Well, I really did it to myself last week.  I’ve let myself be under so much stress for so long that my body just gave out on me.  I caught a nasty flu bug and spent half of Memorial Day weekend in bed with the flu.  If you read my last post, you know that we’ve been eating way too much restaurant food and I was looking forward to some home cooking.  I planned to make this wonderful feta stuffed Greek chicken that I love so much.  I even rescued Herbert  (my sourdough starter) from possible sudden death so that I could bake bread. Bread is necessary for this meal to accompany the wonderful feta stuffing.  Unfortunately, Herbert looked pretty awful.  He had managed to produce a two-inch layer of dark gray hooch in the intervening weeks since I last baked.  I truly thought he was a goner. Once I poured off the disgusting, vile fluid and fed Herbert with fluffy wholesome flour and clean water, he was back to normal.  I made that great recipe for sourdough rye baguettes that I’ve been hooked on for awhile.  The dough was fermenting on the counter and suddenly; I felt like I was fermenting too.  The flu hit me like a ton of bricks.

I spent the rest of Sunday in bed with a fever and when all of Monday turned out to be much, much more of the same, I asked F. to put the chicken and some nice grass fed steaks we bought for Monday’s barbeque in the freezer.  I knew I wouldn’t be cooking for a while.  On Sunday, I already knew I would kiss bread-baking goodbye so I had popped the bread dough in the fridge.  The whole rest of the week went by and I never did get back to that bread dough. 

As the week progressed and I felt better and better I started to plan out those meals we missed.  I pulled the meat out of deep freeze and allowed it to defrost in the fridge.  I kept eyeing the bread dough wondering if I could keep pushing it or if I should give up and toss it.  I keep reading about other bloggers who are doing the whole “no knead bread” evolution thingy where you make a master dough, dump it in the fridge for up to a week and lop off chunks of the master dough for fresh bread throughout the week.  I am also well aware that a long slow rise in the fridge for a couple of days makes bread more flavorful. I wasn’t too worried. 

I took the dough out of the fridge this afternoon and let it warm up and rise on the counter.  I popped it out of the bowl a few hours later and kneaded it a bit.  The outer layer of the dough had oxidized.  I had hoped I could mix it in, but it didn’t really knead in, so that worried me a bit.  The dough smelled great and looked great otherwise so I decided that it wouldn’t kill me.  I formed the baguettes and let them rise.  When I baked the bread it rose in the oven really well.  I am out of practice though and didn’t notice the temp was really off in my crazy oven today.  The bread got way too brown.  Luckily, I decided to cover the loaves with seeds so it was hard to tell.  The flavor and texture were really nice on these loaves.  I learned a lesson this week.  I can probably have fresh bread during the week if I plan a couple of days ahead.  Make the dough.  Let it rise all evening.  Pop it in the fridge for a couple of days.  Come home for lunch the day I want to bake and take it out to warm and rise.  I’ll really need to do this.  What a luxury it would be to have warm bread and butter on a work night!

Take care everyone!  Please drop me a message if you have time.  I still check the old blog daily and love to hear from everyone.

Am I nuts?  Well maybe.  But until I got to the cleanup part, it really wasn’t that bad.  Really.

How on earth did I manage to get the idea in my head that I could make a soufflé on a weekday during a time when I am working harder during the day then I ever have?  It all started last night.  No scratch that.  It all happened on Sunday if you really think about it.  But then again, it was probably Michael Pollan’s fault.  Who is that?  You mean that guy who wrote the Omnivore’s Dilemma?  That guy?  Well yeah.  I bought his new book:  In Defense of food: an eaters manifesto.  While not as engaging a read as OD, his new book was full of factoids.  Facts I know already because I read everything.  Facts that should make me a healthier person, that is if I paid any attention to the facts.  But I don’t.  This book opened my eyes to the fact that although I buy a lot of veggies, I am not so successful at getting them into my body before they melt down to a little smear in the bottom of my refrigerator’s crisper.  The fact that I am perfectly happy to cook healthy meals at home and then supplement these meals with god knows what at a restaurant.

Well.  I am trying to be better.  So I bought beets on Sunday.  I bought beets because beets are a bargain.  You get two veggies for the price of one (as long as you don’t let them melt in the fridge)!  You’ve got your sweet orbs of red, orange or yellow root for cooking or crunching up raw.  You’ve got your vitamin-enriched greens to eat like chard or kale.  This is a spectacular veggie that nobody is eating. 

Last night, I suddenly remember that I need to cook the greens before they melt.  I know how to make cooked greens taste pretty good but I wanted some inspiration.   I started leafing through the stacks of cookbooks.  I picked up Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone.  Yes!!  This has got to be the right book.  I found the recipe that would do it:  You boil beet greens for a couple of minutes and then sauté them in olive oil, sliced garlic and tomatoes.  Add a touch of dried oregano and top with Asiago (which I didn’t have so I used Parmesan).  I Plopped this ethereal mixture onto the top of a warm piece of leftover cornbread and I was in heaven.  It was the best thing I put in my mouth in a long time.

