Makes 3 Loaves

1 kg/2 ¼ lb Doves Organic malted grain flour
500g/1 lb Doves Strong wholemeal flour
3 tsp sea salt
50g/ 1 ½ oz fresh yeast
3 heaped tsp molasses
850mls hand hot water, 3 tbsp olive oil and a little milk
Sesame, sunflower or poppy seeds to top loaf

Tip the flours into a very large mixing bowl and add the salt. Mix 200mls of boiling water into a measuring jug and top up to the 425mls mark with water from the cold tap. Drop the molasses into the water and mix until dissolved, then crumble in the fresh yeast and stir until it goes creamy. Leave rise for 10 to 15 minutes.

Make a well in the middle of the flour and pour the contents the jug into it, and then add another 425ml of hand hot water in, then add the 3 tbsp olive oil. With one hand, start working the wet and dry together, I find turning the bowl with your left hand as you stir with your right makes it quicker. When it has come together into a ball, remove from the bowl and start kneading it your work surface. Sometimes the dough will feel to wet so you dust a little flour over it and sometimes it will be too dry so you sprinkle a little water over it. After you have worked the dough for a while you will probably need to add a little flour. Don’t forget thought that bread making is all about patience so don’t add too much of anything at one time as it alters consistency quickly. Kneading is made easier if you can leave the dough for a few minutes to rest before working it again, this way seems to bypass the 10 minutes of hard work that has been the perceived best way to make bread. So turning and folding the dough into itself a few times then leave to rest for up to 5 minutes before repeating again (do this 3 to 5 times depending on how patient you are!)

Place to dough into the bowl again and leave covered with damp tea towel for about an hour preferable in a warm place.

Turn your oven on to 230 C/450 F/Gas 8 to warm up. Brush the inside of your bread tins with oil. Turn the dough out onto the work surface and divide into three pieces with a knife. Knock the air out of each loaf, flattening out and then fold each corner into itself to shape into an oblong. Place into the tins.

Re-cover with the tea towel and leave next to or on top of the oven for 20 to 25 minutes for the final rise. Brush the top with milk and sprinkle the seeds over. Place in the oven, two on the top shelf and one on the bottom. Set your timer for 35 minutes, but it could take 40. You want a distinctive hollow sound when you tap the base of the loaf, this gets easier to tell and you develop a sense of when they are done. Turn out onto a wire rack and leave for 30 minutes to cool as the loaf won’t cut well while still hot.

As a variation you can add seeds to the flour (a mixed handfull of sunflower, sesame and poppy seeds works really well but you can also add linseeds and hemp for something different). You can also vary the flour type, adding a handful or two of white if you like a lighter loaf.

The first event planned for the Bantry Bay Convivium is being held here in Organico Cafe on Sunday the 20th of April. The theme is a Spring Tea Party and we are delighted to have Myrtle Allen, the Eurotocque Chair, and Giana Ferguson from Gubeen to assist us to launch Slow Food in Bantry. Artist Martha Cashman (currently showing in Organico Cafe) will also talk about her work.

Organico Cafe will serve a menu crammed with delicious tea-time treats (we’re currently getting very excited aboutclotted cream…mmm…) and, of course, organic fair trade tea!

Tickets are priced at €10 and will very shortly be availabel from Organico, from O’Connor’s, from the West Lodge and from Val’s in Ballylickey.

Membership forms will be available from these places also, and on the Sunday afternoon we will be delighted to invite new members to join us in the Bantry Bay Convivium.

We make 4 spelt yeast loaves – white and brown, and seedy white and seedy brown; 2 Californian Sourdough – white and brown; and our ‘Health Bread’ which is pure wholemeal spelt sourdough packed with seeds and spirulina. The Health Bread keeps for a week and is hugely popular with people who like nutty tasting nutritious bread.
To keep the cost of our breads affordable (while still paying our devoted baking team a reasonable wage) we try to keep the wastage down, so we nearly always sell out early in the day. If we don’t we sell the ‘next day’ bread at 20% off. even though it is still perfectly fresh compared to the ‘fresh’ old breads they sell in the supermarkets!

Our bread is mixed totally by hand, and we let it rise for much longer than most modern bakerys which gives a far superior texture and aids digestion. Our Health Bread takes 5 hours to prove! If kept airtight, our breads have great lasting power – at least 3 days.

We often take orders to fill people’s freezers if you don’t live in the area but would like to eat our bread regularly. Please call us on (027) 51391 to place and order or to enquire.

Martin & Yvonne Flynn, local organic farmers and basket makers, are organising this Traditional Skills day at Future Forests in Kealkil on Saturday the 19th of May (2-6pm). The day is being presented by the Irish Basket Makers Association and will also feature demonstrations/workshops of thatching, coppersmithing, woodcarving, chairseating, pole-laithing, woodturning, garden structures, blacksmithing as well as a kids corner and an organic cafe (we are supplying some of the food from Organico Bakery). Admission is free, as most of these craftspeople are trying to raise their profile and share their knowledge. There will also be baskets for sale, like the one pictured here (we have baskets like this in Organico Shop – our customers love using them to shop with) as well as plants and trees and garden sculpture. From 9pm that night there will be caile agus craic with Johnny Coakley, Noel Burke and friends.

Future Forests is well signposted from Kealkil village and is 15 mins from Bantry, and is well worth a visit all on its own if you have never been there!

