National Pistachio Day and One of My New Favourite Breads.

National Pistachio Day...

is not today.

However, it is February 26th, so I'm just a month ahead.

Pistachios. My all time favourite nut... well, tied with cashews, however it makes sense since they are part of the same family. When I was younger, I would insist on red pistachios over green because I loved the fact that they would stain my fingers, just like ketchup chips. Pistachios are wonderful though, not only are they delicious they are high in monounsaturated fat. The copper, magnesium, and B vitamins in pistachios all strengthen your immune system, making your body fit, and more.

When I found out that today, January 26th is National Pistachio Day, I knew that I could certainly take part in this. When I was perusing my blog list the other day, I came across a recipe for Black Olive and Pistachio Pesto. To begin, I am not the biggest fan of black olives however, mixed with pistachios its bound to be good. The result? Insanely delicious. It was like eating cake batter from your whisk. It's weird to compare it to that, but it seriously was just that delicious.

I then took the spread and did just as she did, I made a Black Olive Pesto and Broccoli Sprout Sandwich. It was superb. I seriously downed the first one. It was so good, I even licked my fingers clean. Who was I kidding in just eating one? I then went back to my toaster oven, plopped in another slice of bread and smeared it with the tapenade and sprouts. There was a little bit of the tapenade left and what did I do? Oh, I took a spoon and gobbled it down. If you are not a fan of black olives, you will still enjoy this. The black olive taste isn't necessarily masked by the other flavours but it definitely isn't as strong as if you were eating it by themselves. I loved this, and will surely be adding this to my "go-to" recipes. This would even be delicious on a pizza! Oh yum. I definitely think you should make this. It's healthy, hearty, and scrumptious, what more can you ask for?

Black Olive & Pistachio Pesto

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups pitted olives
• 3/4 cup shelled, roasted, salted pistachios
• 2 cloves of garlic - if your cloves are huge, only use 1
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• Squeeze of lemon juice (optional)
• Salt to taste*

Directions:

Put all ingredients in food processor and pulse in short pulses until everything is in small chunks, not pureed.

Black Olive Pesto & Broccoli Sprout Sandwich

• 1 or 2 pieces of bread
• Pesto - desired amount
• Topped desired amount of broccoli sprouts

Honey and Mustard Bread

Recipe taken from here

Of course you know I didn't use store bought bread as I cannot necessarily eat it, so what bread was this served with? Well, for starters, I mentioned in my post here and here that these were my favourite breads. Well, those two are still tied, but are now tied with a third candidate. The Honey and Mustard Bread. Now, I am not a fan of mustard, however, I do like the flavour of mustard seed, or whole grain mustard. So, when I saw this, I wasn't necessarily interested in the taste, but when I saw the grains of mustard peeking through the bread that was what attracted me, I'm odd like that. I just found it so beautiful, so needless to say once I finished my Honey Banana Whole Wheat Bread I knew exactly which bread I was going to make.

This bread was insanely delicious. The flavour was hit right on the nose. The mustard was not too overpowering, the bread was very soft, from the honey, and had a beautiful sweet taste to it. It was just delicious. I ate it by itself, no butter and it was still really satisfying. However, once added with toppings it was even more delicious. I simply devoured this, as did Jordan. Every time I made him a sandwich, I made it with my mom's store bought bread and he was like "Sam, this isn't the good bread!", so I gave in and decided to share it with him. It was that good though, that I seriously tried hiding it... oh my goodness. Mustard fan or not, this is your friend. Between those three breads, these will be the one's that I frequent the most, because anytime I make some other one's, yes they are delicious, but I still wish I'm either enjoying my French Onion Bread, Ciabatta Bread, or now this Honey and Mustard Bread. It's not to say I will keep their flavours the same every time, but the texture of the bread is fantastic.

Ingredients:

• 3 1/2 cups flour
• 1 cup luke-warm milk
• 1/2 cup warm water
• 2.5 tsp instant yeast (3 tsp active dry yeast)
• 1 tsp salt
  
• 2 tsp dried thyme
• 1/4 cup honey
  
• 3 tbsp coarse mustard
  
• 3 tbsp olive oil
  

Directions:

Combine the yeast with 1/2 a cup warm water. Warm, not hot. Mix it on low for 4 minutes.

Pour in the oil. Add the salt, thyme, mustard and honey. Keep the machine on low-speed while you add your ingredients. Pour in the milk.


Add the flour, 1/2 a cup at a time, until your wet and dry ingredients are combined. At this point the dough will look like a sticky, rough-looking mass. Turn off the machine, put a towel over the bowl and let the dough sit for 15 minutes. This will give the liquids a chance to be absorbed.

After 15 minutes you start kneading. I gave mine 8 minutes at high speed. As soon as you’ve kneaded for several minutes you’ll see the sticky mess turn into a supple dough and eventually it balls up. If yours still looks impossibly sticky in the last few minutes, add a tbsp flour at a time until it balls up.
Cover the bowl and let the dough rest for 10 minutes.

Let the dough rise for an hour or so when using active dry yeast, punch it down and then proceed with the recipe below.

Sprinkle flour on top of your kitchen counter and flour your hands, this should be enough to get rid of the stickiness. Make sure that, all together, you use no more than 1/2 a cup of flour on the counter and your hands. Preferably less. Shape the dough, place it in the Dutch oven and sprinkle a little flour on top. Cover the bowl and let it rise for an hour and a half. Until doubled in size.

Bake the bread in a preheated oven at 350 degrees F for roughly 40 minutes. Until golden brown and sounding hollow when tapped.


Remove it from the Dutch oven and let it cool off completely before slicing it. This one turned out great. I love this combination of flavors.


This bread just screams goodness and home to me. It’s so incredibly tasty and makes for a mean ham, turkey or chicken sandwich. Just spread a thin layer of (real) butter or Hellmann’s and top with crispy lettuce, good-quality ham, turkey or deli chicken, tomatoes and cucumber.

Hope to see you soon! What are you making for National Pistachio Day?