5 minute bread

As usual, I am way behind the game, so everyone else has probably heard of the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. It was recommended to me umpteen times, which is the one sure way to guarantee that I'll continue forgetting to read it. I re-discovered it while browsing the library shelves recently and brought it back home.

I was pretty cynical about this book, but was determined to give it a fair chance. After the eyebrow-raising chapter "The Secret" (it brought back doubtful memories of the self-help book), I realized that this book is based on nothing more than a hybrid of the refrigerator dough recipe from Betty Crocker and standard sourdough bread. Everything old is new again.

My biggest issue with this book is the basic recipe. Since I don't like it, I don't like any of the variations. The book calls for a very wet, slack dough, which I really hate working with. I also found the flavor to be less than desireable. It didn't taste "artisan" to me at all, just kind of gross. This is the only bread recipe that I've been unlucky with, so I think I can say with some degree of certainty that I don't think I did anything wrong with this one.

Second issue is that this book seems to be pretty uninformed with typical bread making. Remember that our ancestors made bread to survive for hundreds upon hundreds of years. Any major thing that had to be perfected most likely was. For instance:

"1. You don't need to make fresh dough every day to have fresh bread every day."

Again, take a look at the old standby, sourdough bread. Also, for a more modern take on this, check out this page, specifically Section 2 on Storage. I quote: "All dough can be refrigerated." I do this quite often and have yet to have a failure. You don't even need to punch it down like the page says if you're just careful to only fill the loaf tin halfway or so. Cover with plastic wrap to seal in moisture. Even better, "Yeast dough can also be frozen for later shaping and baking." I always freeze my pizza dough, and it works out great. I freeze it in portions, so one ball will make one pizza. It takes maybe half an hour to thaw - no problem.

Point number two is pretty good, "You don't need a 'sponge' or 'starter'", which refers to the way you would make a traditional sourdough bread. No argument here except that I found the flavor of this dough to be inferior to traditional sourdough.

"3. It doesn't matter how you mix the dry and wet ingredients together."

Guess what? It never matters. Use your hands, a spoon, your Kitchen Aid, whatever. Dough happens. Children used to make bread for their families - dough is pretty hard to mess up.

"4. You don't need to 'proof' yeast."

The book actually argues against itself here. It says right underneath this heading that modern yeast comes with an expiration date, so as long as you use it before that date and don't kill it by using very hot water, it will live. I stopped proofing my yeast months ago, since I realized that the bulk yeast I buy is of great quality and it has never failed. So you'll never have to proof your yeast if you follow those two guidelines, no matter what kind of bread you make.

"5. It isn't kneaded."

This is a good point. If you want a better tasting, non-kneaded bread, check out English Muffin Bread from Better Homes and Gardens. Here's a pretty good approximation of the recipe. I have found oatmeal breads can generally just be stirred together, too.

The sixth and final point concerns the "over-rising" that can occur with bread. I have yet to experience this, and I am less than careful with my bread dough. I have accidentally let the Amish Bread sit way past its time, and it has baked up just fine. I also leave the English Muffin Bread in the refrigerator for days, and as long as its covered so it can't dry out, it's fine. So as far as I know, over-rising really isn't the issue that it's made out to be.

All of this aside, I'm sure this book would be fine if you actually liked the recipe. Like I said, I found it inferior to other bread recipes. The dough is so slack that it is hard to work with, and it bakes up very pale. I find pale bread to be a visual turn-off. It's also very hard to get it to set correctly in the oven, which leads on to the next problem. The book wants you to bake the bread on a baking stone, and to let it rise on a pizza peel. Baking stones are pretty expensive, and have the tendency to crack and become unuseable. Pizza peels are also surprisingly expensive, and the two items together will cost about $60 USD. I get by just fine with two loaf tins (just bought those and they are fantastic), and a baking sheet (greatest brand that I have found yet). My total cost was comparable to that of just a baking stone, but these items will last a lifetime and are easy to care for. I also don't have to use a dough scraper, as the book suggests, to remove any flour or cornmeal from the tins or baking sheet when I'm done.

