The Anarchist's Cookbook

CSA love; Pickle Season!

2009-07-07T12:06:00.003-04:00

So we're heading into our fourth week of CSA shares and I already have more cabbages than I know what to do with. As someone who has had trouble with sauerkraut, I'm making it my goal this year to master the technique. The first batch is under brine right now and seems to be headed in the right direction...I think that the cool weather this summer is helping. Photos and recipes to come, provided it doesn't turn to a rotten, cabagey mess.
Also, have some lovely whole kosher dills working. So many pickles!

Planning to take a pierogi-making lesson sometime in the next couple weeks also...I'll keep you posted!

Hm.

2009-04-07T20:50:00.002-04:00

I had considered keeping this bit of precious information in the family, but I now realize that all the vegans and vegetarians out there need a little bit more deliciousness in their lives, so here goes:

Deep fried, salted shiitake mushrooms taste more like bacon than any fake bacon product on the market.

There. I said it.

And if you were to fry them in bacon fat, I bet even most of your carnivorous friends might not be able the tell the difference.

Happy frying!

Bread Tutorial 3: Potato Bread

2009-02-11T13:32:00.004-05:00

I will definitely post a more basic white bread recipe soon, but I am especially fond of this one for the fact that it is pretty much made entirely of non-perishable ingredients (dry yeast will die eventually, but can be kept for a pretty long time, especially in the freezer). It is also SUPER DELICIOUS and totally worth scraping together some extra ingredients because you will very likely want to make this one again.

1 tablespoon dry yeast (2 teaspoons if you are using instant dry yeast)
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons lukewarm water-just barely warm to the touch
3 tablespoons sugar
3 cups All Purpose Flour (I spring for King Arthur, when I can, as the company is just all around awesome)
1/4 cup cooled bacon grease. I always reserve my bacon fat in a mason jar in the fridge. It is a very special and delicious gift that the pork fairy brings us every time we cook bacon and it is a complete crime to throw the stuff away. It can be used in place of butter in loads of culinary applications, and it won't go rancid for months if you keep it chilled. If you are a vegetarian, you can substitute 4 tablespoons of butter for this recipe.
1/4 cup nonfat dry milk powder
1/4 cup mashed potato flakes
2 teaspoons salt (3 if using kosher salt)

Dissolve the yeast and sugar in the water and set aside till a pale foam forms on the surface. Add all ingredients except for the salt to the bowl and stir with an electric mixer with a dough hook attachment, or with wooden spoon till a rough dough starts to form. Add the salt and continue mixing, using your hands when the dough is too stiff to stir. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for about 10 minutes, till it is smooth and springs back when poked. Place in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with a towel, and put it someplace warm to rise. I usually put it in the oven with just the pilot on, or next to a radiator. When the dough has risen to about double its original size, punch it down in the bowl, turn it out onto an oiled surface, and
fold in half. Pinch the seam to seal it, and roll into a chubby loaf. Place in a lightly oiled loaf pan (mine is about 8"x4"), seam side down. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees, cover the dough with a sheet of plastic wrap, and place it over or near the preheating oven to rise. When it is doubled in size again, about an inch or two above the edge of the pan, brush the dough with a little bit of water, gently cut 3 slashes into the surface with a razor blade or serrated knife, and bake for about 40 minutes. Be sure to rotate the pan about half way through baking. Your bread should be a beautiful, dark golden brown when it is finished. This is a lovely sandwich bread with a thin, soft crust; to preserve its texture, knock the finished loaf out of the pan while it is still hot, and allow it to cool on a rack. Stored in a plastic bag, at room temperature, it will stay fresh for 2 or 3 days, or you can freeze it for several weeks. Even stale, this makes KILLER toast, french toast, and grilled sandwiches.

Bread Tutorial 2; Wounded Soldier Bread

2009-01-02T20:26:00.003-05:00

While this recipe might have been more aptly posted before New Year's Eve, my holiday season was full of running about, house guests, whiskey, and food comas and blogging has kind of fallen to the wayside. If baking your own bread is one of your resolutions, this one is a snap to get started on.

