balance.  Anyway, I decided to finally put to use all of the glass jars I’ve been saving.  I’ve been seeing so many cute spice displays out in the blog world lately that I felt the need to do something to mine. Although I really relish at the thought of having nice, uniform glass containers for all of my spices, I’m simply not at that stage yet.  So, I recycled my jars and took out the spices that were in plastic bags and plastic containers and placed them in the jars.  Most of the jars and kind of large, but they look better now that they’re in a new home

New Home for my spices

And then I felt the need to re-arrange the spice cabinet, mainly because I have to put all of these in there somewhere, which I didn’t think about until I was almost done putting everything in the jars, but luckily there was enough room!

Newly Organized

I also oiled my wooden rolling pin and 2 mini cutting boards that get so much use.  I used this Wood and Bamboo Oil I  got at Crate and Barrel – pure and environmentally friendly ingredients are used, got a love that.

Cutting Boards + Rolling pin

I even managed to get in 2 workouts today – one early this morning since I thought I’d be heading out to see my parents for the day and then one later this afternoon, I felt the need to run some more after sampling today’s spelt tortilla’s.

Workout:

• First Session – 10 min warm-up, walking on treadmill, 4 miles – 41:00mins, 5 min cool-down and stretching + 10 min elliptical
• Second Session – 10 min warm-up, walking, 3 miles running – 30:00mins, 5 min walk uphill, 5 min cool-down, walking

After I came home, I decided to make me some dinner – I came across this post on making falafel the other day at The Edible Perspective and it looked so yummy.

Dinner: 2 Falafel patties atop spinach, tomato and Greek yogurt with a little salt and pepper

Falafel & Spinach Salad

Here’s what my mixture looked like before I formed them into patties.  The directions say to form 1/4 cup, but then I only got 5 patties, so I re-worked them because the recipe said it made 8 servings, so I ended up with forming 8 patties and then I baked on 350 degrees for about 15 mins or so, until the outside was a little crusty, but the inside was kind of soft. Yep, there’s spelt flour in here as well.

Chickpea goodness

As a side note, I didn’t have any tahini, so I toasted up all of the sesame seeds I had on hand and threw that in the food processor and ground it up before adding the other ingredients.  I also added a little bit of Greek yogurt since I didn’t have any tahini and only used a small amount of lemon zest and lemon juice  and taste it along and adjust to your liking.  Oh, and I added a little bit of red chili flakes for a slight kick.

I can’t wait to have these in a homemade spelt tortilla wrap for lunch tomorrow. I also wanted to make the Naan recipe because it looked amazing and seemed to turn out well.  I’ve tried to make it before with less than stellar results, so this recipe made me excited to try it again.  Unfortunately, I didn’t see any bread flour at the store today, so I’ll have to pick it up later this week or put it on the list for next week.

Before I peace out….here’s the Song of the Day.  King of Anything by Sara Bareilles.  I’ve been hearing this a lot at work and just love her lyrics and melodies.

Night y’all!