While I was looking for the beet recipe, I stumbled onto her soufflé section.  Ms Madison has this recipe for Goat Cheese Soufflé with thyme that she follows with a half dozen veggie infused variations.  I couldn’t stop obsessing over the possibilities.  As you know, I am a sucker for the bonus meal, the meal you make that comes about from the serendipity of having just the right things in your kitchen that aren’t on a shopping list that becomes something really amazing.  I thought about this recipe all day while I was at work.  You see, I never thought I could make a soufflé because I don’t own the right dish to cook it in.  Deborah Madison cooks soufflés in a gratin dish.  I have a gratin dish; I could do this!!  I could finish up that little bit of cream from last week.  I have plenty of eggs.  I can substitute Rosemary for the thyme and green onions for the white onion slices, etc, etc.  My mind kept rewriting the recipe to suit my needs.  This would work!

Well. Let me tell you! You need to make a soufflé.  Even if it is a weeknight and you are tired.  It was that good.  It was flavorful and it had a texture that was both fluffy and lightly bready.

Being the crazy gal that I am, I made a salad of two lettuces, thinly sliced yellow beets, radishes, grated carrots, green onions, avocado, and blood oranges.  I also made homemade buttermilk dressing.  Aren’t you jealous I didn’t invite you over?  Well, I’m kinda peaved I didn’t invite you over because the kitchen was grotesque and I could have used your help cleaning!

The moral of this story is, read in Defense of food.  It will make you a better eater.  Make sure you have a copy of Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone.  It is one of the best cookbooks I own.

Broccoli Cheddar Soufflé

Adapted from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison

Butter for greasing the pan plus 2 tbsp freshly grated Parmesan for coating the dish

1 ¼ cups milk or cream or milk and cream (which is what I did)

Aromatics:  Rosemary (or thyme), fresh bay leaf (or dried), 3 2” pieces of green onion

3 tbsp butter

3 tbsp whole-wheat pastry flour

1/2 tsp salt

Freshly ground pepper

Dash of cayenne

2 tsp Dijon mustard

1 cup steamed and then finely chopped broccoli

½ cup sharp cheddar, grated

4 egg yolks

6 egg whites

Minced parsley and cilantro for garnish

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.  Butter an eight-cup gratin dish and coat the butter with the Parmesan.  Heat the milk/cream with the aromatics until it just boils then remove it from the heat and let it stand 15 minutes.  Remove the aromatics.

Melt butter in a large saucepan over low heat until foamy.  Stir in the flour and cook over low heat for a few minutes (it should get thick and aromatic but don’t let it burn!).  Whisk in the milk all at once, stirring vigorously for a couple of minutes until it thickens.  Add salt, pepper, cayenne and mustard.  Mix well and remove from heat.  Beat in the egg yolks one at a time until well blended.  Stir in the cheese.

Beat the egg whites with a dash of salt until they form stiff peaks.  Mix a quarter of the egg whites into the soufflé mixture to lighten it up.  Fold the rest of the egg whites into the soufflé mixture being careful not to over mix and deflate your egg whites.  Transfer the soufflé from the mixing pan to the gratin dish.  Put the dish into the center of the oven and lower the heat to 375 degrees F.  Bake for 25 minutes until puffed and brown.  Serve immediately garnished with parsley and cilantro.

Work is stressing me out bad!  I felt like I was falling behind after being gone for weeks.  Then my coworker left to have her baby and I have had to pick up her duties as well as mine.  I have been working long hours and I haven’t been eating as well as I should.  I’m still cooking but in amounts that haven’t gotten us through the week and I have been relying on a lot of restaurant food for the past few weeks.  Such bad habits I have and they are too, too easy to fall back on! 

It is such a vicious circle.  I am stressed so I eat bad things which makes me tired so I don’t get any exercise so I get more stressed and more tired and eat bad things and so on and so and so on.

Yesterday, I decided to slow the merri-go-round I have been on and do some simple baking to go with something that feels so restorative to eat.  I made a very whole-wheat version of my sourdough pitas to go with some sun dried tomato hummus.  The pitas contained the usual white flour starter I have cultivated but the dough was entirely whole-wheat flour aside from a half cup of white flour.  The bread came out very hearty but scrumptious.  The hummus was my take on a hummus I sometimes buy at Trader Joes.  The hummus from TJs is quite sweet.  Mine has a fuller flavor due to using the oil from the sun dried tomatoes and a healthy dose of Aleppo pepper.  Aleppo pepper is a Middle Eastern pepper that has a nice heat and a complex flavor.  It truly complements the sweet tomato flavor in this hummus.  If you can acquire some, make sure to use it in this recipe.  As an alternative, cayenne in a smaller amount will do just fine.

Eating these two homemade goodies together made me feel happy and very restored.  I’m not sure if it was the fiber and minerals in the garbanzo beans or calcium in the tahini or vitamin C from the garlic and lemon juice or the antioxidants in the olive oil or the lycopine from the sun dried tomatoes but this snack was definitely a cure for what was ailing me!

