HDL Focaccia

Nik and I are pigs, I will admit. Perhaps not moreso than anyone else, but certainly no less. And, I fear, I am not referring to our eating or grooming habits. I am talking about our "with/without" classification system. Years ago, and I don't remember why or who, we determined/agreed that there are two types of people in the general public...the withs and the withouts. No, this is not a 1920's-style description of a person's socioeconomic status. It refers, in our personal vernacular, I am ashamed to say, to a person's physique..as in "That person looks better with clothes" vs "That person probably looks better without clothes." In context, we abbreviate the entire conversation so it consists simply of a directional head nod, some sort of meaningful eyebrow movement, and either the word with or without. Please, this is not as disgusting and superficial as it seems, though really it is disgusting and superficial.

And I make this horrible admission only because I, a former fat kid, fall into the with category. And that was okay; it was a fact I was happy to live with, given the reality that most people join me on this side of the mirror. (If you have ever been to a nude beach, you will whole-heartedly agree that most people look better with...please, sir, put some clothes on.) Yes, I am tall and thin, I am genetically blessed with a narrow waist, and I have worn the same size pants for the past ten years - somedays I wear the actual pants that I have worn for the past ten years...and I was fine living with these irrelevant details in my clueless charade of health...until recently, when Dr. M mailed me the results of my apparently long-overdue bloodwork. Guess who has high cholesterol!

I'm not being drammatic...well, yes, I am being drammatic, in that my cholesterol was not really so high as to be deadly, but it was high...higher than it should have been. Ok, it wasn't even high enough for Dr. M to call - he sent me a note in the mail. But it was higher than normal and I think it should be lower...and I'll tell you why. Because even though I fully admit to being a with - I have always wanted to be a without. And that three digit LDL number was a deeper-than-skin-deep alert that I was not heading in the right direction for achieving that juvenile-but-honest goal.

So...and again I must be honest...I poured another glass of wine, watched The Biggest Loser on TV, and flipped through the BREAD file until I found a focaccia recipe. No butter and lots of olive oil (the good fat). Yes, I know...it takes diet AND exercise to lower the number. But you gotta start somewhere. And here's where I started...

Focaccia

Yeast............................2 1/4 tsp

Sugar............................1 tsp

Water...........................2 3/4 cup

Bread Flour.....................5 1/2

Salt..............................1 tsp

Olive Oil........................5 Tbl

Kosher Salt.....................1 Tbl

Rosemary.......................3 Tbl, coarsely chopped

Garlic...........................4 cloves

Olive Oil........................1/3 cup

1. Combine water, yeast, sugar in mixer bowl. Let stand until foamy/creamy.

2. Add flour, 1 tsp salt, and 3 Tbl olive oil. Mix with dough hook until soft and slightly sticky (2 minutes).

3. Form into ball, transfer to oiled bowl. Cover and let rise for 1 1/2 hours/until doubled in bulk. (May be made up to this point and refrigerated overnight. Return to room temperature before proceding.)

4. While dough is rising, simmer garlic in 1/3 cup olive oil. Let cool. Discard garlic,or use for another purpose.

5. Press dough into oiled 15 1/2 x 10 1/2 inch pan. Let rise, covered loosely, for 1 hour, until almost doubled in bulk. Preheat oven to 400.

6. Dimple dough with fingertips. Pour on garlic oil, and sprinkle with kosher salt and rosemary. Bake for 30-40 minutes, until golden brown. Let cool in pan.

*What I didn't do: I used a half sheet pan, so this focaccia isn't as thick as I wanted it to be (I couldn't find my jelly roll pan). Also...I did not rotate the pan front to back midway through baking -- hence the two-tone look to it. And, I used all of the garlic oil, but for the smaller size pan, you might have some leftover. Perhaps enough to use as dipping oil when you are enjoying the bread.

Simple and Delicious

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge. Yes, I too wondered what dreadful crime or happenstance this cheesecake was responsible for that it should be considered infamous...poisoning, obesity, hyperlipidemia, gluttony on a mass scale? But before letting my mind wander too far afield, I nipped that mental storyline in the bud and just assumed that Jenny might have meant famous rather than adding the sinister in- prefix to the recipe's title.

As it turns out, it's just a good thing that Jenny and Abbey's recipe was not felonious, because this cake became one of the desserts at a co-worker's baby shower. I didn't attend, just the cake did. I didn't even bake it with the intention of donating it to the shower; I actually had forgotten the event was scheduled for lunch that day. Conception/Shower/Cake...it was all so serendipitous. (Please note, I'm trying to squelch the unfounded cynicism that I have regarding baby showers...hey, I gladly donated a cake.) The lemon mirror on the cake was a lovely shiny yellow, which apparently is one of the approved colors for baby shower things. If I had known that it would be a baby cake before I left the house that morning, I really would have decorated it with delicate, beautiful little baby things...see, my cold cold heart just melted a bit.

