Lemony Delicious

Dusting the cooled lemon bars with powdered sugar

     With each year that passes by, I learn more and more about what I like and dislike and more and more about what makes me me.  I think these two concepts are closely related, a lot of what makes us who we are is what we like and dislike, what we will associate ourselves with and what we will distance ourselves from.  Of course I am speaking to the much deeper decisions we make, but these bigger, deeper decisions are also made up of the little decisions that occur in our everyday life.  One of the everyday conclusions that I have come to, is that besides the occasional square of dark chocolate, scoop of Rocky Road ice cream, or Girl Scout cookie, I most of the time prefer a lighter (as in opposite of heavy, not necessarily healthier), more tart or savory dessert like a slice of pie or fresh fruit with vanilla bean ice cream.

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     I am starting to notice that I have the urge to describe all of the dessert recipes from The Tassajara Book as easy to make.  Perhaps it's the comparison between the time it takes for the dough to rise in the bread recipes, or maybe it's just because these desserts aren't fussy or time consuming.  I think the desserts in this book are the way they are for a reason; so that they can be made on a more regular basis and will, at the same time, deter you from eating store-bought crap-desserts made from ingredients you can't pronounce.  These lemon bars make a delicious dessert and are very lemony indeed. My point is that it's possible to have a sensible meal and have dessert and it's also possible to eat bread on a regular basis, contrary to the carb-monster myth that persists today.   

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     I embrace all body types and I know that the reality of a stick thin woman is more rare than the media would lead us to believe.  We have an obesity epidemic on our hands, and the pressure that women (young and old alike) are under to look like a Playboy bunny, is so detrimental to one's confidence and appreciation of one's uniqueness.  Oddly enough, at the same time, the media is dominated by advertisements and commercials for fast food, soda, and junk.  It really is unfair, unhealthy and unrealistic.  Because of this, I am a big believer in moderation and balance rather than deprivation and sacrifice.   As my metabolism begins to slow, it is important to me to know what I actually, truthfully enjoy eating, as wasting calories on something I don't really enjoy will weigh me down. So, I will make and eat lemon bars, but I am trying to learn to pass on the donuts brought in to my office.  One of my bigger decisions is that I would rather enjoy small portions of delicious homemade desserts and meals than a bucket full of deep fried mystery meat.

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Butter and sugar...
I didn't say that this was a light dessert, did I?

The baked lemon bars cooling.

#88 Lemon Bars

From The Tassajara Bread Book

For the shortbread crust:

1 1/4 cups flour

1/4 cup sugar

2/3 cup butter, chilled and cut into 1/2 tablespoon pieces

To prepare the crust, work the flour, sugar, and butter together until they form a dough.  Press this into an 8-inch round or square pan.  Bake in a 300 degree oven for 20 minutes.

For the lemon filling:

2/3 cup sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 cup fresh lemon juice

2 eggs

zest of 1 lemon

Prepare the filling while the shortbread is baking. Whisk together the sugar, baking powder, lemon juice and eggs along with the zest.  Pour this mixture over the baked crust and continue baking another 30 minutes or until slightly browned on top.  After it cools, sift a little powdered sugar over the top, if you like.  Cut into squares.

In the near future...

I was thinking the other day about how much I really do like to cook and how important it is to me to try to use local, organic and sustainable ingredients when I cook.  Jake and I have talked about getting a CSA box several times, but then it dawned on me what a great idea it would be to get a subscription, and blog about cooking (and maybe baking) from my CSA box.  It will challenge me to really cook in season, and I think it will be pretty darn fun too.  Look for my next untitled-thus-far blog, coming in the Spring!

Bread Love

The finished garlic-buttery loaves

     The last time I baked was two weeks ago.  It has felt very odd not having my Sunday ritual of flour and yeast and heat.  I was sick last week (still recovering) from one of those colds that makes you realize how lucky you are to be healthy most of the time.  While I was sick, I craved homemade bread.  It's true, I'm not lying, I actually craved a biscuit, or a slice of toast or a muffin, but not just any biscuit, bread or muffin, I wanted something homemade by me, from my own kitchen.  What I really craved most of all, were the loaves that inspired the title "Bread Love."

