I have a little secret to share: whole wheat oatmeal rolls, right out of the oven and shaped like mini baguettes! Your family will go crazy for them (hopefully) and if my kids are any indication, well they were begging to take these to school before they'd even been placed in the oven! There's just something about the shape that is downright appealing, and as it turns out, they were delicious too! (I can just see them now, waving these in front of all their white bread eating peers whose jeers they've learned to ignore....go kids!)
And if you really want to go all the way, take my serving suggestion and place them on the table in one of your nicest plant pots that happens to be free at the moment, or a little bucket would be great too! And by the way, I made this recipe up based on my own favorite whole wheat pita recipe, so you can certainly experiment too by adding some other healthy ingrediants, or a different topping.
Ingredients:
- 1 kilo whole wheat flour
- 1 cup oatmeal
- 4 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 tablespoons silan (date syrup) or honey
- 1 1/2 tablespoons salt
- 1 1/2 tablespoons yeast
- 2 cups warm water, plus additional amount needed for nice moist, but not sticky dough
- sesame seeds and a tiny bit of kosher salt (optional)
Directions:
Generally speaking if using a mixer it is preferable to add dry ingrediants to the wet ones, and if mixing by hand, add the wet to the dry. Do not add salt until the yeast is thoroughly mixed with the flour.
Here's what I did: Place yeast in bowl, and add to that 2 cups warm water plus 2 tablespoons silan. Add 4 tablespoons oil, and then start adding flour and oatmeal slowly. Add salt and continue adding flour. Add a little extra water (amount depends on the whole wheat flour you'll be using, organic requires more water) such that your resulting dough is moist but not sticky.
Place dough in a large bowl with a cover, or in a plastic garbage bag, which is what I do. Squeeze extra air out of bag, tie the top closed, and place bag in a warm place. I put mine near the stove top and turned on the oven. Since these are rolls and not bread, you really don't have to worry about giving the dough ample rising time. I let it rise a bit, so that it felt fluffy to the touch, maybe 20 minutes max, and then I shaped my rolls (roughly 23 of them) such that they looked like thick shortish carrots. I let them rise another 10 minutes or so, brushed them with egg white and sprinkled them with sesame seeds and a touch of kosher salt, and into the oven they went for about 20 minutes. that's it!
About Tunisian Fricasse' and These Baguettes.....
The funny part of this story is that I had planned to make a meal with Moroccan white beans in a tomato sauce served on a bed of mashed potatoes and onions, but the beans just were taking too long to cook. So I did a slight change of plan and layed out a spread to make faux fricassee' (Tunisian sandwiches in fried bread) with mashed potatoes, tuna salad, mixed Israeli salad, and olives. I forgot that one usually includes hard boiled eggs in this mix, oh well. When I told my husband it was healthy fricasse', suddenly the dinner became a 5 star event! And he even had the children applaud my efforts, literally! And my five year old said so sweetly "thank you mommy for making the rolls, I love them!" How's that for incentive? But seriously, if you really don't know what to make for dinner, whip up a batch of these rolls (you'll need to do it about 2 hours ahead of dinner) and the rest will just fall into place, even if it's mashed potatoes, eggs, olives, a salad of cucumbers and tomotos, tuna and some pickles and picked lemons if you happen to have some!
And come to think of it, Tunisian style fricasse' in healthy rolls is a great idea for a buffet meal. And for those of you living somewhere that's not where I live, well it will be downright exotic! Tunisian? Where's that? (Northern Africa, silly!) You can even consider reading my blog a lesson in geography now and again, all the more reason to stop by often, plus I just love it when you do!
