Food

Simply the BEST Way to Preserve a lot of Garlic: Confit!

November 16, 2009

Recently, I wrote about planting garlic, and how now is the time to do it in the northern states. I mentioned that when I have a lot of garlic, I like to preserve it in oil. Not only does it allow you to store it pretty much forever (an ongoing theme of mine you may recognize by now), but it makes garlic far more digestible for those who have problems with it.

I would note however, that I wouldn’t dream of doing this with my homegrown garden garlic for a couple reasons. First, it’s so easy to peel the fresh stuff, that I don’t find myself cursing it like I do the store bought stuff. Second, it stores well through the winter months, so I usually run out of it.

I make garlic confit from store bought garlic that I buy already peeled. You can get mongo-sized jars from CostCo for pennies a clove, but I’ve also seen it at grocery stores and it still seems pretty reasonable, considering you would spend about nine hours peeling the same number of cloves yourself…

I would have waited until the waning days of winter to write this, which is when I usually find myself making the confit, but when I was working in the garden last weekend, turning the soil, I happened upon a few dozen tiny garlic cloves (and two red potatoes!) that were starting to sprout.

I have absolutely no idea where they came from. Left alone, they would have been delightful surprises come spring — albeit in the wrong place. But I wrenched them from the ground prematurely and didn’t have the time or the patience to lovingly replant them in a more appropriate place. That they had already sprouted small green shoots, meant that the center of the clove would likely be tough, so I decided to do a small batch of Garlic Confit. I post the directions for you now, in hopes that you will try it yourself.

First, peel and trim the root ends of a bunch of garlic.

Barely cover the cloves with delicious tasting olive oil.

I, personally, love both the taste and the price of CostCo’s Kirland brand. And before any of you judge me for shopping at CostCo and not pressing my own, you gotta hear this. I heard on Evan Kleiman’s GoodFood podcast that giving up meat just one day a week does more good for the enviornment than eating every single thing from local sources! I digress, but isn’t that amazing?

Cook over the lowest, lowest, lowest heat setting. The goal is to cook these guys for at least an hour without them getting too dark. I cooked mine (below) almost two hours due to those feisty center stems and as a result, they got a little more brown than normal.

Basically, you just want them to get as soft as butter. When that happens, they’re done.

Finally, pour the oil and the cloves into glass canning jars, or whatever container you like, and store in the refrigerator.

Use the cloves in place of raw garlic, use the oil for sauteing and subtle garlic flavoring. As usual, it keeps indefinitely!

In addition to being so quick to use for cooking, it also allows me to up the garlic quotient considerably in my recipes, since my husband is one of those vexing people who get stomachaches from eating raw garlic. It is true, I considered divorce.

Thank goodness I discovered Garlic Confit! It practically saved my marriage!

Horseradish and the Fall Garden

November 12, 2009

Horseradish. I have to wonder if it is an old fashioned taste that has lost favor like cold aspic meat jello dishes and fruit salad. No one ever talks about regular old horseradish anymore!

I just LOVE horseradish. Love, love it. In all it’s forms. Oddly enough, as I was getting ready to write this, I was reading my twitter stream where I follow Jaden (@steamykitchen). She just came out with a cookbook, has a beautiful website/blog and is seriously a very nice person. One of very few people on twitter, in fact, who seem genuinely interested in what others have to say vs. screaming their own links and promotions, etc. etc. Frankly, I’m a bit sick of twitter these days. I digress. Sorry.

Horseradish.

Horseradish is a root. Much like Wasabi, the green japanese horseradish powder that is mixed with water and eaten with sushi. Mmmm. That’s where Jaden came in. She posted this picture, that — I swear — looked exactly like a gnarly tomato hornworm past its prime. Along with the picture she wrote: “so overjoyed right now.” Or something like that. I was HORRIFIED. Have you ever SEEN a tomato hornworm?