This is an excellent "quickbread" recipe, meaning it uses chemical leavening (baking powder) instead of yeast. It is hearty, flavorful and delicious with big bowls of stew and lots of butter.
You can really use any leftover beer, and experiment with different types of flour. I usually avoid using less than 50% all purpose flour, as whole grain types can be a bit heavy on their own. For beer, I used a dark, somewhat sweet, and mildly hoppy homebrew; be adventurous, as the beer will directly affect the flavor of your bread. Flat beer is no problem here, so if you want to save those forgotten, morning after beers from going down the drain, this recipe is a good bet.

1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup dark rye flour
1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoon of baking powder
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1/3 cup packed dark brown sugar
1 1/2 cup beer (FYI 1 can=1 1/2 fluid cup)

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and oil a 9-inch loaf pan or muffin tins.
Combine all dry ingredients then add the beer, stirring with a wooden spoon or bowl scraper till well combined. Form into a rough loaf and lay in pan, or scoop into muffin tins. If using muffin tins, the batter should only fill them about half way. Bake till a knife inserted in the center comes out clean, about an hour for the loaf or 20 minutes for the muffins. Be sure to rotate once about half way through cooking and cool on a rack to maintain a nice, crunchy crust. This will stay fresh and tasty, wrapped in plastic for 3 or 4 days, or frozen for several weeks.

Good luck, and have a fantastic year!

Pickled Bean Success!

2008-09-24T17:42:00.001-04:00

Beaniebeans
Originally uploaded by katcontrol

So we cracked a jar today--my birthday is being celebrated by far too much bacon and a day full of bloody marys. The picked green beans from a couple weeks ago were an excellent garnish for my tasty tasty cocktails, if maybe just a touch too heavy on the cardamom. While David usually adds a mixture of the frightening but effective products "Clamato" and "Beefamato" to his bloody mary mix, here is a more vegetarian-friendly recipe I used today:

1 46-oz can of tomato juice
1/3 cup jarred horseradish (fresh is, of course, preferable, but our neighborhood is not the produce mecca it ought to be...)
1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
a couple shakes of celery salt
juice of 1 lime and half of 1 lemon.

Mix everything together. You'll have better results if you let the whole mess sit in the fridge to meld together for a week before using, but bloody marys always seem to be a spur-of-the-moment craving for me and I never let it rest. They will still be tasty. Mix 3 parts mix with 1 part vodka, top with a few more cranks of ground pepper, and add a dash or two of Tobasco or Frank's hot sauce. You can also just add this to the mix, but I have a friend coming over with a capsicum allergy, so I left it out this time. Garnish with celery, pickled things, salty cured meats, whatever strikes your fancy, and start drinking away your hangover.

Pickled Green Beans: Written last week!!

2008-09-09T08:51:00.003-04:00

Let me just preface this by saying that I am blogging from the airport, under a flat screen tv that has just informed me of Senator McCain's newly announced running mate, Senator Palin. What a shit show. Lets hope American women aren't as utterly, stupidly shallow as the Republican Party seems to think. Is this an attempt to reach out to blindly feminist, racist, pro-lifers? For crying out loud.