Sun Dried Tomato Hummus

2-3 cloves of garlic

½ cup sun dried tomatoes in oil, drained

3 tbsp olive oil from the jar of sun dried tomatoes

1 15 oz can of garbanzo beans

Salt to taste

6 tbsp tahini

Juice of one lemon

½ tsp Aleppo pepper or a dash or two of cayenne to taste

Liquid from garbanzo beans as needed

In a food processor, chop the garlic.  Add the sun-dried tomatoes and pulse until the tomatoes are finely chopped.  Measure out 3 tbsp of oil from the sun-dried tomatoes and add the oil to the tomatoes and garlic.  (Add more olive oil to your jar of tomatoes to replace the oil you took and cover the tomatoes so that they don’t spoil).  Drain the can of garbanzos in a sieve over a bowl.  Reserve the liquid from the beans.  Add the beans, lemon juice, tahini and Aleppo pepper to the bowl of the food processor.  Process until mostly smooth.  Add liquid from the beans a tablespoon at a time with the processor running until the hummus is a smooth consistency.  I used about 5 tbsp of liquid.  You may use more or less depending on the texture you like for your dip.  Taste the hummus and add salt to taste, pulsing a couple of times to mix.  Enjoy with fresh pitas.

Chapter one

I decided to push my luck a little this week.  What is so controversial that I feel like I have to push my luck?  Chocolate.  I love, need, want chocolate.  My boyfriend tends to avoid it.  Why?  I suspect it is childhood trauma.  In fact, I would almost say it is child abuse (but I ‘m just kidding you, so don’t get all riled up). 

Here is some background about the chocolate situation in this house.  My boyfriend grew up with a Mom who studied nutrition during a time in our history when people were very keen on health food.  She not only taught her kids that sugar was very bad but she was convinced that my DBF had an allergy to chocolate.  This could be true, he seems to be sensitive to milk so milk chocolate could be a problem… but… his Dad, I suspect, did not like chocolate and used this as an excuse to ban the substance from the house.  When the mention of chocolate comes up within the family it is jokingly referred to as that stuff nobody can eat because of my poor BF and his problem with it.  His Dad grins from ear to ear when the subject comes up.

Well, he has no physical problem with it.  He can eat it and I have seen him eat it and he does not get a rash, his lungs do not explode and he does not fall over in a coma.  He just doesn’t eat it because his Mom’s good habits are severely ingrained into his psyche. 

Chapter two

I missed Valentine’s Day with my boyfriend this year due to my family crisis.  My Boyfriend promised to make it up to me.  He asked me what I wanted and I told him that I wanted a box of expensive chocolate from a local chocolatier.  He obliged by buying a larger box than he would have and he filled it with half of what I would love and half of what he would want to try.  He ate 95% of his share of that box of chocolate.

I suspect that he has had his fill of chocolate for a while.  A box of the finest chocolate available doesn’t really stop me from wanting more chocolate.  In fact, it probably feeds a flame that should be controlled or put out. 

Chapter three

I was shopping in Trader Joes last weekend and came across a bar of unsweetened baking chocolate.  Years ago I made the fudge brownies in the Moosewood Cookbook.  They were so delicious that my sister, who isn’t the happiest human being on the planet, and her wonderful husband (who we all wish was really our family’s brother/son ‘cause he’s so fabulous) ate most of them and my sister was happy.  Really happy.  Almost an entirely different person.  She was kind to me.  This was highly unusual and a most welcome turn of events.  It was unfortunately temporary.  But hey, that is the magic of these brownies that call for unsweetened baking chocolate, which is a rarity in my cupboard.  Once I had the chocolate in hand, I immediately thought of making brownies.  I started to fantasize about what kind of brownies they would be.  Why would I do that when I have a recipe?  Well the genius thing about the Moosewood fudge brownie recipe is that Mollie Katzen leaves the details and creativity to her readers.  Like her quiche recipe, it is a template that gets you started.  She provides the means to get to a moist yet cakey, fudgy good brownie.  She gives a few suggestions how to flavor them and then your imagination can run wild from there.

I made some other brownies one year for Christmas.  They were filled with raspberry jam and topped with hazelnuts.  The concept was good but the result was a dry brownie:  a disappointment for sure.  When I began to brainstorm my brownies, I decided I wanted to fill them with jam.  Brandy soaked tart dried cherries sounded like a good contrast to the chocolate so cherry jam would work well for the filling.  I wanted nuts.  Pecans sounded just right.  I set about to create my wonderful concoction.

Chapter four

My boyfriend had a bite of the brownies and declared them to be perfection.  That’s all he had and he suggested I donate them to my coworkers.  I decided to do no such thing!  I ate one last night accompanied by a cold glass of milk and I took one to work with me.  Will these brownies cause contention?   Will I gain ten pounds?  Will my boyfriend secretly scarf them down himself?  Only time will tell.

Epilogue

After reading this blog post hundreds of people made these brownies.  They were all very content.

