I feel as if I’m getting to the point in my bread-making experience where I’ve done just enough to know how very far I have yet to go before I’m really good at it. I take some small comfort in the idea that, having learned to play the violin as a child, the patience to pursue this slow curve is already trained into my hands. Here’s hoping the muscle memory kicks in as easily as it did when I was ten. Feeling confident but not yet cocky about my basic country loaf, for try #4 out of the Tartine bread book I decided to mix it up just a bit and do a run of the baguette recipe using the… Continue reading »
Tartine Basic Country Loaf: Try #1
At 8 a.m. I began mixing the dough for my first Tartine Basic Country Loaf. Well, you could say that I had been mixing it for going on two weeks, since it took that long to get my starter into shape. Now, with just flour and water and patience (and a bit of salt), I was going to make bread. There was much measuring of flour and water (weight and temperature!). My nurtured starter proved itself ready for the task at hand. Much stirring and folding and folding and folding (every half hour, for most of the morning). And shaping and resting and rising and then… After all that work and what I thought was a careful flouring of the… Continue reading »
Step One: Training the Starter
I’m declaring 2011 my year of making bread. Sure, I’ve kneaded a yeasty loaf in my day, but now I’m getting serious. There will be flour, and I will weigh it accurately if it kills me. To kick things off, I thought I’d start by cracking the cover on my copy of Tartine Bread–a book of certifiable food porn if ever there was one. Page follows page of photography that’s tastable (visually, at least) while the text relays the backstory on Chad Robertson’s quest to make great bread. Now that he has found success, the book is essentially his guidance on how to make some for yourself at home. So I tore myself away from drooling over the images to… Continue reading »
Hello Homemade Pierogi (Goodbye, Mrs. T’s)
I’ve been eating pierogi (pierogies?) since I was a little kid, but this project takes us a far cry from the freezer-burned grocery store packages of days gone by. And though you would need to be a speedier chef than I proved to be to crack out these tasty dumplings in the 60 minutes the recipe suggests, none of the steps are actually all that challenging. The dough is silky and cooperative and everything works just like you’d expect, so while it’s a time commitment, it can be a relaxing afternoon in the kitchen as well. So turn on NPR, make some tea, and have a feast for dinner (just add sauerkraut and sour cream). I doubled the batch, figuring… Continue reading »
Baby, It’s Cold Outside
So, the next time I’m standing outside in a snowfall at 8 a.m. staring at the Waverly market mushroom stall and wondering why I want a couple of those reasonably priced boxes of sliced portobellos and shiitakes so much, I must remember this. Basically, if you have dried mushrooms (you know, the ones you bought in Queens in 2006 and always wonder if you should throw out when you re-discover them in the pantry, but then see that chemical pack in the plastic container and know that science prevails!) and, and, oh, right, the point…get a mixed pound of fresh at the market, you can make a half order of this, which will melt all hearts within radius. I always… Continue reading »
The Things We Ate (Christmas Edition)
I was drafting a list of recipes that we tried out over the last week of entertaining to email to the moms, and I thought we might get a conversation going here about the tasty things we ate this holiday. If nothing else, having an index assembled will save some Googling when the next batch of house guests rolls into town and it’s time to plan another menu. Here are some things we enjoyed in Baltimore: Chestnut and Celery Soup A perfect way to use up the the extra 2.5 cups of roasted and peeled chestnuts you might have left over after making these cookies if you had a really good batch of nuts like I did. Butternut Squash Soup… Continue reading »