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 I am in love.  I am sorry Mireille Guliano, I used to think that your French bread recipe from French Women Don't Get Fat were the bread-loves of my life, but I was wrong.  The French bread from the Tassajara Bread Book is perfect in every way, and I am serious about this.  This crusty loaf with a fluffy interior is hard to beat, but topping these loaves with garlic butter straight out of the oven seals the deal and makes them the loaves-of-my-dreams, hand's down. The mixture of wheat and white flour is divine, giving the bread enough weight without making it heavy.  The crust of the bread gets very golden and, well crusty, because of the moisture you coat the loaves in with a squirt bottle while baking.  In the FWDGF recipe mentioned above, a pan of water is baked in the oven with the loaves to provide moisture, but I think that squirting them or brushing them with water is a much better approach, plus it's way more fun. Introducing water not only keeps the crumb of the bread moist, but it allows the exterior to turn a deep golden color and have a much crustier exterior without burning.

Shaping the dough after rolling out
with new French rolling pin (thanks Mom)

Cutting vents in the loaves
on top of a cornmeal dusted baking sheet

A homemade steam injection oven!

Brushing the loaves, straight from the oven with garlic butter

mmmmm...garlic butter

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     Next time I make these loaves (and I know there will be many more times)I plan to let them bake a little longer.  The crust was still delicious, but I think it could have been a more golden shade of brown.  This recipe also opened the door to all kinds of savory and sweet butters: butters with fresh herbs like Cilantro or Basil, with cinnamon and orange peel, or with ginger and lime.  I am pretty sure that I could live off of bread and butter, especially now that I have made this recipe.  Well, maybe I'd like to add beer to that list. 

#15 A French Bread

From The Tassajara Bread Book

Crusty, with good wheat flavor.  Try a combination of whole wheat and white flour, or use all white flour if you prefer.

3 cups lukewarm water

3 packages dry yeast

2 tablespoons honey or sugar

2 cups unbleached white flour and 2 cups whole wheat flour

4 teaspoons salt

1 1/2 cups unbleached white flour and 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

wheat flour for kneading

Proceed with directions for Recipe#1.  With the additional yeast, rising times will probably be somewhat shorter.

To shape the loaves, cut into two pieces, roll each out into a rectangle about 1/4 inch thick on a floured board.  Then roll up the dough tightly, as you would roll up a carpet.

Pinch the seam together and roll the loaf about to shape it evenly.  Place the finished loaf, seam down on a baking sheet that has been sprinkled with cornmeal.  Let rise for about 20 minutes.

Brush with water.  Bake at 400 for 10 minutes, and then spray or brush the loaves with water.  Continue baking at 350 until well browned--another 35-45 minutes.  For added shine and a bit of flavor, brush the tops with garlic butter as soon as the loaves are removed from the oven (a must).

Pop-Pop-Popovers!

The end result; chaotic, spontaneous, popovers.

     After a somewhat hectic week at work, I was looking for an easy recipe that I could knock off my list.  I was looking for something that did not require kneading, rising, or too many ingredients.  Popovers seemed somewhat low maintenance, except for the fact that the only other recipes that I had seen for popovers had been from a Martha Stewart baking cookbook that required the use of a certain popover pan (which I, of course do not have).  I hoped that since none of the other recipes required special equipment, that this one wouldn't either, and I was right.  Turns out that Popovers can be made in a regular muffin tin.  

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     This recipe seemed dangerously similar to a souffle, which I have never actually made, but from watching several cooking shows with people trying to pull one off successfully, I know that it can collapse at any moment if taken out of the oven too soon, if moved to quickly, or if someone sneezes in the other room.  In that way, a souffle, and to a lesser degree popovers, are like science experiments, all the elements have to come together just right to make it work.  Luckily, popovers are not as temperamental as souffles and if you follow the instructions of this recipe, they are very simple to make.  As long as you keep the oven shut for the first 30 minutes of baking (which is all I needed in my oven)they should bake into perfect puffs of yummy soft baked goods that are like a hybrid creation of croissant, muffin and souffle.  

