In which it’s the #breadin5 recipe!
Okay. So. There are cheeses that need to be enjoyed with good bread. Not the crap from the Safeway bakery, but good bread. What they call artisan bread now, what used to be rustic peasant bread.
Bread you can only get from fancy bakeries now.
I got too spoiled with those Salty Tart baguettes at my last job, okay? Those baguettes were a revelation. I mean, there is no better way to eat a gooey, creamy, funky French brie than with a real baguette. We don’t have gooey, creamy, funky French bries, really, but we do have some brie and a bunch of other cheeses that would benefit from good bread.
Anyway, now I live in rural Oregon and we don’t have a fancy bakery. We have a Safeway, and their bread is pretty, and well-displayed in the store, and it all tastes exactly the same and the crust and crumb are too soft and too bland and it’s just depressing.
So, maybe it’s time for me to do that refrigerator bread thing. Yeah. Maybe. It was all the rage awhile back and maybe now I have the experience to understand it.
Yesterday I made this recipe. Sorta. What I did was:
3 cups 100F tap water
1 packet yeast
2 teaspoons salt
6-1/2 cups (2 pounds) flour
I used about 5 cups of King Arthur Unbleached All Purpose and about one cup of atta (Indian whole wheat flour, which I bought for roti/chapati).
Mixed it in my largest mixing bowl with the wire handle of one of my spatulas, covered it with plastic wrap, and left it in the oven (with the light on) for two hours to rise. It got huge.
Moved it to the fridge until it was well chilled (maybe 4 hours or so?), and then made a pizza with it.
I generally hate doughy pizzas and always prefer a thinner crust, but this dough is GOOD.
(The pizza was made with leftover garlic butter from an artichoke I ate, store-bought Parmesan Reggiano tomato sauce, a vanishingly rare (as in it’s no longer being made and there’s not much in existence) goat milk gouda I got from work, red pepper, white onion, and fresh spinach. It was fucking fantastic.)
Today I made a boule.
The dough broke when I lifted it out of the bowl, so I shaped the loaf out of two pieces. The piece on the inside exploded through the scores!
Oven spring for the win!
In the oven was a cast iron griddle and a stainless steel bowl. When pre-heated, put the loaf on parchment paper on the griddle, poured hot tap into the bowl for steam.
Also misted the inside of the oven with a spray bottle of water four or five times during baking, which probably took around 40 minutes or so, for additional moisture.
The crust is fantastic, crispy and delicate. The crumb is soft and chewy. Next time I’ll let the loaf sit on the counter for 90 minutes, get bigger holes in the crumb.
The recipe is supposed to make four 1-pound loaves, so there’s probably enough dough left for two or three baguettes. Might bake those up this afternoon and then mix another batch of dough!
Or might let the dough sit and develop in the fridge for a few days first.
Anyway, this dough is cool. With some in the fridge, you can have any bread you want in very little time–a pizza, a boule, a baguette, flatbread, focaccia, dinner rolls, whatever.
—
Here’s the mother recipe for this fridge method.
And here’s the original book:
In which I just looked out the window!
It’s Sunday so we slept in and then went out for brunch. I had a veggie omelet (with sweet potato in it, for some reason) and hash browns and a side of vegetarian gravy because I love gravy.
Then we came home and he studied for his cert exam next week and I took a nap.
Spent some time massaging my music library (I’ve backed up my ancient iPod yet again but this time I’m actually doing something with the data — I put it in MusicBee and am working on art and tags and replacing corrupted/DRM’d tracks) and then I went out into the living room to get something and glanced out the window and
HOLY SHIT! THAT LITTLE TREE OUTSIDE IS BUDDING OUT!!!
I probably don’t have the words for how fucking fantastic it is, like, on a cellular level, to be back out here where I’m from. Spring in Minneapolis doesn’t come until June, so the winters are not only cold as hell but extremely long.
I know this winter has been disturbingly mild, I know that, but there’s been green all winter. Just bits, here and there, in lawns or next to the irrigation ditch or whatever, but it lifts the heart to see it. (Plus, I’ve only worn cleats two days this winter, during that ice storm thing last month!)
