My friend works for a market-research company. I signed up to take surveys and I get points for each one I complete. I had enough to cash in, so I got Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day. I had played with one of the recipes from the book that was published in Mother Earth News and thought maybe there would be some other ideas in there.
Dan saw a recipe for these pastries made with brioche dough, pastry cream and apricot halves. We went for them last weekend. I was so proud of him--he did 99% of the work. Unfortunately they didn't meet our expectations. Either our oven is too hot or there was an error with the cooking time (most likely the former), but we pulled them from the oven 10 minutes early and they were on their way to burning. They were edible, but just weren't the sweet, decadent delight we had expected.
Next.
When I was dabbling with baking bread this summer, I was playing with a pain de campagne from another bread book I have. I tried it again this week. It takes 4 days to make and rises with wild yeast alone. I unfortunately didn't get the timing right--to make it work you really need to start the dough at night, not in the morning as I did, unless you want to stay up until 3 am baking bread. Which I did not. So I opted to retard the dough in the fridge after the final refreshment. I baked it last night. It wasn't a total failure--it desperately needs more salt (I used kosher salt, but I'm guessing they wanted me to use table). I pulled off a section to use as the starter so I'll try again this weekend. It's a tad bit dense, but I'm hoping if I made it properly this time, the texture will be better.
Also up this weekend: Oatmeal-Pumpkin Bread. I think that will be fabulous in my favorite pancake recipe, Bread Pudding Pancakes.
Our winter CSA starts back up again this week. I'm desperate for it to begin again. We took a hiatus after being CSA members for nearly 2 years non-stop. We also bought into a meat share, which means we get 4-5 different meats each month. Yay!
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Oh bread, how you frustrate me
Why is it so hard for me to find a whole-wheat artisan style bread that really works? I was not happy with the results of the 50-50 whole wheat/white flour blend using the artisan bread in 5 minutes a day recipe. I've had some success with loaf pans but I'm a crust girl--I want a freeform loaf with lots of crusty goodness. I thought that the problem when I made the first batch using ABi5MaD was that my yeast was old. But we stirred up another batch with a fresh bag of yeast and it wasn't much better. The search continues...
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Go Dan Go!
Dan made dinner last night. He was miffed (I think) that I defrosted a whole chicken this weekend and didn't get around to roasting it myself. But he's done it before, I knew he could!
I arrived at home to a chicken roasting away (and smelling delish!), chopped rutabaga and potatoes on the cutting board, cooked bacon and minced rosemary and garlic. He was going to mash the rutabaga and potatoes, I knew. And he had called asking about bacon cooking. I couldn't believe how delicious the bacon-rosemary-garlic-mashed rutabaga & potatoes were! Wow. I whipped up a red wine gravy from the roasting pan to go along with it. AND he warmed up some applesauce with fresh apple chunks in it for another side dish. What a guy I have, huh? I wish I had taken a picture of his beautiful bird.
I arrived at home to a chicken roasting away (and smelling delish!), chopped rutabaga and potatoes on the cutting board, cooked bacon and minced rosemary and garlic. He was going to mash the rutabaga and potatoes, I knew. And he had called asking about bacon cooking. I couldn't believe how delicious the bacon-rosemary-garlic-mashed rutabaga & potatoes were! Wow. I whipped up a red wine gravy from the roasting pan to go along with it. AND he warmed up some applesauce with fresh apple chunks in it for another side dish. What a guy I have, huh? I wish I had taken a picture of his beautiful bird.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Mexican Stew + Fresh-Baked Bread = Divine Fall Dinner
I'll have to take a picture of the stew I ended up making for dinner last night--so divine! This is what I did:
Sauteed onion and celery. Added salsa I froze last summer plus a can of fire-roasted diced tomatoes (one of my favorite convenience foods), diced potatoes and some water. Let that cook a bit. Then I added sliced seeded yellow crookneck squash, chopped collards and lacinato kale, diced roasted red pepper chicken sausage and cooked white beans. Oh my! Topped with a bit of sour cream and some hot sauce, it was the perfect dinner for a rainy fall evening.
