Category: food & drink

Jan 24 2010

French Bread

French Baguettes
French baguettes are going to take some practice.  While the bread tastes fine, it doesn’t have the gassy texture you should have with a good baguette.  Also my scoring lines were apparently not deep enough, as the bread didn’t crack on them.  This however my first attempt at hearth style baking in my oven.  I cooked these on my pre-heated round pizza stone, which is why two of the loaves are shorter than the third.  Maybe the next time I attempt this formula, I’ll have a rectangular stone, so all three loaves can be equal.

French Baguette

Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2010/01/french-bread/

Jan 24 2010

Kaiser Rolls

Bison Burger on Kaiser Roll

My journey through the Bread Baker’s Apprentice continues with Kaiser Rolls (inspired by the pictures of Pinch My Salt and What We’re Eating’s Pulled Pork on Kaiser Rolls).  I considered substituting brown sugar (per the advice of Pinch My Salt) as I was having a hard time finding barley extract powder or barley malt syrup at the store.  When I found it, I wasn’t sure I wanted to spend $5.99 on a 16oz jar of which I only needed 1 1/2 teaspoons of.  But in the end I decided to splurge and get it (figuring I could use it the next time I make the Anadama Bread for instance).

My second bump in the road making these rolls, was that I didn’t have a spray bottle.  This was needed both for creating a little steam in the oven at the beginning of baking and for putting on the seeds on the tops of the rolls.  I ended up using flax seeds instead of the more traditional sesame or poppy seeds.  They fell off the finished rolls easier than I think the sesame or poppy seeds would have, but they still tasted good.

Kaiser Roll

I made these in mind of using for buns for bison burgers.  To match the size of the rolls, I made my patties a little smaller than normal, between a “slider” sized patty and a regular sized patty.  The burgers were kept pretty simple with a single slice of provolone and a piece of lettuce.  They definitely made a tasty MLKjr Day dinner.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2010/01/kaiser-rolls/

Jan 23 2010

Anadama Bread

Anadama Bread
This bread is described by Peter Reinhart as one of the great New England breads.  The story he relates to the name of the bread is the story of a man who’s wife has left him, leaving behind only a pot of cornmeal mush and some molasses.  He mixes that together along with some yeast and flour and mutters “Anna, damn ‘er!”  It later gets amended to the more genteel “anadama”

For this bread, I used agave syrup instead of the molasses (I had the agave syrup and not the molasses).  It made for very nice sandwich bread, I had roast beef and provolone sandwiches for my lunch for a couple days with this bread.  The next time I make this bread, I think I’ll replace the molasses with the barley syrup I bought for the next bread I’ll be posting about.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2010/01/anadama-bread/

Jan 22 2010

Mesquite Chocolate Chip Cookies

Mesquite Chocolate Chip Cookies
I’ve had the Super Natural Cooking cookbook by Heidi Swanson (of 101 Cookbooks) for a few years now.  One of the recipes that I marked right away was this cookie recipe.  The only thing holding up a batch of these cookies however was getting some Mesquite flour.  Mesquite flour is made from the pods of the Mesquite (not the wood) which is ground up into a flour or meal.  Of course in the book there are resources on where to order it online, but I never got around to doing that.

This year, as part of my Christmas present, my girlfriend gave me a half pound of Mesquite flour from the Arizona Mesquite Company.  So it was finally time to make the cookies.  Baking with the mesquite flour was fun.  The flour is very aromatic, and while its only a fraction of the flour in these cookies, you can definitely smell its there.  There was one casualty while baking these cookies though.  Breaking from my normal routine of only mixing by hand, I pulled out the electric hand mixer.  Just as I was about done mixing there was a spark and smoke from the inside of the mixer.  The mixer alas had mixed its last.  I guess that’s what I get for trying to use technology while baking.  In the end it was worth it though…these cookies were quite good.
Mesquite Chocolate Chip Cookies

Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2010/01/mesquite-chocolate-chip-cookies/

Jan 15 2010

No-Knead Bread

In the midst of starting to bake through the recipes of the Bread Baker’s Apprentice, I received my second KCRW Cookbook Club Selection, My Bread: The Revolutionary No-Work, No-Knead Method by Jim Lahey.  As I was planning on getting my dutch oven out of storage in Oregon anyway, the bread that inspired this cookbook was very enticing.

I actually ended up making this bread twice before I was satisfied with it enough to post pictures of it.  The first time I made it, I used the same flour I mentioned in my focaccia post, a freshly ground hard red wheat.  I think there were a couple of factors contributing to that bread not turning out as well as I’d have liked.  First, I probably needed a little bit more water in the dough to let the yeast fully do its stuff.  The other problem, the temperature of my parents house.  My parents have one of those fancy programmable  thermostats, and as there isn’t normally anyone home during the day on weekdays, it was set somewhere in the 60s.  This also being a house I’ve never lived in, I didn’t know where the thermostat was to bump it up to a more normal temperature.  That loaf of bread ended up tasting ok, but it was a little dense and smaller than I expected.

Upon returning to LA, I had to try again, this time using actual bread flour instead of the fresh ground red wheat.  The dough definitely ended up doing a better job of fermenting this time and the size while still a little smaller than I expected was better as well.  I also didn’t get it quite shaped in a perfect round, so it looks a little like a waning moon.

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After cutting into the bread, I was quite pleased to find the nice gaseous holes that were supposed to be there (and weren’t really there in my first attempt with the hard red wheat).

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The bread wasn’t quite as tall as I expected it to be, but when I went back and looked at the pictures in the book, it was pretty comparable to the loaf there.  I was quite happy with the results (and it was wonderful dipped in the Roasted Garlic Rosemary Dipping Oil from the Olive Pit).

Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2010/01/no-knead-bread/

Jan 07 2010

Focaccia

Since I figured I’d have some spare time, I brought my copy of the Bread Baker’s Apprentice with me while visiting my parents over Christmas.  On the drive up to Oregon from LA, a stop in Corning at the Olive Pit inspired my third bread from BBA.  (That and the memory of Nicole’s focaccia.)  The Olive Pit’s Roasted Garlic Rosemary Dipping Oil was just perfect for the herbed oil called for in the recipe.

When I hit up the local grocery store (Market of Choice) to get some bread flour, I discovered something I’d never seen before.  In the bulk section, they had a machine full of wheat berries that would be freshly ground into flour.  Pretty much exactly like the more common fresh peanut butter machines, just for flour.  So I got a bag and set into filling it with around 4 pounds of freshly ground hard red wheat flour.

This was another two day bread, that started with making a poolish.  The poolish is a starter that you allow to ferment ahead of time to get nice start on long strands of gluten.  Because I was using whole wheat flour, without any of the normal bread flour additions, I gave my poolish a little more time than normal.  It also probably could have used a little more water for the yeast to work with.  Nonetheless, the bread ended up turning out pretty good.  It might have been a little denser then it would have been if I had used bread flour, but it was a big hit with the family.

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just out of the oven

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cut and ready to eat

Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2010/01/focaccia/

Jan 06 2010

Cornbread (and Bison Chili)

The success of the Homemade English Muffins, had me wanting to explore the Bread Baker’s Apprentice even more.  It being winter (a relative term in Southern California), a dinner of Chili and Cornbread seemed like a good idea.  The BBA cornbread is no Jiffy Mix cornbread though.  It takes 2 days to make and has a special ingredient full of win.  Yes, the love of hipsters from SE Portland to Williamsburg, Brooklyn…Bacon!

The night before baking, I started a soaker of polenta and buttermilk.  After soaking overnight the rest of the ingredients are mixed together and crumbled on top, 10 slices of thick cut bacon.

In the spirit of trying to eat locally and ethically, I picked up a pound of ground bison at the Hollywood Farmers Market.  With this I made a simple red bean and meat chili to have alongside the cornbread.  Both were excellent, especially as leftovers the next couple days (though the chili did outlast the cornbread).

I made this almost a month ago, so unfortunately the details of the cooking/baking are a little short.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2010/01/cornbread-and-bison-chili/

Oct 21 2009

Homemade English Muffins

My friend Nicole is behind this little event called the Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge (aka BBA Challenge).  Basically, she picked a cookbook about bread baking and is baking through the recipes.  When she posted this idea on Twitter, it took off, and now folks around the world are baking alongside her.

After a few months of seeing (and tasting the Focaccia) the wonderful breads Nicole was making, I decided to pick up a copy of the book myself.  I’m may not end up baking completely through the book, but I’m going to try to make it through most of them.

I decided my first bread would be English Muffins partially because the recipe was pretty simple, but also because you grill them instead of actually baking them.

Mine ended up a little denser than Nicole’s English Muffins looked, and definitely denser than store bought, but they still tasted really good.  My muffins also were a little inconsistent on the color, but I attribute that mostly to the fluctuating temperature on my gas stove/cast iron pan.

For that first one, I toasted it and spread some butter and my grandpa’s homemade huckleberry jam.  It was fantastic!

Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2009/10/homemade-english-muffins/

Sep 01 2009

(Not) Eating Out

Inspired by my friend Nicole (@PinchMySalt), I’m not going to eat out during the month of September.  She had a good thought about it…”Remember when going out to eat was kind of a big deal?”  Its true, I think even up to when I was in high school going out was a pretty big deal.  Even just getting Dairy Queen (especially for lunch) was kind of a big deal.  So September will be the time to really discover the kitchen in my new apartment.

I’ve been going to the Farmer’s Market in Hollywood the past few weeks regularly.  I’ve been most excited about the Huckleberries one of the mushroom guys has had.  They’re expensive ($10 for about 2/3rds of a pound), but so good.  A little taste of Oregon in the midst of the never ending summer of Southern California.  The first bag became a batch of Huckleberry Ice Cream.  Though the recipe I used ended up being more of a sweet cream ice cream with huckleberries in it.  Bag number two is currently in the process of becoming Huckleberry’cello.  I picked up a couple more bags this past weekend (probably the last week he’ll have them), and I’m going to make a Huckleberry Granita out of it.  Mmm…I do love the huckleberries.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2009/09/not-eating-out/

Mar 26 2009

Lamb Shanks and Green Lentils in Red Wine

I’ve been on a bit of a lamb kick lately.  So while at the Farmer’s Market at 3rd and Fairfax on Saturday, I picked up a couple lamb shanks at the butcher.

Sunday, I looked through my cookbooks to get some ideas on what to do.  I ended up deciding on a recipe from How To Cook Everything by Mark Bittman, but decided to prepare my shanks for cooking in a way another recipe suggested.  I salted the shanks and let them sit for a couple days in the refrigerator  before actually cooking.  As with most of the recipes in Bittman’s book, the recipe was pretty simple.  Green Lentils, onion, carrot, thyme, bay leaves and the lamb shanks roasted in the oven in red wine.  I used an inexpensive ($4.99) Cabernet Sauvignon from Whole Foods.  Once in the oven there wasn’t much left to do but wait.  A little over two hours later it was done.  The meat was falling off the bone tender, and the lentils had a nice taste from the wine.  I’ll definitely make this again sometime.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2009/03/lamb-shanks-and-green-lentils-in-red-wine/