Organico Shop, Glengarriff Rd., Bantry, Co. Cork, Ireland. Phone +353 (0)27 51391

Other favourites include fetta and sweet chilli and black pepper and tomato. Watch out for more receipes over the next months!

.
In Ireland, the organic sector is growing by 10% per year (Mitchell got these stats a year ago – I think it has sped up since then.) Apparently this represent only 1% of the entire Irish food industry – worth an estimated 38 million in 2003. However if we follow European treads then it will be worth 4 times that by the end of this year.

Mitchell’s article is not entirely complimentary to the ‘organic philosophy’. She quotes many sources that question whether organic agriculture is better than conventional agriculture, and whether the resulting foods are better for consumers. She quotes the British Food Commission (2000) as saying:

.
”Hundreds of organic products are coming on to the market, including highly processed jelly sweets, sugar-laden organic cereals, organic chicken burgers and even organic cigarettes.”

In Organico, we clearly do buy into the Organic Philosophy; but we also welcome articles of this sort that encourage consumers to question what they are being fed. Unfortunately many organic products are coming onto the market now that are just as harmful to health, if not to the environment, than non-organic foods. We still have to read labels and choose brands that w believe in, not just brands that shout the loudest through their adverts.

When buying for a Wholefood Shop you carry a weight of responsibility in terms of what you choose to stock, as many customers believe that if a product is on a Wholefood Shop shelf it is going to be beneficial for their health. Also, many of us are in this business because we want to sell positive products, so naturally we select the products we sell for their organic credentials – not just their packaging!

As I carried on serving lunch I reflected on her comment. I think it is an excellent way to describe our food. We are not trying to serve Cordon Bleu. What we are trying to do is serve tasty, nutritious, clean ‘un-polluted’ food.

Today, our menu contains the following:

Organic Lentil and Pumpkin Stew served with Spelt Bread

Roasted Organic Aubergine and Chickpea Curry served with Organic Brown Rice

Spelt Pizza with sundried tomatoes and Fetta served with 2 Salads

Lentil and Seed Loaf served with Fresh Tomato Sauce, Rice and 1 Salad

Shepherd’s Pie (topped with Organic local potatoes and a red lentil and vegetable base) Served with 2 Salads

Fetta Cheese Salad with either Organic Bulgar Wheat or Quinoa, Organic Tomatoes, Cucumber and Lettuce

Cheese sandwich: Local Gubbeen Cheese or Dubliner

Salad Selections: Wild rice, Quinoa, Bulgar, red Cabbage and Pumpkin Seeds, Beetroot and yoghurt, Potato, Thai Noodles (all made with organic vegetables, sprouts and seeds).

A selection of cakes and cookies from our Bakery, all made with Organic Spelt Flour and served with organic cream.

A selection of Fair Trade Organic Coffees and Teas.

Come over for Lunch sometime – and be sure to let us know what you think!

We have a regular bread stall in Bantry Market from April through to December, and from the stall we sell our breads and cakes as well as Spelt Pizza, Spelt Focaccias with all kinds of yummy toppings.
The flour we have found to be the best for the cakes and breads is Hildegard Health Organic Spelt Flour, which we also sell for home baking in our healthfood shop. We also sell Hildegard pastas, as well as the excellent Biona Spelt Pastas and Finestra de la Cielo cookies and crackers.

Drop in and enjoy! More receipes and tips for cooking and baking with spelt to follow.

All our soups are gluten free, dairy free and wheat free. We make our own stocks so we can be sure of this. Our curries and chilies are the same. We make all our own burgers, falafals and sausages, so we can tell you exactly what is in all of them. We use a lot of unusual grains such as Quinoa which is hugely popular as a salad and is also great in chillies. Our salads are all made fresh and on the premesis and with the exception of obvious ones like Bulgar wheat salad or couscous salad are gluten free.

We also offer a delicious gluten free cake made with apples, rice and millet flours, almonds and cinnamon, which is popular with coeliacs and non coeliacs too.
We can also make breads and cakes to order – we have a great receipe for GF chocolate cake and also for chocolate brownies.

In our shop we offer loads of GF pastas, crackers, bars, chocolate, sauces, and cooking ingredients.

More on this topic to follow.

Organico Cafe is part of a family run business based in Bantry, West Cork, the home of Ireland’s gourmet food movement. West Cork is known for its cheeses, seafood, cured fish and meats, so we decided to complement all the interesting meat and fish restaurants by opening an exceptional organic vegetarian cafe for both locals and tourists who feel like a change. We already had a thriving healthfood shop and bakery, and a cafe seemed a logical next step.

Organico Cafe has been a resounding success. Initially trade was slow, which was a blessing as we were only finding our feet. But now, well into our 2nd year, we have made a name for ourselves in West Cork for delicious food which suits both vegetarians and also non-vegetarians who are open to trying something new. We are not completely vegetarian ourselves, which enables us to put together a menu which appeals to pretty much everyone – even some picky Italian students who were visiting the area found the Falafal Sandwhich to their taste!

Although our first focus in on the food, the Cafe is a great meeting place for people interested in living well in West Cork. We host meeting of West Cork Environmental Forum; of West Cork Homeopathy discussion groups, fundraiser evenings and regular Exhibitions of local Artists work. We also have internet available.