My bread was pretty much a success. Perhaps I didn't bake it long enough--though it sounded hollow when I tapped it, it was a little soft. It was slightly challenging to cut. That being said, between dinner last night and breakfast this morning, it's almost gone. The rest of the dough is hanging out in the fridge. Maybe pizza tonight? I'll have to bake another loaf tomorrow I imagine.
Sauteed onion and celery. Added salsa I froze last summer plus a can of fire-roasted diced tomatoes (one of my favorite convenience foods), diced potatoes and some water. Let that cook a bit. Then I added sliced seeded yellow crookneck squash, chopped collards and lacinato kale, diced roasted red pepper chicken sausage and cooked white beans. Oh my! Topped with a bit of sour cream and some hot sauce, it was the perfect dinner for a rainy fall evening.
My bread was pretty much a success. Perhaps I didn't bake it long enough--though it sounded hollow when I tapped it, it was a little soft. It was slightly challenging to cut. That being said, between dinner last night and breakfast this morning, it's almost gone. The rest of the dough is hanging out in the fridge. Maybe pizza tonight? I'll have to bake another loaf tomorrow I imagine.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Fall is here in Vermont
Fall is here. It's a hard time for me because I love fall, it's my favorite season by far, but I don't love winter. I like it enough but I wish fall was longer and winter was shorter. Here are my musings for the day.
Our CSA this summer got hit by late blight. We received nary a tomato. The wet weather also made it a low harvest season. But I feel I still got my money's worth. I was saddened when they sent out an email telling us how hard each crop was hit by the blight or the weather. And one member told the farmers they were upset they joined this CSA again this year. How dare she. That's part of the fun, the adventure, the risk. Welcome to reality.
Our garden was an interesting experiment. The community garden we're in also got hit by late blight. I did manage to get a few tomatoes from the pots at our house. The things that did really well were mustard greens, ground cherries, beets, green beans. We grew head lettuce for the first time. We were too busy to preserve much this summer. We got things in too late and we end loaded our summer with out of town activities to do any meaningful putting up projects. Hopefully next summer we can do more.
Dan made me sad the other day when he said he didn't want to do the winter CSA. He said he's sick of having to eat what we have. I guess we've been in a CSA for over a year now. I can see how he feels that way. He wants to make things that involve other produce we're not getting from the CSA and it's hard for me to justify buying more produce when we can barely eat what's in the crisper now. I guess I have to indulge him occasionally so he'll indulge my love of eating locally.
Today's rainy and blah. I'm trying a new bread project today. I've already made the basic recipe from Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day. IT was fine, but I really want a whole-wheat bread recipe. I found Alexandra's Kitchen blog yesterday, who wrote about successfully making the recipe with half whole-wheat flour. So, that's working right now.
I also have a pot of beans simmering away on the stove and a chicken defrosting. I plan to roast the chicken later so we can make pho this week (one of the dishes Dan's been craving). Then the beans will go into a Mexican-inspired stew. I defrosted some salsa still lingering in my freezer from last summer that tastes more like chili base than salsa. I think I'll put potatoes and mustard greens in the stew and some chicken sausage along with the beans.
Our CSA this summer got hit by late blight. We received nary a tomato. The wet weather also made it a low harvest season. But I feel I still got my money's worth. I was saddened when they sent out an email telling us how hard each crop was hit by the blight or the weather. And one member told the farmers they were upset they joined this CSA again this year. How dare she. That's part of the fun, the adventure, the risk. Welcome to reality.
Our garden was an interesting experiment. The community garden we're in also got hit by late blight. I did manage to get a few tomatoes from the pots at our house. The things that did really well were mustard greens, ground cherries, beets, green beans. We grew head lettuce for the first time. We were too busy to preserve much this summer. We got things in too late and we end loaded our summer with out of town activities to do any meaningful putting up projects. Hopefully next summer we can do more.
Dan made me sad the other day when he said he didn't want to do the winter CSA. He said he's sick of having to eat what we have. I guess we've been in a CSA for over a year now. I can see how he feels that way. He wants to make things that involve other produce we're not getting from the CSA and it's hard for me to justify buying more produce when we can barely eat what's in the crisper now. I guess I have to indulge him occasionally so he'll indulge my love of eating locally.
