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RecentArchives
SEO by:
Michael Eakes
Web Development by:
Ryan Wright |
Bread To The People The mastermind behind this no-knead, easy to create, crusty, airy, delicious bread loaf, Jim Lahey, humbly and generously requests that it be shared widely. Jim Lahey is the owner of Sullivan St. Bakery in Manhattan, one of my grandmother's favorite bread bakeries in New York City. To brilliant idea sharing! Ingredients: 3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting ¼ teaspoon instant yeast 1¼ teaspoons salt Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed. 1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees. 2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes. 3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger. 4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack. Yield: One 1½-pound loaf. Thanks also to Mark Bittman and Colin Owen -- my go-betweens. namaste Posted 3/20/2007 link
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after only three months in the ground... cirsium brevistylum, our native thistle Posted 3/10/2007 link
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are your carrots this pretty? courtesy of my CSA produce box Posted 3/10/2007 link
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Community Supported Agriculture -- Make Your Own BrothIs your life and diet short on vegetables? Would shopping be less of a chore without packing, carrying and identifying the origin of your produce? Do you wish to eat with the seasons? Or support local, sustainably-driven enterprise?May I kindly suggest an organic, CSA produce box delivered to your home as often as you please? Support your local organic farm. Directly. Eliminate middle bodies. Contract with one of more than a dozen farms and farm cooperatives, operating in the Bay Area, that offer home or community delivery of their fresh picked produce.   Which brings me around to why I have a counter full of produce and why a weekly delivery vegetables encourages such kitchen-based enterprise as broth-making. RECIPE for homemade VEGETABLE BROTH: - Remove 'heads and tails' from (the more) produce (the better). - Place in large pot, fill with filtered water, heat to boiling, reduce to simmer for 30 minutes - 60 minutes, covered. - Allow to cool slightly, scoop vegetable parts into a colander inside a larger vessel. - Press vegetable parts into colander -- they will also act to improve your sieve. Pour the liquid through your colander-and-vegetable-part strainer, caring not to pour so much that liquid floods the sieve, re-releasing particulate. - Now, pour your fresh, delicious broth into jars for the week, and that pan of grain on the stove. - You should have between two and four quarts of broth, and had the pleasure of not scrubbing your vegetable parts. - Lastly, give these beautiful and generous vegetable parts to eager compost worms, who will in turn create plant food for more vegetables. The cycle of wealth is unbroken. This is all fantastic because: - Broth is delicious and nutritious and adds greater depth of flavor to grains, and beans, and de-glazed pan sauces. - Vegetable prep for the next week is already half complete (meals come together faster and with less impediment). - We use the whole buffalo -- no waste -- even the worms eat better with soft veggie scraps. - Boullion is expensive, and invariably contains dry ingredients. Read ingredient lists on all such products. Whole fresh foods win every time. - Not feeling well? Drink warm broth. - Food becomes an even more integral and intimate part of existence. - With a CSA box, produce is suddenly ubiquitous in your kitchen. And availability inspires. namaste Douglas Posted 3/01/2007 link
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