Anyhow. This news makes me feel like drinking A LOT, and lately I've been on a bloody mary kick. An airport bloody mary is just not going to cut it right now, so I'm fantasizing about my own. I generally think it is a good idea to mix it up with your bloody mary garnishes; celery is just so dull. My favorites tend to involve pork fat...prosciutto, soprasetta, or bacon-wrapped crunchy or cheesy things, especially. But if you are stuck on having some veggies in your morning cocktail, I am always a fan of pickled green beans. We got 3 pounds of green and yellow string beans in our farm share for two weeks in a row, and aside from being an excellent vehicle for large quantities of butter and sea salt, they are one of the more pointless, boring vegetables of the season. David and I picked up a case of pint-sized mason jars that were the perfect height for our beanies, so I whipped up a batch of brine, canned them, and they're pickling in a shady corner of the kitchen right now. No word yet on how they taste, but they are looking lovely. Here's how I did it.
-About 3 pounds of green and yellow string beans, stems removed, and washed. Try to get beans that are the length of your jars, if you are planning on canning them.
-5 cups of water
-5 cups of cider vinegar. I used a vinegar that I made out of a not-so-great batch of home-brewed hard cider, but Bragg unfiltered cider vinegar is also a tasty way to go.
******** Kosher salt
-5 dried chilies
-5 whole, peeled garlic cloves
-5 teaspoons whole coriander seed
-5 whole cardamom pods
-5 teaspoons cumin seed
-5 pint-sized mason jars with new lids OR 1 large ceramic or non-absorbent plastic container

Clean jars, if using, and boil for ten minutes to sanitize. Wash lids and rings with hot, soapy water. Dry lids and rims of jars very well with a clean cloth or paper towels; if they are wet at all, the seal won't form. Place beans tightly and neatly in the jars, or in the container. They might not all fit, or you might not fill all the jars--thats okay! Distribute the chillies, garlic, and spices among jars.

Combine water, vinegar, and salt and bring to a rolling boil over high heat. Immediately pour hot brine over the beans. If using jars, the brine should come up to about half an inch below the top.
If you are not canning your beans, at this point, just cover the container, let sit at room temperature for 3 days, and eat them. After the third day, they should be kept in the fridge and will stay delicious for several weeks.
If you ARE going to seal your beans in mason jars, place clean, dry lids and rings on jars rather tightly. Submerge in boiling water, bring back to a boil, and leave them in there for 15 minutes. Take them out and place on a clean dish towel. Remove the rings GENTLY...you don't want to pull the lids off at this point. It is important to completely dry the rings now, because they will want to rust and might break the seal. As the jars cool, they will suck in the little bump on the lids, indicating a nice, airtight vacuum...if one or two jars don't pop, its fine, just throw these ones in the fridge after letting them pickle for a few days and use them up first. Store the sealed jars someplace cool and dark and crack them open within a year for bloody marys, antipasto, whatever you like. Photos and a killer bloody mary recipe coming up soon!

checking in!

2008-08-25T09:48:00.002-04:00

Didn't want you all to think I forgot about this! Between me wearing myself down at work for restaurant week (finally over!), we've got a new roommate moving in, lots of crazy personal wackiness, an art show in Seattle David is rushing to get work done for, and a much awaited trip to San Francisco for SlowFood Nation coming up. In the interest of my own personal sanity, I've been keeping the blogging, preserving, elaborate cooking and baking to a much less frenzied level than usual. However, 12 hours of transit for vacation will allow ample time to fill you guys in.
Here is what you can expect in the next two weeks:
-White Chocolate and Green Tea Shea Butter Soap
-Spicy Pickled Green Beans (for the tastiest of bloody marys)
-Panzanella (Yummy Tuscan Bread and Tomato Salad--our impoverished summertime treat)

Friends on the West Coast...meet me in San Francisco next week! I am the most broke, so I expect lots of bakery-visiting and picnicking in the park and not so much restaurant-going.

Zucchini Walnut Bread

2008-07-10T13:28:00.001-04:00

Zucchini Walnut Bread
Originally uploaded by katcontrol

Ah zucchini...anyone who has ever had the pleasure of growing zucchini (or has lived on the same block as anyone who has grown zucchini) knows that you're hard pressed to find an easier-to-grow, more fruitful plant. I'm NOT actually growing it in my garden, but we've been getting increasing amounts of both zucchini and summer squash in our farmshare for 3 weeks now. There's only so much of the stuff I can slice and eat before getting sick of it. I haven't found these types of squash to freeze especially well, and our freezer is almost always packed with stock, meat, and various Asian grocery oddities, so, I've been playing around with zucchini bread recipes.
The moisture from the grated squash gives this quick and easy bread a lovely richness, and the mild flavor makes it a great platform for spices and nuts to really shine. We always seem to have walnuts in the house, so I stuck with a pretty traditional cinnamon and walnut bread, but feel free to add chopped chocolate, nutmeg, grated ginger, pecans or any other spices or garnishes that catch your fancy.
The basic recipe is inexpensive if you've got an abundance of squash lying around, and as its butter-free, a good egg substitute could make this vegan in an snap; replacing the honey with more white sugar won't be a problem. It freezes well, makes a nice gift, and its just dandy for breakfast--a thin layer of cream cheese is a nice touch, but not by any means necessary.