I have, and it isn’t pretty. I didn’t know insects got that big in Minnesota. They (well at least the ones I’ve seen) are about 4″ long and about 1/2″ in diameter with freakish horns on their heads. Worse, they are almost impossible to see. My first encounter with a hornworm was when I discovered two of my tomato plants had become all but decimated and defoliated overnight. I knew there must be a worm infestation of some kind, but try as I might, I couldn’t find any. My three chickens were in the garden, following at my feet, pecking around and looking for bugs, when suddenly one of them saw something (the giant worm) and plucked it off the stem. I had about five seconds for it to register on my “ick” scale before they had pulled it apart, pecked into pieces, and gulped down the whole thing. (That scene, by the way, was much higher on the ick scale than the worm alone).

Then, as if that memory were not bad enough. Eric, he of @ericgardenfork on twitter, sends me this link to his own experience with tomato hornworms — parasite infested, no less! Ick, Ick, ICK! (It is easy to see how something like twitter can take you down the rabbit hole, eh?)

Sorry, but that was the background I was coming from when I looked at Jaden’s first photo. A deflated and decaying hornworm laying across some packaged produce? Was she just being a sicko?

Mystery solved a few minutes later when she put another picture up with two of these monstrosities side-by-side with the text: Wasabi root! Suffice to say, wasabi root is much uglier than our own locally grown horseradish root. It got me thinking: I wonder if I could make a powder out of my roots that could be mixed with water like wasabi. I will have to research that.

About the plant

It has taken me three years to appreciate what I read over and over about horseradish plants. Specifically, that they are extremely invasive and to plant with caution, much like mint. It was really hard for me to picture horseradish as an invasive plant, having never brushed up against it with any of my gardening friends. No one that I knew ever bemoaned their troublesome horseradish patch. The idea was laughable.

Ha.

Now, I’ve got this ridiculous giantess of a plant sitting right next to my greenhouse door, the spigot and my peonies. In the course of one growing season, it suddenly got taller than me and shaded out even the MINT! Yes, that’s right. The horseradish killed the mint.

Plus, I hear that if even a small chunk of root is left in the ground, you will have yourself a horseradish plant. So far, I’m not in peril, but stay tuned, as I have a hunch I might be the first person I know to bemoan my horseradish patch.

Still. It is a tasty vegetable. At least I think that’s what I read. That it’s a vegetable.

Digging it up was a beast of a job.

I am ashamed to admit I needed Dave’s help. (Rarely do I ask for help, preferring instead to be the perfect gardening, wifely and motherly martyr). I could hardly get my sharp spade throught the plant, much less pry the tenacious roots out of the earth. Even Dave had trouble. Given the health of the monster plant, I wasn’t concerned about hurting it. I just went to town, chopping and prying it out.

For the record, the best time to dig is Fall or late Fall or early, early Spring in Minnesota. Spring always comes and goes too fast here in Minnesota and there’s always so much to do. I’d rather dig in the Fall when I’m processing everything else. Not to mention that, assuming I want it for a-top my corn beef on St. Patrick’s Day, there is little hope for the ground to be thawed in mid March.

Once the root is dug, you can store it in a dark, cool place until you are ready to make the horseradish.

I wonder how long I would be able to leave a plain dug root in my lower garage… Because as much as I like to open a jar and use the stuff I make, even better would be to grate it and eat it fresh, fresh, FRESH! So pungent and hot! I’ll have to look into that when I’m researching the wasabi powder angle…

To make grated horseradish for storage, clean and peel the root. Then, finely grate it. (You will note, due to laziness on my part that I neglected the “finely” part of those directions.)

In these pictures, I first shredded it with the food processor,

Then chopped it up with the food processor blade.

If you love the freshly shredded root, you will like it coarse like I have shown here. However, I have shared some of my finished and jarred horseradish with my dad and a few other people and I am learning that most like it processed a bit finer. Last year, I used a microplane grater because I had so much less to make. That works great for the finer shred. (I, personally, love the coarse shred.)

The fun thing about horseradish is that it isn’t hot until it is exposed to air. I don’t know why I think that is so cool, but I do. So, you begin to grate it. Taste it. Nothing. But wait a few minutes, take a big whif and ZOWIE! That’ll take care of any lingering sinus issues you might have. Grate it in a food processor? Take the lid off? And the kids in the LIVING ROOM will start complaining that the fumes are stinging their eyes. So fun.