The book goes on to list quite a few recipes that you can make from their basic dough. The classic French bread looks good, but I'm not in the mood to drop $30 on a baking stone to see if I can get it to come out as good as the picture. Their recipe for white bean dip was pretty good, though. You can find comparable ones on http://allrecipes.com/ or the Food Network. I guess if you are really into popularized cooking fads, you could get this book and put it next to your George Foreman grill.

(Oh, and about the Ultra Amazing "5 minute" thing -- you have to take out your previously made dough, prepare a pizza peel, shape the dough, and let it rest for 40 minutes. In that amount of time, you can make the English Muffin Bread, or take some dough out of the freezer and let it thaw, or pull it out of the refrigerator and just throw it in the oven. There are always ways to save time, and generally you will find the ones that work best for your personal life. No book will ever be specifically geared towards you, unless you go crazy and write one.

For instance, I forgot to mention that you can bake up a whole bunch of bread, slice it, and store it in the freezer to take out and thaw any time you want. Popping it into the toaster for a few seconds thaws it nicely. Or take a look at the joys of non-yeasted, or unleavened, bread like tortillas or biscuits. No yeast means you don't have to wait for it to rise.)

shades of beige

This entirely cheerless picture (it looks like a wartime English photo to me) is how far I've gotten on my Queen Anne tablecloth. I'm doing five rows of five motifs, so this is just about halfway there. Then I've got to start on the small motifs, which will fit in between all of the large ones, and give the thing some more shape. After reading Crocheting in Plain English I discovered that I'm crocheting entirely wrong (thanks, Internet directions), but this tablecloth isn't really offending me so I decided to just leave it. I'll learn how to do it the right way after this is done.

My other big success today was making my own laundry detergent. I combined 1/2 cup Borax, 1/2 cup washing soda, and 3/4 cup grated Ivory soap. You add two Tablespoons of powder to each large load. It's apparently bad luck to do laundry on New Year's Day, but I persevered and just had to try out the detergent. It worked excellently on both towels and clothes, even removing stains from white dish towels that had been there for years. It also rinsed out great, so I didn't have to run the extra rinse cycle. Thrilling, in a Martha Stewart kind of way.

I also checked out from the library a book on American cooking in the 1700s and that 5 minute artisan bread book. I think the 1700s cooking one is actually more useful - real review to follow shortly. I'm having a great time using the Kitchen Aid that I got for Christmas, so I'm all set to bust out all kinds of recipes from those books. I'm going to try to update on Fridays this month, so that this has some semblance to a real blog. Happy 2010!

queen anne

I briefly taught myself how to crochet a few months ago, got a quarter of the way through a boring blanket and stopped. I wasn't inspired to try it again until I came across a pattern for Queen Anne's lace.

This is apparently a very old pattern, but this copy is dated 1936.

So far, five of the large motifs are done. I'm going to be making twenty five in total, so that's not so bad. I was afraid that this could end up looking very fussy, so chose to enlarge each motif to an exaggerated size. Hopefully this will update the look a little. After the twenty five large motifs are all finished, I will make sixteen small motifs. I've been home sick for a few days so my progress has been steady, if slow.

I could swear that I came across some very similar crochet in my grandparents' house, so I'll have to search and see if I was right. It would be interesting if I was making the same pattern another relative did. Genetic taste, perhaps.

After this is done, I'll be ordering smaller thread to make this daisy table cloth, and maybe next year I'll make this reindeer cloth as a present for a friend who loves deer. I honestly find most crochet to be aesthetically unpleasing (to put it nicely), so I do not expect to have a very large queue.

thrifting

After a month of non-stop work, I finally had a day to myself this week. After discovering The Thrifty Chicks, I had been hankering to check out some of the thrift stores around here. On Sunday, I made plans to go to Goodwill and two other local stores, but in the end I hit such paydirt at Goodwill that I only went there, and next door to Homegoods.