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees. I try to avoid using the oven more than once a week in the Summer, and this is a nice, easy temperature to bake/roast at, so throw something else in there while your bread is baking. Shortbread, beets, fish, brownies, and most cakes can be baked at 325.

Grease some loaf pans with pan spray or vegetable oil. This recipe will fill 2 of your standard 8x4 inch pans, but I only had one 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 and three 5x3 mini-loaves. Use what you have and alter baking times accordingly.

3 eggs
1 cup oil (vegetable, corn, or walnut)
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1/2 cup honey
2 cups grated zucchini, excess moisture squeezed through a clean dish towel
1 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups all purpose flour
3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chopped nuts

Crack eggs into a big bowl and beat with a whisk till they are foamy. Whisk in (in this order, one at a time) the sugar, honey, oil, vanilla, zucchini and salt.
Combine the dry ingredients, and add to zucchini mixture with a wooden spoon or spatula. Pour into prepared pans--batter should come about 1/2 to 2/3 of the way up the sides of the pan.
Bake your bread! In standard loaf pans, these will take about an hour, mini-loaves will take about 45 minutes, muffins, about 20 minutes. Either way, rotate them after half an hour for the loaves, 15 minutes for muffins and check them about 10 minutes before the cooking time is up. The loaves should spring back when pressed lightly, and a clean knife inserted in the middle should come out clean.
Cool for half an hour in the pans, unmold, and eat...wrapped up tightly in plastic, this bread will stay fresh and delicious for several days, or for months in the freezer--give some to your friends.

oh, and...

2008-07-04T14:17:00.002-04:00

How amazingly awesome is this site? Thanks, once again, to Chowhound, for another awesome link. Michigan State University has created this online database to showcase their special collection of rare and historical cookbooks; complete texts of 75 books, published between 1798 and 1922, can be read online or downloaded in PDF. I'm especially into the first edition of Fannie Farmer, and the bilingual Cooking in Old Créole Days
.

Garlic scapes.

2008-07-04T13:39:00.002-04:00

Garlic scapes.
Originally uploaded by katcontrol

We've gotten these lovely little scapes in our CSA share for the past two weeks. They are seed pods for the garlic plant--snapping them off in the springtime ensures big, healthy garlic bulbs later in the season and they have the added bonus of being DELICIOUS. Look for them at your farmers market. They are usually sold by the piece, handful, or pound and they're CHEEP. Substitute 1-2 scapes per clove of garlic in any recipe, add them to vinaigrettes, or make a pesto out of them--equal parts, by weight, chopped garlic scapes and basil, a handful of walnuts or pine nuts, a generous drizzle of olive oil or walnut oil, and some grated Pecorino Romano cheese (optional, vegan friends!!), thrown all in the food processor or mortar and pestle, and you're good to go! Add salt and pepper to taste...be sure to do this after adding salty cheeses like Romano or Parmesan. This pesto will make a lovely sauce for pasta or marinade for chicken thighs, my favorite cheep cut of meat. Thighs are rich, tender, and flavorful, and even the humanely raised ones are typically budget-friendly. If you're not ready to take the plunge into offal-cookery, chicken legs are the way to go.