Sincerely looking forward to a long-ass season of mild and green and growing and non-blizzard this year.
Really should weed those raised beds out front; maybe tomorrow.
In which not much of anything!
I like my job, I like my house, I got last Saturday off unexpectedly and spent it day-drinking and napping! It was so great!
My relationship is lovely and lively, I’m richer than I deserve (I just ordered two bespoke dresses and have tons of food in the cupboards). I have a duvet cover!
There was a flood but it didn’t affect us, somehow?
I got a new desk, chair, rug, and lamp!
Life’s pretty great. How are you?
In which I think I’ve successfully copied my favorite canned chili beans, which I can’t find in my local grocery.
1 c. dry pinto beans, picked over
3 c. water
1-2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1/4 tsp. onion powder
a glug of vegetable oil
Cook in an Instant Pot under high pressure for 25 minutes, followed by natural pressure release.
Remove about half a cup of the bean liquor to a bowl, cool a bit, and whisk in 2-3 tbsp. chickpea (or wheat) flour. When smooth, return to the pot. Next, add:
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 tbsp. ground ancho chili powder
1 tsp. chili powder (the American-style blend)
1-2 tsp. apple cider vinegar, or to taste
Bring to a boil, stirring constantly, to thicken, and then immediately reduce to a simmer. If the sauce is still too thin, simmer gently to reduce to desired thickness.
Serve over toast topped with cheddar and maybe a poached egg (this is a favorite breakfast of mine, for some reason), or use as a bean dip with tortilla chips, as a taco filling, or just eat as a bowl of vegetarian chili with your desired sides or toppings.
(This is an attempt to copy Kuner’s Chili Beans.)
In which his mom freaked out and sent us a ton of stuff! Four gifts each, eight total, more than doubling what we had under our little tree for each other!
Before:
And after:
I got an electric hand mixer! And a bath caddy! And other fun stuff!
And he got clothes and toys!
And I made an enormous Middle Eastern meal — falafel that fell apart, hummus, tabouli, marinated olives and feta, bread, sumac roasted potatoes with a cumin-tahini sauce — because Jesus was Middle Eastern, right?!
(“That’s a lot of tabouli,” he said. “A shitload of tabouli.”)
And we really should drive to the matriarchal home (after all, I actually got dressed today) and see my aunt and uncle, and visit, and drop off our tiny little gifts for them, buuuuuut I kinda want to just blob around here, in our cozy little house, watching terrible Christmas movies?
In which it’s cold and foggy.
lol oregon weather
In which there are leftovers.
I made aloo matar, carrot raita, and naan for dinner.
Even though I halved the naan recipe I still have four or five leftover, so have been surfing for ways to use them. Behold these fancy pizza ideas:
– Naan, olives, pesto, red pepper flakes, grilled artichokes, walnuts, chopped parsley, and a spritz of lemon juice
– Naan, garlic, shredded cheese/s, chili flakes
– Naan, parsley sauce, aged cheddar
(The parsley sauce is my own thing — parsley, olive oil, salt, and garlic in the blender so it keeps longer — and not actual parsley sauce.)
– Naan, pinto beans, cheese, salsa, and diced onion
– Naan, tomato, olive oil, ricotta salata
Would also be good reheated with some soup!
In which Christmas is in two weeks and I finally put up the tree!
How is it Christmas in two weeks?! What the fuck, time. Of course, in Minnesota we’d have already lived through two blizzards and weeks of sub-zero temperatures, so the lack of brutal weather makes it sorta feel like it’s earlier in the year than it is. BUT STILL.
We’d discussed getting a real tree, since we’ve got an entire house and plenty of space, but it looks like we’re not into the idea enough to, you know, actually go out and do it. So! Our sixth year with our tiny baby fake tree!
Here it is, on my guitar case! I just decorated it!
His mom’s been sending us proper, full-sized ornaments for a few years, so I put those on the avocado. Here’s a terrible picture of them!
I did the kitchen right after Thanksgiving, though, so it’s not like I’ve been totally laming off.
The table!
Christmas tea towels!
I hung ornaments from the valances!