Today's rainy and blah. I'm trying a new bread project today. I've already made the basic recipe from Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day. IT was fine, but I really want a whole-wheat bread recipe. I found Alexandra's Kitchen blog yesterday, who wrote about successfully making the recipe with half whole-wheat flour. So, that's working right now.
I also have a pot of beans simmering away on the stove and a chicken defrosting. I plan to roast the chicken later so we can make pho this week (one of the dishes Dan's been craving). Then the beans will go into a Mexican-inspired stew. I defrosted some salsa still lingering in my freezer from last summer that tastes more like chili base than salsa. I think I'll put potatoes and mustard greens in the stew and some chicken sausage along with the beans.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Today's Pickup
Since I don't get emails about what we're getting, let's see if I can remember what I got this week!
salad greens
onions
kohlrabi
broccoli
carrots
red russian kale
dill
cukes
zucchini
leftover from last week: broccoli, onions, cukes
tonight i made:
salad greens
onions
kohlrabi
broccoli
carrots
red russian kale
dill
cukes
zucchini
leftover from last week: broccoli, onions, cukes
tonight i made:
Salmon with Cucumbers & Dill
to use up some of those cukes from last week. it was pretty good actually!
to use up some of those cukes from last week. it was pretty good actually!
Thursday, June 4, 2009
1st june pickup
wow, it's so exciting as the growing season gets warmer here in vermont. things have picked up the past few weeks thanks to pete's greenhouses. our pickup last night included:
Mesclun Greens; Head of Green or Red Lettuce; 2 lbs Nicola Potatoes; 1 Bunch of Basil; 1 Bunch Sweet Salad Turnips; 1 Bunch of Beet Greens; 1 Bunch of Sorrel; 1 Bunch of Wild Arugula; 1 Bunch of Easter Egg Radishes; 1 Bunch of Pac Choi, 1 Bunch of Parsley, 1 Bunch of Red Giant Mustard, Vermont Cranberry Company Balsamic Vinegar; Vermont Butter and Cheese Fresh Goat Cheese;
and Elmore Mountain Bread Pizza Dough!
so last night we had a beautiful salad with leftover greens from last week, the salad turnips, grated carrots and beets (beets from a week or 2 ago). then i was strapped for time from staying so late at work so we had pasta with tomatoes i dehydrated last summer, pesto from last summer and chopped olives. yum.
tonight was a salad of shredded napa (from last week) and sliced cucumber, carrots and radishes with a miso vinaigrette (we got miso twice this winter) and frozen dumplings (ha).
i'm very excited because i seem to have finally found a whole-wheat bread recipe that i think i can work on and improve. it's from bob's red mill's baking book. stay tuned for more on that.
Mesclun Greens; Head of Green or Red Lettuce; 2 lbs Nicola Potatoes; 1 Bunch of Basil; 1 Bunch Sweet Salad Turnips; 1 Bunch of Beet Greens; 1 Bunch of Sorrel; 1 Bunch of Wild Arugula; 1 Bunch of Easter Egg Radishes; 1 Bunch of Pac Choi, 1 Bunch of Parsley, 1 Bunch of Red Giant Mustard, Vermont Cranberry Company Balsamic Vinegar; Vermont Butter and Cheese Fresh Goat Cheese;
and Elmore Mountain Bread Pizza Dough!
so last night we had a beautiful salad with leftover greens from last week, the salad turnips, grated carrots and beets (beets from a week or 2 ago). then i was strapped for time from staying so late at work so we had pasta with tomatoes i dehydrated last summer, pesto from last summer and chopped olives. yum.
tonight was a salad of shredded napa (from last week) and sliced cucumber, carrots and radishes with a miso vinaigrette (we got miso twice this winter) and frozen dumplings (ha).
i'm very excited because i seem to have finally found a whole-wheat bread recipe that i think i can work on and improve. it's from bob's red mill's baking book. stay tuned for more on that.
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