Bread Makes The Meal

I thought I had some really good pictures for you tonight. What I actually have for you is some good evidence that it's difficult (for me at least) to take good pictures with a cell phone camera. Difficult enough that I'm going to go back to borrowing Nancie's mom's camera to take the pictures. But I'll post the pictures because I want to at least show you something . I made the Milk and Water Bread over the weekend. It didn't go exactly as I had planned the recipe; the sponge was considerably wetter, and I let the dough rise for a lot longer (because we got occupied in making the slow cooker ribs). Didn't seem to hurt, though: The bread came out just as tasty. After all that baking, I could hardly wait to eat! The next thing, obviously, was to use the bread appropriately, namely, to mop up the barbecue sauce from dinner: Fortunately, there was plenty of bread for all that sauce. Again, I apologize for the poor quality of the pictures. But...

So we went to the community garden last night and I have to say it was as bad as I had imagined it. Here's what we saw walking in: Things hadn't got knocked over or pushed about so much as they had been stripped of leaves. There are a few leaves left on the tomato plant, but they're mostly gone: We may be able to salvage it, though; I'll take a look. The pepper plants actually came off virtually unharmed; we got our first pepper of the season. It looks, smells, and feels wonderful! Is there a way to use bell pepper in bread? That would be a great way to combine the two interests of mine. I'll be back tomorrow with pictures of bread with our slow-cooker barbecued ribs. God speed, and remember: All sorrows are less with bread .

And much less of a big deal than I thought it would be. At least, by us. Now closer to Trenton, there's a lot of flooding; and up in Hightstown, where we used to live, the Peddie Lake dam gave way, yielding this: But by us, except for a very minor leak in the front window, and a few branches down next door: nothing. I have to go find Nancie's camera, which has the pictures of bread from yesterday and today. I discovered a good use for the Milk and Water bread: sopping up barbecue sauce. You can find the recipe I used here . Unfortunately, it looks like the owner of the blog hasn't updated in over a year. I wish I could get in touch with her and see what was up; this was a good recipe and I'm sure she has many more. And it was really easy to make, too. And the bread was perfect with it :-) God speed, and remember, All sorrows are less with bread .

(Posted from my phone) I'm making bread (the Milk and Water Bread).  It's just out of the oven; I'll add a picture after it cools.  I'll also add a picture of the incoming hurricane clouds.  It's on Nancie's camera right now. I agree with something a friend said.  I imagine we will lose power, and I'm not looking forward to it, not because we're not ready (we are) but because I don't like being in the dark. Stay well, God speed, and remember: All sorrows are less wi th bread.

I must say, things are looking decent overall, but not as good as I would have wanted. The pumpkins are looking pretty scraggly and bedraggled overall; I wonder if I didn't get overenthusiastic in trimming things up last time? The one (taller) tomato plant seems to be doing reasonably well: The other one seems to have fallen over again, despite efforts to tie it up. I'm definitely not getting that variety again next year. Our peppers are doing really quite well (even the one that looks a bit droopy). That's the droopy one. The peppers on the other one aren't quite ripe yet, but there are more of them. And the strawberry plant still has no strawberries (even though the blurb said that it can produce fruit through late September); but it's got some new growth sprouting round the edges. With however much of Irene that affects us over the weekend, it's probably going to be rather rainy through the weekend. (Maybe I ...

This is not bread except in the remotest of senses (namely, it requires flour), but I just had to share with you a recipe I got from the blog Mama Loves Food!: namely, Easy Fried Pickles . Yummy!

I haven't made bread for ages , it seems like. At least partly because the Milk and Water Bread recipe makes two loaves. Well, it looks like two loaves is too much for us to get through, at least recently. I checked our second loaf and it was all moldy. Oh come on, you didn't really want a picture of that, did you? :-) So anyway, no bread, no sandwich. I brought leftover pizza for lunch. Of course, pizza dough is also a type of bread (though I don't think I'd call pizza a "sandwich"). But since I didn't make it or bake this pizza, it doesn't count. What do you think? Is pizza a sandwich? We've occasionally made our own pizza, but not our own dough—yet. If we do, I can do an article on that. Not this week, maybe next, after we've had a few other things as well. And I'm going to the garden this evening; the weather's supposed to be great and I'm expecting great things, all of which I will share with you tomorrow. ...

