Sea Salt vs Table Salt

Just a quick post with a couple links to some well-written articles about sea salt that have given me something to think about recently. Paul parents are in from England for a visit right now, so it's harder to find time to post, but I'm hoping to get a post up soon about our trip to the WV State Wildlife Center.

Somewhere along the way, I must have heard that sea salt is better for you than regular table salt. I knew this so I've bought sea salt the last couple times I was able to visit a bulk foods store. But I really wasn't sure why it was different--the stuff I buy looks just like table salt. Then there's Kosher salt, and I've got some cheese salt in the cupboard for making my cheeses. There's also a box of salt to use for canning foods. It all gets a bit confusing.

This weekend, we stopped at the bulk foods store on our way home from the Wildlife Center. I love poking around there and picking up things I can't get in town, but I don't get there frequently because it's over an hour from home in a direction that I normally don't have reason to travel. So when we do pass that direction, I generally try to stop there. This time, I picked up some whole grains to use with my grain mill and some soy flour to use in the next HBin5 bread which is gluten free. Then I remembered we were very low on sea salt, so I went to get some more of it. I noticed a funny colored salt labeled sea salt next to the little tub of white salt that looked just like table salt, but labeled sea salt. I wondered what the difference was between the sea salts and even between the table salt and sea salt, but didn't have any answers. The funny colored stuff was more expensive and looked kind of dirty. I went for the white stuff, but still wondered about it. Then this morning I came across a couple of articles about sea salt and its benefits. Interesting reads!

As it turns out, I should have tried the more expensive stuff. The reason it looks "dirty" is that it is full of the natural minerals salt is made of before it is stripped and refined to the stuff we are used to seeing on the table.  Sea salts come in a rainbow of colors as illustrated by the sea salt sampler pictured at the top of this post. The processing of salt removes all the good stuff that it comes with to the point that iodine has to be reintroduced to the salt. Sea salt has iodine naturally occurring in the minute bits of sea life that are left intact with sun-drying. It seems clumpy because it doesn't have additives to help it pour smoothly. Some sea salts have been processed almost as much as regular table salt, so the benefits of sea salt are essentially gone--like the stuff I bought!

Check out these links to read a bit more about it. I'm going to be doing some more reading on this subject myself and would love to hear your take on the salt issue. Do you take a side in the sea salt vs. table salt debate?

The Health Benefits of Sea Salt

A Guidemap for Finding Real Salt

Salt Your Way to Health

HBinFive: Carrot Bread and Olive Spelt Bread

This time around our HBin5 mission were two breads with veggies included-carrot bread and olive spelt bread. I still have spelt flour hanging around from the red beet buns, so I knew I was going to be making the  olive spelt one. And the carrot bread sounded tasty as well, so I got on board with both breads. 

I only made half a recipe of the carrot bread because I wasn't sure how the family would like it and I didn't want to put myself through the temptation of having to finish it all myself! The carrot bread calls for dried fruit to be added, so I used dates and apples. I had read several comments that the included coconut didn't show up strongly in the finished product, so I doubled the amount called for, and while it could be detected, it was still pretty light in coconut flavor. I also used all freshly milled white wheat flour for this bread instead of half wheat and half all-purpose. I wanted to make mine into a braid, so I refrigerated the dough before using it. I used half to form a braid and put the other half into some muffin pans I have with heart designs on the bottom. I wasn't impressed with how the breads looked after baking--they were definitely not the prettiest breads I have made. The braid turned out flat-looking, and the muffins didn't really show the designs from the bottom of the pan well. I decided to use the cream cheese honey cream cheese icing to top the breads with and the icing hid all the unprettiness, and they turned out looking fairly appetizing after all. Everyone said they tasted good, and I really liked this bread. The icing topping was pretty tasty as well. I read several comments from others who baked this bread and said it wasn't very sweet, but you couldn't tell with the icing.