Cherry, brandy soaked cherry and pecan fudge brownies

Adapted from the Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen

2 sticks unsalted butter, softened

5 oz unsweetened bitter chocolate, melted and cooled

1 ¾ cups dark brown sugar

5 eggs

1 ½ tsp vanilla extract

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour or unbleached white flour

1 cup tart dried cherries

½ cup or more brandy

6-8 oz cherry jam

1 cup pecans

Prior to making the brownies, soak the dried cherries in the brandy.  If you use just a ½ cup brandy you may need to stir the cherries periodically as you let them soak for at least one hour to make sure all of the cherries soak up the brandy.  When you are ready to use the cherries, drain them and reserve the brandy for another use such as drinking. (It gets flavored with the dried cherries and is something you won’t want to waste).

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler over a high simmer.  Cool the chocolate before proceeding with the recipe.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, F.

Butter a 9”x13” pan

Cream the butter and sugar together with a mixer.  Add the eggs and mix well.  Add vanilla and then beat in the melted chocolate and the flour.  With a spoon or spatula, fold in the drained cherries and the pecans.

Spoon half of the batter into the pan smoothing the surface so that the batter covers the entire pan.  Spoon the cherry jam all over the top of the batter, carefully spreading it over the top of the batter so that most bites of  your brownies should get some jam.  Spread the remaining batter over the jam.

Bake the brownies for 25 to 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.  Cool the brownies and then cut into squares.

I’m a low maintenance kinda gal.  If I can save myself from a little work, I am a happy camper.  Normally, I keep my sourdough starter in the fridge.  Refrigerating the starter probably doesn’t do much for its development but it keeps me from having to think about its care and well being in between baking sessions.  This past week was an exception.  I took the starter out of the fridge a week ago Friday in anticipation of making pizza.  I knew I wanted to make biscuits later in the week, so I kept it out and fed it daily until Thursday when I finally made the biscuits.  Well, by then it was so close to the weekend that I decided a few more days of feeding wouldn’t kill me. 

Last night, I found a baguette recipe in my copy of Williams-Sonoma essentials of baking.  The recipe was written for commercial yeast, but I was happy to notice a side bar that explained how to make a variation with starter.  The variation called for making the sponge the night before with starter and then the recipe called for commercial yeast in the actual bread dough.  Since I never use commercial yeast anymore, I don’t have any in the house.  I decided to only use the starter for leavening and just stretch out the proofing time a little longer than called for.  I wanted loaves that were a little sturdier than their all white version so I substituted some stone ground whole-wheat and some rye flour for some of the white flour.

The recipe makes enough dough for three small baguettes.  My dough forming skills still need a lot of practice.  My loaves were cute, not pretty.  They are a little malformed and squat and fat.  I love them anyway.  Why?  Because of the flavor and the texture.   I think having the starter out for so long and then giving the sponge a full thirteen hours to do its thing before the long proofing period really gave them a nice sweet tart flavor.  This bread pleasantly surprised me; the center of the bread was fluffy, moist and soft.  Almost like sandwich bread but the outside was crispy to the point that it shatters to the bite.  The sweet tart flavor I told you about hits the tongue and then you taste a touch of salt. 

We grabbed a loaf the minute we thought it was cool enough to eat.  We brought out some manchego cheese and demolished most of that first loaf of bread in a single sitting.  It was so very delicious!

Sourdough wheat and rye baguettes

Adapted from Williams-Sonoma essentials of baking

For the sponge:

½ cup well fed sourdough starter

1 ½ cups water

1 tsp sugar

2 cups unbleached white flour

For the Dough:

¾ cup unbleached white flour

¼ cup rye flour

1 cup stone ground whole-wheat flour

1 ½ tsp salt

cornmeal for dusting your peel

extra flour for dusting your cutting board

The night before you want to bake, Mix all of the sponge ingredients thoroughly in the bowl of a standing mixer and cover loosely with plastic wrap.  Let the sponge stand overnight at least 11-13 hours.  The next morning, the sponge should be very active and bubbly.

Add the salt, white, rye, and whole-wheat flours to the sponge.  With the dough hook inserted into your mixer, mix on the lowest speed to combine.  Kick the speed up one notch and knead the dough for 7 minutes.  The dough should pull away from the sides and form a ball.  If it does not, add a little more white flour a tbsp at a time until it does.  Form the dough into a ball and then grease your bowl and return the dough to the bowl.  Cover the dough with a clean dishtowel and let it rise for 1 ½ to 2 hours.  The dough should double in size.

Punch down the dough.  Re-cover the bowl with the towel and let it rise again for about an hour.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and cut it into thirds with a bench scraper or a sharp knife.  Shape each third into a round.  Cover the dough with the dishtowel and let it rest 10 minutes before shaping. 

Work with one dough ball at a time.  Slap the dough hard onto the work surface.  Flatten the dough with the heel of your hand.  Roll a third of the dough to the center and push the seam in a little to seal it.  Roll the dough onto itself until you have an oval loaf.  Elongate the loaf by rolling it on the work surface exerting pressure from the middle of the loaf out.  Dust a peel or a cookie sheet with cornmeal.  Place the loaf on the peel.  Repeat this process with the other two balls of dough.  Let the dough rise for 40 minutes to an hour until it has doubled and the dough feels light and spongy when you lightly poke or squeeze it.

