After I made all the stock on Sunday, I threw the beef bones away and rescued the lamb stew meat from the bottom of the big stock pot. After hours of simmering, it was shreddy and lovely, but still had some good lamby flavor. I put it in the fridge with an eye towards doing something later using the goat whey we had left from cheese making. And a day or two later, I noticed…
Category: Baking
As I mentioned in the last bread post, lately I’ve been feeling much more comfortable with baking–at least bread. So much so that I got all crazy-like and just straight-up improvised some pretty tasty rolls. See, Milo was keen to make some bread with me, only he wanted to make his own. So I helped him measure out the stuff, but with an eye towards a different dough that would be good either for rolls…
I’ve finally absorbed the routine of bread-making into the stubbornly erratic fabric of my chores around here, and have been keeping a steady flow of loaves coming so we’re never wanting for tangy, crusty goodness at any juncture (and croutons, panzanella, and pappa al pomodoro are now perpetually available given the equally constant presence of hardening heels). It’s really a question of practice–not just of the recipe and technique, but of timing so that it…
My March article about baking bread is up now on the Chronogram site. Have at it. Bread from the oven of William Alexander, author of the upcoming book “52 Loaves.” Photo by Jennifer May. I also linked this to yeastspotting, because they loves them some homemade bread.
What to do with bread dough that just can’t get its rise on, due to too-cold kitchen temperatures? Make flatbread, and put the rest of the dough in the laundry room to enliven. While I lovingly cooked the pita in the iron pan, using a wipe of butter for each new pillowy disc, I pressure-cooked chick peas, onion, carrot, kale, a Toulouse sausage, and herbs in some leftover soup I had made from the lamb…
Growing up, there was a time before my Mother had to go to work when she gardened and baked bread all the time. Helping her weed and pick and knead and mix formed some of my earliest memories, and no doubt have much to do with how important those same rituals are to me now- and why I’m so pleased to pass them along to Milo. The smell of bread baking has to be one…
Returning with the cooler weather (though the last few days have been utterly resplendent Indian summer, flirting with low 70’s) has been my desire to bake bread. I kind of fell out of the habit this summer, but now I’m fully back into it, this time with some slight modifications to the process that fit better with my equipment and the rhythms of my life. I’m still using the live starter that Andrew gave us,…
More torrential rain, and then more still- it’s beyond the bad joke stage, and into full-blown misery here in parts of the Northeast. Micro sent me this link to an article in the Globe about the CSA where he works every week for his share of the bounty; they lost their entire tomato crop to the early blight (same fungus that caused the potato famine). Chris just pulled up all their Roma tomatoes and burned…
We went to Vermont for one night so I could meet with the contractor who’s helping keep part of the house from falling off, and invited Chris along as well so the kids could play together. He brought some ready-to-bake bread; they’ve been using the same sourdough starter we use, though with a different blend of flours. The trip up really gave it a chance to rise, so by the time we arrived it was…
The giant meaty lamb bone from Easter got me inspired to do something besides lamb sandwiches or lamb fried rice with the leftovers. I made a big pot of pho with the bone, using half of it in other things and freezing two quarts for later. Lamb makes a wonderful (if untraditional) pho. I’ve been trying to branch out with the sourdough starter- though I am overdue to make bread- and thought that gyros with…