Naked cupcakes, sprouting nuts and seeds and passion fruit poppy seed sound cake

Lutefisk with polenta and Swedish pizza salad

Food Diary (July 21, 2011)

Breakfast: Oat sourdough with boiled egg

Lunch: Lutefisk with polenta and Swedish pizza salad

Dinner: Curried bean sprouts with oat sourdough

Baking/sweets: Easy 4 ingredient semolina cake, Easy semolina coconut cake, cookies

Today I had two cupcakes and 9 cookies, bit more than normal but that’s OK. The cupcakes were half sized and I had them naked so it wasn’t that bad. Having them naked makes a huge difference though it is really really rare to see it being done. It seems I am the only one having them this way. I suppose most of you prefer them dressed up, certainly the photos I have seen indicate anyway. Or maybe the photos are for public viewing. For the cupcakes I had today I presume dressing them up in either simple icing, or flavours such as coconut, chocolate or cream cheese should work well. What were you thinking? Get your mind out of the gutters:)

I should tell you a bit about the Swedish pizza salad. It is not really authentic Swedish, neither does it have much connection with a pizza. The salad was most likely introduced by immigrants who set up pizza restaurants in Sweden, and the salad is offered at most pizza restaurants, hence the name pizza salad. The salad is really easy to prepare, and the result is delicious and nutritious.  The recipe is available here.

Easy 4 ingredient semolina cake

Today's Favourite Photo

Source: Technicolor Kitchen

Passion fruit poppy seed pound cake

Today’s Favourite Blog

Source: care2

An interesting article talking about the health benefits of nuts and seeds. What I found particularly interesting was the following sentence: “Are raw nut and seeds good for you? Ask a squirrel!”

A squirrel will not eat a raw nut but it will always bury it and dig it up when the nut has sprouted. Squirrels noses have sensors that can identify a sprouted nut.

Raw, unsprouted nuts have enzyme inhibitors that make them difficult to digest. When the nut sprouts, these inhibitors are deactivated. The enzyme inhibitors have a bitter taste. Soaking or roasting the nuts and seeds remove the enzyme inhibitors. However while the high heat from roasting will remove the enzyme inhibitors it will also destroy many of the nutrients. Soaking is a better alternative.

The article provides the following link to another article which explains how to sprout nuts and seeds. Sunflower seeds for example should be soaked for 2-3 hours. I tried this today and there was a significant difference in taste. I liked it but I still prefer roasted. Plus its quicker too.

 

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