I Really Made Bread. No, Really.

HA!

I am feeling a bit of victory today. I. Made. Bread. Real Bread. Yay.

It has a perfect crispy brown crust, it sounds hollow like a drum when I tap it, it has a chewy inside, is light as a feather, and...AND...it SMELLS like bread. Not like yeast. Which is what it normally smells like when I make it.

I mean, I've made bread before, okay. It generally has a rather anemic crust, kinda chewy crust...and big, coarse holes inside, weighs about 6 pounds, and it really, truly, looks like I made it.

Not like I bought it. Not like every loaf that is sold in every beautiful boulangerie I visited every single day of my tenure in Paris.

Anyway, I am so thrilled about the bread that I made yesterday. The bread that I decided to make after I read the story that Steamy Kitchen told about how her FOUR YEAR OLD SON made bread. So, I decided at noon yesterday to make this bread....somehow not registering the 14-20 hour rising period that is recommended.

I decided that I'd shorten the rising period considerably, and by about 8:30 pm last night, I pushed past the initial rising period, folded the dough around a bit, and then waited another 2 hours before baking it.

As a result, at roughly 11 pm last night, I pulled the most perfect (for me) boule de campagne out of my oven that could be imagined. I was thrilled! Except that it was 11 pm and I really did not crave a hot, fresh slice of bread with chunks of cool, creamy butter. I really was just craving bed.

Nevertheless, I had to taste it, and it was GREAT (again, for me). And Al thought so, too. And then we wrapped it up and went to bed. And I could hardly wait to make another loaf this morning, because I KNEW I could do it better still!

I think I'm going to be making A LOT of bread now.  Here's how it goes:

Dana's Boule de Campagne - Adapted from Mark Bittman, CC&T, and Steamy Kitchen.

2 1/2 cups unbleached flour
1/2 cup whole wheat bread flour
1/4 - 1/2 tsp instant yeast
2 tsp kosher salt
1 1/4 cups water

Mix flours, yeast, salt in large bowl. Dump in water. Mix with wooden spoon until it is a "shaggy mess." Cover with plastic wrap and put in oven on Proof for as long as you can stand...all day or overnight or at least until bubbles form on the top of the "shaggy mess."

Flour the counter, take dough out of large bowl and flop it on the floured counter. Wet your hands and fold all ends of the dough into the middle. Flop the dough over (keep wetting your hands - I had to run to the sink a couple of times) and tuck the ends under. Butter and flour a clean bowl, or flour a tea-towel and line the bowl with it and put the dough in the bowl to rise again. Let it sit for 2 hours.

With about 1/2 hour left in the second rise, heat the oven to 450 degrees and put a cast iron (hopefully enamel-coated) pot in the oven to heat - including the lid - to pre-heat. After the pot is hot and the dough has sat for the 2 hours, dump the dough into the hot pot.

Cover the pot, put it back in the oven and bake for 30 minutes. After 30 mins, remove the lid and bake another 5-10 mins until the bread is golden brown and sounds hollow when you tap it.

Take the bread out of the pot and let it cool on a wire rack until you can't wait to try it any longer. Then cut a thick slice and put a couple of slabs of cold butter on it to melt. Then, eat and dance around the kitchen because you made a perfect loaf...comme une boulangere!

Ahhh....A Break At Last

I'm home.

It has been a long week at work and on the road. Not sure why, but no one seems to be in the Christmas spirit this year. I've dealt with road rage, stories of fighting over parking places in mall parking lots, and fighting over "who's next at the Deli counter." I've been given the "high-beams" on the the highway because someone behind me is impatient with the clearly inebriated guy in front of me, and been honked at for only being 20 mph over the limit.

I need a break.

As today wore down, with multiple customers requiring full resolution to complex issues today, I found myself in a surreal moment saying, "Is it really Christmas? It sure doesn't feel like it." Anyway, rather than having a leisurely, meandering end to the last work day before Christmas, we had a fire drill! A real one!

Not sure of the details, but we ended up getting shooed from the building at about 4:30 pm, and without ceremony or courtesy, many of us darted for our cars and hit the road. No "Happy Holidays!" or "Merry Christmas!" or "Happy New Year!" to co-workers, just a quick, "Okay everybody needs to get out of here!" as a lead in to our break.

No matter. I scrambled down the stairs to my car, hit the road, and arrived in time to help Al conjure up an appropriate, pre-Christmas cocktail that erased the frantic edginess that has set the tone for this holiday season.....

We found it on one of our favorite Cocktail Blogs, Embury Cocktails, and it was perfect for the eve before Christmas Eve, to remind us of what we have heard Christmas used to be in another time....simple, calm, jovial, gracious, and peaceful....

In Another Time
2 parts Bourbon
1 part fresh grapefruit juice
1/2 part ginger simple syrup (or spiced simple syrup with a dash of ginger juice)
Garnish with a slice of green apple...or not.

Where's the Pickle Juice?

I love reviewing new recipes.

Years ago, when I was a young thirtysomething living in Roncy in Toronto, I used to love getting up on Saturday morning, grabbing my copy of the Globe & Mail and reading Lucy Waverman's latest recipe suggestion in the Food section. I really liked Lucy, because her recipes were both elegant and modern, but they weren't too intimidating.