I wasn't sure what kind of olives to get for my olive spelt bread, but found a jar of assorted olives marinated in some kind of wine and herbs combination. Unfortunately for me, the olives weren't pitted and let's just say, it takes quite a while pit a jar of olives! I had fresh yogurt from our goats' milk to use for this dough. I had the spelt flour, as I said, but again instead of using all-purpose flour, I just used some of my own flour ground from the white winter wheat. It's a lot lighter than whole wheat along the lines of the white wheat flour. I thought this dough sounded like a great base for a pizza, so I used about a fourth of it for making a pizza for lunch the other day. I topped it with pizza sauce, mozzarella, and turkey pepperoni. It was a bit hard to roll out because of the olives in the dough and I kept ripping holes in the crust, but managed to pinch it all together. Paul and I enjoyed it, and I loved the mix of olives in the dough. Ivy commented on why I couldn't just make something normal, but this didn't stop her from eating more pizza than either Paul or I did! She just said it would have been better without the olives. I still have some of this dough left and think I will probably wind up with a couple more pizzas from it, but think I might make a little round loaf from it to really see how the bread tastes on its own. If I make this one again, I'm definitely going with pitted olives!! (And I didn't get a picture of the pizza, because we really all were pretty hungry when it came out of the oven, but it looked pretty tasty--you'll have to trust me on that one!)

As there has been some discussion in the HBin5 group about making yogurt, I wanted to comment a little about it. I started making yogurt before we were getting milk from our goats, but now I make our yogurt from our own fresh milk and it's so tasty! I started out with just making it by adding a couple bottles of hot water wrapped in towels to the cooler with the warm innoculated milk and leaving it in the cooler all day to set up, but this year I bought a yogurt maker  (here) and I love how easy it makes the incubation period of the yogurt making. You still have to heat your milk and let it cool off before you add your yogurt in. But once it is ready, you can just put your containers right into the yogurt maker and let it keep your milk at the right temperature until it is yogurt. It's not a necessity for making yogurt, but it sure makes things easier. My yogurt maker came with 7 little cups for making individual servings of yogurt and a lid that fits over the little cups, but it also came with a tall lid that lets you use larger containers in your maker. I usually make two quart jars of yogurt at a time, but it could easily fit three and maybe four, I just haven't tried that many. This latest time that I made yogurt, I made a quart of plain to have some to use in my bread and a quart of strawberry. I hadn't added fruit to the yogurt before incubating it before, but the booklet with my maker had a few recipes to try. You have to cook the fruit first before adding it to the milk, and you add some sugar to the fruit while it cooks. All the fruit sank to the bottom while the yogurt incubated, but I strained the yogurt when it was done to make it a little thicker and creamier and then stirred the fruit through the yogurt, and it was so yummy! I'm looking forward to trying other flavors of fruit yogurts now that I saw how well that turned out.

You can check out what others did with these doughs by visiting the HBin5 Bread Braid hosted at Big Black Dog.

Rick & Bubba's Big Honkin' Book of Grub by Rick Burgess and Bill "Bubba" Bussey

Even if you (like myself) hadn’t heard of the Rick and Bubba show before, you can still enjoy their southern wisdom and humor in this latest offering from them. This book offers a tongue-in-cheek diet plan, the “Hey, You Gotta Live” diet, with no fussy counting of calories, points, or fat grams. With all the diet plans that tell you what foods to avoid, let me just warn you that Rick and Bubba find very few reasons to say “no” to food, but what did you honestly expect from this pair dubbed “America‘s sexiest fat men”?

This book made me laugh. I enjoyed their coverage of topics ranging from Spam to casseroles to peanut butter to dressing.  Their style is humorous and easy to read. Although there aren’t many recipes in this book, the smattering of included recipes look fairly tasty and easy to fix. What’s not to love about recipes called Rick and Bubba‘s World-Famous “Goat Drop Cookies” or Peanut Butter Bars of Joy ? And I feel much better knowing that choosy sexy fat people choose Jif since that’s the brand I reach for as well (and I thought it was because I was a choosy mom!)

