With the cooler weather I have been doing more cooking inside. Last night I made chili and einkorn bread.
The chili turned out well. I think I'll add more coriander next time. I used a couple freshly picked serranoes from my plant which is still bearing fruit despite the change of season.
I tried my hand at einkorn brot because my ladyfriend has a mild allergy to normal American wheat. During our trip in the UK, she ate bread and pastry shells aplenty without getting the joint pain that she experiences eating the same things here. I figured I'd try to find a flour to make tasty things that wouldn't cause her any discomfort.
The bread machine recipe at the jovial website gave a custom bread machine cycle to accommodate the grain's weak gluten bonds. Apparently the typical third rise would break them and make for a deflated loaf. My machine being a more basic model, I used the Dough cycle which, I believe, allows for a final manual proofing outside the bread machine. Feeling like the Dr. Frankenstein of bakers, I threw the resulting dough into a loaf pan to see how it would turn out. Not bad.
Not, perhaps, the most aesthetically pleasing loaf but it tasted good.
I am told that a well-buttered slice drizzled with honey was a fine way to break a fast. So far no aches.
Yesterday I baked a loaf of jalapeño cheese bread.
I remember watching the dough get perilously close to the window on the lid of my breadmaker. She was really risin'.
**Jim Morrison voice**
Mr. Jalapeño Rising
**end Jim Morrison voice**
With about 10 minutes before the rising was to give way to the baking, the top collapsed.
Oh well.
I brought it to gaming and sampled it there. I thought it turned out well and so did my gaming compatriots. Earthy jalapeño with a little zip and some cheddar goodness all brought together by tasty Maillard reactions.
A couple weeks back I had a conversation about Kaiser rolls, those round rolls with the starfish-like slits on the top. When I was growing up the Kaiser rolls we ate may or may not have had poppy seed on them but they were all crusty on the outside while being light & fluffy on the inside. My interlocutor had a similar experience in their youth.
We both lamented that Kaiser rolls in Madison lack the crusty exterior. Here's a photo I took of Kaiser rolls, which may have been labeled as Hard Rolls, at Hy-Vee.
Look at how that crust gives! It was soft and not crispy crusty. Oddly enough, the same goes for those from Clasen's whom you'd think would make them "traditionally", i.e. - with a crispy crust.
Am I wrong? Is the crusty outside an optional thing with the Kaiser roll? How can you have a hard roll that is squishy when you poke it? So you don't make the slits to give it that crown-like appearance but you also don't put the "hard" in hard roll? This is just odd to me.
Despite Piper's death and a large cat-shaped hole in my heart, life goes on and there really are many wonderful things in mine. Sometimes it is difficult to enjoy them or even recognize they exist when I get bogged down in my sweetpea's absence. For instance, it was very difficult to come home from work that first day after her death. I walked in the door and tearfully stared at the couch waiting for her to walk around the corner and jump on it to patiently wait for me to give her a pill pocket.
It gets better a little every day but I still miss her greatly.
I baked a loaf of rye bread recently.
I used some insta-sourdough dust.
It was nice to finally give this stuff a go as I had bought a packet last year when I was still living with my wife but never used it while in the grip of divorce miasma.
It turned out well with a nice rye flavor and a good tangy zip to it.
Look what arrived a couple days ago!
I simply adore this picture. Winter! A kindly cat! Birds!
This was a gift given to me maybe a week or so before Piper passed. I need to get it framed so that it can sit on my desk.
Another recent gift was some coffee from Puerto Rico.
Very tasty stuff. Very roasty and a bit nutty.
I hung my print of Grabby.
One of Piper to follow.
Lastly, for now, I'll mention that Shemekia Copeland put on a great show last week.
Lousy picture, I know. One thing I love about her is how positive she is. In addition to catchy melodies and booty-shakin' grooves, her songs are often about hope and being kind to one another. She certainly recognizes hardships in life but she emphasizes beauty.
She mentioned that she'll be back here in Madison this summer at one of our numerous festivals.
Last month I tried my hand at a loaf of chocolate cherry bread and failed miserably.
It did not rise very much and I'm not sure why.
My guess is that the water I used wasn't warm enough.
The cookbook said to put the dried cherries in after a particular cycle and, while I thought I followed directions, the cherries largely ended up at the bottom of the loaf.
The bread tasted fine, though. A bit on the rib sticking side but it had a nice, mellow chocolate taste without much sweetness. Plus who doesn't like tart cherries?
My next attempt at brot was another loaf of herb bread and it turned out well. You'll have to trust me here as no photos exist. The crust was crispy while the inside was light and fluggy a la Wonder Bread. My previous attempt had rosemary in it but this time I had the prescribed tarragon as well as some dried chives that were liberally applied. I really enjoyed my piece while the rest was given away. The recipients were most pleased.