"Adventures in Alcoholism" or DIY Cocktail Components

2008-07-01T11:01:00.006-04:00

Anyone who's been over to the apartment within the last two months has probably tasted one of our cordials...In order to spice up our several-cocktails-a-night ritual, Tom, David, and I have set about infusing our own flavored alcohols.
The original batch used an Italian limoncello recipe as a guideline for a sweetened strawberry and key lime cordial. I hulled and quartered a quart of strawberries, sliced up a pound of key limes, and covered them with a 750-mL bottle of Skyy, in a ceramic bowl, and covered the whole mess with several layers of plastic wrap and a towel--rumor has it that light will cause the citrus to turn funny colors. After 48 hours, I strained out the fruit. I then made a simple syrup by boiling 3 cups of sugar with 3 cups of water; once cooled, I added the syrup to the infusion.
This experiment had a truly stunning hot-pink color too it and a vibrant berry-citrus flavor; it made an excellent cocktail component. When I make it again, however, I expect I'll use only the zest and juice of the limes; the white pith lent a distinct bitterness to the finished product that was unpleasant when drank on its own. After a few weeks of mixing it with different Goya tropical fruit juices, most of the strawberry-lime-oncello found its way into a tasty batch of Rosé sangria.

The boys have also gotten into making some infusions; a couple weeks ago, they came home with 2 bags of produce, a brita filter, and 2 handles of cheep jug vodka. After a lengthy quadruple filtering through the brita, and some scrounging for reusable bottles, Tom had started a kiwi-citrus vodka that he ended up sweetening up with a touch of simple syrup. While it ended up a bit cloudy from the finely diced kiwi, it has a lovely, absinthe-like green hue and its very tasty and refreshing mixed with soda water.

David has started batches of mixed chili pepper rum and an organic bacon vodka, both of which I'm sure will be tasty in savory, herbal, bloody-mary type brunch drinks; we're letting these two go for a few weeks, so no word yet on the finished product.

Last but not least, the boys are also working on a strawberry-rhubarb flavored herbal infusion. The fruit and herbs were added to the filtered vodka together, then 3 days later, the fruit removed and the herbs allowed to remain; we are hoping for a tasty homeopathic tincture that you'll have to come over to sample.

Between knitting, soap-making, preserving, and cooking, I hadn't expected to be doing any more infusing for a while...when it comes down to it, my favorite cocktails are of the straight-forward, old man variety, but I was thrilled this morning to find this article via today's Chow Digest. I'm a big fan of bitters, especially in whiskey drinks, and the are used in such minute quantities that I expect I'll be making lots of small batches in jelly jars to play around. I'll keep you posted.

soap woes mini-update, preserved spring veggies

2008-06-28T00:11:00.004-04:00

I haven't forgotten!

Lye is weird intimidating, soap-making is more finicky than baking, and its been slow-going and full of mistakes in my kitchen-turned-soap-factory.

I'm fairly certain that I've figured out everything that went wrong, right down to burning/fusing the sludgy mass onto our crockpot while I was out seeing Devo with Mr. and Mrs. von Slatt. Yes, they rocked.

David is leaving me to my own devices this week, so I'm going to be working on the soap recipe and some knitting in the mean time.

Also, with one mouth less to feed this week, I'm going to have more CSA goodies than I can eat, so I'm doing a good bit of preserving already. Sauerkraut and baby beets are fermenting and pickling as we speak. Check out the recipes below...I know the beets will be yummy, no promises as to the sauerkraut though...its my first batch!

Photos and sauerkraut outcome will have to wait till next week when my camera gets back from OR/WA with the fella.

Kat's Lovely Pickled Spring Beets

1 bunch young beets, scrubbed, cut in uniform pieces--about the size of one die is a nice size, but its up to you--the bigger the beets, the longer they'll take to pickle thoroughly

4 garlic scapes, minced--these are the lovely, mild flower buds from the tops of the garlic plant. only available in the spring, cheepiecheep at the farmers market

a couple gluggs of olive oil

2 teaspoons kosher salt

toss everything together in an ovensafe dish, cover with foil, and bake at 350 degrees till beets are tender when stabbed with a fork-35 minutes for dice-sized pieces. this can also happen on the grill, just be sure not to have the pan set directly over the heating element or they'll burn.

let them cool while you make your brine.

brine!