Baby showers, bridal showers, bachelor and bachelorette parties...I'm sorry, I don't know what it is, maybe I'm just too darned egocentric to buy into these events, maybe it's the lame "oppressed by a straight world" thing, maybe it's a foreign tradition for which I haven't any cultural schema, but they just don't work for me. Yes, yes, yes, I know, it's not about me -- I should appreciate the joy that the guests of honor are experiencing. And I do. I genuinely love that young couples have babies and get to experience the nervous thrill of decorating a nursery. Really, I get that. I've done that. And I fully understand the thrill that goes along with getting dressed up in a gown/costume/drag and throwing a big party. I really know that feeling. And, yes, a celebration of two people in love is very sweet and touching. See...please take note that I did not include weddings on the list of personally questionable celebrations...Nik might have, but I didn't.

Ok, blog as cathartic device, followed by sincere commitment to change...I hereby promise to attend AND ENJOY the next happy-couple-based event to which I am invited. And believe me, this is not an empty promise...there are two other pregnant woman at work and their showers are imminent. But back to the cheesecake.

Vanilla Sour Cream Cheesecake...on an almond-coconut crust...with a lemon curd topping. I know, long name...with two prepositions. I can explain. It was going to be a Mango Swirl cheesecake, but I hadn't gotten to Food City to the the good/cheap mangoes. So then I though about an Almond Joy/Mounds cheesecake...hence the almond/coconut crust. But I didn't have any dark chocolate like I thought I had. What I did have were lemons...

Joconde

Almond Meal.........................2 1/2 oz

Coconut..............................2 oz (dessicated preferably, but I used sweetened and it was fine)

Cake Flour...........................1 oz

Whole Eggs..........................4 3/4 oz

Egg Whites...........................3 1/4 oz

Sugar..................................2 tsp

Butter, melted.......................1 1/4 oz

1. Pulse almond meal and coconut in processor until fine. Combine with flour.

2. Whisk whole eggs until combined.

3. Whip egg whites to foamy, gradually add sugar and whip until stiff (not dry) peaks form.

4. Fold dry mixture into whole eggs.

5. Fold 1/3 of egg whites into mixture to lighten. Fold remaining 2/3 whites into mixture.

6. Spread evenly in parchment-lined 1/2 sheet pan.

7. Bake 7-10 minutes at 400 degrees - do not overbake.

8. Let cool.

9. Cut a circle of cake and a circle of parchment the size of your cake pan.

10. Fit the parchment circle and then the cake into the pan. Brush with simple syrup and set aside.

Cheesecake

Cream Cheese..........................24 oz

Vanilla Bean.............................1

Sugar.....................................1 cup

Sour Cream..............................8 oz

Lemon Juice............................1 Tbl

Vanilla Ex................................1/2 Tbl

1. Rub vanilla seeds into sugar. Pour through a fine sieve before adding to cream cheese.

2. Beat cream cheese and sugar until smooth.

3. Add one egg at a time.

4. Add sour cream, lemon juice, and vanilla extract - beat until smooth/combined.

5. Pour into prepared pan.

6. Set cake pan in a larger pan. Fill larger pan with hot water and bake for 1 hour at 350.

7. Turn off oven and let cake sit in oven for additional hour.

8. Remove from water bath, and cool. Chill.

Lemon Curd

Egg Yolks..........................2 fluid oz

Sugar...............................4 1/2 oz

Lemon Juice......................3 fluid oz

Butter..............................2 oz

Salt.................................Pinch

Lemon Zest.......................from one lemon (approx 2 tsp)

1. Heat lemon juice, salt, zest, and approx. half the sugar to nearly boiling.

2. Whisk egg yolks and remaining sugar to ribbon stage.

3. Temper the yolks with a small amount of the hot juice, whisking constantly. Gradually whisk the remainder of the juice into the yolks.

4. Return the mixture to the saucepan over medium-low heat, whisking constantly until thickened. Whisk in the butter.

5. Pour through a fine sieve to remove the zest. Let cool slightly, then pour over the chilled cheesecake. Chill until curd is thoroughly chilled and set.

Rosemary-Rosemarie Bread-Brot

I needed to get back to yeast. As much as I love/crave/want/need sweet stuff, for me it's really all about bread. Always has been and likely always will be. Toast for breakfast, sandwich for lunch, snack mid-afternoon after work, and as a significant side with dinner -- what could fill all those roles...bread. (Or a really tart Granny Smith apple, I've done that before too.) I've got a few loaves of this and that in the freezer, but it was time to try something new. I pulled out Italian Bread by Carol Field - a deservedly classic baking book. Everytime I look through this book I say a quick thank-you to Chito for giving it to me...she was getting rid of many, if not all, of her baking books because she was going no-carb or no-gluten or all-raw or something. (Chito - I have a loaf in the freezer if you want it -- and thanks again for the great book.)

So I'm flipping through the recipes and keep stopping at the rosemary bread. It doesn't require a biga - which I had not prepared the previous night, it sounds delicious, it doesn't take any ingredients that I don't have, and it's easy - which usually is an exclusionary criteria for me but I had a helluva spasm in my neck, had actually called in sick to work because of it, and the muscle relaxant had quite effectively removed all motivation from my body and mind. So rosemary bread it would be.

