Bread Ahead

Eureka! We've had a bit of a breakthrough in the bread section, thanks to desperation brought on by a toast and jam craving.

I like to think that my grandfather, Basil, had a bit of a hand in it. He used to bake his own bread and I still remember pounding dough with him in our kitchen back home as he taught me the secrets of his Nutty-Wheat Bread. The 'Nutty-Wheat' part might be out, but the rest of his recipe has made its way into my first successful gluten-free loaf.

Every g-free bread recipe I've tried tells you to just add the instant yeast to the flour, mix in the wet stuff, leave to rise, bake and voila! They've never risen more than a centimetre and the tiny results weigh a ton. So I took the recipe on the bag of flour I had and made a few changes.

High-Fibre Gluten-Free Bread

2-3 tblsp date fibre*

Add g-free bread flour to the date fibre to make 450g (I used Dove's which already contains zanthan gum)

½ tsp salt

1 tblsp sugar

1 tblsp date syrup (use maple or treacle if you don't have this)

125ml warm dairy-free milk

200ml warm water

2 tsp instant yeast

1 tsp cider vinegar

2 eggs

6 tblsp oil

1 tsp baking soda

Preheat the oven to 200C (fan oven). Mix the flour, date fibre, salt, sugar and baking soda together. When your warm water is body temperature, stir in the syrup (the syrup is vital as this gives the yeast the sugars it needs to activate) and add the yeast, leaving it to come together on the surface of the liquid. In a large bowl, mix the eggs, oil, vinegar and milk together and stir in the dry ingredients. Add the yeast and water mixture and stir until you have a sticky dough. Pour the dough into a greased loaf pan (I used an 8 inch x 3 inch one as a small tin is better for g-free baking), and don't worry about leaving it to rise for an hour. Place foil over the tin, leaving a bit of room for rising, and a tray of water in the bottom of the oven, which, I've been told helps to stop it cooking too quickly from the outside. Put it straight in the oven and bake for 40-45 minutes. Leave to cool before slicing.

Tip: Gluten-free bread never gets the crisp crust of normal bread and will be quite a lot denser. It also dries out really quickly, so keep it refrigerated or frozen. If you're eating it a day or so after baking, it is best toasted or zapped quickly in the microwave.

* This looks much like coarse cinnamon powder

Desert Discovery

Over the last four years we've gotten hourglasses worth of red and golden sand in our shoes, hair, sleeping bags, ears... in the deserts of the Middle East.

I saw in 2006 camping with friends in the dunes of the Empty Quarter (Rub' Al Khali) and have had my stomach in my mouth dune bashing up, down and around Big Red in the Dubai Desert. We've luxed it up in five-star style at Al Maha Desert Resort & Spa in the Dubai Desert Conservation Reserve, and we saw in 2008 cosied round a campfire near Fossil Rock. Finally, this year, we got out to the edge of Oman's Wahiba Sands (Ramlat al-Wahiba) for two days of 'camping'.

I hesitate to call it camping as there were no tent poles, sleeping bags and water bottle showers required, and no huddling around a gas burner with an enamel coffee cup. Al Areesh Desert Camp comes complete with double beds and bathrooms, all in the comfort of your own Barasti hut ('Barasti' being palm fronds).

Surrounded by nothing but terracotta sand and blue skies, the boys were ready to kick up a bit of dust and all went off dune bashing (Gav determined to get the Jeep to redeem itself by not getting itself horribly stuck for once) while I went to see what else the dunes had to offer before sunset.

Nowhere does life and death become more apparent than when you're out in the desert.

"What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well"

- Antoine de Saint-Exupery -

I had to include these photos of Bree's to show the rush Gav clearly got out there (above) and what these crazy folk get up to while 'bashing' dunes (below).

The final cue for the temperature to drop a few degrees and everyone to gather for a Bedouin dinner under the stars.

Brian and Bree had to experience just how uncomfortable a camel ride really is before we headed back to the city.

Canyon Crawling

After all that cornbread, our bodies gave thanks when we headed off mid-week with Brian and Bree to explore yet another one of the beautiful spots Oman has to offer. If you headed out every weekend for a year you might still struggle to conquer all the wadis, mountains and dunes that are out here, and if you think that if you're seen one desolate rock face you've seen them all, you'd be wrong.

This time, we had Wadi Bani Awf in our sights, with our first pit stop being Little Snake Canyon. This relatively easy hike takes you through a few ankle-deep pools and, unless you have some serious waterproof gear, the end of your walk will be at the icy cold main pool that snakes its way between the cliffs. Who said the desert was dry?!

We had planned that this would be the end of the road for one day, but curiosity got the better of us, and we drove on to the end of the main Snake Canyon and soon found ourselves at the oasis of a village that is Balad Sayt, with its terraced fields and friendly locals.

Still determined to see more we thought we'd throw in some hairy 4x4 cliff climbing and made our way to the top of the Western Hajar mountains... a spectacular sight to calm some slightly frazzled nerves.

Giving Thanks

Oman's week-long Eid and National Day holiday is over and the saddest part is that we've had to also say farewell to our Coloradan (I think that's what you call someone from Colorado) cronies, Brian and Bree, as they head off on an exciting new venture in Concan, Texas.

It has been an amusing few months getting to know them - very much a case of "You say toe-may-toe, I say toe-maa-toe", "You say pe-caahn pie, I say pee-can pie". And they've introduced us to the gastronomic treats that are fish tacos and Thanksgiving.

We started off this week rolling, with our first Thanksgiving lunch. And I thought Christmas was a feast until I had my plate piled with turkey, cranberry sauce, corn bread dressing (with Bree made gluten-free with a recipe I gave her), mashed potato, sweet potato... I've discovered that there is an art to maximising the amount of food you can place on a plate, but my belly was having none of it.

I'm proud to say I got into the spirit of things and made my first All-American pumpkin pie (gluten-free pastry and all). It wasn't exactly a Martha Stewart wonder pie, but it didn't go down too badly :-)