Walking To Granadella, A Picnic By The Sea And A Recipe For A Vegan, Yeast Free Wholemeal Spelt And Rye Bread.

This past Sunday we felt the need for a gentle stroll and a picnic in a sunny spot. If possible close to nature (not too difficult around here). We were having a lazy weekend, all we fancied was getting some fresh air into our lungs without having to exert ourselves too much.

With picnic in rucksacks, we drove over to the Cabo de la Nao. It’s an area I haven’t been to that much but Pep knows it quite well from his days working as a plumber for a local firm. Although it’s quite built up with villas, it’s worth having a wander near the lighthouse, admiring the views while you’re there. The Peñón de Ifach is just visible from here, as is part of the crest of the Sierra Bernia.

There is also a “Vértice Geodésico”!!! My fourth one on this blog. I think I’ve started to collect them without realising it. I hope it doesn’t become an obsession 🤣.

There was nowhere really to walk though, apart from around the urbanisation. We decided to drive down to the Granadella beach. This is another area I haven’t visited since I was a child, and even then we only went a couple of times. It gets extremely crowded in the summer.

Before arriving at the beach there is a small car park on the left. We stopped as we saw there was a map and that normally means only one thing, some sort of walking route is most probably close by. Joy.

I read the map first. We ended up going down a track that went nowhere, except into a load of brambles. Pep then had a look and informed me that the walk was the other side of the road. There are a few steps down from the car park which take you on to the track. Good job he knows what he’s doing.

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We were delighted to see that there is a proper walking route, marked with the typical white and yellow lines. It would lead us down to the Granadella beach. We also realised that the kilometre or so we would wander along belonged to a much longer circular route. The PR CV-354 takes about 4 and a half hours to complete. We had no idea it existed and now can’t wait to do the whole course. Watch this space.

It took us approximately 15 to 20 minutes to arrive at the beach. There weren’t many people, the few that were there were in the pretty little beach bar that sits in the bay. Not a bad spot for a picnic. It’s a bit uncomfortable sitting on the pebbles but I just sat on my snood (sounds a bit rude) and problem solved. It certainly beats getting sand in your sandwich!!

After an hour or so the sun began to disappear behind the cliff and we strolled back to the car. A quick drive down to Jávea followed our picnic, with a rather nice cake in Café Wien (post here) and a long walk along the Jávea coast line. But I won’t bore you with more photos of our cakes or the Jávea sea front, you can see them in my other posts. I have to mention one thing though. I normally go for the apple streudel in the café. They didn’t have it so I opted for the apple and vanilla cake. I now have a new favourite. If you like apple you’ll love it.

Right, on to the recipe for the bread, the one we devoured on our picnic. As you’ve probably gathered from my previous posts, I rarely cook or bake with flour containing gluten. When I do feel the urge though I tend to use spelt and rye flour. The gluten in these grains is more easily digestible than the gluten found in wheat. Here’s a page with a bit of interesting info on the subject.

I also mostly avoid yeast products as I find them harder to digest than their yeast free counterparts. And making a loaf without yeast enables you to spend less time preparing it. It’s great when you haven’t much time or you can’t be bothered with all that kneading. Not that I’ve got anything against kneading, I find it quite therapeutic. Occasionally though it’s nice to have a tasty, wholesome loaf in a quarter of the time (or less) that it would take to make it with yeast.

For this bread I use both of these flours, 400 grams of spelt and 100 grams of rye. You could also replace some or all of the spelt flour with wholemeal wheat flour or kamut (khorasan) flour. I’m sure it would turn out perfectly.

The loaf also contains quite a substantial amount of seeds. They pair extremely well with the nuttiness of the wholemeal flours. Just one slice of this delicious bread, rubbed with tomato and drizzled with olive oil is a super nutritious snack and so moreish, albeit quite filling.

Oh dear, I do go on!! Ok, here we go. First off, in a large bowl mix the flours with the baking powder, the bicarb, the salt and the seeds. Melt the molasses in the warm water and add the vinegar. Add this mixture to the dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Pour into the loaf tin and bake for 50 minutes. Carefully remove from the tin and continue to bake on it’s side for 10 minutes. This ensures the crust gets nice and crunchy.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool. I love to slice off the end while it’s still warm and drizzle it with olive oil. It’s almost impossible to resist. This bread is perfect for freezing. When it’s cooled completely I slice what I’m not going to use the next day and freeze it. It’s ready for toasting when I feel the urge. Or just let it defrost like we did for our picnic. It’s wonderful either way.

I love this bread served with the pumpkin soup I make in this post. It also goes really well with Pep’s signature dish, his vegan broad bean stew. More on that another day!!

By the way, I don’t want you to think that we have abandoned our “huerta”. We still can’t do much out there at the mo. Not because it’s too dry anymore, but because it’s rather soggy. The day after the Three Kings holiday we had four glorious days of non stop rain. After not having any since the end of summer it felt like a miracle!! Well, it did to Pep, which means it did to me too because he won’t be moaning about the lack of precipitation for a few weeks 😁.

Seeing as Pep had cultivated the land with his new tractor just a few hours prior to the downpour, if we set foot in our “huerta” during the following two weeks we’d no doubt sink a couple of feet into the muddy earth. But it’s drying up nicely, we’ll soon be out there planting all the veg ready for spring. For now though, here’s a photo of 2 small broccolis which I picked a couple of days ago. Also a pic of one of our almond trees desperate to burst into bloom. The cold snap we had has been good for the almonds trees, they’ve refrained from blossoming before time.

I’ll shut up for now. No doubt I’ll be back very soon with my usual ramblings. As always, any questions or suggestions then get in touch, even if you just want to say hi. We’d love to hear from you.

All the bars and restaurants in the Valencian Community are closed until the beginning of February at least. What better time to get your aprons on and start cooking some healthy, wholesome meals!! Your immune system will thank your for it (hope you’re reading this mum 😁) Thanks for reading. Take care all of you. Lots of love, Georgie and Pep xxx

Wholemeal Spelt And Rye Bread, Vegan And Yeast Free

A delicious, quick, wholesome, nutrititious, seeded bread

5 from 2 votes

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Course Baked product

Cuisine Vegan

Ingredients

  

• 400 grams wholemeal spelt flour or kamut flour or a mixture of the two
• 100 grams rye flour
• 120 grams seeds I use a mixture of pumpkin, sunflower, flax and sesame
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1-2 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp molasses or maple syrup
• 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar (or any vinegar)
• 520 ml warm water

Instructions

 

• Preheat oven to 200ºC/180ºC fan. Grease and line a 2Ib/23 x 13cm/9" x 5" loaf pan.
• In a large bowl combine all the dry ingredients, mixing well.
• In a separate bowl or jug combine the water, the molasses and the vinegar.
• Add the liquid ingredients to the dry and mix until just combined.
• Pour into the loaf pan and bake for 50 minutes.
• After this time, carefully remove from the pan and bake on it's side for another 10 minutes.
• Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely (if you have the willpower) before slicing. Enjoy with a drizzle of olive oil or whatever you fancy.

Keyword Rye,, seeds, Spelt,, Vegan