1/2 cup cider vinegar

1 t sherry vinegar

1/4 cup water

1 teaspoon sugar or honey

1 teaspoon kosher salt

a little bit of ground pepper, if you like

Bring all ingredients to a boil. Taste it; pickling brine is not an exact science. If these proportions taste too harsh to you, add some more water or sugar...if it seems bland and boring, add some cayenne pepper or more cider vinegar. Pour hot brine over cooked beets, cover, and let sit out at room temperature, in a ceramic, glass, plastic, or non-reactive metal bowl for 5 days or until beets taste thoroughly pickled. They will keep in the fridge for at least a month.

Commercially produced white vinegar is boring and often not even actually vinegar at all, but rather a manufactured acetic acid solution, so play around with different kinds of vinegars...they are diverse and delicious. Sherry, cider, and rice wine vinegars are my favorites.

Tiny, Not-Yet-Failsafe Sauerkraut Recipe

1 pound Cabbage, washed, quartered, cored, and sliced in 1/4 inch strips

1 teaspoon whole yellow mustard seeds

1 teaspoon whole brown mustard seeds

1/2 teaspoon sugar

1 1/2 tablespoon kosher salt

Mix everything together in a ceramic, glass, plastic, or nonreactive metal bowl, press a sheet of plastic wrap onto the surface, and weight down with a plate or something conveniently shaped. Let it sit someplace between 70 and 80 degrees for a week and cross your fingers.

The idea with sauerkraut is that the salt draws fluid out of the cabbage, which then ferments around the greens, essentially pickling itself. Here's hoping!

First Bread Tutorial!

2008-06-13T10:35:00.002-04:00

My Handmade Pita!
Originally uploaded by katcontrol

A lot of people that are into cooking seem to be kind of intimidated by baking--there is an only partially true assumption that baking requires some kind of ultra-fussy precision that tends to put off otherwise crafty, creative folks. Working with yeast can be kind of intimidating in and of itself, since we don't often work with ingredients that need to be STILL ALIVE to get the desired result. However, while precision and fussiness are important for consistency in pastry and bread making, they are really not that significant if you just want to make something delicious, and, for me, anyhow, there is something really special and reverent about working with yeast.
Long story short DO NOT BE AFRAID OF MAKING BREAD.
It is one of the simplest things to make, and few gastronomical experiences in life can really hold a candle to fresh bread, still warm from the oven.

I'm going to start this series of tutorials with a recipe for pita bread. The recipe I use is a simplified version of the one in Rose Levy Beranbaum's The Bread Bible. The pitas in the image are my own, from my first attempt using this supereasy recipe. It is quick to make, useful, requires only one rising time and no worrying about if your loaves are proofed (aka risen) enough. It is also versatile in that you can bake them in the oven, on the grill, or in a cast iron skillet on the stove, so if its a zillion degrees like it was here this week, you don't need to torture yourself by turning the oven on. Its also SO easy to tell when theses guys are done, as they puff up like little balloons when they're finished--but, if you are a greedy, impatient little brat that likes to take things right off the stove or out of the oven and immediately put it in your mouth like I do, try to restrain yourself: pita steam hurts! This bread can be hurried to only take about 2 hours or the dough can be made 2 or 3 days in advance and just baked off when ever you want fresh pita. Most importantly, please, READ THE WHOLE RECIPE before starting it; I know its hard not to jump the gun sometimes, but trust me, it'll keep you out of trouble and help you time the rest of your meal/life accordingly.

This is just a simplesimple recipe; feel free to play with it by adding chopped fresh herbs, or using some whole wheat flour. I would avoid using more than 50% whole flour, as it makes things denser, but if you want to add more than that, pass it through a fine sieve to remove some of the bran and pulse in a food processor or blender to grind it a bit finer. I always use King Arthur flour because they are an awesome employee-owned company that has been making all natural, chemical-free, unbleached flours since 1790. And they're in Vermont. Use it.