Put a pizza stone in your oven and preheat the oven to 500 degrees f. as soon as you are done shaping the loaves.  Place a cake pan in the oven

When the loaves are done proofing, slash them on the diagonal 4 or 5 times with a sharp knife.  Transfer the loaves to the pizza stone, toss a cup of water into the cake pan for steam and then close the oven door fast and lower the heat to 450 degrees f.  Bake the loaves for 20-25 minutes until they are golden brown and sound hollow when you tap them.  Cool the loaves for 20 minutes before you uncontrollably scarf one down with butter or cheese.

I’m usually really good at gauging how much food to make in two nights of cooking to last us most of the week.  Somehow two pizzas and a Rachel Ray recipe for Chicken Goulash did not last us past lunchtime on Wednesday.  Although I am struggling with a weight problem and I have been trying to cut my portions, my boyfriend is one of those lucky people who can eat vast quantities of food and still maintain his weight.  The problem with keeping active and thereby maintaining a high metabolism is that he sometimes loses weight, which he can’t afford to lose.  He seems to be in one of those lose weight without trying modes so I think he tried to remedy the problem by eating bigger portions, thus, we ran out of food.

What to do, what to do?  Well, after lurking around the Arctic Carbivores site for the past couple of weeks, I saw them post a link to a recipe for Sourdough biscuits.  These are similar to buttermilk biscuits but contain sourdough.  I had to have them!  So, I moseyed into the kitchen and found a huge supply of broccoli (not unusual if you know my boyfriend and his love for this cruciferous veggie).  I had some leftover cream, some onions, and more odds and ends.  I would make cream of broccoli soup.  Soup was a great excuse for having biscuits I thought. 

The biscuits.  When I saw the biscuits on the other blog, I asked the Blogger what she (or he?) thought the sourdough was doing in there.  I was told that they (one part of the couple bakes the other one blogs) thought it contributed to the “fluffy nature” of the muffins and also helped them rise.  I have to agree.  The recipe calls for the starter, baking powder, baking soda and buttermilk, which together would all help the dough, rise.  After baking up the dough, I have to also say that the starter gave the biscuits flavor and texture too.  Look at the picture.  Do you see the layers?  These biscuits expanded and made fluffy layers!  The insides were soft and the outsides were crisp.  My starter is never very sour, but I could taste a pleasant malted grain flavor that I have often experienced in some of my better sourdough breads.  This recipe is a keeper and if you enjoy sourdough I recommend you try this recipe.  I’m not sure how mine compared to theirs since I used whole-wheat pastry flour, which makes for a slightly heavier end product, but either the whole-wheat pastry flour or white flour should work just fine.  So how was dinner?  The broccoli soup was insipid.  The biscuits were superb!

If you have a chance, run over to the Arctic Carbivores blog.  They are new bloggers but they bake and blog several times a week so there is plenty to see there.  I have to say; I’m impressed by how much they bake.  They are fearless sourdough experimenters and there is a lot of good baking going on over there!

Sourdough biscuits

Adapted from the Golden sourdough biscuits recipe on Recipe finder

2 cups whole-wheat pastry flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp kosher salt

½ tsp baking soda

½ cup cold unsalted butter

1 cup well fed sourdough starter

½ cup buttermilk

1 – 2 tbsp melted butter for brushing the muffins

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees f.

In a largish bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda.  Using a pastry-cutter cut the cold butter into the flour mixture until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.  Don’t let the butter get too warm, you want the cold butter chunks to stay pretty solid to help with the flakiness of the finished biscuits.  Mix together sourdough starter and buttermilk.  Add the buttermilk mixture to the flour mixture.  Using a silicone spatula, mix the dough until well combined. 

Turn the dough out onto a well-floured surface.  Knead the dough a dozen times.  The original recipe says to roll the dough to a ½” thickness.  I think we can get away with slightly thicker biscuits.  Mine seemed a little wimpy this time around.  Cut the dough with a 2 12” biscuit cutter.  Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or butter the cookie sheet.  The original recipe instructed us to place the rounds 2” apart but they did not become larger in girth just in height.  I didn’t want to use a second cookie sheet so I placed my biscuits close, almost touching in order to fit them all on the same sheet and they were fine. 

Bake the biscuits for 12 – 15 minutes until golden browned.  Remove from the oven and brush the biscuits with melted butter.  Allow them to cool before serving.  I tried them both hot out of the oven and cooled down.  The cooled biscuits had a much more complex flavor. 

I have an admission to make.  This won’t be news to anyone who really knows me well.  But for those of you who don’t know me, I really dislike the holidays.  I’m not a shopper and I am big on procrastination so I end up being so stressed out that a crumple into a tiny little stress ball that keeps imploding and imploding until I feel like a lump of coal.  Early in the month of December, I saw a couple of blog events that dealt with holiday baking that I would have loved to participate in, I even bought the ingredients for some amazing looking but horribly complex cookies.  I was so close to participating and as a new Blogger, I know I should have, but I didn’t.  I normally try to do some baking but I couldn’t.  After an office potluck (I brought salad in a vain attempt to eat something healthy), a department Christmas party, family staying with us for a week followed by all of us joining more family further south for another week, I was drained.