There is a culture shock when thrifting. There are no bright, shiny displays advertising the world's greatest new invention, and the product presentation leaves something to be desired. However, aisles are pretty well categorized - one for kid's toys, one for electronics, one for glassware, etc. - so if you have a rough idea of what you're looking for, it's not bad. The trick is to not be shy, and don't feel weird about digging through some merchandise to see what's in the back. The Thrifty Chicks mentioned that people will sometimes hide a desireable item in a strange place so that they are able to come back and find it, and that seemed to be true in my Goodwill.

I found this silver serving dish wedged behind a shelf, with the nasty, tarnished side showing. A quick check with my mother through the camera phone confirmed that the tarnishing was indeed silver. The price tag had been removed, but I was able to easily find a supervisor who charged me $2. After half an hour of polishing, I got it to the state that you see above. I think that it is probably silver plate, so I didn't want to polish too much on the inside. The outside came out very shiny, though. I can't find this exact tray online, but similar items are selling between $40 and $150.

Flushed with success, I started down the glassware aisle. I'm attempting to start a small collection of drinking glasses in a particular size and shape, but none of the glasses stood out to me there. While pawing through some stuff, though, I came across a terrifically dusty behemoth hiding amidst some Crystal Pepsi glasses. I unearthed a cut glass punch bowl with all 8 glasses (unbroken!) resting inside. After rubbing some of the dust off with a finger I realized I had a treasure on my hands and grabbed it, holding it stiffly out so as to not ruin my white coat. The price tag read $10 and I started to get anxious, sure that a 0 had been left off. I waited in line for nearly half an hour before I was able to set it down on the counter, where the cashier confirmed that not only was the price tag correct, but the set was actually on sale, pricing it at $7.50. Hah! I paid quickly and ran out the door, sure that I had just committed highway robbery.

I found this exact punch bowl and glasses set online. It is from the American Brilliance period, and retails for $350. In other words, I got this set on a 99.98% off sale. Beat that, Black Friday.

That's the beauty of Goodwill. Everything is the same price -- all of the plates are under a dollar, and it's up to you to decide which one you want. Some of the stuff is so ugly that it could be free and I wouldn't take it, but isn't that also true of a store that sells only new items? The fascination lies in discovering the products that are worth far more, either through material or sentimental value, and heroically bringing them home.

After stowing everything in the car, I headed next door to Homegoods, a store that sells discounted kitchen and bedroom stuff. I wasn't expecting to find much, but I'm glad that I went, because I found four Williams and Sonoma plates for $1 each on the clearance aisle.

I've inspected all of them for chips or imperfections and I don't see any. I just don't get it. These plates still had stickers on them listing them as $20 each, and the pattern is still available to buy. Why were they marked down to 5% of their initial price? These were also hidden in the back of a large plate display. You can bet I'm always going to be checking the backs of displays from now on.

In the same display I found a small serving bowl, made by Johnson Brothers. I love the picture on the inside. There is a tiny chip on the outside of the bowl, but for 50 cents (!!!) I can deal. This bowl retails for about $6 or $7, making it at least 92% off of its original retail value. Both this bowl and the four plates match very nicely with my Russell Wright set.

If you've been playing along, you'll know that for a silver serving dish, antique punch bowl and eight glasses, and five designer plates, I only paid $14. I only spent 90 minutes shopping, including waiting in line. If you wanted to, you could say that I saved at least $462.50 in that amount of time, making an earning of about $308 per hour. However, I never would have spent that much on these items, so I'm content to leave it at the $14 total, and just know that I've done a nice job upgrading my household.

P.S. I went to a charity store last month and got this kitschy milk glass vase for $5. A little steep, but the money is given to a good cause. This exact vase is selling online for between $11 and $25.

little kitchen in the woods

I re-read the Little House series about once a year. I don't plan it, but I find myself thinking of it about that often. I don't read it in order anymore, and every year I find something different that appeals to me. Last year it was the yards and yards of lace that was crocheted as embellishments for their dresses. This year it is the food.

