artisan bread in five minutes a day--first try

i tried making this bread! i made just a half batch (two loaves worth) to try it out. the first loaf turned out nice looking and with a great crust, but it didn't rise very much. i found out that while the book says to let it rise for 40 minutes, the "errata" section of the author's website says really it should be 40 minutes to an hour and a half, or longer if you have a cool kitchen. so i definitely did not rise it enough.

so the second loaf i let rise a lot longer, but after an hour and a half it still hadn't risen very much. it did rise more when i put it in the oven, but at 450 the crust hardens up pretty quick, so it didn't get much bigger than a sandwich bun (though it would be perfect for that) and didn't have much of a crumb to speak of. the loaves are really small, which actually is okay since that means it would be fresher more often. i didn't do the scoring on top deep enough, and i need to work on my sliding the dough off the "peel" (i don't have a peel so i used a cutting board with lots of cornmeal on it) onto the pizza stone. but i did that okay on the second one, and the steam method was really successful i think. so i'm going to try it again. maybe i'll make a double loaf for a bigger size. it looked pretty nice though!

122 jars of jam on the wall...

A couple of weeks ago, I suggested to my sisters-in-law that we try canning strawberry jam. I didn’t want to make freezer jam cause I don’t have the space for it. And canning sounded like a fun project. Eva & Emily were up for the challenge too so we set a date. On Saturday, Emily showed up with two huge bowls of blueberries and then we, along with Jeff and the kids, piled into the car and headed to Fall City to go pick up our vegetable box at Jubilee and then hit up the other local farms for some strawberries and maybe raspberries. Turns out there are no strawberries left in Fall City. I hadn’t even had one strawberry this season! We couldn’t find a flat of strawberries either and the half-pints we saw were $4 each! Uh oh. So, we headed back to Seattle a little worried. But we stopped at a couple of markets near my house and found loads of local (Washington) berries at Ballard Market, we got more supplies at Cash & Carry and Fred Meyer. On Sunday, Eva & Emily came over and we spent the next 8 hours canning our guts out.

We ended up using:
4 half-flats of strawberries
3 half-flats of raspberries
3 half-flats of blackberries
And at least 3 half-flats worth of blueberries from Emily’s house
4 small (5 lb?) bags of sugar
Food Mill – Emily got a Foley and Eva got an Oxo. The Oxo has interchangeable screens that worked best for catching all the berry seeds.
2 Funnels – wide mouth ones
2 Tongs – for jar removal
Jars – we way underestimated what we needed and had to go back later for more. We had a mix of 4oz and 8oz. sizes
4 pots – 2 for water-bath canning and 2 for cooking the berries
3 wooden spoons
Ice – for keeping the fruit cool overnight. (kept some fruit in the dishwasher and the rest in a big rubbermaid tub)
Candy thermometer – I don’t think we really needed this but it was there for moral support
Lemon juice & vinegar – we opted to try no-pectin recipes
Tea kettle – for extra hot water to keep the water baths full
Lots of bowls, paper towels, washcloths, & dishtowels
The Busy Person’s Guide to Food Preserving

We made a variety of jams, syrups, or sauces depending on how well things jelled:
Blueberry spice (nutmeg, cloves & blackpepper)
Strawberry (w/ Lemon juice)
Strawberry (w/ vinegar & salt)
Raspberry
Blackberry
Mixed berry
Strawberry-blueberry
Strawberry, balsamic & cracked black pepper (except we forgot to add the black pepper!)

122 jars in all and we also made a jug of blueberry vinegar.

Recipes & pictures to come from Emily!

Bread...glorious bread!

So back in January, Julie introduced me to the brilliance of "no-knead bread" and I've been hooked ever since. She shared the Cooks Illustrated "Almost No-Knead Bread" version that was a supposed improvement of the one Mark Bittman published a couple years ago. This method is just a quick stir, a long rest (8-18 hr), a quick knead, a short rest (1 hr) and then you bake it inside a dutch oven. I loved the simplicity and the result was fabulous. I came up with some of my own variations which include Oat and Raisin bread and Multigrain (our favorite). I thought it couldn't get easier or better...but I was wrong...so wrong!

Hello, "Artisan Bread in 5 minutes a day!" I decided to check out this book from the library last week before buying, since foolishly I thought nothing could beat "no-knead". Oh...my....goodness! Believe it or not, I think this is easier than the no-knead recipe. And...I can have fresh bread on whim. And...I have a better baked result (no-knead has a tendency to get too dark on the bottom). And...the first bite took me back to the fresh warm homemade bread that our lovely Italian neighbor baked when I was a kid.



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This recipe allows you to quickly stir (by hand, by food processor, or by stand mixer) a large batch of dough, let it rest just 2 hrs, then store it in the fridge for up to 14 days until ready to use. When you're ready, cut off a hunk of dough, let rest 40 mins and bake on a stone (or cookie sheet, or loaf pan, or...they give tons of options). There are tons of options and recipes in the book. I mixed the full batch (makes @ 4 loaves) by hand with no problem. They recommend the use of a pizza peel to transfer your dough to the preheated stone, but I've just been using parchment paper (from the almost no-knead method) to let the bread rise and bake on.

So far, I've just made the basic loaf. I intend to try my no-knead multigrain with this method...and the book is full of pastries, pizzas and tons of good stuff.

Raw Veggie Wraps/Pinwheels

(Shown as wrap rather than sliced into pinwheels)

Chopped veggies (really small pieces):
Broccoli
Sugar Snap Peas
Heirloom Cherry Tomatoes (various colors)
Radishes

Just barely coated the veggies with Trader Joe's Tuscan Italian Dressing with Balsamic Vinegar.

Spread whipped cream cheese in a really thin layer on a flour tortilla.

Sprinkled the veggie confetti on the tortilla and rolled it all up tightly.

Then sliced it in pinwheels for the kids.

Easy. Pretty. Yummy.

Tofu stir-fried with basil (Tao Hoo Pad Bai Kaprao)

i made thai basil tofu last night, from this recipe will gave me. can you believe it? i actually used a shallot (it was such a small amount i figured i'd try it. it made my eyes water when i cut it, but i couldn't even taste it in the dish.) and a chili (i could only find dried so i used just a half without seeds, and it was still hot! but edible for me--matt added more and burned his mouth up!). i left out the salt, doubled the tofu, and used tons of basil from the garden (more than a "handful"). it was delicious! the consistency of the sauce was just perfect. and it was super quick!