Before all of this mayhem started, I bought myself a present of a couple of cookbooks.  I wasn’t able to think of touching them before the New Year, but now that things are calm, I was able to get a look.  One of the books I got was the King Arthur Flour whole-grain baking book.  This book has some really fantastic looking recipes and I can’t wait to delve into the recipes further.  For now, I was after sourdough.

Poor Herbert has been languishing in the fridge for weeks and weeks.  I did give Herbert a mercy feeding sometime before Christmas, but I really felt like I needed to use my sourdough starter for real.  Using the starter usually entails a couple of days thawing from the cold and a couple of good feedings.  The mercy feeding consisted of some food and a quick couple of hours to absorb it before going back into lockup. 

I chose to make sourdough waffles from another book I got in the same shipment:  Wild Fermentation by Sandor Elix Katz.  I also chose to modify the Walnut-Currant Sourdough Bread recipe from the King Arthur Flour book.  I fed Herbert the day before I wanted to start and then set up two preferments the night before I wanted to bake.  Both of these sourdough goodies came out really well.  Here is my take on the bread:

 Raison-Walnut Sourdough Bread:

Adapted from the King Arthur Flour whole grain baking book

Levain: 

½ cup stone ground whole-wheat flour

¼ cup room temperature water

1 tbsp, active well fed sourdough starter

Dough: 

The entire Levain from above

1 ½ cups stone ground whole-wheat flour

1 cup unbleached white flour

1 cup room temperature water

2 tbsp honey, use an assertive honey like an avocado or buckwheat honey

1 tsp salt

¼ cup raisons

¼ cup walnuts, broken up if in large pieces

Corn meal

The night before you want to bake, make the levain.  You want to give the mixture at least a full twelve hours to ferment.  The book said it would look bubbly and expanded when it was ready, mine just looked like mini bread dough but it definitely doubled:  Mix whole-wheat flour, water and starter well.  Cover the bowl with a layer of plastic wrap.  Once again, leave to ferment overnight, at least twelve hours.

In the bowl of a standing mixer combine the levain, whole-wheat flour, white flour and water.  Use your paddle attachment to mix the ingredients at the lowest speed until just mixed together.  Let this mixture stand 20 minutes.  After 20 minutes, add honey and salt.  Mix on low speed until the new ingredients are mixed in thoroughly.  Increase the speed to kneading speed and knead the dough for two more minutes.  Cover the bowl and let the dough rest thirty minutes.

After thirty minutes, turn the dough out onto a floured board.  Pat the dough into a 6”x9” rectangle.  Sprinkle the raisons over the dough and then fold the edges horizontally in over the raisons.  Pat the dough into the 6”x9” rectangle again.  Sprinkle the walnuts over the dough and then fold the dough into thirds again.  Move the dough to your bowl and let it rise for thirty minutes.  You will now repeat the patting, folding, thirty-minute rest sequence three more times.  After you have folded and rested the dough a total of four times for 2 – 2 ½ hours total, shape the bread into a round being careful not to let the raisons or nuts tear the surface of the bread.  Turn the loaf into a floured banneton (I didn’t get one for Christmas, but this book taught me that you can line a colander with a floured linen dish towel to mimic a banneton, how cool and money saving is that?!).  Cover the dough and let it rise 2 – 3 hours. 

45 minutes before baking time, preheat the oven with a pizza stone and a metal pan in it to 450 degrees.  When you are ready to bake, sprinkle a peel or a baking sheet with corn meal.  Invert the dough out of the banneton and onto the peel.  Use the peel to move the bread to your baking stone.  Toss a cup of water into the metal pan for steam and close the oven door fast.  Bake the loaf for 15 minutes and then lower the temperature to 400 degrees.  Bake for 30- 35 minutes longer. Use the peel to remove the bread from the oven to a cooling rack.  Cool the bread thoroughly before letting yourself get tempted to cut off a big slice.  The bread will keep cooking until it cools.

This bread had a dense crumb and a shatteringly crisp crust the night I baked it.  The next day after being stored in a plastic bag on the counter, the crust was chewy but the bread had a wonderful flavor.  This loaf was incredible used as the bread for a fried egg sandwich in the morning.

My subscription to Sunset magazine has been such a good investment over the years.  Not only do I find out things like good places to shop in Cambria or where the best Mochi shop in little Tokyo is, but I also get so many good ideas for food.  The one thing I find ironic about this publication is that the best recipes don’t come from their staff.  No.  The best recipes come from their readers. Sunset magazine readers have to be the most inventive group of cooks on the planet.

When I received the September issue of Sunset, I sat down to page through the magazine as I always do.  I had to stop and book mark a recipe right away.  Staring at me from the page was the most amazing onion and cheese covered little breads.  They were Red Onion and Gorgonzola flatbreads.  They looked mouth watering delicious!  And…of course, they were from the section of recipes submitted by talented Sunset readers.  I knew I would need to make these luscious little breads sometime. 