Even the sparse meals that the Ingalls family eats sound amazing. I was going to try to recreate some of their meals, but for instance, in On the Banks of Plum Creek, the best-sounding meal is just a baking of bread and beans. The next day it's bread and bean soup. Not exactly the healthiest of meals, plus I don't understand how they ever ate enough of that to feel full. Little House fans will probably laugh if they imagine me recreating any of the meals out of The Long Winter. Anybody have a coffee grinder? Or better yet, two bachelors with wheat hidden in their walls?

The meals get substantially better as the Ingalls family prospers, and I really wish I had Ma's recipe for biscuits. I'm also intrigued just enough by that disgusting sounding vinegar pie that I might have to make one someday. I have had a real craving for blackbird pie, not to mention baby radishes and lettuce picked out of the garden (at least on the years when the grasshoppers don't descend).

Almanzo's story, Farmer's Boy, unleashes such a bounty of food that I find myself snacking throughout the entire book. Awesome stuff: stacked pancakes where the butter and sugar soaks through the layers (perfect for us syrup-haters); apples 'n' onions (better as a ratio of 2 parts apples to 1 part onions); pies upon pies upon pies; homemade ICE CREAM.

I wonder what flavor the ice cream was? It's never mentioned. I had to look up pictures of the Wilder family to see how heavy they were after eating approximately four times the recommended daily amount of calories. They were quite slim, so I guess all that farm work burned it off. I also wonder how much bread a "baking" is. What did a homemade wedding cake look like back then, and did Ma really feel a table was undressed if it didn't have a tablecloth on it? Really? I always forget that they lived in the Victorian era - I believe even piano legs were considered uncouth back then.

I badly want a butter churn, but I don't see one coming to me in the near future. I don't have a cow anyway, so the butter making would be difficult, and I couldn't make the balls of fresh cottage cheese that I want. I did take a stab at simplifying my bread making process so that I could have as much bread as Ma seemed to offer. So far so good, so I will share that soon.

mmm food update

On June 20th, I posted about the staples I bought at BJ's, with the intent to update on how long they lasted.

Two hard drives later and hours upon hours of telephone calls to India, and I'm ready to do that.
It's been just over 11 weeks, and I haven't finished anything except the perishables.

I bought: 4 pounds unsalted butter for baking ($8)
Still have: 1.25 pounds

I bought: 5 pounds margarine for eating ($4.50)
Still have: more than half

I bought: 40 pounds flour ($17)
Still have: 10 pounds

I bought: 16 ounces white vinegar ($3)
Still have: approximately 11 ounces

I bought: 5 quarts vegetable oil ($8.50)
Still have: approximately 2.5 quarts

I bought: 10 pounds white sugar ($5)
Still have: approximately 8 pounds

I bought: 4 pounds brown sugar ($2.75)
Still have: all of it, I found 1 pound of brown sugar in the cupboard and used half of that

The above ingredients cost in total $48.75. The ingredients I used cost $26.25. Over 11 weeks, that's a cost of $2.39 per week.

For $2.39 a week, we made from scratch:

Bread, rolls, muffins, scones, biscuits, pizza, calzones, cookies, brownies/blondies, pies, cakes, tarts, homemade "hot pockets", and probably some other things that I'll remember later.

We did not buy any of these ready-made, except for a trip for giant pizza:

Adding in the cost of fresh produce, milk, eggs, and meat, our monthly cost for food has been under $100 each month for 2 people. I think you'll find that that's below what many coupon cutters pay, and we eat far less high fructose corn syrup, preservatives, and other man-made ingredients than most people do.

I probably spend 3 hours each week making food, or less than half an hour each day in the kitchen. When I cut coupons, I spent that much time cutting them, and then had to add in trips to the grocery store (which I now only do monthly, not weekly), cooking, and still ended up spending double what I do now.

octoloaf

Octoloaf with loaf children.

Small but delicious. They made a perfect vehicle for The Silver Palate's tarragon chicken salad. Sliced in half, they were good for breakfast peanut butter toast.

Petit loaf pan, $10. Octomom bread jokes, priceless.