Quick story about rosemary. It, I think, is Nik's mom's name. Yes, I know...one would think that after all these years I should know my mother-in-law's name (ok, she's not legally my mother-in-law but just because we don't live in Vermont or Iowa doesn't mean that I can't have a pseudo-mother-in-law) Anyway, the reason, or reasons actually, that I am not sure about her name are because 1) she's German, 2) her handwriting is old school European style, and 3) Nik is stubborn.

Let me explain...1) Say the name Rosemary aloud with a German accent -- see, it sounds like Rosemarie, 2) Old-school European writing is beautiful and quaint, reminiscent of days gone by...a time before e-mails and blogs, back in the days when communication was slower and less efficient, a fact not helped by the fact that old school European writing is virtually illegible because it looks like an uppercase letter followed by a series of w's. For several years I would study the signature on the birthday card she sent me, and I am not exaggerating when I tell you that year after year it looked like this...Rwwwwwww, 3) Just ask Nik what his mom's name is, you might suggest. Mmm hmm, like I never thought of that...his answer for 20 years has remained unchanged. I ask/insist, "TELL ME, is your mom's name Rosemary or Rosemarie?" He answers - cooly, consistently and aggravatingly, "Yes." (It has occurred to me that he really doesn't know either.) The solution?...I just call her Oma, as in, "Come on, Oma, let's go in here and drink schnapps till we are silly."

The recipe is not difficult. I used fresh rosemary (which now has a bizarre double-meaning since I just talked about Nik's mom) because the rosemary bush (aargh) needed trimming anyway, but the original recipe says that dried can be substituted for fresh. I didn't make any substantial modifications to the recipe except I decreased the yeast and added about 1/3 cup more water to the dough.

Rosemary Bread

adapted from Italian Bread, by Carol Field

Instant Yeast......................................1 Tbl

Warm Water......................................1 cup

Milk, room temp..................................1 cup

Olive Oil...........................................1/3 cup

Rosemary..........................................3 1/2 Tbl, fresh, chopped

Salt.................................................1 Tbl

AP Flour............................................6 3/4 cups (900 grams)

Coarse Sea Salt....................................1-1 1/2 tsp

1. Combine the water and yeast. Add the milk and oil.

2. Add the remainder of the ingredients, except the sea salt - mix on low until combined. Adjust hydration as needed (I tend to like a wetter, slacker dough).

3. Knead with dough hook 3-5 minutes until smooth/elastic. (I finished kneading by hand because my mixer bowl was a little too big, but if you use a Kitchen Aid mixer, you may not need to.)

4. Let rise 1 1/2 hours, covered, in oiled bowl.

5. Divide in half and shape into rounds.

6. Place in baskets or let rise on peel, 45 minutes, covered. Preheat oven to 450.

7. Score top of loaves with an asterisk pattern and sprinkle the seal salt in the cuts.

8. Bake on baking stone, 10 minutes at 450 - injecting steam or spraying with water 3 times in the first 5 minutes. Reduce head to 400 - continue baking for another 25-30 minutes.

The Rice Palate

“I love a rice dish.”
It’s not a mantra, or slogan, or personal motto (though I guess it could be), but for Nik it is an oft-made statement. Certainly rice is a starchy side dish, but more often than not, at our house, it becomes the bottom of the one bowl meal. Chicken mole on rice, Vegetable curry on rice, Pipian on rice, stir-fried vegetables on rice, Indonesian Spiced Rice, etc etc etc on rice.

But last night I realized that rice might be an indicator of yet another of the great distinctions between people…the Savory/Sweet Division. You know what I mean, it’s the classic battle…the chips people vs. the cookies people.
“I don’t usually eat dessert” vs “Is there any more of that chocolate cake?” A quick screening to determine which you are…at the movies, which do you tend to buy…popcorn or candy? I’m not implying that we all don’t cross to the other side on occasion, but more often than not I find that we are quite loyal (or are we trapped?) in our snack preferences.

I am a Sweet. I admit that and see nothing wrong with it.
Nik is a Savory. And yet we have nearly 2 decades of snacking together under our belts (literally) and all is well with our world.

I suppose there are those evolutionary biologists who might suggest that these preferences are DNA based, but for the life of me I can’t think how nachos vs. M & M’s might have saved only one of us from a hungry velociraptor. (I know – epochs apart, but I like the imagery.)

Anyway, at dinner with Martie last night, we were discussing the shameful yet common sin of throwing away perfectly good food (more on that at another time), and the topic of rice came up. She commented that she often uses leftover rice as the basis of a delicious warm breakfast cereal, adding warm milk and raisins and nuts. A kind of a quick rice pudding. I said, yum. Nik said, yuck. Hmmm. Which led, obviously, to the broader rice pudding conversation. Love it/Hate it – guess who was who.

Well, it just so happens that I had baked quite a conundrum just the day before...

