Crusty homemade bread

daphne on October 11, 2009

Ingredients

  • 3 cups of lukewarm water
  • 1 ½ Tablespoons yeast (less at altitude.  I use 1 1/4) T)
  • 1 ½ teaspoons salt
  • 6 ½ cups of all purpose flour

Directions

This makes enough for about 4 loaves. The dough can be refrigerated and used as you go, so you can have fresh bread for dinner anytime.

  1. In a large bowl of very large tupperwear add the water, yeast and salt.
  2. Mix in the flour, using a wooden spoon until the dough just comes together and is uniformly damp without dry patches.
  3. Cover loosely and allow to rise for 2 hours.

Baking Time—

  1. Dip your hands in flour, and generously dust your work surface with flour.
  2. Pull off a chunk of dough—about a softball size makes 2 medium sized baguettes, or a nice round loaf.
  3. Manipulate the dough into the shape you want, incorporate enough of the flour so the dough is not sticky.
  4. Put it on a baking sheet, dusted with corn meal or another granular flour.  Let it rise another 20 minutes.
  5. Preheat oven to 450 , with an empty broiler tray on the lowest oven rack. ***NEVER USE A GLASS CASSEROLE INSTEAD OF A METAL BOILER TRAY.  YOU WILL END UP WITH THIS NOT-SO-TASTY RECIPE INSTEAD!
  6. Put the bread in the oven, and pour one cup of water into the boiler tray.  Let bake for about 20 minutes—less for thin baguettes, more for thick round loaves.

Oven Baked French Fries

daphne on October 6, 2009

These go fast, so make much much more than you imagine your children could ever eat.

We’ve made these with every kind of potato–purple, fingerling, russet, new, red, you name it.  Each type has a slightly different baking time though, so you might want to bake them separately if you’re doing different types together.

Ingredients:

  • Potatoes
  • Peanut Oil (substitute canola if allergies are an issue)
  • Salt

To do:

  • Preheat oven to 400
  • Slice potatoes into fry-like shapes and put into a large bowl
  • Coat with oil and toss to make sure all the potatoes are covered
  • Put on baking sheet in a single row, sprinkle with salt.

Bake at 400 for 20 minutes, or until crispy and just brown. Check after 15 minutes, particularly if your fries are sliced thin.

Homemade Easy Cheesy Pizza

daphne on October 6, 2009

Homemade Pizza Dough — The dough takes about 15 – 20 minutes to put together, then sits for an hour or two or whatever works with your life.

Ingredients for dough

  • 1 teaspoon sugar
  • 1 1/2 cups warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
  • 1 tablespoon active dry yeast
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 2 cups whole wheat flour
  • 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

DIRECTIONS for dough

  1. In a large bowl, dissolve sugar in warm water. Sprinkle yeast over the top, and let stand for about 10 minutes, until foamy.
  2. Stir the olive oil and salt into the yeast mixture, then mix in the whole wheat flour and 1 cup of the all-purpose flour until dough starts to come together. Tip dough out onto a surface floured with the remaining all-purpose flour, and knead until all of the flour has been absorbed, and the ball of dough becomes smooth, about 5 minutes. Place dough in bowl, and cover loosely with a towel. Let stand at room temperature until doubled in size, about 1 hour.
  3. When the dough is doubled, tip the dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and divide into 2 pieces for 2 thin crust, or leave whole to make one thick crust. Form into a tight ball. Let rise for about 45 minutes, until doubled.
  4. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Roll a ball of dough with a rolling pin until it will not stretch any further. When the circle has reached the desired size, place on a cookie sheet dusted with corn meal or flour or well greased.  Or use a flour-dusted pizza stone.
  5. Pre-bake crust at 425 for 8-10 min or so, then baked with toppings at 425 for about 7 min.

TOPPINGS

After pre-baking the crust, add sauce and toppings and return to the 425 oven just long enough to heat the toppings and melt the cheese, or about 8 minutes.

Anything works on top of pizza! Shredded mozzarella and jarred sauce, fresh goat cheese and homemade sauce.  Whatever floats your boat.

My kids love peanuts on theirs (gross, I know, but to each her own, right?)

My favorites are balsamic glazed onions, thinly sliced tomatoes, spinach and fresh mozzarella.  I use all the ingredients raw except the onions–here’s how I cook the onions.

Dave’s Crazy Good Peach Salsa

daphne on August 27, 2009

This salsa fresca is unbelievably good.  This version is medium-mild, but you can always increase the number of jalepenos if you like it hot hot hot.  The key here is using ultra-fresh ingredients.

  • 2 c diced tomatoes
  • 1/2 c diced yellow bell pepper
  • 1 large diced, peeled peach
  • 1/4 seeded and diced jalapeno (more or less to taste)
  • 1/2 c chopped red onion
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 3 tbsp balsamic vinegar
  • 1 tbls lime juice

Add all ingredients together and toss lightly.  Put it in the fridge for about an hour and serve cold.  The extra liquid can be drained off before serving.

Crusty artisan bread with shards of glass

daphne on November 18, 2008

Mmmm, hot, crusty and fresh from the oven. With just a smattering of shattered glass.  Nothing says homemade like fresh bread.  At least that’s what they all say.  The results of my efforts, however, proved otherwise.

If you are dreaming of fresh loaves that look something like this:

You might want to go and check out Farmhouse Greetings. She makes bread the old fashioned way, without glass fragments.

But if you’re not a sissy, stick with me.

I should make one thing clear: my mother is in no way responsible for the events surrounding the spectacular exploding bread caper of ’08.  Really. It’s just that in sharing the recipe over the phone some things got lost in translation, like the fact that her lasagna pan was made of something other than glass.

The gist of the bread baking is this: you create a huge hunk of the dough, keep it in the fridge, and then tear it off and bake as needed.  What keeps the bread soft and fluffy on the inside yet crusty on the outside?  A steaming pan of water, simmering just beneath the baking bread.

Word to the wise: despite the fact that your inner voice might object using only a nagging whisper, LISTEN WHEN IT TELLS YOU NOT TO ADD WATER TO A HOT GLASS PAN.   I’m not saying that I would do anything that insanely stupid, I’m just saying, if you’ve got a little voice, you might want to listen up.

So how do you encrust a warm loaf of artisan bread with billions of tiny shards of glass?  Easy.  Just heat an empty glass pan to 450°.  Lean your head into the hot oven. Pour lukewarm water into the pan and watch the fireworks.  It’s a spectacular show.

Brave reader, here is what your oven may look like after just one shattered glass, bread-baking bash:

Mom got her recipe from a new book, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. She loves it. Having pilfered the recipe over the phone I can say that I am not a huge fan of the million shards of flying glass part of the recipe. But Mom’s breads consistently turn out warm and crusty and, most notably, glass-free.

And she tells me that eating bread without risk of blood is just as enjoyable as my way.  So maybe next time I’ll just buy the book.