So, yeah. You could say it’s quite festive up in here now. Maybe next year we’ll get a full-sized, proper, real tree!
In which I rode my bike to the store today!
When we moved to M-F I decided I needed a bike.
The grocery store’s a mile away, and there’s no way I’m hauling a gallon of milk an entire mile on foot. Work’s a half mile away, so a bike would cut my already-short commute time in half, plus I could haul stuff — packed lunches, extra jackets — more comfortably.
So there’s a cheap-but-new bike at the College Place Walmart I like, it’s a Scwhinn and it’s cute (I’m totally the demographic, the bike’s clearly designed for middle-aged white chicks; I know it’s tacky as fuck but it appeals to me). I decide I’ll buy it online and go pick it up! And then I’ll have wheels!
This was back before the winter fog set in, when the sun still shone, and there were still leaves on the trees, you dig.
Anyway, so I buy the bike online, easy peasy. Then I check back a couple hours later, and discover it’ll take over a week, nearly ten days, before the bike is ready? What the fuck, it’s literally right there in the fucking store, I’ve seen it, why can’t I have that one?
Oh, well, whatever, a week or so, fine. The reviews say it’ll be assembled, maybe they only have the floor model in stock, I don’t care. I can walk to work for a week.
So it finally comes in, and I ask my better half to go pick it up. He does.
It’s in a box and most definitely not assembled. I pitch a fit, he puts it together because he’s a goddamned SAINT, but parts are missing. The PEDALS are missing, for fuck’s sake.
So I open a ticket with Schwinn, and they send the missing parts. It takes about a week.
The parts arrive, I finish assembly, but because I’m an ass I don’t bother to adjust it, and the first time I try to ride the bike to work the derailleur goes into the spokes.
ARRGGHH!
So I contact Schwinn again to try to buy a replacement derailleur, and even though their documentation explicitly says bad adjustment is not covered by warranty, they send me a replacement for my fucked up derailleur for free. KILLER customer support.
There’s some delay with the package; it takes ten more days to arrive.
I read up on replacing derailleurs and watch a couple YouTube videos and think, “Fuck this, I’m taking it to a shop.” I mean, we have a garage and some tools, but I don’t have a bike stand and I’ve never done it before and it just looks like something I’d rather pay for.
Well, of course there’s no bike shop here, and I have no car of my own, and I work Saturdays, and all the bike shops in nearby towns are closed on Sundays, and and and, so it takes awhile to get the stupid thing to a shop. Like, another week or ten days.
But we did finally get it done, and he picked it up for me yesterday on his day off (because HE’S AMAZING), and today I rode my bike to the store for the first time!
Yay!
It was glorious weather for a maiden voyage: bright overcast and cool. Allegro Cyclery adjusted it perfectly: shifts great, brakes great. The cheap saddle bags I bought seem to have turned out to be a remarkably good deal! And they’re lighter than the Wohl chrome baskets I’ve always preferred, which definitely matters now that I’m fat.
Having not ridden much in years, I have no quads, which sucks, but they’ll come back. Turns out the journey to Safeway is all sliiiiightly uphill, but check it: the journey back is all slightly downhill! Fortuitous! I don’t have to pedal much when hauling groceries! Whoo! Coasting rules!
I didn’t go in, because I don’t have a bike lock and I would absolutely flip my shit if the very first time I take the bike out I get the stupid thing stolen, but I’ve finally Been To The Store On My Bike, and it took a long while to achieve this feat, and I am SO pleased and SO stoked I just can’t even tell you.
I timed the ride from work to home: it’s four minutes. I have a four-minute work commute now. How glorious is that?!
I’ll just order a bike lock online and drive the Jeep over to Safeway later for the weekly shop, like a gas-guzzling asshole American.
In which THEY’RE finally actually HEEEEERRE!
A gift from my aunt! Brand new appliances, professionally installed! Whoo!
Now I get to do thirty loads of laundry, because everything we own is dirty.
Update: Two loads of clothes are clean, and I’ve washed the bath towels and our sheets. So far, so good!
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Instagram has become unusable crap, so please click the icon below to see my latest pics.
4 random books from my Library!
