More bread! - an experiment!

I just mixed up a batch of No Knead Bread, but am experimenting with adding BACON. I remember buying a loaf of bread in Germany that had "speck" in it, which is bacon. The bacon was dispersed throughout the loaf, and added a nice salty taste, too. I lightly browned diced bacon and rendered the fat off, and let it cool before adding it to the dry ingredients. I also added in rosemary, so hopefully that combination will be delectable together. I'm baking it off tomorrow night (possibly adding cheese to the second loaf) so I'll let you know how it turns out :)

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UPDATE: 10/1/09 , 9:33PM

Turns out I was so excited to make the bacon and rosemary bread that I forgot to add in YEAST!! So I got home from work today expecting the dough to have tripled in size - my heart broke seeing all that wasted king arthur flour and bacon. The dough was same size as yesterday, and I didn't think it'd taste good all dense and some junk.

But no worries, I started up a new batch again so hopefully there will be some good results tomorrow! yum yum : )

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UPDATE: 10/3/09, 11:45PM

Here is the update of my bacon bread, with pictures! I ended up waking up at 4am Friday to shape and proof the bread, and baked it off at 6am, so it was ready to eat at 7 before work!! I felt like such the baker (candlestickmaker) :)

Anyways, the bread turned out pretty good! The bacon made it a little greasy, but it was still very fluffy and light. The bacon wasn't super salty, so it was more of a bite of bacon along with the bread, and I kept worrying a piece of bacon would fall out when I was toasting a slice of bread at work - I'm sure my co-workers would think I'm crazy to make bacon bread, esp. if a piece of bacon was stuck at the bottom of our toaster and created some sort of fire or whatnot. Anyways, tasty bread but I don't think I'd do it again with this bacon. I think I'd try with pancetta since it's saltier, and I would cut it into smaller pieces - the bacon I had were like 1/4" pieces.

Overall, I was pleased with the experiment and am thinking of a new concoction for the next loaf of bread. Ideas are welcome! :)

Long Over Due

Sorry for the month long hiatus for updating - I've got some goodies to post about though.

First - I'd like to voice my love for roasted corn on the cob. Perhaps it is one of summer's greatest treats, but there is really not much that is tastier or simpler than throwing a cob on the "barbie" and slathering it with lime butter once it's golden brown and munching on those sweet roasted kernels. LOVE IT.

Second - Love indian food, especially from Taste of India on Roosevelt and 55th. We went there a few weeks ago, and as usual, I got free desert :) It's been a long running thing, perhaps the past 10 times at least, I've gotten free desert from them! And their food is pretty darn tasty, too. We shared garlic naan, tikka masala, tandoori, the spinach curry, almond chicken curry, and butter curry. MMM. LOVE IT!

Third - Been baking lots of bread. I just made one tonight - rosemary No Knead Bread. I chopped up about 3 sprigs of rosemary and added it into the dry ingredients yesterday. I also added 3 T of sugar and extra yeast, which I think helped yield the lovely rise on the bread. :) It went beautifully with my soup - store bough "Pacific" brand of Roasted Red Bell Pepper and Tomato soup. MM MM MM! I'm planning on having more soup and bread for lunchies this week.

Fourth - For my birthday 2 weeks ago, we went to Quinn's pub on Capitol Hill. It was delicious. For appetizers, we shared spicy peanuts, a tomato salad, baguette & butter, and frites, fontina fonduta, demi-glace - which is fries with gravy and cheese.

Mouthwatering good. For the main course, we shared slow roasted ribs, fish and chips, and half a roasted chicken with chickpea puree. The chicken was my favorite - so tender and the puree was heavenly. The ribs were OK but not amazing. And I didn't try the fish but the chips were OK. I think next time I'll be more daring and try more risky things, like bone marrow... Really enjoyable dinner, though.

Fifth: For my bday, I decided to invite some friends over and cook for them. It was tough trying to plan the menu but I used my new gift of Giada de Laurentis' Everyday Italian as inspiration to create a mainly Italian focused menu:

Caprese Salad w/ toasted baguette slices (v)
White Bean Dip with toasted pita chips (v)
Chicken Satay skewers with peanut sauce

Greek Salad
Zucchini Al Forno (zucchini gratin) (v)
Homemade No-Knead Bread (v)
-Mashed potatoes, care of Alan/ Stacey/Jaden (v)

Pasta with three sauces:
Lemon Alfredo (v)
Spicy Tomato Sauce (all'arribbaita - the angry style)

Bolagnese
Tuna and Tomato

Dessert:
Brownies (of course :)) (v)

(v) = vegetarian friendly!

I started Friday night, purchasing all the groceries from Trader Joes and Freddies, and then starting on the Bolagnese sauce, and bread.

Then I started cooking up again Saturday at 2pm until 7, but had great help from some friends and my cousin Anna. Everything worked out great in the end and I ended up feeding 20 people for only about $5 per person, it was great w/ the pasta as the main course because everyone could choose what sauces they liked.

The zucchini gratin was my favorite - super easy to make! You just layer zucchini slices with cream, cheese - fontina, parm, mozzarella, and peccorino romano, bread crumbs, salt and pepper. Bake until browned and bubbly and enjoy!

I think everyone's favorite was the Lemon Alfredo, which was a recipe I got from my coworker Amber - you just slowly boil lemon juice, cream, and muscat wine.