An Almond Rice Tart. I found it to be a little plain, but Nik said he liked it…hmmm. Not surprisingly, last night Martie liked it too – but then, she, like this tart, is a crossover. Think of Venn Diagrams – it’s possible that this tart is the intersection of the Sweet Circle and the Savory circle – even though it isn’t really savory at all. Yes, this is the tart that could have saved ALL of us from the jaws of velociraptor.
Ok, enough is enough, here’s the recipe…

Almond Rice Tart
Crust:
AP Flour..................1 ½ cups
Sugar.....................1 tbl
Salt.......................1/2 tsp
Baking Powder..........1 tsp
Butter....................10 Tbl
Cold Water..............3-6 Tbl

1. Combine flour, sugar, salt and baking powder in food processor.
2. Add butter and pulse a few times but break up butter.
3. Sprinkle in 3 Tbl water, pulse a few times. Adjust with more water if too dry – dough will not come together.
4. Turn dough into large bowl or on counter. Knead briefly until it comes together. Pat into a disc, wrap well, and chill for at least an hour.
5. After dough has chilled, roll into circle, place in 9-inch tart pan. Chill.

Filling:
Jasmine Rice..................½ cup
Water..........................1 ½ qts
Milk.............................3 cups
Butter..........................1 Tbl
Sugar...........................½ cup
Salt.............................½ tsp
Lemon Zest....................2 tsp
Almond Meal...................½ cup
AP Flour........................1 Tbl
Eggs............................3 large
Vanilla Extract................1 tsp

1. Bring water to a boil. Add rice and simmer for 15 minutes. Drain and return rice to pan.
2. Add milk, butter, sugar and salt to rice. Bring to a boilm reduce heat and let cook until thickened, approx. 35 minutes.
3. Remove from heat and let cool to room temp. Preheat oven to 350°.
4. Puree in food processor. Add lemon zest, ground almonds, and flour. Pulse briefly.

(I didn't add any nutmeg or mace to this filling...but I think I will next time.)
5. Add eggs, one at a time, pulsing briefly after each addition.
6. Pour into prepared crust.
7. Bake 35-45 minutes, until filling is set and beginning to brown.
8. Cool before serving.

Collecting

According to Nik, and some unknown original source, a collection is two or more of something/anything. To me a pair of something should not really constitute a collection (as in, a pair of shoes is a collection of that type of shoe?), but who am I to stray from the source. So I got to thinking about what I have a collection of...dogs,






friends...
And tortoises...



Other collections (according to Nik's definition of the word) include diplomas, Ipods (though one is broken), sisters, nieces, favorite songs, cookbooks, occupations and hobbies. I used to have a huge collection of used wine corks (hundreds of them, in fact) but Nik made me get rid of them when we moved. I know - what was up with that?!
Anyway, what got me thinking about all this was the pound cake that I made over the weekend. I found the recipe stowed away in a file in the file cabinet. I realized, while I was thumbing through the hundred or so other "Cake" recipes in that file, that I have gathered quite a collection of stray recipes over the years - most of which I have never tried. It's what we do, right - I'm sure if there was a recipe in the Sky Mall magazine I would tear it out and file it away.

The cake wasn't bad, but it wasn't good either. Lemon Ginger Pound Cake. How bad can it be, really. Well, I'll tell you - it can be too gingery, too heavy, too buttery, and too small -- I know, I know - pound cakes are supposed to be heavy and buttery, and a ginger cake is supposed to be gingery -- but it was TOO MUCH of all of them. So can a cake that is too much of so many things be too small -- isn't it better to make a small bad cake rather than a big bad cake...yes and no, obviously -- I at least wanted it to look good -- and not just for the pictures either. This cake offered neither gustatory nor visual delight. (But watch...see what close up digital photography and powdered sugar can do to a cake like this.) So I now have a new collection...recipes that I will not make again, but that are worth tinkering with if I feel like it someday...or not. (Let me know if you want the recipe -- I'll post the improved one sometime when I get around to improving it.)

Friday Night Is Pizza Night

Friday night at our house is pizza night, as it has been every week for a few years now. Sometimes with overly salty Safeway pizzas. Sometimes with Trader Joe's stone-oven-baked 3 cheese pizzas - amended with a variety of whatever we have in the 'fridge. Sometimes with Papa Murphy's take-and-bakes. Usually it's homemade. But the pizza on pizza night is never delivered...because no pizzerias will come this far out into the desert (though it's not really that far) to deliver a pizza - not even the dreaded Domino's. We've heard tell of a delicious mom-and-pop pizza place that is even further west than we are, somewhere out near the mythic place called Three Points; a mom-and-pop pizzeria that has once in a lifetime, to die for pizza -- but nobody seems to remember the name of it or where exactly it is located...kinda like Shangri-La (Shangri-La Pizza - now that almost has a nice ring to it). Maybe that will have to be a culinary road trip sometime in the near future...

We have tried a numerous pizza dough recipes, a variety of sauces, and untold combinations of toppings. There have been white pizzas, whole wheat pizzas, BBQ chicken pizzas (which was the last meal my mother ate, on a visit a few years ago, before being hospitalized for 10 days with a bowel obstruction...not, we were assured, due to the pizza), thick and thin crust pizzas, really good pizzas, and really really lousy pizzas.

