Paulchens FoodBlog?!

No time for bla bla – Take me directly to the recipe!

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

The ever lovely Jamie Schler recently wrote an article over at Huffington Post about The Disappearing “Pause Déjeuner” and I have to admit that she made me think…

Looking back to my own childhood and family eating habits I think the French have a very very nice and important tradition and as Jamie says it would be very sad if it would disappear. Having the possibility to take a break midway through our ever so hectic working life sounds like heaven to me.

Never had that but it still sounds divine…
When I was about 10 years old and me and my family went on our first “big” holidays outside Austria to Italy we all were puzzled that all the shops (even most of the restaurants) would be closed between 12 and 15 pm. It wasn’t easy for the first few days to adapt to that new to us situation but eventually we adjusted and in the end really liked it.

Well, you are not under too much stress in your holidays, right?
But eventually I found out why the Italians were much more relaxed in the afternoons and evenings: having had a little break over lunchtime  (with or without their families) must be a real stress killer…

Back at home we never had the chance in our family to enjoy lunch together – schools ended at 15:00/16:00 pm and only had a short 30 min break at lunchtime where we either enjoyed our sandwiches from home or ate at the school cafeteria.
Dad worked too far away from home to have the chance to come home for lunch and even Mom only had a 30 min to 1 hour break at her workplace even tho she worked quite near home it would not make much sense for her to drive home. Mostly she worked through that lunch break anyway to be able to fetch us kids from school and spend more time in the late afternoons with us…

What really was treasured was the sacred lunchtime and dinner at Sunday because this was the only day where the family was together at eating times.

I loved that Sundays!
Breakfast was a whole other story – that never worked for us since we had 2 very very early birds (my father and my brother) and 2 long sleepers (my Mom and I) breakfast was not an option to enjoy together. The positive for all of us was that we were able to start into the day just the way it suited us best – at least at the weekends.

Plus – best in my book: when me and Mom got up the breakfast table was already set and all we needed to do was sit down and enjoy while the men were already out and about doing the manly things,… ;o)

Nowadays when I am over at their place for a weekend I feel how peaceful it makes me enjoying the meals and coffee breaks with all of my close family members at the table. I treasure this moments and take them back home into my hectic everyday day life till I visit them next time.

Looking back at my grown up life I seldom had the time to take a long break and sit back enjoying my lunch. Most of the time when I was working shifts I ate my lunch at my workplace. A rare 30 minutes and a quick chat with colleagues. When I changed jobs and had a schedule I could mostly or better define myself we tried to at least go to the company own canteen together and had some chitter-chatter with colleagues while snarfing down the more or less tasting meals we got there.

When we met Mrs Q. and learned that she was as dissatisfied with the quality of meals at the canteen as we were,  we formed a “Lunch Club @ work”  consisting of Sweetheart, her and I. We took turns in cooking for our lunch the evening before and enjoyed about an hour of relaxed lunchtime and chitter-chatter sometimes work related topics sometimes rather private ones.

Sadly (for our little lunch circle), when she got pregnant and went to maternity leave our little Lunch Club broke up and when she returned her and our schedule was not compatible anymore so the nice tradition of cooking good food for work was gone. Now with the latest reorganizations here at work we even work at different locations so eating lunch together is impossible anyway…

I still miss that time tho! For one it was relaxing and we ate good and more healthy food. On the other hand it gave us a much needed break from our daily work routine  and eased the workload even tho sometimes we had a hard time to juggle all the meetings of the three of us around our “holy lunchbreak”… where there’s a will, there’s a way – right?

Now we are back to snarfing down rather not too healthy food in the canteen most of the week, leaving me craving real good food in the evenings when we come home from work – eating way too late and way to heavy *sigh*

Thinking about more healthy food: my Mom always tried to raise us with as healthy food as possible. Being not a sweet tooth herself she cut down on sweets and cakes in our daily diet and tried to feed us with veggies and a balanced diet.

As I mentioned one or two times before, Mom never was an enthusiastic baker. She’d bake an apple strudel or a Gugelhupf every now and then and sometimes she’d make my beloved “Germzopf” which was a yeasted striezel something between a challah and a brioche.

The recipe below is a more “healthy” take on this sort of sweet expression of love. Nevertheless it is very yummy (and even satisfied Mrs Q. who isn’t a sweet tooth herself) piece of sweet for your coffee break or your breakfast.

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

 *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

Fruity Honey-Striezel

Ingredients:
600 g spelt flour
3 large eggs
7 g granulated yeast
a pinch of salt
2 – 3 tablespoons honey
4 tablespoons walnut or rapeseed oil
3 tablespoons sesame
200 – 250 ml passion fruit juice
100 g diced dried  apricots (I used cranberries)

1 yolk mit 2 tablespoons milk for brushing the loaf

Method:

1. Combine all dry ingredients in the bowl of your mixer.
2. Add eggs and oil and knead on low speed. Gradually add the passion fruit juice.
3. Knead for at least 10 minutes at medium speed. Dough should come together nicely and not stick to your fingers but can be a little tacky.
4. Form a dough ball and slightly dust with flour. Let rest on warm kitchen counter for about 1 hour or until doubled in size
5. Knead dough for a second time for about 10 minutes. Then divide into 3 equal parts.
6. Form 3 equal strands and braid nicely.
7. Place nicely formed braid on baking tray.
8. Let rest a last time for about 15 minutes.
9. Brush with yolk-milk mixture and bake at 180°C for about 40 minutes.

Nutrition Value for 1 portion (40-50 g): 4,5g protein, 3g fat, 21g carbs,  1,8 g fibre, 135 kcal

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

I send this over to Susan’s Yeastspotting.
YeastSpotting is a weekly showcase of yeasted baked goods and dishes with bread as a main ingredient.
If you are not familiar with YeastSpotting just scroll the archive and you’ll know what I am talking about.
To submit your post simply klick here!