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  I normally avoid the word "magical" because it's often used to describe things that have an explanation (therefore, it's not magic!) but, I do feel like the way that these little suckers bake is pretty magical.  They pop up in a chaotic, spontaneous way that is unique for every popover.  The extra amount of eggs in the batter is what makes these rise and bake too fast for their own good which produces a hollow eggy roll which can be filled with any number of ingredients.  The origin of these delicious rolls is somewhat unknown, but apparently, food historians generally agree that the recipe was derived from an American adaptation of Yorkshire Pudding, which has been made in England since the 17th century.  The next time I make these, I want to try out filling them with something; cheese, pesto, hummus, nutella...okay, maybe they are a bit magical...



Popovers, ready for their close up.




Yum!





#44 Popovers

From The Tassajara Bread Book
Makes 12 popovers

1 cup unbleached white flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 eggs, beaten

1 cup milk

2 tablespoons melted butter

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Use a popover pan or  regular muffin tins.  Mix ingredients thoroughly.  Grease the muffin tins and heat in the oven for 5 minutes.  When hot, fill each cup one-third full with popover batter.

Bake at 425 for 20 minutes, then reduce the heat to 325 and bake another 10-20 minutes.  DO NOT OPEN the oven until after 30 minutes of baking of the popovers may fall.

Serve with butter, jam, or cheese.  Or serve for dinner with stuffed meat or vegetables in cream or cheese sauce; with grains, vegetables, or stuffing; or with a mushroom filling.  Heck, or just plain buttered.

Everything IS better with Cheddar!

The finished cheesy loaves

     
     As mentioned last week, during my cooking/baking extravaganza, I made chili and cornbread and this lovely cheese bread.  I knew from the start that I would love this bread, seeing as I love pretty much anything with cheese and I like to add cheese to pretty much everything.  This is why it will be important for me to maintain the habit of exercising vigorously  as I am just not the dieting type.  Who trusts a skinny chef right?  Bread is honestly something that I don't think I could live without, this cheese bread included. 

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     When I was flipping through The Tassajara Bread Book (TBB) deciding what I wanted to bake, I was a little startled to come across this recipe.  I have this feeling when it comes to baking from the TBB, that everything is healthy and wholesome, so it was somewhat shocking to see a recipe that included 3 cups of cheese, 2 eggs and 1/2 cup of melted butter. But, if you are using this bread to make a sandwich and skip the cheese and mayonnaise, (because there is cheese and butter in the bread itself), you have probably balanced things out.

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     What I am learning more and more as I get older (and I have been feeling a little bit older lately) is not some new nugget of information that I have never heard before, but something that I have heard from almost everyone I know of a certain age; "everything in moderation".  So I guess I will skip adding cheese to a sandwich on a cheesy loaf, or better yet, eat the cheese and walk an extra mile to compensate.

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The bubbling yeast doing it's magic

Adding the cheddar

Rolling the dough to fit the bread pan

#14 Cheese Bread

From the Tassajara Bread Book

3 cups lukewarm water

2 packages dry yeast

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 cup dry milk

2 eggs, beaten

2 cups unbleached flour and 2 cups whole wheat flour

2 teaspoons salt

1/2 cup melted butter

3 cups grated Cheddar (or other strong favored cheese)

3-5 cups whole wheat flour as required to form the dough and knead it

Proceed with directions for recipe #1, stirring in the beaten eggs after the dry milk, and folding in the grated cheese after the salt and butter.

Eggy-Custardy-Cornbread

The Three layered cornbread in all it's glory

     

     After a very busy weekend full of un-baking related activities, I decided to have a baking/cooking marathon- extravaganza on Sunday evening.  Even though it had been a fairly sunny warm day, I was in the mood for chili and cornbread.    Native Americans used ground corn for food for thousands of years before Europeans "discovered" the New World.   Europeans learned the cornmeal techniques from the Native Americans, and quickly developed bread using the cornmeal in a similar fashion to the grains they were familiar with at home.  Chili, or Chili con carne, is taken from Spanish and means "peppers with meat".  According to Wikipedia, chili was first invented in San Antonio Texas by the Spanish Canary Islanders.  They would pound dried peppers and meat, suet (raw fat), and salt into bricks that could then be reconstituted by boiling water on the trail.  I don't know who first decided to pair sweet, mild cornbread with hearty, spicy chili, but they were on to something good.