Usually, I'd get so inspired by her recipes, I'd shower up quickly and head out to the neighborhood grocer or the Kensington market to find the ingredients for those recipes. I would spend the remainder of that Saturday cooking enough for about 8 people, following Lucy's suggestions just so. The problem was, I was always more excited about making the dish than I was eating the dish, so I'd have to implore my sister to invite all her friends over for the evening's feast.

Anyway, those days being long over, I still get excited on Saturday mornings to sit down and review various cookbooks or check my RSS feeds to see what the food blogosphere has fed my computer since last week. This morning, I received an email update regarding a new blog post for Simply Recipes, Elise being one of my favorite food bloggers, and her recipe for Swedish Meatballs.

Now. I love Swedish Meatballs. Seriously. They weren't something that I really grew up with, but with Lucy Waverman's help, I discovered 7 years ago (strangely, Lucy's recipe was in the December 6, 2003 issue of the Globe, so almost 7 years to the day) that I loved Swedish Meatballs so much I could really be of Swedish descent instead of Norwegian (and French and Scottish and German). Except that Lucy calls these Ultimate Meatballs, not just Swedish Meatballs.

So. This morning's Simply Recipe email detailing these Swedish Meatballs as the final winner in Elise's quest for the best really intrigued me. I wanted to see if it was even possible that there was a Swedish Meatball recipe out there that was as good as the one that Lucy armed with so many years ago, and has given me such compliments and accolades over the years.

Well.....I don't know. Elise has asked her followers to share their versions of Swedish Meatballs, as well, and I really have to say......although Elise's do look good with nutmeg and cardamom (intriguing enough that I might have to experiment with this), I really cannot imagine a quality Swedish Meatball without pickle juice. To me, that's Lucy's ace in the hole....pickle juice. Combining that salty sour juice with the lingonberry preserves and the cream is really the hyper-space speed in the Millennium Falcon.

With that said, I'm sure Elise's meatballs are well worth a shot, but I think I'm going to stick to my basic Ultimate Meatballs recipe and maybe add some nutmeg and cardamom for the ones I'm making during the holidays....

Or, like Al always suggests, we might just do a Taste Test and see which ones come out on top....

The Ultimate Meatball - Lucy Waverman

MEATBALLS:
1/2 cup fine dry breadcrumbs
1/4 cup whipping cream
2 tbsp olive oil
1 medium red onion, finely chopped
1/2 lb ground chuck or sirloin
1/2 lb ground veal
1/2 lb ground pork
2 tbsp honey
1 large egg
Salt and freshly ground pepper
2 tbsp unsalted butter
SAUCE:
1 cup chicken stock
1/2 cup whipping cream
1/4 cup lingonberry preseves
2 tbsp dill pickle juice
Combine: bread crumbs and cream in a small bowl and stir with a fork until moistened. Reserve.
Heat: oil in a small skillet over medium heat. Add onion and saute for 5 minutes or until softened. Remove from heat.
Mix: together ground beef, veal, pork, sauteed onions, honey and egg in a large bowl. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Add breadcrumb mixture and stir to combine. Shape the mixture into meatballs the size of golf balls and place on a lightly moistened plate.
Melt: butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add meatballs, in batches if necessary, and cook turning often for about 7 minutes or until browned on all sides and cooked through.
Transfer: meatballs to a plate and discard all but 1 tablespoon of fat from the skillet. Remove meatballs from pan and drain on paper towels. Reserve.
Return: skillet to heat. Whisk in chicken stock, cream, preserves, and pickle juice, and bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. Season with salt and pepper.
Add: meatballs to sauce, reduce heat to medium and simmer for 5 minutes or until the sauce thickens slightly and the meatballs are heated through. Makes about 24 meatballs.

Make or Bake Day

The day before American Thanksgiving. Being an international citizen, I tend to have two Thanksgivings, so I have to keep them straight.

Tomorrow is American Thanksgiving and we're going to Al's brother's house for the holiday. Lucky enough, the Patriots are also playing in Detroit tomorrow, so we get to watch the game and eat a lot of turkey.


Today, however, is the prep day. I have taken the day off of work and am currently in between doing laundry and making a list of what we have to make or bake today. Okay, well, I have a few more work things to do, too. One last customer issue and one last sale before the end of the quarter. The regular drill.

Today's list, so far:
*Port cranberry sauce
*Vanilla sauce
*Pumpkin Scones
*Gingerbread Scones
*Ack....I've forgotten the rest!

Off to work!

What's With The Fish?

In 2000, on a 3 week road trip from Toronto to Memphis, we arrived at our ultimate destination - Graceland with the famous guitar player on the gates. The wall separating the property from Elvis Presley boulevard was a 5 ft stone fence, completely covered in graffiti.

Mostly, the graffiti consisted of proclamations of love, dedications of everlasting admiration, or unyielding denials of The King's mortality. As we meandered the length of the wall, reading the words of the most dedicated fans, one scrawl stood out above them all....

"I'll Have The Fish," it said.

Me, too.