Nancie has been making the discreet suggestion for a while that I should do something with the sourdough starter or else get rid of it. I eventually decided that I had to agree with her; I really am not using the starter often enough that I can justify taking up the space and the mixing bowl. So tonight I took a couple of final (unfortunately very blurry) pictures: and then washed the bowl out. I haven't given up on sourdough; but I have to be practical: it's not my favorite bread, or Nancie's. On another note, I've been meaning to tell you about the next recipe I'm looking at from the Eliza Acton cookbook I told you about Thursday . I found another recipe for "Good Family Bread". Unfortunately, this one I would have to more than halve before I could bake it manageably. The subheading reads "Sufficient for a week's consumption for ten persons." Presumably that includes the family and the servants. The recipe begins ...

I was going to tell you about the recipe I found in the bread book last night, but the weather was unexpectedly nice (at least, non-rainy) for a bit after work, so I went out to see how the plot was doing. Oooh boy, am I glad I went. Here's what I saw as I walked in: My pumpkins, as I feared, were trying to cross the walkway and invade the neighbor's plot. I trimmed them back and tried to organize them—somewhat, they are sprawling vines, after all. But even before I saw the spread, I noticed the yellowing and dying leaves. Perhaps because of all the rain? So I trimmed back some of the dead tendrils too. And I think I might have mentioned earlier that one of our tomatoes is really intended for container gardening. It's a very stubby, short plant, and it can't quite get the support it needs from the tomato cage. So I lifted it up and tried to tie it up to the cage. We'll see how well it does. I was going to stay longer, and report o...

No garden for me tonight. Instead, I'm going to dive back into the historical bread cookbooks and see what I can cook up! I must admit to being slightly taken aback by the older use of the word "receipt" for what I would call a "recipe" - apparently "recipe" first appeared in 1743, but wasn't common for quite a bit longer. I found a book called "The English bread-book for domestic use", written by Eliza Acton in 1857. As a start, I turned to the section labeled "Very Plain Directions To A Quite Inexperienced Learner For Making Bread." Unfortunately, this recipe calls for "half a gallon of flour", that is eight cups. Maybe I can halve the recipe? It's a possibility. And of course there's always my Milk And Water Bread. I'd like to try this recipe though, so I can show it off with plenty of pictures! God speed, and remember: All sorrows are less with bread .

Well, not any more. But it's been raining pretty heavily for the last several days, and there's still a chance of showers and thunderstorms today and tomorrow. But I'm going to try and get into the garden tonight. I haven't been there for quite a while—that's why I haven't shown any pictures. I fully expect that the pumpkin vines will have grown across our plot and at least half the neighboring one. I may just go over with a scissors so I can trim it up there and then. As soon as we get our tomatoes in, I'll make some bread especially for them and run a Sandwich Day with BLTs or maybe tuna salad. I'm not sure how to do pumpkins in a sandwich. In the bread, yes (if it's a quick bread); but not in the sandwich itself. Thoughts? I'm making bread either this evening or tomorrow, depending on when I can get to the garden. Maybe I'll buy some rye flour on the way home and make rye bread. God speed, and remember, All sorrows are le...

The Tuscan White Hearth Bread looked good (apart from being odd-shaped) and when I first cut it open (my pictures of the crumb all turned out blurry) it looked good, smelled good, tasted good. But on the inside It Was Uncooked Again ! Argh! What am I doing wrong? The oven doesn't seem to be unusually cool—we baked homemade macaroni and cheese a couple of days ago and I was concerned the oven was running a little high, if anything. Am I not leaving the loaf in long enough? It was starting to get beyond golden brown; I didn't want it to burn. I'm not sure what's going on, and I'm really frustrated . Nancie doesn't like the bread because it seemed almost raw in the middle. Should I just toss it and chalk it up to "experience"? Deep breath. Must take a deep breath :-) God speed, and remember: All sorrows are less with bread (properly baked, of course).

