Cravings.

And I’m not even talking about the weirdo pregnant woman cravings like ice-cream with pickles or jam & lettuce sandwiches… I’m talking about bread.

Sourdough toast, salad rolls on sesame seed buns, toasted cheese sangas, English muffins, wraps…

I want them all, but I’d settle for one… or a bit of one…

A whole lot of you have been wondering why I’ve not told you whether bubba#2 is pink or blue – the short answer folks is because I have no idea myself. My ultrasound was cancelled last week so that I could spend five and a half hours wanting to kill myself out of boredom in the Emergency room of a hospital an hour away. Before you fret – I’m alive (surprise!) & there is nadda wrong with bubba#2, but I do have a big ass ovarian cyst that just won’t quit that my doc thought might be causing the horrid pain I’ve been having… turns out though that it doesn’t hurt at all, and whatever does hurt is a mystery to the medical profession. Having been through all this sort of thing before for an issue that took years to correctly diagnose, I was loathe to cancel my scan to traipse off to ER with a letter from my doctor, but I did it, like the sad rule follower that I am, and had my fears confirmed – I would be sent home still in pain after being poked, prodded, stuck with needles & left for loooooooooooong periods of time without even an old copy of Golfer’s Monthly to keep me company.

Bum.

So, I promise I’ll tell you the exciting news as soon as I know, but for now, I’m just going to whinge about bread…

The Boy told a rather non-plussed me about something he read about a woman who had stomach/chest pain that nobody could diagnose who took herself off wheat for two weeks & discovered her pain disappeared, she had celiac disease.

As anyone who has ever had an undiagnosed, unyielding pain would know – you are willing to try anything, no matter how unlikely, to get rid of it, so I thought “What the hey…” and have been off wheat & gluten since last Friday. And I haven’t had the pain again.

I don’t know whether to hope for it to be a coincidence (because if it is… well, what IS the matter?!) or to be glad I can never eat anything delicious again…

If I continue for another week pain & gluten free, The Boy says I should go on a wheat binge to see whether the pain comes back… but it really hurts too much to risk that! I will talk to the Dr to see whether there is a more scientific way, but in the mean time I will continue to dream about flying slices of vegemite toast, or running along the beach with background music soaring as a loaf of country grain bounds toward my outstretched arms…

(Click pics for links… and what do you know… searching for pretty pictures of yummy bread has not made me feel any better… you learn something new every day…)

Cheese Bread

A little afternoon baking - just the thing when you're hankering for a quiet cup of tea and something to nibble and there just ain't a thing in the house...!

Cheese Bread (From Better Cooking; A year in the kitchen)

2 cups plain flour

1 tablespoon caster sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper

60g (2 1/4 oz) butter, cut into cubes

2 cups grated cheddar cheese

2 spring onions, thinly sliced

1 cup milk

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees, lightly grease a large loaf tin and line the base and sides with baking paper. Put the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and pepper into a food processor. Add the cubes of butter to the dry ingredients and process until the mixture is like fine breadcrumbs. Transfer the mixture to a large bowl, add the cheese and spring onion and stir until combined.
2. Whisk together the egg and milk. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients. Add the combined milk and egg and mix with a table knife to form a soft dough. Do not over mix.
3. Scoop the mixture evenly into the prepared loaf tin. Bake for 30 - 40 minutes or until the bread is golden and sounds hollow when tapped. Remove from the oven and stand on a wire rack in the tin for 5 minutes before turning out. Cut into slices before serving.

What I did differently;

Tasty cheese instead of Cheddar, a handful of garlic tops (from the garlic growing in the garden - you could use garlic chives), chives & parsley instead of the spring onions & since I don't have a food processor I just mixed all the stuff in step 1 & mushed the butter into the flour with my fingers until it got all crumbly like breadcrumbs. Next time I think I might use Parmesan too - for some extra cheesy bite.

Punky and I had a slice each, not long from the oven, for afternoons'es.

Scrumptious.