3 1/4 cup all purpose flour
1 Tablespoon kosher salt or 2 teaspoons table salt
1 Tablespoon dry active yeast--if you don't bake a lot, just buy new yeast, its cheep and
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 1/4 cup lukewarm water--this should just feel slightly warm to the touch

Dissolve yeast in the water and let it sit for 10 minutes or so. If you're not sure if your yeast is alive, you can add a teaspoon of sugar at this stage--if its kind of frothy looking on top after 10 minutes, the yeast is alive and awake and eating the sugar. Its a small enough amount that the sugar won't significantly affect the flavor of your bread.

In a big bowl, stir all other ingredients into the yeast/water mixture, reserving about half a cup of the flour. Either a wooden spoon or your hands is best for this. Once a dough starts to form, you can turn it out onto a floured countertop. Knead it for about five minutes, using some of the reserved flour if you need to--it will be sticky: don't worry! Let it sit, covered, for 10 minutes or so; as gluten starts to form, it becomes very tight, and letting your dough relax a little bit will soften the gluten in your dough, making it easier to knead. Knead the dough for another 8 minutes, or until it becomes smooth, adding more flour if the dough feels very sticky. As the gluten develops with kneading, the dough will become stronger and less sticky. When you poke the top of it, it should spring back a bit. Oil a big bowl or plastic container, drop your dough in, spray the top with oil or pan spray, and cover it.

Let your dough rise; you want it to double up in size. This can happen quickly, if you put it some place warm or slowly if you throw it in the fridge. Usually, if I want to move bread dough along quickly, I'll put the covered container in my gas oven with only the pilot on. Its warm and draft-free in there, and perfect for yeasty happiness...just remember to take it out when you start to pre-heat the oven! If you're making this in advance, let the dough hang out on the counter to get started for about half an hour before putting it in the fridge, then when you're ready to use it take it out to warm up to room temp for another half an hour before continuing with the recipe.

An hour or so before you want to start baking, crank your oven up to 475 degrees. Put a baking stone, cast iron skillet, or baking sheet towards the bottom of the oven at this point. If you don't use your oven often, its worth getting a little oven thermometer to make sure its calibrated correctly-they're less than ten dollars and can save you a world of heartache and burned food.

Cut the dough into 12 even-looking pieces and roll each into a little ball--keep dough that you're not working with covered to keep it from getting a dried out, gross skin. Let the balls rest for a few minutes, then roll each into a 4-inch disk. Uncover them and let them air out for ten minutes before getting started.

Its kind of difficult to cook all these at once, so have some dry towels on hand to cover the bread as it comes out of the oven; if left to cool uncovered, they have a tendency to become brittle.

Drop 3 or 4 loaves at a time on the stone, skillet or pan and shut the oven door quickly. After 3 minutes (I usually keep a timer going for this recipe) open the oven--they should be puffed and only browned on the bottom. Use tongs or a metal spatula to transfer them to your towels. Close up the oven and let it preheat for a few minutes between batches.

If cooking these on the stove, heat your pan to medium-high, cook them one at a time, and flip them every minute or so till they puff. This method is a bit trickier, so don't be afraid of sacrificing a couple imperfect loaves getting the hang of it.

Not quite food, but anyhow...

2008-06-08T11:24:00.004-04:00

Susiesue and I will be playing with lye in the back yard next week--Bust magazine this month has a supereasy sounding soap recipe that we've decided to play around with. If we don't hideously burn ourselves, expect lots of soapy pictures and a tutorial and a whole years worth of very clean birthday, Christmas, and anniversary presents.

