Glorified Grain-Free Rosemary Matzo: perfect for toast and tea.

“And time for all the works and days of hands

That lift and drop a question on your plate;

Time for you and time for me,

And time yet for a hundred indecisions,

And for a hundred visions and revisions,

Before the taking of a toast and tea.”

From The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot

There is something about poetry that I can’t quite put my finger on. I’ve been reading this poem almost continuously since I discovered it on my own six years ago. I’m always drawn back to it because of the lyricism and imagery. It also makes me enormously hungry. He is evoking two of my favourite pastimes, toast eating and tea drinking. These are pastimes spent wondering and worrying about the past and future. But with every sip of tea and savour of jam on bread it brings me back to the present.

Much has changed in six years and every time I return to Prufrock I read it differently. If I’m being pretentious, it reminds me of the episode of How I Met Your Mother where Ted chats with someone at a party about Ulysses. He ponders if when he returns to the words after a period of time if the novel has changed or if it is he that has changed.

These days I enjoy my tea and jam with a glorified rosemary matzo. It’s glorified because it’s super tasty. Matzo, tasty? That’s insanity. And to add to that insanity, it’s also grain-free. For a grain-free bread product it’s pretty simple to make. It goes something like this…

Grain-Free Rosemary Matzo

A quick note about the recipe: I use a small convection oven when I bake. So keep that in mind when you set the temperature on your oven.

Also, a dash is up for debate. I say it’s close to a quarter of a teaspoon. However, always feel free to add more or less depending on your own tastes.

• Two cups of almond flour.

• A dash of paprika.

• A dash of garlic powder.

• A pinch of red chili flakes.

• A good pinch of sea salt plus more for sprinkling.

• An egg, cold.

• A tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil.

• A tablespoon of ice water.

• A sprig or two of fresh rosemary.

Preheat oven to 350. Line a small cookie sheet with non-stick aluminum foil.

Mix flour and dry spices (including a good pinch of salt) in a bowl.

Make a well in the mixture. Add wet ingredients to the well. Mix with a fork breaking the egg first to combine with the water & oil and then combine the dry ingredients (I usually abandon the fork method at a certain point and use my hands to make sure everything combines well).

Spread mixture out on cookie sheet. Using your hands, press down the dough so that it becomes thin and (if the baking sheet is small enough) it reaches to each corner of the sheet.

Poke the dough liberally with a fork. Sprinkle the top of the dough with lots of sea salt and individual rosemary leaves.

Bake for 13 minutes or a few minutes longer to achieve a crisp texture. Remove from sheet and allow the bread to cool on the foil.

Serve plain or with a variety of preserves.

#Baking #GrainFree