Once you get it to the consistency you like, add a healthy dose of salt and enough white vinegar to coat the shreds.

Taste and adjust. Put into glass containers, seal and freeze. Because you are freezing, the amount of vinegar you used is up to you. You can’t heat process this one, sorry. Actually, I’m not sorry at all. I am SICK of canning. I was overJOYED to freeze them.

Conservative worry worts tell you that it will keep for two weeks in the refrigerator. As usual, mine keeps indefinitely.

Apple Madness, Part Three: Apple Cider

November 9, 2009

No, I wasn’t planning on a third installment of apples. However, a commenter last week asked me if you could drink the juice from the boiled apples for jelly as apple juice or cider. Having tasted it, I knew you couldn’t. But I wasn’t sure why, so I called my friend Chris, whose husband Joel grew up on an Apple Orchard. They have a cider press, so I asked her some questions about it.

This is where the story gets a little complicated. Suffice it say, I was coerced into participating in the making of apple cider under suspicious intentions. I am well aware how much Joel likes my bread, but it appears he is attempting to one-up me (did anyone see last week’s Office episode with Dwight??) by providing me with more cider we can possibly drink in a year. So that I will be indebted to him.

What do I do when I am indebted to someone? I make them bread.

Are you starting to understand his thinking?

Regardless of the motivations behind the cider making, it was so cool and fun! It was a beautiful Sunday with friends. Yes, I’ll be making bread all day today, but it was worth it!

I was running late and my camera had my big honking lens on it, so I told Morgan to grab the point and shoot (that she has all but claimed as her own). What happens when a 14 year old claims your old point and shoot camera? Anyone?

I’ll help you out: the battery is in a continual stage of dead.

So these pics were taken by Morgan with my iPhone. They capture the day just fine.

The Making of the Apple Cider:

Due to Apple Madness Part One and Part Duex, I only had the motley bin of reject apples I discovered behind the pine tree last week to contribute. Joel, however, knowing he wanted to provide me with high quality cider, had purchased some frozen Honeycrisps from his family’s old orchard. Minnesota orchards suffered a mostly devastating 2009 apple season. First it rained all October. (It seriously did). Then we had two very early hard freezes before the month was out. Depending on where they were, many orchards lost huge amounts of valuable apples in that weather. Joel bought some of those weather damaged apples at a huge discount to make the cider.

I, of course, offered to split the cost with him. But he was having none of that. It would interfere with his well-laid plan… He also got some apples from the top of a neighbor’s tree. Plus, another friend, Tim, came to help and brought a huge amount of really nice looking apples.

That is, apparently, the key to good cider: you gotta have a good mix.

The first step was to wash and cut out any rot, or very obvious “yuck” from the apples. The few that I brought along? Well, they garnered many laughs and snickers from the crowd. If only they knew that was what ALL my apples looked like. Well actually, maybe it’s best to keep that to myself since I will be gifting these very people with pies and jelly very soon…

Then, those apples get put into the grinder — the craziest home-spun contraption I’ve ever seen! But it gets the job done. I don’t have a picture of the whole thing, but inside the wooden box is a large wooden cylinder with screws protruding from the surface that grabs and grind the apple. It is run with a little motor and a belt that turns the cylinder.

The ground apples get put into a mesh bag and that goes inside this other ancient tool, the press. The handle is slowly screwed down and the cider comes out through a hole in the bottom.

We ran out of plastic jugs, which were purchased from the orchard, with lots of apples to go…

So we started filling one of those five gallon water cooler bottles.

We filled that entirely up and still had a few more pitchers worth of cider.

All in all — and I could be wrong about this — I think we made about 25 or 30 gallons of cider.It lasts about a week in the fridge since there is nothing but pure apple juice in the bottles. But it freezes really well.

So, I’ve got my cider and Joel gets his bread. The only question is. How much and for how long do I provide him bread before I am, once again, ahead?

Apple Madness Part Deux: Pies, More Jelly & Cookies

November 5, 2009

Guest Starring Michelle Sandquist!!