Urban Landscape

2008-06-03T16:38:00.000-04:00

June in Southern New England is the first time of the year that you can (*fingers always crossed*) be fairly certain that your garden won't be withered in the night by a sneaky late frost. While we took a basil-killing chance a few weeks ago and put out a few boxes of herbs and 4 hearty-looking heirloom tomato plants, I've been a bit hesitant to really kick our gardening into gear. For the first time since moving out of my parents' house for college, I have a back yard. A real, honest-to-goodness, dirt-and-lawn-chair filled back yard, and I'm thrilled that we're resigning the lease and staying here through the growing season.
We signed up for a huge CSA share from Red Fire Farm, out in Granby, MA, which starts next week, so we're going to be doing a great deal of preserving for the winter anyhow; most of what we're limiting our garden to will be fairly low maintenance food that we eat A LOT of and that preserves well.
Herbs dry out beautifully spread out on a cookie-sheet overnight in a gas oven--just the pilot being on drys them out quickly without letting them get swampy and wilted--so I just stuck some annuals (only last the season) that David's mom gave us right in the ground. We'll have fresh dill and oregano till the fall, then dry them out, hopefully saving some of the seeds. I've also got some rosemary, lemon thyme, and chives in steel boxes that I found in the yard from old tenants. They have been outside for almost a month now and seem to be thriving, and as these guys are perennials (grow for more than one season), I'm just going to bring them inside once its too chilly for them.
In addition to David's tomato plants, I just planted some pickling cucumber seedlings that I picked up at the hi-lo across the street yesterday. They are of the "Bush Pickle" variety, and, yes I have the maturity of a 12-year-old, and that is why I bought them. There are 6 plants, and as I've never grown cucumbers, I have no idea how difficult they are to grow or how forgiving they are of semi-shady growing spaces. We will see.

I have been pretty much laying off the whole "weeding" thing, except in the beds where the veggies are growing. Most of the yard is well-trodden mud with not much growing out of it, so I welcome anything that wants to set its roots down back there (lawns seem like a huge and stupid waste of money, water, and energy, so thats not even a question). However, I have been pulling up any dandelions that appear, not out of any yankee, house-proud sense of propriety, but because the little bastards are TASTY. I didn't have much of an outdoorsy family growing up, so dandelion greens are one of the few weeds I can identify before flowering, but I've been loving them this year. Earlier in the Spring, I was making this recipe , but with pine nuts and sultanas in place of the almonds and dark raisins. As it has gotten later into the season, and dandelions start to flower and grow, the greens get a bit tough, so they take a little extra cooking. I usually drop them in salted, boiling water for about 3 minutes, then shock them in ice water, before sauteeing them in butter and garlic. They are bitter, but lovely. Just be careful where you pick them: you don't want to be eating weed-killer-drenched greens.
I really like the idea of urban foraging, not so much in the dumpster-diving way, but edible weeds and wild mushrooms are really intriguing me lately. I just ordered Russ Cohen's Wild Plants I Have Known...And Eaten from the Jamaica Plain Library. Cohen is a local guy, so hopefully this book will be more useful to me than the vast expanse of online articles on edible wild plants and wild food in California.

Oh, and about free food in California, check out this LA times article on Guerrilla Gardening; must be nice to have the growing season of Eden, even if it means living in the smoggy land that public transit forgot.

Welcome, foodpunks.

2008-05-29T15:39:00.000-04:00

"People ask me: Why do you write about food, and eating and drinking? Why don't you write about the struggle for power and security, and about love, the way others do? . . . It seems to me that our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others."
M.F.K. Fisher, The Gastronomical Me

Mary Francis Kennedy Fisher was a smart cookie; she understood, for better or for worse the social, political, and personal importance of the meal--were she alive today, its a safe bet that she'd have quite a bit to say about the ecological issues surrounding the world's food supply as well. My own hyper-critical interest in food, much like that of our dear departed MFK, borders on the obsessive, and I've gone so far as to secure a job in the high-paying (yuck yuck yuck) restaurant industry in order to keep myself immersed in the food world as much as possible. Expect this blog to give some basic tips and instruction on preserving, baking, foraging, gardening, brewing, making the most of pricey, local, and humanely raised meat and animal products, energy-saving meal ideas, and loads of other ways we try to cut overprocessed, overshipped, factory-farmed, and all-around unethical ingredients OUT of our dinner.