Today I baked buckwheat bread. I was inspired by a loaf from Ideal Bakery that was found at Woodmans. Perhaps the moistest bread known to man, it was like Tres Leches cake but in bread form. And without the milks. And not sweet. The stuff was essentially toaster-resistant. I'd put a slice in for 2 rounds on the darkest setting and it'd pop up and feel toasty to the touch, though it didn't brown much. Upon taking a bite I found that the interior was still extremely moist - like a sponge. As if it was made of those Damprid crystals. It was a most singular bread.
My loaf was not 100% buckwheat, although I did double the amount of buckwheat flour in the recipe from 1/3 of a cup to 2/3 and adjusted the wheat accordingly.
I like how it turned out.
It's got that buckwheat tint to it, has a crispy crust, and a wonderful roasty, earthy taste to it. Doubling the buckwheat was definitely a good call.
My bread machine keeps churning out the staff of life unabated.
A loaf of herb bread turned out well.
The recipe called for tarragon but I had none so I threw in rosemary instead.
I don't dislike tarragon, but I prefer rosemary. Tarragon has an anise/licorice thing to it which is not my favorite whereas rosemary is more like mint. The brot made for some tasty sandwiches at a friend's place.
Most recently I tried my hand at challah.
It turned out well except I misread the recipe and attempted to decorate the top of the loaf with poppy seed at the wrong time. Oops.
I was pleased with how it turned out beyond a paucity of poppy. Light, fluffy. Eggy. This stuff makes some fine toast.
Earlier this month I got the craving for Italian food. I suspect I just didn't get enough at my Italian uncle's home over Christmas. A stop at the Willy Street Coop yielded some smoked mozzerella tortelloni from RP's Pasta. Next I made a trek to Fraboni's as I had a hankering for their XX hot sausage.
It had been a while since I'd had their sausage as my wife doesn't care for it. The grind is too coarse for her taste. Fair enough. Now that I am no longer cooking for her, I indulged myself. Also, I bought a quart of their marinara and voila! It was a fairly quick and easy dinner.
While at Fraboni's it was brought to my attention that they now offer Mystery Sausage Coils.
Who knows what lurks in the heart of mystery sausages? The Fraboni knows...
When dining out, it's been Mexican lately.
It had been a while since I'd been to El Pastor. The fajitas were fine. Grilled jalapenos are da bomb.
Is there a 12-step program for choco-flan addiction?
I love this stuff!
More recently I ate at Enrique's Market for the first time. It features a small selection of groceries, including a brand of salt & vinegar potato chips that I'd never encountered, as well as a kitchen offering a smattering of Mexican staples.
My asada torta was simple yet very delicious.
I really like Enrique's. The food was good, the staff friendly, and it had a wholly unpretentious, hole-in-the-wall vibe that I adore. It's a neighborhood joint, not a Michelin starred destination for the well-heeled. As Douglas MacArthur once said, I shall return.
Lavenders blue, dilly dilly, lavenders green
When I am baking, dilly dilly
You will be eating
I baked more bread yesterday. With a mostly full bottle of buttermilk in my refrigerator, I opted for a loaf of buttermilk lavender bread. It turned out well.
I ate a bit simply with butter but think that honey would be very tasty as would making French toast with it. That bread machine cookbook I took out from the library explained the various types of yeast so I went out and bought some of the instant stuff. My hope is that this will help my next loaf of rye to rise correctly.
Addendum: this bread goes very well with tuna salad.
For some reason I thought it was be a good idea to get a bread machine cookbook from the library. A witchy librarian checked me out yesterday and today I baked my first loaf from the book. Hours after it had finished, my kitchen and living room still smelled of cardamom for I had baked some cardamom tea bread.
Sitting in the pan it looked and smelled delicious. Unlike my bundt cake, I managed to get the loaf out of the pan without a hitch. I was rather surprised at this point because after I had put the ingredients into the pan, the directions said to select the "Quick bread/cake" setting on the bread machine.
Well, my machine has no such setting. Some internet site helpfully explained that not all bread machines are built to accommodate recipes that use baking powder and soda as leavening agents. Yeast only, please.
After reading a bit more at this website about the experience of one gentleman with this type of bread machine, I made my best guess and selected a setting that I hoped would get me into the ballpark.
Cutting into it, I found that it looked properly risen and not dense like a neutron star.
How did it taste?
Marvelous!
A bit sweet and every bite was loaded with luscious cardamom. With a cup of sour cream and no small amount of oil, it was very moist.
I busted out the breadmaker yesterday and tried my hand at making a loaf of rye bread. Well, "making" is a bit of an overstatement since I was, after all, using a breadmaker.
The recipe was from the manual that came with it and called for a ratio of something like 2.5:1 wheat to rye flour. I tweaked it to roughly 1.5:1 and am proud to say that this loaf turned out much better than the last one:
Chewy crust, tender & juicy inside - it was rather tasty. But it still needed more rye taste so I will continue to increase the amount of rye flour in subsequent loaves. I believe using fresh yeast is what made the difference here.