Like the pies, I procrastinated this post as long as was humanly possible. You know how people piss and moan because the high temperature for the day might be in the 30’s here in Minnesota? In October? Well I was like, “YES! The apples in the cooler outside will be JUST FINE! I can procrastinate another day!” And since our average daily high during October was about 10 degrees, I was ‘just fine’ for an awfully long time. For the record, I was the only one bemoaning our two sunny October days in the high 50’s.

But I made it! As of yesterday at 9 pm, I am done with the apples! Well, to be honest, I still have this stash, which I completely forgot about behind the pine tree. Which, now that I look at this photo closely, I see that, aside from the mouse-chewed ones, it looks like there might be quite a few more ugly but useable apples that I can…

Let’s not think about that right now.

Last weekend, I had my 2nd annual pie-fest with my friend Michelle. She’s not that into cooking, but she likes being able to take home a bunch of pies, does what she is told, and is very fun. So I let her into my bubble. Aren’t I nice? It took us about 5 hours to make 11 pies, but we sure used up a lot of those damn apples. Win, win.

I won’t belabor this pie making thing. Don’t get me wrong, it was a labor to make them, but I’m not going to belabor the process. There’s a kazillion recipes for apple pies out there and mine is nothing special. I, personally, use the one from Cook’s Illustrated Best Recipe cookbook. I make the crusts myself, not because I’m good at it, but because I am too cheap to buy 15 boxes of Pillsbury All Ready pie crusts — which, I swear, are delicious and taste home made. Maybe I’m just not a crust aficionado, but they do seem to fool an awful lot of people who eat them.

At any rate, I use the same book for my pie crust recipe. Someday, I’d like to try the whole lard/leaf lard route with crust to see if I can really appreciate the difference, but I suspect, for me, it will be much akin to the taste between cuts of steak. I like them all. And I actually almost prefer a good chuck roast to a filet. Anyway, I digress. Again. So, sometime in the future, when I ‘m not working full time for every tom, dick and harry charity out there, I’ll give lard a try!

Our process is that Michelle (and Morgan if she deems us worthy to be graced with her presence) peels, slices and mixes the apples.

I have already assembled the crusts ahead of time and they are in the fridge. Then I roll, she assembles, and I top and crimp the crusts.

The pies are made to be frozen. So I add about 1/4 cup more flour than the recipe calls for to the pie innards to combat all the juices that are inevitable with frozen pies. Oh, and I hate allspice so I skip it. Well, yes, I do also add some butter to the top, too. Then, I mound the apples as high as they will go.

My helper, however, did not really grasp this concept, so the pies are a picture of evolution as I bossed her around telling her “maybe a little more” at least five times.

I use a mix of my apples: Honeycrisp, Harlson, and 2 mystery apple varieties. I slice them thin, because I like to use the mandolin or food processor. Because I’m lazy. And because they seem to cook more evenly. (Hate hard apples inside of pies!).

Besides being lazy, I’ll tell you something else. I am miserable, I mean really horrible, at decorative pie crust crimping. Sitting here and thinking about this utter failure on my part, I’m hard-pressed to come up with another thing (well, except hand made artisanal breads) that I have tried very hard to succeed at and failed. Really. I don’t get it, but I can NOT achieve a pretty, fluted crust edge.

It looks good when I’m done, but it flops down in the oven. Yes, I’ve tried all the tips and tricks. Don’t insult me with your well-intentioned suggestions. I’m just plain bad at it and I give up. Hence the pathetic forked edges. They work. Better, they fit in the stupid freezer bags! So, we basically make the all the pies and instead of cooking, we freeze them. To cook, you bake from the frozen state in a 400 degree oven for at least an hour. You’ll want to always place them on a cookie sheet to bake though, unless you like cleaning burned sugar off the floor of your oven! So that’s the pies.

And then there was the JELLY!

The food miser refused to throw out any peels or cores.

She boiled three huge stock pots full of the garbage and was left with over 40 cups of pure pink juice. Seriously? Forty? Yes. Forty. I told her to just throw some away. But she wouldn’t. She couldn’t. The upside is that she now has enough to share with almost anyone who knocks on her door. So, if her UPS man ever comes across this blog, he will understand that she isn’t hitting on him. She just can’t waste anything. Not the juice from the garbage. Not the jelly she made from the juice from the garbage.