The dough called for semolina flour.  I have never used semolina for baking but the idea of using pasta flour in bread was very appealing to me.  Since September, I have had it in the back of my mind that I need semolina flour.  I have casually looked for it in every store I have been to, but have not bumped into it.  I guess if I had been making an effort to find it, I would have a bag of it in my pantry now, but I was lazy.  Today, I wanted to make soup and I wanted to use my sourdough starter.  I remembered this recipe and went to take a look at it.  I looked up semolina flour and found out it is prized as hard wheat with high gluten content.  I decided I would use whole-wheat flour for semolina and use sourdough starter for yeast and some of the water.  I didn’t have Gorgonzola but I did have a smoked provolone.  I was ready to go play in the kitchen.

I mixed up the dough, making the usual adjustments I make when attempting to use my starter for yeast.  The original recipe called for mixing the dough but not kneading it.  Since I did not have that high gluten content semolina to work with, I made sure I kneaded the dough a few minutes to work up some gluten in the dough.  The kitchen was chilly today and my starter was having a hard time waking up from being in the fridge so I had to let the dough ferment for a couple of hours.  I mixed up the topping ingredients, shredded my cheese and then got to work.  The original recipe instructs you to bake these on cookie sheets in two batches for 15 minutes each.  I decided to use my pizza stone.  I was only able to work with eight mini flatbreads at a time so I had to do four batches.  The pizza stone gets hotter than a cookie sheet so I found out the hard way that I only needed 13 minutes per batch.  Don’t worry.  That first batch came out very dark, but did not burn.

Fresh out of the oven, these little breads were remarkable.  The sourdough crust was shatteringly crisp.  The onions were sweet from the balsamic vinegar but caramelized.  The smoked cheese was a perfect contrast to the other flavors.  I could not stop snacking on these as they came out of the oven.  They were that good.

If you don’t have a sourdough starter, go here to look up the original recipe.  If you have a starter and you are ready for a treat, here is my version.  Be creative.  I can already think of many variations on this theme.  For example:  spinach and garlic with kasseri or feta cheese?  Roasted red peppers, green onions and jack cheese?  How about sautéed Kale, garlic, and bleu cheese?   Just find a great red wine, some friends and you have a party!

Red Onion sourdough mini flatbreads

Adapted from the September 2007 issue of Sunset Magazine

½ cup sourdough starter

1 cup water

2 cups unbleached white flour

1 cup stone ground whole-wheat flour

4 tbsp olive oil, divided

2 tsp salt, divided

1 medium red onion

1 tbsp fresh rosemary leaves, minced

2 tbsp balsamic vinegar

½ tsp red chili flakes

4-6 ounces smoked provolone, shredded

Cornmeal for dusting

In a large bowl, combine sourdough starter, water, white and whole-wheat flours and 1 tsp of the salt.  Mix until it comes together into a ball.  Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface and knead for 5 to 7 minutes.  Transfer the dough to a clean bowl that has been oiled.  Cover the bowl with a clean, damp towel and allow it to ferment for 1 to 2 hours until doubled in bulk. 

An hour before you are ready to bake the flatbreads, put a pizza stone in the oven and preheat the oven to 450 degrees.  Sprinkle a peel or two baking sheets with cornmeal.

Halve the onion lengthwise and then slice it thinly.  In a bowl, combine the sliced onions, minced rosemary, 2 tbsp olive oil, balsamic vinegar, 1 tsp of salt and chili flakes.  Cover and set aside. 

Divide the dough in two.  Roll the dough halves into two long tube shapes.  Divide each into 16 pieces.  Roll each piece into a ball and return the balls to the covered bowl.  Working with 8 balls at a time.  Roll each ball into a thin round.  Place each round on the cornmeal dusted peel or cookie sheet you intend to use to transfer the flatbreads to the oven.  Top each round of dough with about a teaspoon of onion mixture and a sprinkling of cheese.  Transfer to the pizza stone in the oven and bake for 13 minutes.  Remove the flatbreads to a plate with a spatula.  Repeat this process 3 more times until all 32 breads are baked.

Today was a slightly emotional morning for me.  I took my car of seventeen years to be scrapped.  To be sure, the poor thing was an absolute beater.  It was dented.  It had peeling paint.  The driver’s side seat was wearing thin enough for holes to start to appear. Pieces were starting to fall off of the car both inside and out.  I had that car from the time when we were both shiny and new to when we were, both of us, used, creaky and cranky.  I loved that car.  It gave me freedom. It got pretty decent gas mileage.  My Mitsubishi Eclipse was shaped like a sports car even though it had a four-cylinder engine. It had a power button, which made me feel like James Bond.

Two years ago, the car didn’t pass the California smog test.  The mechanic tweaked some things for me and got it to pass so I drove it around for another two years.  My car did not pass the smog check a second time because it needed a new engine.  The car would have been worth $100 dollars in trade in if I fixed it.  The science of economics trumped the emotional value, society found me foolish for keeping it as long as I did.  Friends and coworkers heckled me.  The car was termed a gross polluter.  It was time for it to go.  It easily qualified for a program the state of California has for people who can’t let go of their gross polluting cars. This program bribes people like me to take these gross polluters for dismantling.  We drove the gross polluter forty miles (which seemed ironic to me) to an approved dismantler.  They inspected my once pretty car, and wrote its fate all over its body.  My boyfriend said it was as if they put a toe tag on it before wheeling it to the morgue.  I got a little misty eyed as we watched it round the corner, never to be seen again.  I bought a shiny new car last month, but it doesn’t feel like it is mine the way my Eclipse felt like a part of me.  A chapter in my life is complete.