We disagree, Nik and I, for the sake of disagreeing and variety, on pizza dough recipes. Nik favors a variation on Alton Brown's Pizza Pizza recipe- which requires 15 minutes of kneading in the mixer. One would think that I would lean in that direction, given my penchant for extreme procedures. I don't really have a favorite dough, though I find I am using a variation on Rose Levy Berenbaum's pizza dough recipe more often than any other (it requires no kneading and just a quick mix to incorporate the ingredients). Both are make-ahead recipes that benefit from an overnight fermentation in the 'fridge.

Here's the typical breakdown of duties:

The dough is up for grabs - if Nik feels like making it then he makes it, otherwise I make it.

I roll it/shape it, because unless it's pie dough, Nik is afraid to use a rolling pin.

Nik makes the sauce - it's his baby.

I top and bake it.

This is the recipe variation that he's come up with most recently.

Pizza Dough

Yields 2 12-inch rounds, or 1 half sheet pan
Sugar.....................................3 Tbl

Salt.......................................1 Tbl

Olive Oil.................................2 Tbl

Water....................................9 oz

AP Flour..................................2 cups

Whole Wheat Flour.....................1 cup

Instant Yeast.............................2 tsp

1. Place all the ingredients in the mixer bowl. Using the dough hook, knead on medium speed for 15 minutes.

2. Place in an oiled bowl, toss to lightly coat with the oil, cover and refrigerate for 18-24 hours.

3. Remove the dough from the 'fridge about 2 hours before baking. Let warm on the counter (in the bowl) for an hour, then roll/stretch/toss it to desired size and shape. Apparently making faces while tossing the dough is essential - though I did not know this until I saw these pictures.)

4. Spray lightly with oil, cover and let rise for an hour.

5. Preheat the oven to 475 degrees.

6. Top with sauce, cheese, toppings, etc. - bake for 12-15 minutes (half sheet will take longer).

(Check out Jack and Mr. Mayor in this picture - hoping I won't catch the flying disk of dough.)

I know, I know, I know - we have a thick, wonderful baking stone in the oven, we should just go for it and slide the pizza directly onto the stone - but we don't. We have a perforated pizza pan and it works quite well. Okay, having written this, having expressed this baking shortcut/sin in text, I feel I must atone, so I am now obligated to sliding the pizza onto the stone...next week. Stay tuned.

Nik's Pizza Sauce

Tomato Sauce........................15 oz

Tomato Paste.........................3 Tbl

Garlic..................................4 cloves, minced

Herbs...................................1 tsp each (oregano, rosemary, basil, etc)

Habanera Hot Sauce..................3 dashes (this is Nik's version of MSG)

Sugar...................................1 pinch

Stir it all together in a saucepan and let it simmer for 30 minutes.

(I grouse weekly about putting the still-steaming sauce on the pizza but we never seem to get it made ahead of time enough to let it cool some...and it never seems to matter - I just like to complain about something.)

A Bad Attitude But A Lovely Bread

I confessed to Nik the other evening...I confessed that I really do not like Easter. But I didn't mean the Christian after-life part of the occasion - no, though I really am not a believer in that, I will admit that it is a beautiful thought. The parts that I don't like, that I really don't like, are the pastel, stupid-looking cartoonish smiling bunnies, the hyacinth and tulip bouquets, the colored-egg-based holiday traditions. Really. Independence Day has flags and bunting and a strong sense of historical significance. Christmas has the smell of pine, traditional baking, and family rituals. Even Memorial Day and Labor Day have a time-based relevance to them. But the cheesy, pallid decorations that typically appear around Easter give me a queasy feeling, honestly queasy -- and I'm not sure why.

Spring green, trees budding out, flowers starting to grow, in fact the whole concept and evidence of rebirth is lovely. I can remember as a kid in New York going out into the front yard to find the crocus poking up through the last remains of the spring snow storms. The entire scene coexists perfectly with the Christian ideas behind Easter - it's just the insipid decorations that I don't like. Get over it, Tom - they are superficial, go with the feeling behind the occasion. Okay, maybe I will try that next year. But this year the day is almost over and I still don't like silly drawings of lambs and chicks, and what's with the pale pastel egg WREATHS that I've seen displayed this year. Egg wreaths? Sheesh! BUT...Nik has a chicken roasting in the oven, a melange of (WINTER) root vegetables cooking, and some (SPRING) asparagus steaming. That works for me -- Easter as a transition from winter to spring. I like it.

You might remember a few days ago I mentioned mixing up a preferment for a brioche. Well I made the dough and the poor thing has been languishing forgotten in the 'fridge for several days. It had to be baked soon or the bread gods would be blowing dark clouds my way. Italian Easter Bread was the answer. You know - the braided loaf with the whole eggs baked into it. No, it isn't usually a brioche but it is typically an enriched dough. I had the brioche - so brioche it would be. Yes, I know -- if I can rant and fume about wreaths made of pale plastic pastel eggs why would I bake a bread with eggs baked into it -- because it's tradition and egg wreaths aren't, not yet, not ever...hopefully.