Why wasn’t I a writer? It just pours out of my fingers like rain from an October 2009 Minnesota sky.

Please don’t think I was serious about that last sentence. What I meant to say is that it is so easy. What’s hard is going back and deleting at least half of it. What? You thought I hadn’t edited this? Well I have.

I think the Apple Rosemary Jelly is my single greatest culinary achievement. If you don’t know me to ask for some, please try making it. It’s so easy.

And then, the Cookies!

And now for something that isn’t mine. It’s my friend Sheila’s. And she would say that it belongs to Sandy Moore who posted it on allrecipes.com and she is right. Got to give credit where credit is due. And credit is due. Sheila had been moaning about these cookies for a good month before I asked her to hand over the recipe. Amazing. Sheila’s spin on them was to replace the 1/4 milk and 2.5 tablespoons of cream with cider.

To be fair, I made them both ways. The cider was so much more apple-y. Everyone liked them better. My take on the recipe would be to get rid of the shortening, but only because of the trans fats. I had shortening, so I did use it. The cookies are super soft and good eaten all day long, with all types of beverages, in any company. Get the point?

Here is the recipe:

Glazed Apple Cookies

1/2 c shortening (or butter)
1 1/3 c packed brown sugar
1 egg
2 c flour
1 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1 t cinnamon
1/2 t ground cloves
1/4 t ground nutmeg
1/2 c chopped pecans (original recipe calls for 1 c walnuts)
1 c diced apple (I used 1.5 c)
1 c raisins (ish)
1/4 c apple cider
1 1/2 c powdered sugar
1 T soft butter
1 t vanilla (original recipe calls for 1/2 t)
approx 2 1/2 T apple cider (original recipe calls for half and half)

1) Cream shortening (or butter) and brown sugar, then beat in egg.

2) Stir together dry ingredients.

3) Add half of dry ingredients to creamed mixture. Then stir in apples, nuts and raisins (ish). Stir in remaining dry ingredients.

4) Add 1/4 c apple cider. Mix well.

5) Drop from heaping tablespoon onto lightly greased cookie sheet (or silpat mat). Bake in preheated 400 degree oven 10-12 minutes. Careful toward the end. they get brown fast and burned bottoms just won’t do!

6) To make glaze, combine powdered sugar, butter, vanilla and enough cider to make spreadable glaze. Beat until smooth and spread over warm cookie.

7) Try. Seriously, try, not to eat them all in the same day. Save one for coffee tomorrow.

And that, my friends, is the conclusion of my own personal Apple Hell. Now it’s on to window washing, which is even worse.

Apple Madness, Part One. Ugly-But-Useable-Apples Recipes.

October 21, 2009

Ugh.

I wish I could be more upbeat about this whole harvest thing, but MAN. I’m ridiculously SICK of it. How do orchard people stay happy? How does anyone stay happy? It’s just one thing after another thing after another… it’s never over. I’m never done!

aah. I digress. Again.

Not only do I sit and think “Oh my gosh, I’ve got to deal with those _______.” (fill in the blank with apples, peppers, eggplant, kale plants, beets, carrots, parsnips, etc.) But then I think “Oh my gosh, I’ve got to get that apple post up on the blog.” And then I wonder “What the hell am I even doing this stupid blog for?” For which I do not have an answer.

Aside from my petulance about all the harvest things I have yet to do, I am really, really excited smug about this pairing of apple recipes.

First, know this: I grow organic apples.

Second, know this: I grow organic apples because it is the easiest way to grow apples. You basically do nothing, versus spraying chemicals on the apples every two weeks. I can’t be counted on to do anything “every two weeks.”

Third, know this: my organic apples are very ugly and hard to give away.

Fourth, know this: I hate to waste garden food and therefore I have a lot of ugly apples. Very tasty, ugly apples. Hence this combo of recipes.