I did in fact finish the Tuscan White Hearth Bread last night. I let it rise for two hours before dinner then put it in the fridge over dinner. So it rose for another hour in there. I punched it down, and tried shaping it into a boule. Didn't work very well. Apparently I didn't follow my instructions, kind of folded the dough up, and when I tried to roll it, it tore. But okay, whatever, I thought; I went ahead and crosshatched it per the recipe. Then when I baked it ...! I thought I had a picture to insert here, but I must have missed it. Let's just say that although it did come out golden brown, it looks like it's one loaf sort of "budding off" a smaller loaf (perhaps it's reproducing, like yeast?). Next time I'll carefully attend to the instructions that I actually gave people :-/ I still have to see how it tastes; I'll do that this afternoon when I come home. But it smells delicious, and I'll call it a success.

Evidence: I was baking this afternoon while Nancie was trying to frost a cake. I wish I had a picture of the result; but here's where I wound up trying to mix and raise the bread: In case you're not sure, I'm doing this on the stove (next to the cookie sheet and loaf pans that I had to take out of the oven because we were baking the cake). What you see in the background is the microwave on the counter and the various things we have to have there in order to keep them off the counter. We manage, though. Somehow or other :-) So what I'm making right now is Tuscan White Hearth Bread from Everything Bread . This is unusual in that it has no salt. Or sugar; just water, flour, and yeast. It's the perfect kind of bread to use with spaghetti that has a lot of sauce on it. It might even be the excuse to make a little bit of extra sauce for the pasta! Tuscan White Hearth Bread 1¼ cups warm water 1¾ tsp. active dry yeast (1 package) ¼ cup whole whe...

I'm going to be baking bread tomorrow, probably—the Milk and Water Bread is going fast! (Little bit of peach or apple butter on top, yum...) In the mean time, I was looking around the sites I usually check out about cooking. One of them that I don't list in my blog roll is Mennonite Girls Can Cook—done by a whole group of women who come up with a lot of great-looking recipes. The latest one is "No-Nut Smartie Monster Cookies" . I'm not generally one for nut-free, flour-free recipes, but I must say this one looks delicious. Read, peruse—and tell them Matt sent you! God speed, and remember: All sorrows are less with bread (and cookies don't hurt either!).

For those of you who were hoping for another post on my bread yesterday, apologies; I didn't finish the bread until well after 11:00 PM, and didn't get into bed for another hour. So I'm exhausted this morning. So anyway, yesterday I did decide to do the Milk and Water Bread from the Bread and Fancy Breads book I found on Google books. Again, here's the recipe exactly as it appears in the book: Dissolve one yeast cake in quarter of a cupful of lukewarm water, stir in enough flour to make a batter, cover and leave to rise. Mix together a cupful of scalded milk, a cupful of boiling water, a tablespoonful of lard, an equal quantity of butter, and a teaspoonful and a half of salt. Stir this mixture into the sponge and add five cupsful of sifted flour, or one cupful of white flour and enough entire wheat flour to knead. In the latter case add also three tablespoonsful of molasses. This bread may be mixed, raised and baked in five hours, and should be mixed in the morni...

So tonight with Nancie busy I'll have the kitchen available to do a mid-week bake. Question is, should I do standard white bread baking? Or should I try that "Milk and Water Bread" I found in the cookbook from 1917, the one I put up a recipe for a while ago ? I still haven't developed a "formal-style" recipe for that, but I might just go with it and see how it starts off. I found another book with recipes, this one from 1903. The recipes seem to call for a bit more ingredients than I have on hand, though: "We will take for this process 10st. (1401bs.) of brown meal or flour, 14oz. of compressed yeast, and 11b. 6oz. of salt." Um, I think that's for more than one or two loaves? :-) It turns out this is primarily intended for commercial bakers. But hey, it was worth a look. I'll post again tonight to let you know what I did (and provide pictures!) God speed, and remember: All sorrows are less with bread .

Following Mary's suggestion, I think I'll make one day a week (perhaps chosen randomly or when I feel like it?) Sandwich Day. Today is Buffalo Chicken on Sourdough: I have to admit it's not the greatest picture :-) I used the sourdough I made over the weekend. Remember I talked about how hard the crust was? Well, after getting wrapped in foil and stored for a day or so, it softened up and came out quite nicely. I opened the container and that beautiful sourdough smell came wafting out. Inside was just what I threw together in the three minutes before I had to leave this morning: some of the leftover Buffalo chicken from yesterday, and a little bit of mayo to keep the whole thing from scratching up my throat. Not much in the fancy department, but it satisfied me. (I let Nancie have the pickles; but dill pickles would have gone well with this.) So that's it. It's pouring rain, so I won't have garden pictures to show you tomorrow. Things are...