I used the recipe from the Tartine cookbook. I hadn't ever made that recipe before and found it to be quite nice. One twist that I thought odd originally but that worked out nicely in the end was the addition of milk after the dough was formed and after the butter was added. It resulted in a wonderfully smooth, silky dough.

Nik made Chicken Tikka Masala Saturday night. To give the bread a more savory finish, I sprinkled the brioche braid with zahatar before baking. Not sure why but I thought the zahatar might go well with the indian dish. And it did.

I also liked the way it looked on the bread, sprinkled around the eggs...it reminded me of moss or grass with eggs nestled among it. It baked up nicely, if perhaps a little bigger than I had imagined. And actually I liked how the zahatar baked onto the eggs. It looked a little like what you might actually find on freshly laid eggs...if you know what I mean.

So Easter has come and gone yet again...and to the best of my knowledge nobody died because of overexposure to lambs, bunnies, chicks or the colors pink, yellow, or lavender. But they could've.

Banana Bread For Breakfast

It worked, but as usual, next time will probably be even better. I think that roasting the bananas did bring out a little bit more of their flavor, as well as making the house smell very banana-y, but next time I will keep them in the oven for even longer, until they ("and the brown sugar they rode in on") start to carmelize a bit more. As far as taste and texture goes...I had a slice last night while it was still warm, and I thought it was a bit dry, but today it really was quite moist and delicious. The cinnamon was barely detectable, but it worked. If you happen to have a spice grinder, I do recommend grinding a cinnamon stick - the difference between freshly ground and the stuff you buy at the grocery is noticeable.

Here's the recipe that I actually ended up putting in the oven...it's the recipe my mother recommended (with a few changes):

Roasted Banana Bread, 2 loaves

Bananas..............................4 1/2 cups, sliced

Butter................................1 cup (divided)

Brown Sugar........................4 Tbs

Sugar.................................1 3/4 cups

Eggs..................................4

AP Flour.............................4 cups

Baking Soda.........................2 tsp

Salt...................................1/2 tsp

Cinnamon............................1 tsp

Vanilla Ex............................1 tsp

(I didn't add any nuts - because some people are weird about nuts - but I do think that some toasted pecans would be good. I'd say about a cup would be the right amount.)

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. Put the bananas in a baking dish, dot with 4 Tbl of the butter, and the brown sugar.

3. Cook for 30-45 minutes, until soft and bubbly.

4. Let cool completely.

5. Sift together the dry ingredients.

6. Cream together the remaining butter and the sugar.

7. Add the vanilla and eggs, one at a time, mixing thoroughly after each addition, scraping the bowl as necessary.

8. Quickly but thoroughly mix in the dry ingredients.

9. Divide between 2 greased loaf pans and bake for approx. 1 hour 15 min.

Thinking About Bananas

Without reason, the term roasted bananas will pop into my head these days. Without a relevant or identifiable prompt. F'rinstance...today I was walking through the ICU waiting room. There were a few family members in there. The volunteer lady with hair that always reminds me of the horns of a bison was at the desk. There was an elderly couple waiting at the elevators. And before I reached the stairwell, there it was: roasted bananas. The thought just arrives.

Now, on the one hand, it's not terribly unusual that I would be thinking about food while at work. I think about food almost all the time. But I'm allergic to bananas (in their raw form) (so is sister Jane, and we both developed the allergy just a few years ago - weird), I have never roasted a banana, and I can't say that I ever remember having eaten a roasted banana. Anyway...because this phrase has been floating freely among my synapses for several weeks now, I succumbed and did buy a bunch o'bananas the other day, and they have been ripening nicely on the counter.

So guess what...I have 5 cups of sliced bananas, 3 Tablespoons of butter, and 4 Tablespoons of brown sugar roasting in a 350 degree oven right now. I'm a sucker for banana bread. I made multiple loaves of it at the restaurant every week. My mother recently gave me a recipe for banana bread that she said was quite good and very easy (easy? oh god, what am I thinking, that not my kind of recipe at all) so I thought instead of just slicing/mashing them there 'nanas I'd try it with these roasted bananas, maybe that will get them out of my head. A culinary exorcism, as it were.

Cheesecake Trial #1

Well I joined The Daring Bakers - and seeing as how this was my first month to submit an entry, I was kinda feeling a bit of pressure. So I made the recipe yesterday and brought it in to work today. An amazing thing about bringing food to an office/work environment -- it vanishes. No matter which hospital I have worked at - bring something in wrapped in plastic wrap and within minutes, it is gone. I used to take this as a compliment, and on somedays I still do - geez, it must have been really good - I don't think today's cheesecake lasted even 8 minutes on the scheduling table before it was gone. One coworker even admitted that she licked the platter. I must admit that I have brought in some food, an underdone streusal-topped rhubard-compote shortbread comes to mind, that similarly vanished -- and I KNOW it was lousy. Which is not to say my coworkers are nondiscriminating...let's just say they are hungry.