Backstory
We had two hard freezes before September was over. Normally we have a few frosts, things wind down slowly and the apples are about the last garden item to be harvested, along with carrots and parsnips. This year however, our first frost was not a frost, but a freeze. The apples were mostly OK that night (26), but a week later the temps dipped down to 20. Not 25, but 20! So I spent the day picking all the apples and sorting them into 3 piles: compost, really ugly but useable, and maybe-I-can-eat-this-apple-fresh piles.

I use the “Really Ugly but Useable” apples for pies and sauce. I basically just cut away everything gross and use what I can. Last year, I was making tons of pies to freeze. I had a bucket of peels and cores under the sink in the compost bucket. I think I might have even emptied some coffee ground on top of them. Then I read something about boiling the peels and cores to get juice that you use for apple jelly. Honestly! That’s like making food from garbage!

So I brushed the coffee grounds off the browned peels and cores and dumped them in a pan with some water and started boiling. I got only 1 pint of jelly out of it, but oh MAN, it was so insanely good! In my opinion, it’s way better than my raspberry jam that everyone seems to want. The jelly was too runny last year, but I didn’t care. This year, I was hoping I could do it better.

So here is my process. And if I may be allowed to say so, it’s brilliant. I don’t know how many other people have ugly apples, but if you do, please don’t throw them away: try this!

Apple Sauce and Apple Jelly

The ugliest useable apples go into the Sauce/Jelly pile (this is a very complicated pile system) while the prettier ones go into the Pie/Jelly pile (that’s Apples Part Two, coming soon). Just for the record, my apples are a mixture of Honey Crisp, Haralson and two mystery varieties.

I take an apple, and cut it in half, then quarters, and assess the situation:

if looks OK, I cut the core out and put that in the jelly pot. The quarters go into the Sauce Pot.

If it looks über yucky, I use what I can.

Nice bright pieces go into the Sauce Pot.

Mottled brownish pieces (trails from the Apple Magot Fly) go into the Jelly Pot.

I do confess that we often just eat the less disgusting brownish ones. They are only trails of worms long gone. You can hardly see some of them. Just so you know: I like to think I’m preparing my family for some apocalypse that will take place some time in the future. My kids are going to be way more immune to gross food than yours will be.

I work my way thru the pile (which isn’t disappearing nearly fast enough). And yes, that’s a trash can and yes, it’s kind of dirty…

The pectin for the jelly comes from the peels and the seeds, so you need those for the jelly. The peels stay on the sauce apples because I will put those thru the food mill and they make the sauce pink, which is very pretty. I could leave the cores on the sauce apples as well, but they are helpful for the jelly and it’s easy enough to just cut those out. Is this as confusing as I think it is? It shouldn’t be…

Oh my gosh I have a terrible headache… But I still have 42% battery left on my laptop, so I must press on!

I basically just keep going until one or the other pots fill up. Then I add about 1 cup of water to the sauce apples and turn on low and cover. I almost cover the Jelly Apples with water and add a whole bunch of ROSEMARY (my favorite flavor). Do not skip this step. If you don’t have any, go buy some. Seriously.

Add 1/2 cup of fresh squeezed (not!) lemon juice. (I’ll squeeze up to 1/4 cup. More than that, and I use this stuff, kindly given to me by my friend Chris when I complained that real lemon juice — as opposed to RealLemon brand yucko — didn’t exist. She got this at CostCo.

Stir it up and turn on low, cover and cook till apples are soft, at least an hour.

Once soft and tender, line a strainer with several layers of cheese cloth (or use a jelly bag, whatever the Hell that is, if you happen to have one. I do not.) set over a large bowl and pour in. Do NOT push or force apples thru.

This mixture needs to sit a good long time, preferably overnight in a cool place. I’m thinking that maybe it’ll be cool enough on my porch tonight. Ya think?

Meanwhile, the Sauce Apples should be soft and ready to process. Put the Sauce apples thru a food mill to get rid of the peels and any seeds.

I put the food mill right back over the pot they cooked in because once you are done processing them, turn the heat back up, add 1/4 c lemon juice for about 4 lbs of cut apples and sugar to taste. I added about 1/2 cup. I also add about 1 teaspoon of cinnamon because we like that. Bring to a simmer and ladle into clean, hot sterilized canning jars.

Heat process (steam or boil) 10 minutes for 1/2 pint jars.