So the last time I made the sourdough boules they were hard, burned in a couple of places, and generally not very appetizing. So this time around I changed a few things up. I fed the starter a few hours before I made the sponge. I let the sponge develop for about 10 hours (didn't start the bread until almost 8:00 at night). I let the dough rise for an hour and a half, instead of an hour. And (most importantly, I think) I put the temperature at 375 °F instead of 475. (I did worry in the last ten minutes or so that the loaf was very pale, so I put the oven up to 425 for the last ten minutes.) The result: Wow—what a difference. I do have to say, though, that the crust is quite hard in cutting. I did remember the steam pan; I'm not sure what the problem is. It's not breaking my teeth, though. Just hard to cut. But Delicious! Tonight I was going to make rosemary rolls; our next-door neighbor has volunteered her rosemary plants. It's really hot, though,...

When I started this blog, it was going to be all about bread. But our garden is doing so well (and isn't the food you grow or make for yourself great in any form?). We got a really late start planting in the community garden; we had to use starter plants rather than seeds. So what we have are two green pepper bushes, two tomato plants, a strawberry, and six pumpkins (that someone else donated, actually). Not much, it seemed, for a ten by ten plot, especially when one of the pumpkin plants died in the heat. That's what I thought until I walked into the garden last night: The pumpkins are trying to take over! I really hope we have enough room; even the two biggest ones could probably occupy the plot all by themselves; and we have three more, plus the rest of the veggies (and the strawberry hanging out in the middle). The pepper and the tomatoes are doing well. The one tomato plant isn't very tall, but I think I counted thirteen tomatoes on it, which is respectable. The...

So Wednesday I was so pleased with the bread and the sandwich that I didn't feel like griping about my lack of cupboard space. Well, today is different. But I'll keep it brief :-) Our kitchen in general needs re-working, but that would take several thousand dollars that we don't have at the moment. We do need a pantry of some sort, though. Right now, my baking materials (flour, sugar, baking powder and soda, cocoa, and the rest) are all crammed into half of one of our cabinets over the stove: It's not very usable. And the flour has fallen out on, or nearly on, my head once or twice. Suggestions on what to get/how to arrange things to be a bit more friendly? God speed, and remember, All sorrows are less with bread .

I don't usually make bread during the week (I could , but we'd rapidly run out of space to store the bread!). But last night I did, just plain white bread for sandwiches today. I have to watch myself carefully. I'm not taking the time I need to shape the bread; it doesn't look as nice and even as it should. But it's got a lovely crust, a bit sweetish, and should make a great sandwich. Herself (who has informed me that she would like to be referred to forthwith as Nancie) made a great sandwich on this for lunch. She is the Sandwich Queen :-) Buffalo chicken, lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise, and a wee little bit of pepper. I can't wait for lunch! I was going to post something about the awful state of my bread ingredient cupboard, but this has cheered me up enough that I don't feel like griping about it :-) God speed, and remember: All sorrows are less with bread .

So hot I didn't do Anything last night. Well, that's not quite true. I watered the garden. Several months ago, a group of us petitioned our condo/townhome association to create a space that we could use for a garden. It went through, we got our 10' x 10' space (and a quite late start in planting, I must admit), and we're now watching things grow! Granted, not all of them would be directly incorporated in bread, but—heck with it. They're all good food, right? Strawberry muffins, anyone? We have a recipe! (I know; it's late for strawberries. Even though these are advertised to bear fruit all year. But we can wait until next spring—it's worth it for strawberries.) The peppers will end up in pasta sauce and probably on pizza. Pumpkin pie is a possibility; pumpkin bread with apple or peach butter (Yum!) is more likely. We have three thriving pumpkin vines; I hope that wasn't too many :-) Thirteen tomatoes so far on the one plant, and six on the...