The situation is not unlike working with a stroke patient who spends 45 minutes producing nothing but unintelligible jargon, but who produces that one full sentence, be it a compliment or an insult at the end of the session, and of course it is THAT message that we take to heart. I own a very nice red shirt that I will absolutely never wear again because the single time that I wore it the lovely Grace G. pointed to it and said as clear as can be, "Never again" after an hour of wonderfully fluent but largely unintelligible jargon. And Lisa D. had a great day this past Monday when a confused and disoriented patient told her she had "beautiful breasts."

Anyway...I made the Daring Baker's cheesecake and in a big hurry this morning topped it with sliced strawberries. The concentric circles of slices were off-center, the slices were uneven, I put it in a large shallow dish with sides because I had planned to take it in to work, which means a safe drive over Gates Pass but not a good photo op, and snapped a few quick pictures. And of course, within minutes the cheesecake was gone. Everyone said it was delicious, and I actually was quite pleased with how the texture of the cake itself turned out...though I did not taste a piece myself. But when I got home and looked at the pictures --- ugh. Can a strawberry be garish? -- because that is the word that came to mind when I saw it.

Good news - I will make it again when I can take a little more time on the presentation side of things AND Nik will get a piece this time.

Hurry Up and Wait

Fermenting on the counter, fermenting overnight, fermenting in the 'fridge because I had to work today and the timing would have been all off if it'd sat out all day-- if nothing else, this bread is definitely going to be sour...which is okay by me. The dough can wait.

And that's actually one of the benefits of a levain-based bread like this one...it can wait. In fact, it needs to wait. Or rather, I need to wait while it sits quietly doing its thing...reproducing, fermenting, burping, getting bubbly, rising. This recipe contains no yeast other than that contained in the levain so the turnaround time on it is much longer than an instant-yeast-boosted dough. And let me tell you, this levain was a precocious little minx --

she was ripe and ready for action after just the second feeding. Often it will take 3-4 feedings after I have taken it out of the 'fridge before she is ready for dough-making.

Bordelais

Bread Flour..................................900 grams

Whole Wheat Flour..........................20 grams

Rye Flour......................................80 grams

Water.........................................580 grams (plus whatever is needed to adjust)

Salt.............................................20 grams

Liquid Levain................................400 grams

I did a 20 minute autolyse after the initial mix, but the dough was too stiff, so I added another 3/4 cup water, then did the final mix. It's a pretty sloppy dough, but with two folds during bulk fermentation it tightened up somewhat.

So it fermented (on top of the 'fridge) for two hours (with a fold each hour) but it was getting late so I covered it and let it chill in the 'fridge overnight. Well, over two nights really, because I didn't get to it last night either. (Like I said, this bread might be nicely sour.)
Finally, it came out of the refrigerator and sat in the bowl in the kitchen all morning to warm up, then I divided in in half, preshaped it, rounded it and plopped it into the floured baskets for the final rise...

Now let me say, I don't love alot of things, but I adore these german baskets. Nik and I found them at a store in San Francisco; they were way too expensive but Nik told me to go for it...like he always does when I find something on vacation that is too expensive. So we hauled them around the city in our daypacks that day, to the zoo and then to the Buena Vista, then all the way up and down those hills from the wharf to Nob Hill and back home to our favorite little hotel, The Golden Gate. That's just one reason that I love these baskets.

So then it rises for another 3 hours or so and finally gets baked. I put it in at 460 for 10 minutes and then turned it down to 400 for another 20. It probably could've gone another 5 minutes - OR - the baking stone could've been on a higher shelf so that the tops would brown a little more.

Marti is coming over for our first rehearsal tonight, so we'll try the bread at dinner. She's said she can always count on carbs when she eats here...and is there something wrong with that?

Fermenting On A Saturday In Spring

An instructor once described the difference between cooking and baking with a sports analogy. Cooking, she said, is like basketball and hockey, whereas baking is more like golf. As with most metaphors, it can only be taken so far (indeed there certainly can be some "hockey" moments in a restaurant bakeshop) but the concept is basically accurate.

F'rinstance, today I did nothing hockey-like, not by any stretch of the imagination. I took The Mother out of the 'fridge, she'd been hibernating on the bottom shelf for a couple of chilly weeks, fed her, and now she sits on the counter fermenting and occasionally burping.

(FYI - The Mother is our loving term for the sourdough starter.)

Then I mixed up some milk, flour and yeast as a preferment for a brioche I'll put together either later tonight or after work tomorrow afternoon. And that was that. See...totally a "golf-ish" baking day. (I wasn't totally slug-like though. I did make some chicken broth this morning, which will become chicken noodle soup tonight -- Nik woke up with a cold this morning and needs some old-fashioned medicine.)

The Mother has been a part of our lives for 9 years now. Because I am really drawn to multi-step, complex, cumbersome cooking procedures, when I read Nancy Silverton's instructions for starting a levain in Breads From The Le Brea Bakery I just knew I had to do it. It was the beginning of the acute phase of my obsession/love affair with yeast, and when Nancy Silverton became my bread idol. Not that starting a levain is complex or cumbersome at all; it isn't, but when she writes that you should start it with organic grapes (to obtain the wild yeast that grows on them), and that you need to stir it and feed it on a rigid/religious time schedule, well, that process speaks to my love of rituals and rules. (I have wondered whether I bake because I love breads, etc, or am I really just satisfying some deep-seated need to perform rituals - the answer as far as I can tell...both.)

