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January 28, 2008
doldrums 
I seem to be in a holding pattern right now. A bit of the January doldrums.
This morning, I went to make myself a blended salad, which usually looks like a smoothie from the raspberries and strawberries in it. But I forgot, conveniently, that I am not supposed to be eating any seeds, which raspberries and strawberries have in spades. So I think I pulled the majority of them out, but who knows?
Anyways, the result was that my blended salad was light green in color—not something I want to take out in public with me. I need to find some way to color and flavor these now that I can't eat berries temporarily. I wonder how wildly expensive berry juices are?
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My sweetie is losing a lot of weight, and lately, his blood sugar has been in the ideal range. This is exciting stuff. I've been seeing other signs of him being in better health as well.
Me, if I'm losing, it's going very very slowly. Very not dramatic. But I'm interested in trying to improve my own health as well.
I'm eating almost vegan at home. The almost is the occasional package of ramen and putting butter blend on my slices of homemade bread. I'm still eating a couple meals out a week, and eating whatever I want when I do.
I've been wearing the pedometer religiously, but not so good about getting 10,000 steps in a day. Today I will make it. I will! Yesterday I danced while washing dishes and baking bread but I still came in with a lousy step count. Grumble.
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The biggest news in my kitchen has been baking almost no-knead bread. The hype is true -- it's easy, and it's tasty.
I've been using the Cooks Illustrated recipe, which includes some vinegar and beer for flavor. I started with the all-white flour loaf, which was really a bread I'd be happy to buy. Yesterday, I made the whole wheat loaf, which was even better.
The way this stuff works is:
one, dump all your ingredients in a bowl. Stir with a spatula to combine. This may take all of five minutes. Cover with plastic wrap and place in a warm place for 8-18 hours.
two, roll your sticky dough out onto a floured surface and give it about 10 to 15 kneads. Plop it on a sprayed sheet of parchment and let sit for 2 hours.
three, about an hour and a half later, put your dutch oven and lid in the oven and let it heat up at 500 degrees.
four, when it's time to bake the bread, just transfer the dough on parchment to the dutch oven, leaving the parchment beneath. If you like something on the crust, add it now, and take a sharp knife and cut the dough's top. Now, put on the lid and let bake at 425 for a half hour.
five, take off the lid, put in the temp probe, and give it 15-20 more minutes, until the outside of the bread is a deep brown, and the inside is 210 degrees. Let the bread cool on a rack, and leave the house for 2 hours.
six, come back and enjoy. Your house will smell good and everything tastes better with with fresh bread.
I have never been able to bake bread outside of a bread machine, so having made two perfect loaves in two weeks just makes me feel like I've worked some kind of magic.
Posted at January 28, 2008
Comments
I made some no-knead bread last night (well, baked it yesterday!) I used about 1/3 rye flour. It was denser than all white flour but it was sooooooo delicious!
Posted by: vespabelle at January 28, 2008 11:21 AM
Sounds wonderful! Is the recipe available online?
Posted by: neca at January 29, 2008 10:44 AM