Lastly - been making some mac and cheese. So good, and so easy. Not too easy on the waistline, but I love baking pasta w/ bread crumbs on top - that crust is always the best part.

That is it for now!! I'll try to post more regularly!! Enjoy the pix and let me know if you want any certain recipes!

-Belinda

Pictures: All Sorts of Yum!

I don't have anything constructive to write about so I thought I'd just post pictures of some food as of late that I've been eating/making:

I've been baking a lot of bread. Of course. The latest technique is mixing the beer bread and the sourdough bread recipes; that way, I get the best of both worlds: sour taste with fluffy texture and crispy crust. It's so delicious my family usually ends up eating a whole load right out of the oven so it's a good thing the beer recipe makes two loaves. MMM!

It make this delicious bread I used:

-about 1/2 cup of sourdough starter

- 6 C King Arthur bread flour

-3/4 t instant yeast

-1 T table salt

-2 t sugar

MIX with:

-12 ounces water

-3/4 C blonde lager beer

-2 T white vinegar

-1 T honey

Let sit overnight 10-20 hours in a bowl covered in saran wrap and a kitchen cloth.

Then punch/deflate and and seperate into 2 loaves. Slash top of loaves to cool bake-marks. Let rise in a warm-ish oven for 2 hours.

Then it looks like <- that picture :)

Other things I've been making are this delicious pot of asparagus and pancetta risotto. I think this was my second time making risotto and that night it was so-so, but oh man, the next day, it was SO GOOD! And then the day after, it was so much better! So my conclusion is that risotto taste so much better the day after because then it has time to soak in all the juices and sauce.

I also made this plate of "caprese salad" with crustini. I had roasted the slices of tomatoes in balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and crushed garlic [at 350F]. After about 30 minutes, let it cool and then layer with fresh mozzerella and sprinkle chiffonade of basil and drizzle of more "EVOO". (ugh). And serve with slices of bagette that have been brushed with olive oil and toasted 'til crispy.

Well... that's all I got for now! :)

Battle #1 Results: Sourdough Wins!

Hands down, the real sourdough bread won.  Dad described it a having a thicker, crispier crust with a tasty sour flavor while the inside was moist and chewy.  The NKB, on the other hand, had a nice crispy/buttery crust but there was a huge lack of flavor compared to the sourdough.  It was fluffy inside but not much flavor or texture besides that.   

I shaped them around 6 when I got home and baked them around 10:30 for about an hour.  My dad has gobbled down about 8 slices already, and I just finished baking both about an hour ago.  I hope I still have some left for the work potluck tomorrow... And my starter is smelling a bit funky/intensely sour... I hope that supposed to happen. :)

Anyways, here are some pictures! (the bread had already been "broken" by the time I got around to taking pictures).  In all of these pictures, the sourdough is the one on the right, and the NKB is the one on the left.  Both got poofy but didn't rise super big - I think it's because the containers they proofed in were big so the blobs of dough just spread out before rising.  Oh well, still delicious. :)  I will try and post Mark Bittman's sourdough recipe here.   It's super easy, I promise.  It just takes a bit of time /planing but is definitely worth the wait and effort! :)

Battle #1: No Knead Bread vs. Sourdough Bread Bake Off!

I couldn't really think of what to write about an intro for this blog so I decided that I may as well just jump right in and start blogging.

I've just started a new experiment using two different sourdough recipes. One is Nancy Leson's "No Knead Bread" and the other is derived from Mark Bittman's "How to Cook Everything".

The NKB is a mixture of bread flour, salt, white vinegar, yeast, lager beer, and water. I've used this recipe more than 8 times, and the results have been fantastic: a fluffy crispy bread that is super simple to make. I've even taken to mixing it up, adding whole cloves of garlic before the proofing phase, and rosemary also adds a nice touch. Using whole wheat flour makes the bread a little denser but at least you get that "healthy" feeling while eating the bread. This recipe is a bit demanding though, requiring a heavy investment of a dutch oven to give it that golden buttery crust, which in actuality makes the purchase worth it.

However, I had gotten bored of the NKB. It's a no brainer to make. I was itching to try something more authentic: real sourdough bread [ or as real as you can get in a home kitchen] . So I looked at the handy dandy cook bible that Dave got me for my birthday last year and found a pretty simple recipe for sourdough bread, starter and all. I mixed the starter for the first time about 2 weeks ago, and have made 3 or so loaves of bread since then. [Side note: I'm always reminded of Anthony Bourdain's "Kitchen Confidential" chapter about his bread man begging Anthony to "feeeeeed the starterrrr"; great book, you gotta read it.] Anyways, I've been feeding my starter, and experimenting on/off with whole wheat flours and bread flours. This recipe is pretty simple, just consisting of flour, water, yeast, and salt. And the result is a fluffy and chewy bread with a light touch of sour flavor that really satisfies the pallet.

Overall, I'll say that King Arthur's Bread Flour has produced the best results in both bread recipes. I'm doing a head to head competition right now. I've got 1 loaf of each rising in the oven for their 8+ hour beauty naps; I'll shape and proof them after I get home from work and bake them off. I have found that if you shape your bread, place it in an empty oven that has been on for 30 seconds, that slight bit of heat really helps the bread rise beautifully before baking off.

Well, I wrote more that I expected. I guess it's easy to when you're taking about delicious things. Hopefully this blog takes off. We'll see. I'll post later once the breads are done and give you the low-down on the bread smack down.