Sweet as honey

For a couple months I've been wanting to make these Lithuanian Honey Spirits by the Global Table Adventure. Click the link for the recipe. When I first saw this, I was in Peru where I could never get some of those ingredients. Now that I've been in Denver, it's been a slow process of finding all the spices in my variety of ethnic stores that I like to go to. But I finally got everything!


Why did I spend so much time looking for spices in ethnic stores when I could just go to the super market and get them?

#1: Price

Spices are durn expensive in regular grocery stores. In ethnic stores the price tends to be much more reasonable.

#2: Amount

Anyone else think that portions of whole spices in grocery stores are skimpy??

#3: Adventure

Costco and King Soopers is boring. I'd rather be in a Middle Eastern or Asian market any day.


Middle Eastern stores tend to have allspice, nutmeg, cardamom, and peppercorns. Asian stores usually have fresh turmeric and whole cinnamon sticks.

I actually forgot to add nutmeg and vanilla to this, oops! I guess I'll just have to sprinkle nutmeg on it before it goes down the hatch :) The rest of the spices I already had.



Yummm....honey

Sweeties :)

Yesterday, I peeked in the fridge and saw that nothing else could fit. There was a bunch of already cooked sweet potato, and thus was the birth of my sweet potato bread.



SWEETIES

Ingredients:
-500 g. fine ground whole wheat flour (a little over 4 c)
-1 tsp. salt
-1 c. warm water
-1.5 tsp. honey
-1 Tbs. yeast
-1 c. mashed sweet potato
-1/4 c. olive oil

Mix the water and honey together until well integrated. Sprinkle and stir in the yeast. Let stand until frothy.

Meanwhile, combine the flour and salt until well integrated. When the yeast mixture is ready, pour into flour mixture, and add the rest of the ingredients. Mix with a spoon into a loose dough and let rest for 10 min.

On a floured surface, knead about 10-15 min, or until smooth and elastic. Roll dough into a ball with a tight skin on top, put into a well oiled bowl, cover with a wet towel, and let rest at room temperature for 1-8 hours (I left mine overnight, it was fine). For a pretty much fail-safe technique, check out this video--> http://www.foodnetwork.com/videos/altons-pizza-pizzas-recipe/82409.html

Bake at 375 for 20-25 min, or until the buns are browned on the bottom, and the bottom is hollow-sounding when you tap them.

Delicious served hot on a cold morning with butter and honey :)

For a variation, make a cinnamon butter by mixing 1/4c. butter with 1 Tbs. each brown sugar and cinnamon. Spread it on the bread when it's piping hot, and thank me later.