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    Cornbread and chili was one of the meals that I would really look forward to growing up.  I pretty much always made my self sickeningly full from the chili and all of the glorious toppings that came along (cheese, sour cream, cilantro, avocado, tortilla chips, and of course cornbread).  In the past, as an adult, I have made cornbread and chili several times, but used to rely on the Marie Callender's prepackaged version.  This three layer cornbread from the Tassajara bread book is actually just as easy as using the packaged version and the taste is 100 times better.  The recipe creates three different layers, the cornmeal settles to the bottom, the wheat bran or germ rises to the top, and in between is an eggy-custard filling.  This is hand's down the best cornbread I have ever had.

Me looking very official

     The baking/cooking extravaganza included the chili and cornbread (as mentioned before) and a cheese bread that will be my next blog.  As you can see in the photo above, my mom and dad got me this very professional looking chef's jacket that is embroidered with my name and the name of this project.  I actually cried a little when I opened this jacket up on Christmas morning and I was surprised at how right it felt when I put it on.  Sometimes wearing the uniform can make such a difference.

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#53 Three Layer Cornbread

From The Tassajara Bread Book

1 cup cornmeal (coarse ground works best)
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup unbleached white flour
1/4 cup wheat bran or wheat germ
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1/4-1/2 cup honey or molasses
1/4 cup oil or melted butter
3 cups milk or buttermilk

Preheat oven to 325.

Combine the dry ingredients.  In a separate bowl, combine the wet ingredients.  Mix together.  The resulting batter will be quite liquidy.  Pour batter into a greased 9-by-9-inch pan.  Bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes or until the top is springy when gently touched.

As a variation (which I didn't do) you can add a cup of grated cheese like Jack, provolone, or Parmesan.

Nothing beats homemade bread

The finished oatmeal loaves

     

      It was after I had just consumed an egg-in-a-basket prepared by Caroline using my homemade oatmeal bread, that it dawned on me that nothing beats homemade bread.  The morning before, I had made toast at work using my favorite store-bought bread, and it was clear to me that there was no comparison.  Even the best store-bought bread can't compare to a homemade loaf.  While I completely encourage people to make their own bread, I know that we all lead very busy lives and that it can sometimes be difficult to carve out the time to slow down and make something by hand.  Perhaps buying our loaves directly from a local bakery is a happy medium in between making our own, and buying it from a grocery store.  

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     I am lucky in Santa Cruz, because there are a dozen or more amazing local bakeries to choose from; Sumano’s in Watsonville, Kelly's on the Westside, The Buttery, Gayle's in Capitola, Beckman's, Emily's...the list goes on. I am living, quite literally, smack in the middle of some fine baked goods.  I want to explore these bakeries, find out how they retain the flavor and integrity in each loaf.  I am also interested in taking tours of commercial bakeries that operate on a large scale.  I imagine them to be full of people (or maybe even machines) that pour large containers of flour and vats of yeast and water into enormous standing mixers, but to be honest, I can't even fathom how that many loaves are made in one day.  It is a difficult feat to double a recipe, so centupling a recipe must require some interesting techniques or tricks.  In the same way that gardening and researching about food has made me a better cook, I hope that learning more about bakeries (small and large scale) and perhaps the ingredients of bread can give me a deeper understanding of the art of baking.

Measuring the flour

Oatmeal dough after the first rise

Kneading the dough

My favorite sight to see: dishes done and two loaves waiting to be consumed

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     Here's the recipe that inspired it all.  This oatmeal bread makes a delicious sandwich or toast and an exception egg-in-a-basket.  The oatmeal provides a confetti like appearance in each slice and also a satisfying chewy texture.

#8 Oatmeal Bread

Tassajara Bread Book  

3 cups lukewarm water 

2 packages dry yeast

1/4 cup honey or molasses

1 cup dry milk

2 cups unbleached white flour and 2 cups whole wheat flour

4 teaspoons salt

1/4 cup oil

1-3 cups rolled oats

2-3 cups whole wheat flour for forming the dough and kneading

Proceed with the directions for recipe #1.