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com <http://BookSneeze.com> book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Baby Binky Bunny

Been meaning to make this cute pattern from mmmcrafts for quite a while and had the perfect excuse this week--a baby shower. I made the bunny and a matching blanket for the gift. I decided to try it in denim, lifting my years old ban of denim in my sewing room after a frustrating round of broken needles way back when I tried to sew a skirt for myself as a young teenager. I think it turned out very cute, and it got a lot of "I want ones" at the shower. My mom walked Holly out of the room while the gift was opened because she immediately claimed the bunny as hers when I brought it out of the sewing room yesterday. It took about 3-4 hours for me to sew up, so I didn't have time to run back into the sewing room to make her one.

The pattern is even on sale thru April 3 for 20% bringing the price to $8.00. Visit mmmcrafts Etsy shop to check out this and other cute patterns.

And not to hog the whole post to myself, I've been meaning to share this stained glass picture that I recently had "commissioned" for my kitchen. It's the first big picture that Paul has made from a design picked specifically by me and for me, and I think it turned out rather nice!

Hello old friend!

Can it be?



I think it is!

Spring has sprung!

After what has seemed like one of the longest winters since our family moved to WV almost 20 years ago, it's finally behind us. I do feel wary saying that too loud as it may be tempting the fates to give us one final round of the winter, but the calendar and the weather outside are both in agreement that it is officially spring. I even saw my first robins for the year this week.

Today was absolutely gorgeous, and we took advantage of it with a little playtime outside.

Going for Broke!

I think they are trying to break me! A couple e-pattern designers that I happen to really like have both put their patterns on sale at the same time. I'm not sure my budget can sustain this kind of temptation.

I've had my eye on Oh Sew Dollin's patterns for quite a while, but hadn't taken the plunge to buy one yet. But she ran a quicky sale last week and I snagged a pattern while they were on sale. I had a chance to look it over and found it clear and well written. So when she put her patterns on sale this week, I couldn't help but gather a few more into my collection, right? Stay tuned for some Oh Sew Dollin' cuteness coming soon from yours truly!

About the sale: She's got her patterns on sale right now for $5.50 each,(regularly $7.95) but only until 9pm central standard time this evening! So get right over there if you want to check out her patterns. According to her blog, this is going to be the last sale for a while, so don't miss out! She has tons of cute, cute raggedy dolls and bunnies and kitties and bear patterns to choose from, and she's right on top of emailing them out quickly after you pay for your purchase. Here are links to Oh Sew Dollin's shop and her blog.

That wasn't enough for my poor pocketbook, though. Yesterday I saw that Keyka Lou is running a sale on her patterns. The City Tote pattern (pictured below on left) has been in my sights for quite a while, and I'm afraid that budget or not, this pattern will soon become mine! I recently bought the Easy Grocery Bag pattern pictured above and have had a chance to sew a couple up. It's a steal at $5 even without a sale. I've been meaning to post about them, but haven't had a chance to get decent pictures yet! Her patterns are well written and easy to follow and turn out beautiful. I also love the Lots of Pockets Tote (below top right) and the Belted Tote (below bottom right) patterns. Decisions, decisions...

About the sale: Keyka Lou has started her anniversary sale early this year. (I'm not sure when this is running until.) She's offering individual patterns for $5.00 from her shop or 2/$10 from her Etsy shop. (My suggestion--use her shop and you can download them instantly!) Her bag patterns normally range from $5-$8 each. So this is a great chance to grab up a couple of really sweet bag patterns. She's also got a couple finished items for sale in her Etsy shop as well. Here are links to Keyka Lou's pattern shop, Etsy shop and blog.