This afternoon, I decided to indulge myself to make myself feel better.  Tonight is “Lights out Santa Barbara”.  This event is a citywide conservation event where residents are asked to turn off their lights between 8pm-9pm for global warming awareness. We plan to light a couple of candles and play a board game tonight.  I thought it would be fun to have sweets while we play our game.  Making sweets always brightens my mood so I figured it would be positive in a couple of different ways.

Baking and Books is a blog I love to go to.  Ariela is an avid reader and always has wonderful historical trivia to go with the foods she cooks.  She is a talented photographer, baker and writer, which makes it fun to stop by and see what she is up to.  Last week, she made Pumpkin currant cookies.  I was dreaming about these cookies all week!  These cookies already had all of the healthy goodie attributes that I like to have in my baked goods.  The only thing I did different was to use a full two cups of whole-wheat pastry flour instead of half white flour and since this is a no walnut household, I substituted pecans.  I will send you over to her blog for the recipe for the pumpkin currant cookies since I am lazy and they are perfect and you’ll enjoy her blog…. But wait!  Before you go…

I also made candy today.  I was ripping up old magazines the other day before recycling them and I came across a recipe I was dying to make but never got around to.  Being lazy, I did not want to go to the store even though I did not exactly have the right ingredients.  The candy turned out really good regardless.   This was a super easy recipe.  It was also a forgiving recipe.  I had evaporated cane juice but not enough for candy so I had to use brown sugar too.  I did not have mild molasses I had black strap molasses.  If you have kids, go ahead and make this for them.  Blackstrap molasses is loaded with minerals and vitamin B6 so this candy is a little better for them than commercial candy.

Molasses Sponge Candy

Adapted from a recipe which appeared in the April, 2002 edition of Gourmet magazine

1 ¼ cups evaporated cane juice or granulated sugar

¼ cup dark brown sugar

1/3 cup water

3 tbsp unsalted butter

¼ tsp cream of tartar

½ cup blackstrap molasses

2 ½ tsp baking soda

Line bottom and sides of a 13- by 9-inch baking pan with foil, then butter or oil the foil.

Bring sugar, water, butter, and cream of tartar to a boil in a deep 3-quart heavy saucepan over moderate heat, stirring until sugar is dissolved, then wash down any sugar crystals with a pastry brush dipped in cold water. Boil without stirring until syrup registers 265°F (hard-ball stage) on a candy thermometer, about 10 minutes. Add molasses (don’t stir) and continue to boil undisturbed until syrup registers 295°F (hard-crack stage), 4 to 5 minutes. Remove pan from heat and sift baking soda over syrup, then whisk to incorporate. (Use caution: mixture will bubble vigorously.)

Immediately pour syrup into lined baking pan and cool completely. Lift candy in foil from pan, then discard foil and break candy into pieces.

We make it a practice to visit our local Farmer’s Market every weekend.  One thing we always get is a five to ten pound bag of oranges.  The oranges are wonderful as juice but we also eat them as fresh fruit and I use them in baking.  We ate up all of our leftovers for the week already so I was paging through cookbooks looking for dinner.  I ran into this recipe for mini muffins and it sounded so good that I decided to bake instead of cook.  Luckily my boyfriend volunteered to make egg salad so that we would eat some real food before skipping to dessert.

These muffins are fantastic!  They have a clear, fruity orange flavor without the use of any extracts.  I made a couple of changes to the original recipe.  I used whole-wheat pastry flour instead of white flour.  I also thought ¾ cup of sugar was excessive when the muffins included a glaze so I reduced the sugar.  I did not substitute olive oil for butter as I often do for muffin recipes because the butter sounded like it would compliment the fruit flavor and boy, did it ever!!  I let these muffins be decadent since they would be smaller in size.  It was worth it.

Orange-Poppy Seed Mini Muffins

Adapted from Williams-Sonoma Essentials of Baking

3 tbsp poppy seeds

½ cup milk

1 ¾ cups whole-wheat pastry flour

2 tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

¼ tsp salt

1 tbsp grated orange zest

2 large eggs

½ cup granulated sugar or evaporated cane juice

6 tbsp unsalted butter, melted

¼ cup plus 1 tbsp fresh squeezed orange juice

½ cup confectioner’s sugar

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.  Grease 24 mini-muffin cups.  In a small bowl, combine the poppy seeds and the milk.  Let stand for 20 minutes.  In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and orange zest.  In another larger bowl, beat the eggs and then mix in sugar, melted butter, ¼ cup of orange juice and the poppy seed/milk mixture.  Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir until moistened. (Do not over mix).  Spoon the batter into the muffin cups, filling each one three fourths of the way full. Bake 12- 14 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.  Let cool for a few minutes.  Mix confectioner’s sugar with 1 tbsp. Orange juice until smooth.  Drizzle the glaze onto the tops of the muffins.