You are now done for the day, go to bed feeling like a superstar. Tomorrow, though, it all begins again, so sleep well.

In the morning (or several hours later), put the juice from the strained apple rosemary mash into a measuring cup.

I have just over 4 cups, so that means I need to add 4 cups of sugar. Put it into a big-ass pot, because the jelly needs to be cooked at a full rolling, foamy boil.

It took me about 20 minutes to reach the magic temperature of 220 degrees F. Be sure to skim off as much of the foam as possible because it makes a bigger difference for clear jellies. I don’t worry about it too much with my jam, but you can see it below, suspended in my jelly. As soon as it reaches 220, turn off the heat and ladle into hot, sterilized 1/2 pint jars, wipe the rims and seal. Heat process for 10 minutes. Refrigerate any jars that don’t seal.

See the foam? Really ticked me off, I have to say. But then, just another reason to keep it for myself.

Apple Sauce and Apple Jelly. Leave it on your counter to admire for a couple days, then trudge it out to the garage or basement or where ever you store that type of thing.

And this year, It’s the PERFECT consistency! So happy.

Bulletproof Baguettes

October 12, 2009

You can shoot me if you don’t agree this is the easiest and best bread recipe you’ve ever tried. If, indeed, you have ever tried any.

I have planned to so this post forEVER. Well, at least since last April — which seems like forever. I did the Ciabatta Recipe, and the Crackerbread Recipe…

Oh my gosh! I just realized that I never actually did a blog post for the crackerbread. It only exists on youtube! How funny.

Anyway, I started this whole bread thing as videos, and then quickly realized that videos are a pain in the ass! Editing takes forever, upload takes forever. When I realize I forgot to film something, or I run out of batteries (always) it’s such a pain to reshoot it, re-edit it… you get the picture. So, for most everything else, I’ve moved to still-picture storytelling. For bread though, I think it’s worth it to show video. And that’s why it took me so long to do. The video still isn’t perfect, but I’ve come to the conclusion that it never will be. Not while I’m living this life. So please try not to be too critical of the fact that I never actually show the bread going into and coming out of the oven, there are three finished loaves instead of four, Etc. Etc.

This is the very first successful bread I ever made. I bought The Best Bread Ever, by Charles Van Over when I got my new Cuisinart food processor about 6 years ago. I had tried and tried to make rustic loaves prior to the discovery of this book and I have to tell you: it was an utter failure. No matter how I tried (and I tried, and tried, and tried), my loaves were pathetic, dense, ugly beasts. Oh sure, they tasted OK, but I tend to think of myself as invincible. Please note that I am not a perfectionist. That’s something else entirely. No. What I mean to say is that I have an inflated ego. So when I come up against something that I fail at, it makes me really, really mad. I can’t say I totally gave up on making bread, but I shelved it for a while.

Until I bought the Cuisinart.

When I opened the box, it came with the standard instruction manual with some recipes in it. (I confess: I am a manual reader.) When I was reading it, I saw this totally bizarre bread recipe. Having made countless loaves the traditional way — proof the yeast in warm/tepid/not hot/not cold/not below 110/not above 120/GiveMeABreak water — I thought the Cuisinart recipe must be a mistake. It listed the recipe source as having come from, The Best Bread Ever. So, I googled it to see what I could find out. Turns out, the book was out of print, but I found a used copy. This guy has researched the food processor technique ad nauseam. He has so much information and such detailed directions, it would make your head spin. And no, the recipe was not in error. Genius: you don’t have to proof the yeast!

But what I love about it: the recipes work every single time. Even when I forget about the dough and it bursts out of it’s container. Even when I put it in the refrigerator for 2 days. Every single time. It is so fast and easy. Seriously. You’ve got to try it. Hands on, it takes about 15 minutes to make dough and shape loaves, a couple hours of rise time and 10-15 minutes to bake. I very rarely have to even look at it anymore. But I still covet it. Thank you, Charles Van Over. You made a bread-maker out of me.

So get off the damn computer and go try it.

Watch the video:

And, here’s the recipe with written instructions to print:

Country Baguettes: The Best Bread Ever