If you haven't tried a PDF pattern before, they great because you print out the pieces on your own printer. If the pattern piece is larger than one piece of paper, you tape them together along the markings on the pattern. If you buy patterns from Etsy, you will receive an email from the seller with the PDF file attached. Some patterns you can even download as soon as you pay for them for instant gratification. No waiting for patterns to show up in the snail mail! Pay, print, sew. The file stays on your computer, and you can reprint the pieces if you lose them or wear them out. These two sellers are very generous in allowing their patterns to be used in making items offered for sale. Not everyone allows commercial profit from items made from their patterns, so be sure to check that out if you think you might like to offer items for sale.

Here's hoping that Bit of Whimsy doesn't decide to put her patterns on sale because I'm quite sure I've already documented my weakness for her cute designs!

HBinFive: Pesto Pine Nut Bread

This time for our breads, we were given the assignments of Avocado-Guacamole Bread and Pesto Pine Nut Bread.

When I first got the book, the avocado-guacamole bread caught my eye right away. I love avocado and wanted to give this bread a try. It was the first or second bread I made from Healthy Breads in Five. I'm just going to work from memory on this one because I didn't make the dough again for the group. I thought the bread was pretty tasty myself and liked the chunks of tomato that you could see when you sliced into the bread. The kids didn't like this bread, and Paul was pretty lukewarm about it as I recall. I tried freezing part of the dough to make a loaf another time from it, but I think the veggies didn't appreciate being frozen. It turned very weepy when I defrosted it and made a very flat, unappetizing loaf. I know some of the doughs say that you can freeze them and use later and this didn't happen to be one of the recipes that said that, so I should have paid more attention there. I suppose I would have been better off baking the dough and freezing the loaf. A whole batch of this dough was more than our family could really get through.

Our family loves the flavors in pesto, so I decided to make a whole batch of the pesto pine nut bread. When Ivy saw the jar of pesto, she wanted to know when we were having pesto and was disappointed that I was using it for bread. And the pine nuts barely made it to the bread since someone who will remain unnamed decided to snarf down a good deal of the bag without asking permission. (His name starts with P...) So I was working with slightly less than 1/2 a cup of pine nuts, but I figured it wouldn't be a huge difference. I also used more wheat flour than the recipe called for and less all purpose flour. I had the spelt flour from the beet rolls and used it and about 3.5 cups of fresh-milled wheat flour and about 1.5 cups of a.p. flour. I mixed the dough this afternoon and decided I would make a loaf from the unrefrigerated dough since it seems to give a better rise for me most of the time. It was pretty sticky to work with and when I shaped the first loaf, I decided we'd probably need two loaves, so I made another one, too. The house smelled delicious while they baked.

I wanted to serve the bread with fresh mozzarella and turkey burgers. I still don't know where I went wrong with the mozzarella, but it didn't come together like it should have. I wasn't paying attention when I started the mozzarella and was working from a different recipe than I normally use. It was more like a ricotta texture when I was done, and I couldn't stretch it at all like mozzarella is supposed to because it just was a gloppy mess. I still scooped a bit of the cheese onto my burger and popped it under the broiler. It didn't taste bad, just not what was expected. I was a bit annoyed to waste a gallon of milk on that. I know that the expression "Don't cry over spilled milk" originated with reference to someone who did their own milking because it's just more disappointing to waste the milk when you actually put in the labor to get it!

Despite the disappointing turnout of the cheese, we had the bread for dinner with turkey burgers still. Paul and Ivy both said the bread was good. As they didn't really care for the veggie side I made with dinner, I guess the bread was the best part of the meal. Didn't garner any raves this time around like the olive oil bread did. I'm going to use the leftover bread to make pizza, I think. Although this was a tasty bread, I think I would probably just go for a plain loaf and put the pesto on the pasta next time. Plus pine nuts are a little pricey to do very often. (As a side note, when I make pesto, I've found that walnuts are a very tasty and much less costly substitute for pine nuts.)

You can see what others did with this dough by visiting the HBin5 Bread Braid hosted at Big Black Dog.