For awhile I had both a liquid levain (The Mother) and a firm levain at the ready all the time. But now I just make a firm levain for specific recipes - it only usually takes an overnight fermentation when the firm levain is started with Mother. There have been times when I hae been busy/neglectful and have kept her in the refigerator for weeks at a time - and yet everytime she bounces back after just a couple of feedings. A really ripe, tangy dark liquid develops on the surface, which had me worried the first few times, given that it smells like paint thinner. I love pulling back a corner of the plastic wrap to get that strong first whiff - so strong it can actually choke you up a little -- ahhh, good stuff.

The formula I use for feeding The Mother is 500 grams of bread flour, 625 grams of water, and 100 grams of Mother. Mix it up, cover it up and let it rip. The first day or two after taking her from the 'fridge I can usually get by with feeding her just once a day, but once she is bubbling and mature she needs a twice a day feeding. Yes, yes, yes, I could decrease the amount of Mother that I include at each feeding once she gets going strong, but I haven't tried that yet and I don't like to mess with Mother too much.

Biscuits and Stories

So I learned something about a friend the other night.
Tim loves biscuits and, maybe even more, he loves strawberry shortcake.
(Yes - this is/was Tim) Now, some people might not think twice about this news, but to a food-and-flour-freak like me, this is like an insight into someone's soul.

Biscuits are dear to my heart. I have an old, well-used and much-stained recipe card in a zip-lock bag in the pantry that is titled, Grandma Finch's Baking Powder Biscuits. When I left home back in 1983, that is one recipe that I had to take with me. It works everytime.

But biscuits are also the source of a personal story of shame and ridiculuousness. As it happened, baking powder biscuits was the recipe that was assigned for our first practical exam in culinary school. There was NOTHING difficult about the recipe. In fact, it was not terribly different from Grandma's, a recipe that I had made at least a hundred times. Face it, how much variation can there be in a biscuit recipe. But nerves, stress, the clock, and who knows what other stupidity invaded my brain and caused me to LEAVE OUT the baking powder. It was our first exam, I didn't know I could do it over, I was not familiar with a convection oven...blah blah, blah. So instead of submitting light, delicious biscuits to Chef W. for tasting and critique, I offered a plate of gluten-based hockey pucks. Seriously awful. AAAAARGH -- the shame, the horror, the end-of-the-world. Well, not really...but yes, at the time.

So I have since been on a bit of a mission, or an occasional mission, to perfect my biscuit. There are those that would say that biscuit skill may be genetic -- as in...there are those with "a biscuit hand" and those without. I doubt that. I'm not stupid. I'm trainable. But biscuits continue to be a struggle. (too tough, too heavy, underdone, delicious but ugly) Anyway -- last night we had leftovers -- roast chicken, beef stew -- so I made biscuits to accompany the dregs. They (the bisuits) were alright...Nik loved them, but of course he would. (gotta love him)

So here's Grandma's Biscuit Recipe and my adaptation...

AP Flour...............2 1/4 cups.................2 cups

Baking Powder.......4 tsp........................1 Tabl

Baking Soda........................................1 tsp

Cream of Tartar......1/2 tsp

Sugar...................3 Tablespoons

Salt.....................1 tsp.......................1 Tbl

Shortening............2 oz

Butter...............................................4 oz

Milk....................2/3 cup

Egg.....................1

Buttermilk..........................................3/4 cup

The technique is the same for each.

Sift the dry, cut in the fat, quickly/deftly add the liquid.

Fold a few times. Roll out and cut.

Place upside down on a baking sheet.

Brush with a dairy product.

Bake at 450..........10-12 min..................12-15 min

Grandma's Biscuits----------------------------------------My recipe

So here's the verdict -- Grandma's had a finer texture and, at least for this batch, rose more evenly, whereas my eggless adaptation was moister and flakier. Of course, the goal is to achieve the fine texture in a biscuit that is both moist and flaky. I preferred Grandma's but Nik liked my recipe. I told him that I thought a combination of the two would be best - he continued chewing but was essentially nonplussed by my analysis.

So...the trials continue...next time...a combination of butter and shortening AND include an egg with the buttermilk. Another day.

The recipe (so far)

Whole Wheat Bread (50%)
Biga
Bread Flour... 4 oz
Wheat Flour... 4 oz
Instant Yeast... 1/8 tsp.
Water... 5 oz
Mix, cover, and let stand at room temperature for 12-16 hours.

Final Dough
Biga... All of the above
Wheat Flour... 1 lb.
Bread Flour... 1 lb.
Salt... 1 Tbl.
Instant Yeast... 1 tsp
Water... 1.5 lb
Ferment 1 hour. Fold. Ferment 45 minutes.
Divide in half and preshape.
Form two batards. Place in linen-lined baskets.
Cover and let rise 1 hour.
Bake 25-30 minutes at 450.

Next Time: decrease/omit the yeast in the final dough, increase the percentage of whole wheat flour, retard the dough for bulk fermentation overnight.